A/N: I wrote this for the Glee Write What You Know Fest, and yes, this is based off of a personal experience. Please note that in the real version of the story, the security guard was a fireman, and I walked the mall completely naked. Warning for slight implied age difference but no underage. Enjoy :)
Blaine is right.
Working as a costumed character is the worst possible job a performer can get. It's all kinds of humiliating and demeaning. The hours are long, the costume is hot, and to make matters worse, Kurt's not even working at a theme park. He's doing a temporary stint as the Easter Bunny at the Lima Mall. He figures he'll have post-traumatic stress disorder for years to come, but he tries his hardest not to care. Wasn't it Bill Gates who said that flipping burgers wasn't beneath a person's dignity? (Of course, if Bill had to flip burgers in a bunny costume, he might have thought differently.) Money is money, and since it's Spring Break and he didn't have anything better to do, Kurt opted for any parttime job that would bring him a step closer to affording NYADA and keep him out of a Lima Bean apron.
Though he doesn't have much of a basis for comparison, this has to be by far the strangest job Kurt's ever had. The costume he's been wearing has been used by hundreds of sweaty, unwashed men and women before him, and isn't it wonderful that all he gets to wear beneath it is a Speedo? Thinking about it makes Kurt shudder. Every day he races home and showers, turning the water to scalding, trying to destroy the bacteria that he knows is breeding all over his body by now.
Despite this foray into the perils of decades-old communal clothing, Kurt decides to chalk the last two weeks up as a learning experience. For example, Kurt recently discovered that he hates kids. He's sure his opinion will change later in life when he has his own brood, but for now he wants to gather them all up and drop them into a large pit.
Thank the great spaghetti monster in the sky that his shift – his last shift as the bunny - is finally over.
It's the day before Easter and the mall is packed. When they walked Kurt to the Easter Bunny court, it was so hot in his giant bunny head he could hardly breathe. Child after child sat on his lap while he suffered in silence (since traditionally Easter Bunnies don't speak). He could feel the sweat pouring down his forehead and into his eyes with no way whatsoever of wiping it up.
In his desperation, call it a moment of weakness, Kurt considered that maybe NYADA wasn't worth this agony after all.
Eight long, painful, mind numbing hours later, the bunny handlers escort Kurt, numb from the waist down and wobbling as he walks, through the associate's exit deep into the bowels of the mall, to a storage space where they kept the Christmas decorations and the artificial tree. It is cold and the air smells stale, but it is the only space available for him to de-bunny.
Once the handlers leave to escort the new bunny up to the waiting masses already gathered around the bunny court, Kurt starts to peel off his costume; throwing it to the floor and punting it into a corner as hard as he can, glad to be rid of the damned thing. He catches his reflection in an oversized Christmas ball and scowls. His face is swollen and red from the heat inside the costume, and every inch of his skin is literally dripping with sweat. He was forced to wear his Cheerios thong instead of his swimsuit due to a lack of clean laundry, and beads of sweat have gathered along the waist band and soaked the fabric. He feels gross; grosser than gross. He feels sticky and vile and positively inhuman.
He pulls a towel from the carry on he uses to carry his clothes and starts to pat his skin dry, wishing he had remembered to pack some waterless soap, but he reassures himself that he will be home soon and this will all be but an unhappy memory. Kurt reaches for the thong, ready to roll it off his hips and be gone with it as well when a sudden loud, piercing noise echoes through the small cluttered space.
It was pounded into their heads during orientation that if the fire alarm were to go off while they were in the storage space to immediately drop what they were doing and make a run for it. The rooms with their heavy metal doors are air-tight. Anyone trapped inside could conceivably die in under a minute.
Kurt wraps the towel around his body and bursts through the door, stumbling out into the mall parking lot. He lets the door slam shut behind him before he remembers that it locks automatically. Kurt spins around…or tries to spin around, but one end of his towel is caught in the door. Kurt reaches behind him for the door handle and pulls as hard as he can, but the hefty door doesn't budge. He tugs at his towel, cringing at the thought of his Pasha Turkish combed cotton bath sheet tearing, but it doesn't matter. It's stuck, too, and the likelihood of him being able to yank it free is next to nil. He grunts in frustration, shifting from foot to foot on the cold asphalt, wrapping himself tighter in the towel as a frigid breeze skirts beneath.
