Summary: Kurt Hummel, Blaine Anderson, Rachel Berry, Nick Duvall, Jeff Sterling, and Elliott Gilbert make up Pamela Lansbury, a rock/pop band that hit it big after their first single was featured on popular tv-show Sing. A little over two years later the band is still dealing with the pressures of fame, their differing dreams, their fans, "shippers", and finding love.
Author's note: Added the last few days of the tour, so for anyone who is interested in where they've been and going to be:
Day one: Roseland (NYC)
Day two: Prudential Center (Newark, New Jersey)
Day four: Gillette Stadium (Foxborough, Massachusetts)
Day six: First Niagara Center (Buffalo, New York)
Day seven: AJ Palumbo (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania)
Day nine: Nationwide Arena (Columbus, Ohio)
Day twelve: United Center (Chicago, Illinois)
Day fourteen: Xcel Energy Center (St. Paul, Minnesota)
Day sixteen: Sprint Center (Kansas City, Kansas)
Day eighteen: Key Arena (Seattle, Washington)
Day nineteen: Bill Graham Civic Auditorium (San Francisco, California)
Day twenty: Staples Center (L.A., California)
Day twenty-one: Valley View Casino Center (San Diego, California)
Chapter Eighteen
"How long?"
Blaine blinked at Kurt, still a little sleepy from the pre-show nap they'd been taking.
"What?" he asked.
Kurt brushed curls away from his forehead and his fingers continued to trail down his cheek, and the fond look in his eyes made Blaine swoon but it didn't wake him up much more.
"How long did you know you liked me?" Kurt whispered.
"A while," Blaine whispered back.
Kurt's finger rang down the length of his nose.
"Before the band, after the band?"
Blaine met his eyes and he smiled. "Before, Kurt. Of course. I think – well, Nick says I was obsessed with you from the moment I met you and maybe I was but it wouldn't have worked back then, right? Going to two different schools…but I guess I did have a crush on you."
"You're blushing," Kurt said and he was smiling wide.
Blaine leaned forward, pressing his lips against Kurt's in a quick peck. "Yes, well," he said.
"It's cute," Kurt said, "and me too. I liked you so much then but your friendship meant so much even when we couldn't see each other like at all."
"Yeah," Blaine said.
"I hated that when I met you again you had a boyfriend," Kurt said and rolled his eyes, "because everything just – it came back, you know. You were still – you were still you."
Blaine didn't know what to say. Mostly he was shocked because of course they had been on the same page the entire time. He couldn't help but wonder if things might have been different if they had used all that time to be together.
"What?" Kurt asked.
"I wish we'd – I don't know, I wish we'd realized back then."
Kurt kissed him gently, pulling back before Blaine could try to deepen the kiss. "Well, things would be a lot different. I don't think we'd be here if we'd just come clean back then."
Blaine could tell that he was trying to find the words. It was endearing to watch his cheeks go a little pink.
"What is it? You can tell me anything," Blaine said.
Kurt nodded. "Um, so I didn't know how to ask you to spend time with me because you had school and a boyfriend and I just didn't want to bother you so I came up with this idea of the band so that we could spend more time together."
"Oh," Blaine said.
Kurt laughed. "Yeah. I, um, I thought it's be funny I guess. It was never serious. Rachel thought it was stupid to go about it that way but then you brought Jeff and Nick into it and then Elliott and well, it was kind of perfect. Blaine, I have no regrets about how things have turned out and we're here now and we're together, alright. And well, I do have one regret."
"What?" Blaine asked.
"Sebastian Smythe," Kurt said, "I guess I share that with Nick."
Blaine nodded slowly. "Did you ever get the full story on that?"
"No," Kurt said, "I got the feeling it's not something he can talk about easily."
Blaine sighed. He hated in a way that he didn't know what Nick was going through in regards to Sebastian. The thing was that Nick didn't feel the need to confide in him and that while he had talked to Jeff about it not much had changed. There was still something bothering him.
"He'll be okay," Kurt said, "we can only offer him as much support as he wants to take and he's seemed a lot better recently."
Kurt was right. Maybe it had been enough for him to talk to Jeff.
