I would briefly like to thank everyone who has reviewed so far, for I am enjoying all your feedback. To answer some questions: No, Rachel is not a student at Julliard, though she is in New York, happily performing on Broadway. I might give Kelsi a small appearance soon, but will not be focussing on her too much. Sharpay may show up eventually, too, and maybe Finn will show his face if I can work it in. I hope to make this a successful story, so I encourage all of my readers to give me feedback: Hit that review button please, and tell me what you'd like to see happen. I may even change my own ideas if I hear one that's better. :)
PS- I actually was planning on do a Defying Gravity scene, but it was a little later in the plot. But I think it'd be alright to do it earlier than I planned, just for you, Goddess of the Black Rose, though I'm not sure if this was what you had in mind or not.
4: Is It a Dream? (Classix Nouveaux)
Kurt was enjoying his time at Julliard. Though he loved all his classes, his Musical Theatre course was the most exciting. It was filled with several unusual characters, including a lovely young French woman named Hélène who could not speak English for the life of her, but could sing Mimi's part in Without You from Rent as though her heart depended on it. Kurt was pretty sure she didn't understand a word of what she was singing, but it was beautiful nonetheless.
He loved this class especially for other reasons. He felt welcome among them, and more importantly, he felt needed by the group. Whether Chantal was fighting with Amelia again and they needed someone to mediate, or Yvonne and Michael had broken up (again) and one or the other needed consoling, it was always the smallest member of the group that they looked to for help. Occasionally Jackson would ask him for fashion advice, and that was when he especially excelled— besides when he was singing, of course.
Perhaps the most wonderful thing about Musical Theatre was, well, the theatre. The class was held on one of the larger performance stages, and Kurt nearly died of shock when the professor told them that they could use the stage whenever they wanted to practice something for the class. The stage was wonderful, and large; it looked out onto a gymnasium-sized audience, complete with rows of seats for on-lookers. It was the stage that they used to perform for parents and critics, to announce awards and even have their yearly graduation ceremony. Though it wasn't much to the average person, it Kurt it was a dream come true. This was the stage he was born to perform on. This was it, his moment.
He came early for class the day after his impromptu meeting with Ryan, wanting to be alone on the stage for a while. He walked into his imaginary center spotlight— and he could almost feel the heat on it beaming down on him, his fantasy felt so real. He could see himself performing his unfinished masterpiece, and he could see Finn in the audience, just as he did in all his fantasies. In all of these dreams, he was always singing to Finn.
He looked around to make sure no one had entered while he had been distracted, and then slowly began to sing one of his favourite songs.
"Something has changed within me. Something is not the same. I'm through with playing by the rules of someone else's game," he sang, hitting every note the way he knew he could. As his confidence grew and he really began to belt it out, something in the fantasy changed; it was no longer Finn sitting alone in the audience, but Ryan. He was smiling, and his white fedora was perched atop his head at the same jaunty angle it had been when they first met. Kurt sighed and closed his eyes, feeling the words.
"It's too late for second-guessing; too late to go back to sleep. It's time to trust my instincts. Close my eyes and leap!" He took a step forward and reached out to dream-Ryan, extending his arm toward the audience. "It's time to try, defying gravity. I think I'll try, defying gravity. Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity. And you won't bring me down!" He brought his arm back to his body, curling his fingers into a fist and holding it close to his chest, over his heart.
"I'm through accepting limits, 'cause someone says they're so. Some things I cannot change, but till I try, I'll never know. Too long I've been afraid of losing love, I guess I've lost. Well, if that's love, it comes at much too high a cost!" Eyes still closed and lost in the music, Kurt straightened to his full height of five-foot-seven and began to nearly cry with all the emotion he was putting out. "I'd sooner buy, defying gravity. Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity. I think I'll try defying gravity. And you won't bring me down!"
Kurt opened his eyes with a sudden freedom. What he saw was still an empty auditorium, but it held so much more meaning to him now. He inhaled a deep breath to finish the song with the final chorus, but the sound of clapping stopped him from doing so.
He spun around, his heart racing rapidly. He flushed bright red when he realised that his entire Musical Theatre class, including their professor, had somehow managed to sneak in during his performance without him noticing. They were all clapping for him, except the teacher. He shushed them.
"Now, now, let him finish," he said loudly, "There's another chorus. Go ahead, Mr. Hummel."
Kurt licked him lips and looked apprehensively at his class, who all seemed to be waiting for him to finish the song. He took another deep breath to steady his nerves. Just like you've practiced in your bedroom, he reminded himself, and began to sing the final notes.
"I'd sooner buy, defying gravity," he sang slowly, carefully. "Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity." He had never sung this part correctly for an audience before. His heart was racing, but he pushed onward. "I think I'll try, defying gravity. And never bring me down!" He hit the high-F with stunning accuracy, internally smiling at himself. "Bring me down. Ooh-oh-oh!"
His peers gave him a second, louder round of applause before coming up to greet him.
"C'est très bien, Monsieur," Hélène said, being the first to meet him. She smiled, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear. "Où as-tu écouté cette chanson?"
"Does anyone ever know what she's saying?" whispered Michael sullenly, looking at Hélène as though she were some kind of strange creature. "Any translators in the house?"
"She asked where he'd heard the song," Yvonne said, glaring at Michael. "And I want to know too. I haven't heard it before."
"It's from Wicked," Chantal was quick to point out, "And it's sung by Elphaba, one of the female leads."
"I have to admit," Professor DiBucci said, approaching Kurt through the small cluster of students around him, "I haven't heard a male rendition of that song before. Have you considered it for your final performance piece for this course?"
Kurt lit up visibly, his eyes widening a little. "Actually, I hadn't."
"Well, maybe you should. It's very nice." Professor DiBucci paused, looking at his students carefully. "Now!" he barked, and they all jumped. "Why are we all standing around? We have work to do, people! Snap, snap, let's at it!"
Kurt grinned as he walked through the halls some hours later, reflecting on his Musical Theatre class. He had never felt so comfortable on a stage than he was on that one, and that was saying a lot. He'd been performing for as long as he could remember, but that moment, hitting that high-F for a group of his equals... it had felt amazing.
He could spend the rest of his life chasing that feeling and never catch it. But he caught it that day, that moment, on that stage. It hardly felt real.