Hello again! I wanted to have this up a couple days ago, but excessive work + being sick = delays in all areas of life. However—next Monday is my birthday, and I'm planning on having the final installment of Diva!Kurt up by then as my present to all of you. Go go Gadget Timeline.
Also, this chapter? Probably the most offensive one yet. Ye Be Warned.
I don't own much of anything, but my fingers are crossed.
Chapter 4: "This shopping trip is why I plan on eating my young."
Even though they had made the trip on a Monday afternoon—Santana had insisted on it, since "Monday is the lamest day of the week; I have cooler things to do with the rest of my time than hang out with you"—the parking lot was still surprisingly full. Kurt couldn't help shudder as he followed Santana (who was stalking, fists clenched, a few feet ahead of him) through the automatic doors. He hadn't been here in about nine years, and that was before his common sense, developed aesthetics, and dignity had really come into their own. So this trip? Probably a personal low.
Colors bright enough to make a blind man cringe. Screaming, sticky-fingered children with their stroller-pushing, Xanax-popping mothers. The smell of soiled diapers and apple juice permeating the air. Horrible pop hits from Disney stars warbling over the sound system. Kurt sighed.
He hated Toys-R-Us.
It had all started on Thursday. Santana had approached him at lunch, chomping violently on her gum as if it had insulted her mother. Or worse, her shoes. She had coolly informed him that Brittany's birthday was on the 17th, a little over a week from then.
"She saw some stupid Olsen Twins movie about a surprise party last week, and now she won't shut up about it," she explained, sounding harassed. "Normally, I'd just force Puck and Quinn to do everything I don't have time for, but if Quinn cries in my car one more time, I swear to God I'm going to stick my hand up her unwaxed vag and yank that baby out myself. And Puck's kind of on my shit list right now. Plus, Britt thinks you're like, God's Gay Gift to Mankind lately, and I have to hear about it every five seconds."
She grimaced, before turning an icy smile on Kurt, who shuddered appropriately. "So you should probably make it up to me and help pay for shit, since I'm probably going to snap and kill you otherwise," she finished.
After throwing up in his mouth a little at the thought of Quinn's lower half, Kurt agreed to help.
Santana was not Kurt's favorite person by a long shot, but she certainly wasn't his least favorite either. Maybe it was the Cheerios connection, or their mutual dislike of Rachel, or perhaps even their similar baseline levels of bitchiness. Whatever it was, Kurt could handle her company for a little over a week. Especially if it meant planning and designing an event.
The irony of planning a surprise party for a girl who was routinely surprised by the cream filling in her Twinkies ("I thought it was just cake", she would explain, starry-eyed, to her incredulous audience) was not lost on Kurt. His suggestion that they let Brittany help plan the party and just stop talking about it two days beforehand—Britt could forget anything in 48 hours—was not taken kindly by Santana. She had narrowed her eyes and sneered that she'd "tell you where to shove that idea, Fairy, but I wouldn't want you to enjoy it too much."
So, after some serious DIY therapy to thoroughly rid his brain of any and all images of himself and Santana that that statement had spawned (the ones involving whips and chains were particularly scarring), Kurt found himself standing in the shadow of a giant, blow-up giraffe, doing his best not to blow chunks or run away.
Brittany, he reminded himself, it's for Brittany. She deserves a fabulous soiree, and she probably wouldn't appreciate it if I smashed Santana's head in with a tricycle for making me come here.
The blow would be from behind, of course. Even if they were well matched verbally, only the element of surprise would give him any hope of winning if their perpetually simmering catfight turned physical.
Kurt wiped down the handle of a shopping cart with a moist towelette before pulling it out of the row and pushing it in front of him. Normally he wouldn't have bothered, but there were children here. And Kurt was not particularly fond of children.
Santana seemed to share his sentiment. "Shouldn't they be in school or daycare or something?" she groused, crossing her arms and looking around the store in disgust. "Seriously. I'm going to get scabies or poison ivy just being in the same room with this many puke-monsters."