A knock on their door and then moments later the alarm on Kurt's phone went off.
"I guess we have to go," Kurt said, "come on."
"It's so rainy," Jeff said, looking out of the bus window.
"That's Seattle for you," Elliott said, "don't you watch Grey's Anatomy?"
Jeff punched him lightly on the shoulder and then pulled out his phone probably to tweet about the rain. Sometimes Kurt wondered why they allowed him to tweet at all. When he looked at twitter on his own phone he rolled his eyes at the picture of the rain and the emojis that Jeff had tweeted to show his disgruntlement.
"It's not like we're going to be outside, Jeff," Elliott pointed out.
"Yeah, it's still depressing."
Elliott ignored him in favor of strumming at his guitar. Mercedes had sent over pages of notes and music along with a demo of the song and her suggestions for how they should split the song between them.
So, Elliott was learning to play it on his guitar because she wanted him playing on the recording.
Kurt had managed to skype her after their last show in Kansas and she'd babbled on and on about how she hadn't thought them collaborating was going to be possible with their tour going on and how happy she was to see that their schedule had opened up to fit her.
Kurt had always liked Mercedes. She was technically the first friend he ever really had. Still, they had sort of drifted apart after High School mostly because Mercedes had left for L.A. soon after to chase after a music career and because Kurt had gone to New York. Somehow, they had both found themselves in the music industry.
"Where's your boyfriend?" Elliott asked suddenly.
"Sleeping," Kurt said. He was slowly getting used to Blaine being referred to as his boyfriend.
"Figures," Elliott said, "guess I'll ask him later."
Kurt shrugged his shoulders.
They arrived at their hotel within the hour and Kurt had to go and wake up both Blaine and Nick. He went to Nick first, only to find him already awake but staring at his ipad screen as if it held all the answers in the world.
"Hey," Kurt said, we're here."
"Gathered that," Nick said, "I'll be right there."
Blaine on the hand was properly asleep and Kurt watched him for a moment before he reached over to brush his hair from his forehead before he shook his shoulder.
"We're here," he said.
Blaine grumbled for a little while before he groggily got up. He was always the same after a nap, but Kurt had insisted he take it when he'd seen the dark shadows under his eyes earlier.
"Come on," Kurt said.
Blaine nodded and slowly got up. Kurt kissed his cheek quickly and lead him down the length of the bus. Elliott and Jeff were already getting off, carrying the things they might need immediately because everything else would be unloaded by their crew and of late Sebastian had been doing a lot of their errands because with Santana in charge there was no slacking for him.
Kurt was actually a little surprised that he was still with them. Blaine had once told him that Sebastian came from an affluent family and Sebastian certainly acted like someone that had enough money to spend. Kurt had been around enough people like that – and actually, he and the rest of the guys in the band weren't doing badly at all income wise – to be able to tell when one was around.
They headed out of the bus and sprinted to the doors because of the rain. Inside the venue it was like most other places and one of the people that worked there greeted them before they continued towards their dressing rooms.
"How are you doing tonight, Seattle?" Kurt asked to loud cheers. "I'll take that as good."
"Well," Blaine said, "we're excited to be here tonight, even if it is only for one night, and so we thought it'd be a great idea to premiere one of our new songs here on this stage."
Their fans cheered even louder and Blaine could hear how they seemed to be screaming their names.
"This song," Blaine continued, "was written by Elliott and myself and it's a lot of fun. So take it away, Kurt."
Blaine motioned for Kurt who nodded as Elliott, Nick, and Jeff began to play. It was one of their more frenetic songs. It was upbeat and happy and had Kurt literally skipping around the stage. The fans loved it.
As they came to the last verse, Kurt appeared at Blaine's side and he bumped hips with him before he was off again, trying to get the crowd to sing with him louder. Blaine would always be impressed by the stage presence that Kurt had.
Later, after Elliott had sung his song, the stools were brought out for Something and Blaine smiled at Kurt while everything was being set up. The fans loved that they had incorporated it into the set list after the first time they sang it.
