Chaos ensues when some uninvited performers show up to Thomas's Christmas pageant ...
Notes: Blaine friendly. Assume this happens in a world that hasn't met Covid yet. A re-write for Kurtbastian Week 2020 Day 4 prompt Parents.
"You tell him!" Sebastian whispers.
"No, you tell him!" Blaine whispers back fervently - a huge fail if he was trying to keep Kurt from hearing him. For a man who's been working in theater professionally since college, how could Blaine forget that Kurt would be able to hear him from every corner of the stage? Rule number one of working backstage - no shushing and no whispering.
"Why me?" Sebastian asks.
"Because you're his husband! You have a child together! If I tell him, detectives will never find my body! He won't hurt you!"
"Yeah, right. Wanna bet?"
"Sure. Can you break a hundred?"
"For God's sake!" Kurt snaps, too overwhelmed this close to curtain to handle anything that might go hand-in-hand with those two and their whisper fighting. "Would one of you just tell me what the heck is going on? What are you arguing about?"
Sebastian looks at Blaine, waiting for him to give Kurt the explanation he's demanding while Sebastian searches for a place to hide. He's out of luck when Blaine catches him off guard with a huge shove towards center stage right in the path of the steely-eyed man walking aggressively toward them, the thick heels of Kurt's Jimmy Choo loafers pounding against the wood floorboards marking down the remaining seconds of their lives.
Blaine may have made his living on the stage, but Kurt takes theater much more seriously than he ever has.
"We might have a problem," Sebastian says.
"What? What problem!? It's fifteen minutes to showtime! Don't talk to me about problems!"
"O … okay ..." Sebastian smiles sheepishly, splaying his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "Let's call it a hiccup then."
"A hiccup is a safety-gated synonym for problem, and I refuse to accept that there are any problems."
"And yet, we still have one."
Kurt sighs, throwing a hand to his forehead to shield his already blooming headache from whatever stupidity this is, and ends up smacking himself with his clipboard. "Fine!" he groans, rubbing the sore spot. "What is it!?"
"Look up there." Sebastian reaches out to take his husband's shoulder and redirect his attention. But after considering the possibility of getting his hand bitten off - a hand that will become most important if Kurt decides to never sleep with him again after this - he motions with his chin instead.
"Up where?"
"Up … up there. In the Christmas tree."
"What? Is Mrs. Popson complaining that the ornaments are unbalanced again? Are we going to have to re-Feng Shui the lights to better complement her third graders' angel piglets?" Kurt allows himself a snicker as he follows Sebastian's instructions and gazes up. Eight dozen ridiculous things have happened so far, and their little pageant has yet to even open. That's probably all this is - something ridiculous. A minor inconvenience blown way out of proportion.
At least, that's what it had better be.
But as he peers through the branches of their picturesque twelve-foot Fraser fir, he realizes no. This isn't a little thing. It's a rather large thing. So large, he wonders how come he didn't notice it before now.
"Oh … shit," he mutters.
"It's Blaine's fault. I didn't see it until he pointed it out," Sebastian says, passing the blame off on an offended Blaine and leaping quickly aside in case this revelation has consequences.
"This," Kurt hisses, jabbing a finger upward, "is why I told you I wanted an artificial tree for the Christmas pageant! Where did we get this thing anyway?"
"It was donated by Father Bruno at St. Adalbert's Parish to show support for the school's LGBTQ+ inclusive program. He went out to the woods and cut it down himself!"
"Right!" Kurt folds his arms over his chest. "He probably planned this! Did it on purpose to sabotage our pageant! You can't trust the Catholics! Don't I always say that!?"
Sebastian looks at Blaine, and a confused Blaine looks back, each wondering if this is some inside remark directed at the other.
"No!" Sebastian pulls a face. "I have never heard you say that!"
"Well, you can't," Kurt sniffs. "And whether I said it or not, it's generally implied."
"I don't think the man did this on purpose," Blaine says, but does so in that soothing tone he used so often on Kurt in high school. A bad decision, Blaine realizes, the moment Kurt's head pivots his way, and he sees everything from Kurt's neck to his scalp turn a bright, crayon red.
"Really!? Then let me ask you this - during the time it took the good father to cut this tree down and drag it over here, he never once noticed there was not one, not two, but three nests inside!?"
"I guess not! But neither did y-we," Sebastian corrects, his life flashing before his eyes when he comes close to implying his husband is at fault. "We got the tree last minute. I guess they slipped through the cracks."
"Obviously." Kurt closes his eyes and drops his head, searching for an answer in the dark behind his lids.
Five minutes.
By now, they only have five minutes. He hears the children lining up with their teachers backstage while he and his husband argue. But they need to stop arguing and come up with a solution.
Fast!
He takes a deep breath in and exhales out, the inklings of a plan forming in his head.
"It's okay," he says, reassuring himself more than anyone, the headache simmering behind his eyes threatening to become a full-blown migraine. "It's going to be okay. They haven't let the parents in yet. They're still in line outside. We can fix this. We can still fix this. We can move them, right? Just … shimmy up there and get them down?"
Blaine and Sebastian shoot each other anxious looks. This time, Blaine starts, choosing to jump on the grenade for Sebastian. "Uh … no. We can't."
"Yes, we can," Kurt counters, over-enunciating consonants through teeth clenched so hard they're about to pop from his skull. "Figure out a way to skitter up there and pluck them out. It can't be too difficult."
"I'm sorry, Kurt …"
"Or come at them from above. You can reach down from the catwalk. That might work out better seeing as they're so high up."
"No, Kurt …"
"We're not going to hurt them," Kurt interjects as if that might be the big hold up. "We're going to relocate them."