Kurt couldn't bring himself to disagree. "This place definitely needs online delivery," he commiserated, eyeing an especially annoying-looking little boy as he tugged impatiently on his dad's sleeve.
Santana scoffed. "You think I didn't try?" she asked darkly. "Apparently, all of the Spongebob party supplies are 'out of stock' online. Morons can't even keep track of a freaking warehouse."
Kurt stared at her, slightly panicked. "Spongebob?" he asked, wincing a bit at the incredibly girlish sound of his own screech. "We're doing a Spongebob theme? How am I supposed to coordinate the color scheme with the refreshment trays when half of the decorations are neon?"
Above all else, even seersucker pants on adolescents, Kurt hated neon.
Santana scowled. "Deal with it, Rickie Vasquez," she snapped. "Brittany's obsessed with Spongebob. And you aren't the one who's had to sneak into her house every week for the last two and a half years to replace the pineapple in her fish tank. Do you know how much those fuckers cost in January?"
After consulting the color wheel he kept in his bag—compatibility emergencies could happen anywhere—Kurt grudgingly agreed that a pink/yellow/aqua palette wouldn't clash too horribly with the stack of Spongebob plates Santana had thrust at him. He did insist, however, that they purchase normal, solid-color plates and napkins in addition to the Spongebob ones, and absolutely refused to buy the Squidward cups—not even he could make that level of atrocity blend with the décor.
Mutually agreeing that the trip needed to be as short as possible to minimize the risk of catching some infectious disease or inadvertently traumatizing some small child, Santana and Kurt power walked down the aisles with an intensity that would have made Coach Sylvester proud. Their cart filled up quickly: tablecloths, plates, plastic cutlery, cups, centerpieces, balloons, ribbons, streamers, bags of candy. The only thing they still needed was—
"A piñata," Santana ordered. "Nothing that's shaped like an animal or has a face. She'll freak out and turn herself into the police for murder again." Kurt (deciding he'd really rather not know) examined the rather sparse display of piñatas on the shelf, most of which were, in fact, animal shaped.
"There!" Santana declared triumphantly. "Get the wizard hat, it's the only one left." Kurt, who was closer, strode over and grabbed the piñata.
Approximately 2.4 seconds before another set of hands grabbed it.
Kurt suppressed his instinct to go for the throat (when competitive shopping was officially declared a martial art, he was testing for his black belt immediately) and instead tightened his grip on the purple paper mache and stared down his opponent, a heavyset thirty-something woman in a garishly pastel Lane Bryant ensemble. Her hair was bluntly cut at the chin, and her face was pink and panicked.
"Excuse me, can I please have this?" she asked desperately, clutching the piñata. "My son's birthday in on Sunday."
Kurt wavered. On the one hand, letting the woman have the piñata would prolong their trip and certainly piss Santana off, not to mention that he was under no obligation to give it to her since he'd grabbed the wizard hat first. On the other hand, the woman was throwing a party for an actual child, which should probably take precedence over their party for Brittany.
Kurt sighed, deciding to give in. He was such a humanitarian some days, it hurt.
He had forgotten to factor Santana into the equation, however. Right as he was about to slacken his dent-inducing hold on the piñata, he felt her well-manicured nails dig into his shoulder. "I'm sorry," she answered in her most polite voice, which still somehow managed to sound like a sneer, "but we're throwing a party this weekend too, and this is the only piñata that'll work. So if you'll excuse us."
And with a victorious smirk, she yanked the wizard hat from both Kurt and the woman and strutted back to the cart. "Let's go, Kurt," she commanded. Flashing an apologetic smile at the woman, Kurt followed suit.
That could have been the end of it. Kurt would have felt slightly bad, but likely would have forgotten about the incident by the end of the day.
Unfortunately, the woman clearly hadn't realized who she was dealing with. And she wasn't finished yet.
"Look, I need that piñata," she insisted. "We're doing a Harry Potter theme, and I have nineteen eight year olds coming to my house in less than a week."