The only thing that was hard about singing it was how he had to stop himself from kissing Kurt after it was done despite how much he wanted to. Instead, he managed to squeeze his hand before he was thanking the crowd and they were moving on to another song.
When they finished their encore, Blaine allowed Nick to throw an arm around him and lead him off stage. He heard Jeff and Elliott coming behind them, but when he turned he found Kurt all the way at the other side of the stage picking something up.
"What is he doing?" Blaine asked.
Nick stopped and turned to look.
Nick had picked up a rainbow colored flag and he seemed to be signing it before he handed it to Puck most likely to return to the fan that had thrown it on stage. It was such a Kurt thing to do.
"Come on," Nick said.
They continued off stage and Kurt joined them a few minutes later.
"I saw her throw it right before the last song," Kurt said, "and I forgot to throw it back earlier but Puck had a sharpie on him so I also managed to sign it."
It happened all the time that fans threw things on stage. A few pushies had been thrown, flags, the occasional bra, and sometimes other random objects. Their fans weren't too crazy, but some of them would do anything to get their attention.
"Come on, guys," Dani said appearing as if out of nowhere, "you lot have enough time to shower and get dressed before we have to leave again. We're pretty tight on the schedule and you're doing some press tomorrow morning."
Blaine groaned. He hated when they were overscheduled.
"Yeah, I know," Dani said, "it isn't very ideal but it'll be good press before we're off tour for a few weeks."
"Right," Elliott said, "because we're bound to get rest then."
Nick nudged him. "Don't even be sarcastic about that right now."
Blaine and Kurt lingered behind the rest of them. "It's really hard," Blaine told him, "to not just kiss you anytime you do anything remotely cute on stage."
Kurt blushed a little. "I don't think I'd be okay with that even after we went public."
Dani hung back to separate them into their separate rooms so they could each shower quickly and Blaine was left on his own. He was done quickly and changed into comfortable sweat pants and a t-shirt.
Dani had been joined by Sebastian in the hallway and they seemed to be talking when he opened the door, not even noticing him.
"They always knew that I was gay," Sebastian was saying, "I mean, there was no hiding it. My mom and dad were okay with it, really, but not so much the extended family which shouldn't have mattered."
"I'm sorry," Dani said, "is that why you're sticking around, then?"
Sebastian nodded. Blaine hung back behind the door.
"It's good money," Sebastian said, "I only agreed because of the money, really, and it's been a bit frustrating. Easier now you are here even if Santana seems to think I'm more her assistant than anything else. I thought Whitney was here for a reason."
"She's the boy's assistant," Dani said, "well, actually, she's Wes' assistant but he sent her along to help them out and he's dealing with a few temps."
"Oh," Sebastian said.
"Right," Dani said, "so knowing that you needed this job you still antagonized them?"
"Me?" Sebastian asked, voice rising a little, "I'm not the one that's been pulling pranks left and right."
Dani laughed. "Pranks aside, you made things a little bit difficult for Kurt and for Nick from what I gathered."
"If they can't handle that, how can they even handle all this fame? It's ridiculous. And I really didn't know that Kurt was the Kurt from Pamela Lansbury when I met him. Not to mention that he didn't seem so uptight then. As to Nick, I was his friend once. That I felt a little bad about and I thought – well, I thought he'd told at least Jeff about those things."
It was odd to listen to Sebastian almost sort of explain himself. As much as Blaine would always dislike Sebastian, he knew that he couldn't really hate him.
He slowly opened the door, making it creak and he stepped out.
"Is everyone else ready yet?" he asked.
"The crew is still packing things up," Dani said, "but the other guys should be done soon enough. We'll be on the road in an hour."
Blaine nodded. "I guess I'll head over to the bus, then."
It was going to be close to a fourteen hour drive from Seattle to San Francisco but that was where their next show was going to be the next night. They would be arriving there sometime in the morning and for some reason or another Santana or Wes had gotten them booked for some sort of radio show the morning of the show.
Blaine was exhausted just thinking about the entire thing.
He found Jeff at the front of the bus on his laptop.
"Hey," he said, "want to watch the latest episode of Sing?"
Blaine shook his head. Jeff, out of the five of them, was the only fan of Sing. He watched the show religiously without missing an episode when it aired. It didn't even seem to matter that they were on tour.