Kurt swivels his head around, hoping to find someone who can help him, but even though the mall is full of people, the parking lot appears deserted. Kurt can see his Navigator, but without his keys getting in will be impossible, and he has no intention of breaking a window. His cell phone is in his bag locked inside the storage room, so there's no way to call the Calvary to come to his rescue. He starts to panic. He doesn't like feeling trapped. He doesn't like not being able to call for help. He doesn't like the idea of freezing to death in a mall parking lot, wrapped in a towel and wearing nothing but a thong.
Kurt's eyes sweep the parking lot again, standing on his toes to peer past the roofs of cars and vans lined side-by-side, and from across the mass of vehicles he sees a glimmer of hope in the form of a blinking red light headed his way. The golf cart drives slowly down the aisle, heading toward him; its driver – a young, shamefully handsome mall security guard dressed in a crisp navy blue uniform – spots Kurt almost instantly, a wolfish grin growing on his face. Kurt is not at all pleased by this turn of events. It's not the most opportune situation, but Kurt is willing to endure a few jokes and maybe a couple of leers if it means getting his clothes.
"Well, well, well," the man says, pulling up to the curb and killing the golf cart's engine. "What happened here?"
Kurt tries to match the man's smile, but his lips quiver with the cold, and he imagines his face contorting into a gas-pains sort of grimace.
"The f-fire alarm w-went off," Kurt says as his whole body shivers beneath the bath sheet, "and I got locked out."
"Okay…" the security guard drawls, "so why didn't you go inside the mall and look for help?"
"Um…I-I'm kind of st-stuck," Kurt explains, tugging the towel lightly for emphasis.
"I see." The security guard nods, the expression on his face serious even though a teasing glint twinkles in his green eyes.
Kurt stares at him for a moment, confused by the lack of any real help on the part of the security guard who simply looks back at him with an amused smile hiding at the corners of his mouth. Kurt looks at the man's name tag.
"Mr. Smith?" Kurt asks, his body shuddering with another passing breeze.
"Smythe," the man corrects. "Sebastian Smythe."
"Okay, Sebastian Smythe. D-do you think you c-can help me unlock this d-door?"
Sebastian seems to consider Kurt's question for a second, then shakes his head.
"I wish I could," Sebastian says with a shrug, "but I don't happen to have the key to this door. I'm just here in response to the fire alarm."
Kurt can hardly hear the alarm blaring through the thick door.
"Who h-has the key?" Kurt asks, jumping up and down on the balls of his feet in an attempt to keep warm.
"Well, your manager should have a key," Sebastian says.
"B-but, she's on the t-top floor of the m-mall! At the Easter B-bunny court!" Kurt cries. "C-could you g-go get it for m-me?"
"I would if I could…but I can't," Sebastian says. The security guard appears completely unswayed by the unguarded desperation in Kurt's voice, and this infuriates Kurt, who has gone long past the point of being anxious to completely pissed off.
"S-so what am I s-supposed to d-do?" Kurt argues, his voice rising in pitch and volume as his anger mounts. "I c-can't w-wait here!" Kurt struggles to keep the towel raised while he rubs over his arm with his hand, searching for warmth.
"Why don't you go upstairs and get it?" Sebastian suggests, rolling back and forth on his feet, arms crossed over his chest. "Unless…" Sebastian leans in a bit to whisper into Kurt's ear, "are you naked under that towel?"
"I'm n-not naked," Kurt gasps. "I'm just…n-not entirely dressed."
His confession makes Sebastian's grin grow wider, and Kurt, flushed from embarrassment and the chill air seethes, but he decides to give asking for help one last go.
"Look," Kurt says as politely as he can muster under the circumstances, "is there any way you can help me? I'm kind of between a rock and a hard place."
Sebastian leans up against the wall beside Kurt, letting his eyes casually drift over Kurt's towel-cloaked body.