"Kurt …"
"There's a cat carrier in the fifth-grade room," Kurt continues desperately, unsure why it is this can't be done, why Blaine can't say, "Brilliant, Kurt! I'll get right on that!" He's seen people do it before. The Crocodile Hunter (God rest his soul) rescued birds left and right. That nice Officer Kevin from the SPCA who rescued the deranged pigeon from his father's auto body shop. And wasn't there a famous Vine where some guy got an owl out of his kitchen using a broom? It can't be that difficult. "We'll toss them in there for the time being and then …"
"Kurt!" Blaine cuts in, raising his voice a tad higher than advisable considering the situation. "We can't move them!"
Kurt's glare nearly takes the top of Blaine's head clean off. "And why can't we?"
"Because those aren't just any birds." The three men look up at the exact moment nine fluffy faces peek over the edges of their nests and look down, probably wondering what all the commotion below is about. "Those are loggerhead shrikes."
Kurt and Sebastian both look at their friend with confusion on their faces.
"How do you know that?" Sebastian asks.
Kurt puts a hand on his husband's shoulder and shakes his head. "That question is going to require a longer answer than we have time for. Plus, there are children in the building. Just accept that Blaine has a thing about birds."
"PG? Or R?" Sebastian asks, needing clarification regardless.
"Try X," Kurt says in a lowered voice.
Sebastian looks at a blushing Blaine with wide, disgusted, but somewhat amused eyes.
"Continue," Kurt says, "from the part where you tell us why these birds are about to ruin our pageant."
"Loggerhead shrikes are threatened. That means they're protected. We can't move them ourselves. We might not be able to move them at all without taking the tree with them."
Kurt's eyes bug. "We can't … we can't … the tree!? Oh great! This keeps getting better and better!"
"Relax." Sebastian takes the risk and puts a hand on Kurt's shoulder. He tries to massage it, but it's hard as a rock. "It's okay. We can still sort this out."
"And how do you suggest we do that!? Huh!? Our Christmas pageant, which your son is starring in by the way, and is supposed to start in …" Kurt spins around in search of a clock. When he can't see the one on the far wall, ironically because of the tree, he fishes his cell phone out of his pocket and checks the screen. His eyes bug out farther "… two minutes! has been hijacked by birds!"
"Look, Kurt, they've been chill so far. Maybe we can have the pageant with them there and move them after. Problem solved."
"Yeah," Kurt agrees optimistically, trying to force his heart to slow down, seeing how, with no time to spare, this could be a feasible option. "You're right! We'll let them stay! Problem solved! I mean, what're a few birds? It doesn't look like they can even fly yet. And they're cute! They'll add realism. They won't be any trouble."
"Not exactly," Blaine says, and Kurt has never wanted to punch him in the face so hard in his life. Wait … come to think about it, there may have been one or two other times. "There may be a whole other bigger problem."
"And that is?"
"Those are babies. Juveniles, specifically. I don't see any moms. Or dads for that matter."
"I know I'm going to regret asking this," Kurt moans, resigned to whatever fate Blaine's knowledge is about to bestow upon them, "but … that's a problem why?"
"Because loggerhead shrikes are protective. Being separated from their chicks, the parents will get aggressive. Also, if the babies don't know where their parents are and they get nervous …" A series of jarring screeches interrupt Blaine's explanation. Kurt glares up at the birds, mouths open wide, cawing loudly into the air. Blaine points up. "They'll do that."
"Great!" Kurt yelps, at the end of his rope. "So we have potentially agro birds loose in the theater, baby birds that spontaneously scream bloody murder, and a play set to start in half-a-minute, which we may have to postpone indefinitely in case we need to call animal control - do I have that right?"
"Basically, yes."
"Well, skippidy do! Is there anything else!? Anything at all you've forgotten to tell me!? Because what else could possibly go wrong!?"
The doors at the back of the auditorium fly open, and Kurt blanches, knowing that right then and there, his question is about to be answered.
"Kurt! Sebastian!" the assistant principal yells, looking a little too much like Tippi Hedren in The Birds for anything good to come from her sudden appearance. "Come quick! It's an emergency!"
"What? What, what, what is it now!?" Kurt asks, sounding less than sympathetic.
"Insane birds are dive-bombing parents in line outside! Three people have already been pecked! Everyone is scattering!"
With the auditorium doors thrown open, Kurt can hear the panicked yells of parents banging on the steel doors outside, begging to be let in. Above that, the shrieking of the birds searching for their babies echo through the halls, their screams so high-pitched and piercing, they make their way through the thick stone walls and double-layered storm windows. Hearing their parents' cries, the baby birds respond, frantically flapping their wings in an effort to take flight themselves and reach them.
Bitterly Kurt thinks all of his problems might be solved if they give it a go, plummet to the ground, and break their little birdie necks.
How un-festive of him.
Sebastian looks at his done-in husband. "Do you want me to go outside and handle this one alone?"
"No." Kurt straightens his back, squares his shoulders, hands his clipboard over to Blaine, and makes for the stairs to the stage, head held high like a gladiator going off to fight an unwinnable war. "I'll go. Blaine? Tell the teachers … there's been a bit of a delay."
"Will do," Blaine says, leaving the stage with a solemn salute and a sigh of relief.
"And Sebastian?"
"Yes?" Sebastian says, falling in behind his husband, unwilling to let him walk off into the bird battle alone.
"Do me a favor?"
"Anything."
"The next time I ask what could possibly go wrong - gag me."
"Absolutely." Sebastian smirks, preparing to die on the hill of bringing a smile back to his husband's face. "Just so I can plan appropriately … will you be asking that anytime tonight, perchance? Because I can get a babysitter and rent a room in about five seconds."
"Great," Kurt replies humorlessly. "Do that. Let's pray I'll have enough blood left in my body to enjoy it."