"They're doing another one of our songs tonight," Jeff informed him, "I think David was actually tweeting some promo stuff from our accounts before the show."
"Of course he was," Blaine said.
"And that was off of their second album," the radio DJ, Sarah, said, "but now here we are with the boys themselves. Pamela Lansbury. How are you guys this morning?"
"Tired," Jeff said.
Sarah laughed. "I bet," she said, "you had a show in Seattle last night right?"
"Yes, we did," Nick said, "it was great."
"So let's get down to it," Sarah said, "and I have to ask, has this tour been easier than the first one you did a few years back or harder?"
"Easier, I think," Kurt said, "I mean it comes down to the fact that we know what to expect, I guess. We're more prepared. We know ourselves and the music and the band better."
"Right," Elliott said, "and I think because we're more sure of ourselves we've been given a lot more freedom. We're basically changing out setlists and adding or taking songs out depending on what we want to perform and that's been great."
Sarah nodded. "Which has to be a lot of fun for the fans of course, since you're also debuting new songs, right?"
"Yes," Blaine said, "and of course with social media the way it is these days, videos are online minutes after the shows – after the songs have been performed – and I think in that way no one is really missing out. The response for the new music has been fantastic as well."
"Now, there have been a few rumors about a collaboration between the band and Mercedes Jones. She was here a few weeks ago and not a peep from her. So, can you confirm this?"
Mercedes had given them go ahead to confirm, especially since she was going to be making an appearance at all of their California stops. Originally it had been only the L.A. one, but she'd had the free time to join them for all of them.
"We are," Nick said, "nothing has been recorded or decided on, but we have spoken to Mercedes and we know the song she wants us to work with her on and it's going to be a lot of fun."
Sarah clapped her hands. "That is fantastic," she said.
"It really is," Jeff said, "we're looking forward to it a lot."
"And of course, you're really good friends with her, right, Kurt?"
"Yeah. We went to high school together. We were in the same glee club. We've always kept in contact so it'll be great getting to sing with her again. Mercedes is amazing."
Sarah nodded and looked down at her notes. "Okay," she said, "so quite a few people wanted to ask about Something. I got a lot of people tweeting me about that. So, tell me anything about the song. You wrote it, right, Blaine?"
"I did," Blaine said, "I did. I wrote it over the course of a couple of days and I actually didn't think it would be one of the songs to make it on the album but after Kurt and I sang it, well, everyone said it was perfect. We actually have another duet that Kurt and I wrote back before we left for tour but I have a feeling that more people will like Something than that one."
"And," Sarah said, "what is it with the rumors of the two of you being in a relationship?"
"Us?" Elliott asked.
Sarah laughed. "No, Kurt and Blaine."
Elliott laughed. "Right, right, the dream team over there."
They all laughed at that before Sarah continued, "anything to say about that?"
"Just that people like to see what they're looking for, I guess," Kurt said, "Blaine and I are best friends and we're very close."
"Alright, well, our time is over. Thank you so much for coming in. This was Kurt, Blaine, Elliott, Nick, and Jeff from Pamela Lansbury. They will be performing tonight in San Francisco at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, and tomorrow they're in L.A. at Staples Center, while their finish this leg of their tour in San Diego at Valley View Casino Center."
Niffismyotp: they sounded so tired during that interview.
Klaine5eva: okay, but not to be too much of a klainer but Kurt's answer was miles away from being a no.
HummelAnderson: I agree! Like they've said no before and denied things…he just said they're close. What does that mean?
NiffKlainer: I think good things are coming. #klaine
Author's Note: So back when I was deciding to add Sebastian into this story I had to think of a good reason for why Sebastian would be a tour manager for them - like what he would get out of the job. So we'll sort of start to see a side of that. Irregardless, he's still Sebastian.
Next chapter will conclude their tour dates in California and we will move on to album recording and other fun things in L.A., I'm very excited to get writing this stuff.
I'm on tumblr at inawickedlittletown if you'd like to follow me there. I usually post writing progress updates there.
Hope you all enjoyed this and thank you for reading.