Santana raised an eyebrow, clearly unmoved, and Kurt knew he'd have to take it upon himself to be the gracious one of the two of them. "There's an owl piñata," he pointed out helpfully. "It actually looks quite a bit like Hedwig. If you squint."
The woman stared at him incredulously. "You want me to get a piñata that looks like a Harry Potter character so that the kids can beat it with sticks?" she shrieked—unnecessarily shrilly, in Kurt's opinion. "Are you some kind of moron?" She sighed, briefly putting her hands to her temples before further rumpling her chemically damaged hair. "Fine. Forget it. Enjoy your party; I'm sure all the underage drinking and juvenile delinquency will be a blast."
Kurt looked at her, standing 5'2" in her puce colored shoes and righteous indignation. Moron with a penchant for juvenile delinquency and cheap keg beer?
Oh no she didn't.
Kurt turned to Santana, whose malicious expression indicated that she was entirely on the same page. "Do you want to start, or should I?" she asked sweetly, and Kurt bowed in a mock display of submission.
"Oh please, ladies first," he offered dryly. "I'm too distracted by the outfit to know where to begin—it looks like a K-Mart candy clearance rack the week after Easter."
Santana fixed her gaze on the woman. "All right then. Listen up, Blue Light Special. Shoving a kid out your vagina does not make you special—it makes you wide hipped. Having kids doesn't magically entitle you to shit. We got the piñata first. Deal with it."
Kurt smiled. "She's right," he confirmed. "Insulting complete strangers for no other reason than they have something you want is incredibly crass and childish, and I'm sure not the behavior you'd want to model for your soon-to-be eight year old. And the name-calling is entirely out of order, particularly because your insults have nothing to do with who we are and everything to do with the fact that we're teenagers. We at least did you the courtesy of judging you by your split ends, bargain bin apparel, and unattractive personality."
"Whatever," Santana interjected, "she's just jealous that she's about fifteen years past her prime, and couldn't look this smokin' hot if she tried."
All three of them glanced down at Santana's smokin' hot thighs, on prominent display in her Cheerio's skirt.
Kurt cleared his throat. "Additionally, you said it yourself—you're intentionally purchasing an object for children to maim to a pulp with a stick. Now, people our age," he gestured to himself and Santana, "know the difference between pretend violence and actually inflicting hurt. But elementary school kids are young and impressionable, and are already being bombarded with confusing mixed messages from the media. The APA has proven the link between exposure to portrayals of violence and increased aggressive behavior in children, particularly in those under the age of eight, who have difficulty differentiating between entertainment and reality. And here you are, handing them a weapon and encouraging them to go at it." He shook his head in dismay. "Not only are you starving the prefrontal cortex of your son, but you're practically creating a future generation of bullies."
He glared meaningfully at her. "You probably feed them refined sugar, don't you?"
Santana didn't give the woman, who was now gasping unattractively like a fish, a chance to respond. "Please, what do you expect?" she disparaged "She's raising her kid in Lima. She couldn't make it out of here on brains or talent, what makes you think she's fit to raise anything other than another set of Lima losers? Oh, don't look at me like that," she snapped, as the woman's cheeks turned a splotchy purple. "You know it's true."
Softening slightly, Kurt glanced at Santana before addressing the woman. "Here's some free advice," he offered kindly. "Try being nicer to people. Even Spawn of the Devil teenagers like us are perfectly harmless if you aren't deliberately antagonistic. Throwing a tantrum over a piñata is immature and sets a bad example. You're the parent—act like it."
Turning to Santana, he threaded his arm through hers. "I think we're done here," he announced.
Shooting the woman a withering smile, Santana waved sarcastically and turned their cart around, heading for the cash register, leaving their opponent in shocked silence.
Just as they were about to turn the corner, Kurt turned back around. "There's a Land's End outlet about two miles east of here," he called back. "It's not to my taste, personally, but the staff there is very good; they could help you put together a great new look on a budget. You won't regret it, I promise."
And with that, they were gone.