"Let me tell you what," Sebastian says, "my shift is over in about ten minutes. Agree to meet me for coffee and I'll get you your key."
Kurt's mouth drops, and the color in his face blazes across the spectrum of red another ten notches. If the human body were capable of spontaneous combustion, Kurt's would have gone super nova.
"So, you're telling me," Kurt starts in a dangerously calm and even voice, "that you will go upstairs and get me the key that I need in order to get my clothes if I go on a date with you?"
Kurt knows this is exactly the case, but he wants to hear it from Sebastian's lips.
"When you put it like that, it sounds kind of mean of me, sweetheart. But that's the general idea." Sebastian winks and that's the final straw for Kurt, whose hands have been practically tearing at the towel wrapped around him for the latter half of the conversation.
"You know what?" Kurt says, his whole body trembling with barely controlled rage. "Fuck you! Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, and oh, by the way, fuck you!"
With that final declaration, Kurt drops his towel.
Sebastian steps back off the wall, staring with a look that's half awe, half complete and utter shock. Kurt pulls himself up to his full height, which he's surprised to find is almost exactly Sebastian's, and walks towards the entrance to the mall.
Kurt learns another interesting tidbit of information that he can put under the 'life experience' category of his shitty job checklist – if you walk through a crowded mall like you own it, you can be dressed in next to nothing and most people won't even look at you twice.
Though some people do. Some people stare. Some people curse while dragging their children in the total opposite direction. Some people whistle. Kurt's cheeks are on fire, but he pays no attention to anyone as he maneuvers through the crowds and up the escalators till he reaches the Easter Bunny court, sashays up to his straight-laced manager, and taps her on the shoulder.
She turns to look at him and her eyes go wide.
"I locked myself out of the storage room," Kurt says as nonchalantly as years of acting can help him sound with about a hundred pairs of eyes staring at his mostly naked body, "and I need the key."
She doesn't say anything. She can't seem to make her mouth move. She takes the key out of her pocket and hands it over, pulling her hand back quickly when his fingers wrap around it.
"Thank you," he says, turning around and leaving the way he came, fully aware that he's mooning parents and kids as he struts confidently out of the mall.
He thinks for sure another security guard will apprehend him before he makes it to the exit, but he's relieved when no one seems too eager to approach him, and he makes his way back to the storage locker completely undisturbed.
The little golf cart is gone and so is Sebastian, and Kurt sighs.
He has to admit that if he hadn't been freezing cold and partially naked, matching wits with Sebastian might have actually been fun, but he couldn't even consider looking for a round two without a sincere apology.
Kurt opens the door and rescues his towel, happy that the damage to his bath sheet is minimal. A quiet room greets him. He walks to where his bag lies open on the floor, letting the door swing shut once again, grateful for the air-tight seal on the fire door and the warmth of the room. He reaches down for his shirt and notices a folded piece of paper he's sure wasn't there before. He unfolds it and reads it carefully once, then again, until it finally makes sense.
Lima Mall Incident Report
4:15 p.m.
Security Officer Sebastian Smythe arrived at sector B2-14 in response to a fire alarm. A mall employee was found wearing only a towel which was caught in the fire door. S. O. Smythe questioned the employee, and instead of helping the incredibly hot guy out, he proceeded to be a humungous asshole, at which point the mall employee dropped his towel, revealing the sexiest red thong S. O. Smythe has ever seen on another human being. The employee then streaked the mall, which was definitely a sight to see.
(Kurt laughs, blushing with the knowledge that Sebastian had apparently followed him into the mall. Kurt wonders how far behind he had been walking, though Kurt was so focused on his goal he would never have noticed anyway. He wonders if that was the reason none of the other security guards stopped him.)
S. O. Smythe offers the mall employee his sincerest apologies and would like to trade his offer for coffee to one for dinner.
Sincerely;
Security Officer Sebastian Smythe
Beneath his signature, Sebastian wrote his phone number.
Kurt giggles as he refolds the paper and shoves it in his bag.
Maybe he'll have fond memories of dressing up as a giant imaginary rabbit after all.