KURT
His arms. Oh, those arms! Kurt followed the swirly lines on them with his lips, kissing and biting the inky patterns tenderly but with rising urgency as the man above him moved with increasing passion, jostling him so much on the mattress he needed to plant his hands flat against the headboard to keep from hitting his head over and over again. Ah - ah! Suddenly, a smirking, smug face came into his vision and whispered: "See, this is what I learned at the Statue of Liberty."
With a scream, Kurt sat up in his bed, clammy with cold sweat. What a nightmare! Granted, it had started out pretty hot- he shifted in his sheets, still partly aroused- but as it turned out, he couldn't even fantasize about another man without Blaine interfering. He checked his alarm. Maybe it was just as well. There was no time to pursue this guilty pleasure in the shower. He had to get up and get ready for his midterm.
He heard Rachel's alarm go off too, and quickly jumped out of bed in order to beat her to the shower. She was also slotted in for today. In their shared classes, Berry, Rachel, was usually called up before Hummel, Kurt - but with Madame Tibideaux, you never knew. She liked to randomly call out names from her list to startle people, shocking them into giving their best performance (or their worst?) like she had when she suddenly sprung Kurt's NYADA audition on him at the Winter Showcase the year before. No, Kurt might just as likely be the very first performer of the day, so Rachel had no excuse to bully him out of his shower-time. He hurried through the kitchen, hitting the coffee machine's on-button on his way, and locked the door of their small bathroom firmly behind him. He ignored the protests from the other bedroom and ran the hot water, humming the melody of his song. If he thought about Elliott at all, it was subconsciously.
Kurt had been right in assuming Madame Tibideaux would mix it up in the Round Room. He was called up after Terrance, Kensington and before Rachel. Blaine, who was also in the audience, hadn't had his turn yet either.
Blaine had gone white tie. Of course, Kurt thought spitefully as he looked down on his own outfit. Blaine always had to one-up everyone, break the rules just a little to show that he could. He remembered how Blaine would tell him to tone it down at Dalton only to jump on to the furniture in their common room himself, like he was the only one above the rules. It stirred up a lot of emotions inside of Kurt, and that was good- he could use them as fuel for his song.
Terrance left the floor and Kurt rose from his seat.
"My name is Kurt Hummel," he announced, looking out over the audience, "and I shall be singing a Sondheim classic from Follies-" He saw Rachel shoot daggers at him from her eyes, and he ignored her. If she thought his song choice was inappropriate, she could tell him at home, afterwards. He had taken care never to rehearse when she was there to stop her from giving unwanted "advice". That would have only made him doubt his own choices. Blaine was glaring at him too. Well, he'd have more to glare about once Kurt started singing.
He nodded at the conductor and the small orchestra started playing.
"Leave you? Leave you? How could I leave you? How could I go it alone?"
Kurt saw Rachel relax and Blaine narrow his eyes. Kurt locked eyes with him and raised his arm defiantly as he sang on.
"Could I wave the years away? With a quick goodbye?
How do you wipe tears away when your eyes are dry?"
A satisfying feeling came over him as he moved along, walking through the room singing.
"How could I survive? Could I leave you and your shelves of "the world's best books"," Kurt rolled his eyes and smirked.
"And the evenings of martyred looks, cryptic sighs, sullen glares from those injured eyes?"
He could tell people were starting to look back and forth between him and Blaine, but he didn't care. He had sat through enough solos in school, thinly veiled accusations in song directed at him, musical pillories over imagined slights. Now it was his turn- and he had always felt Sondheim was the way to go to express what he felt inside. Of course he had also chosen the song to show off his lower register as well as his acting talent, but with lyrics so close to his heart, that last bit was easy.
"Leave the pats on the head, pecks on the cheek, dutiful lovemaking once a week?"
Blaine was frowning heavily now, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. Kurt continued mercilessly, building up volume and tension in his song. The piano increased pace.
"Leave the lies, ill-concealed, and the wounds never healed and the games not worth winning and wait-"
Kurt held up his hand and the conductor picked up on it, pausing the music.
"I'm just beginning…" He said, and scoffed.
Then he continued, falling back into the melody and adding a small walz step to travel through the room.
"What, leave you, leave you? How could I leave you?
What would I do on my own? Putting thoughts of you aside
in the south of France,
Would I think of suicide?"
To answer his own question, Kurt shrugged, extended his hand to a good-looking male student from his stage combat class and added: "Darling, shall we dance?"
The audience laughed and he moved on.
"Could I live through the pain
On a terrace in Spain? Would it pass?"
Kurt smirked and nodded theatrically.
"It would pass." Another volley of laughter.
"Could I bury my rage with a boy my own age
In the grass? Bet your ass."
Kurt playfully smacked his own behind as he moved on, fully confident that he had the audience on his side. Blaine had sunk low in his seat, partly hiding his face with his hand.
"Could I leave you? No, the point is, could you leave me?
Well, I guess you could leave me the house, leave me the flat -
Leave me the Braques and Chagalls and all that…"
The song was winding to its end, and Kurt enjoyed the last repeat of the refrain. The lyrics felt like he was taking back control over his life and his heart. He had originally intended to sing a different song, but after his break-up, he felt he needed to make a musical statement. And how better to mark another turning point in his life than with Sondheim?
"Oh, leave you? Leave you? How could I leave you?
Sweetheart, I have to confess, could I leave you? Yes!
Will I leave you? Will I leave you?"
He paused dramatically, spread his arms, and answered: "YES!"
Several students got up from their seats and applauded. With a flushed face, Kurt noticed that the man he had flirted with during his song was one of them, and he was wolf-whistling loudly until Madame Tibideaux rose and caused everyone to grow silent at once like she had pressed a mute button.
"Thank you, Mr Hummel, for that lively and personal choice in song," she announced crisply.
A spark of worry ignited inside of Kurt. What did that mean? Was it too personal? Too indiscreet? But she said nothing more about it, and called up the next student. Kurt's heart became a little lighter when he saw his vocal performance teacher raise two thumbs at him from Madame Tibideaux's side. Maybe she really meant to thank him, after all. He wished he wasn't so suspicious of every word she said- but then, he had precedence… she had complimented him on his audition, and then rejected him.
Kurt didn't pay much attention to the next few performances, as he was still going over his own in his head. Had it been too camp, or just enough to be funny to his heteronormative audience? Had he made enough eye contact? It wasn't until intermission, when a napkin with a telephone number was tucked boldly into his breast pocket by a young man in passing, that Kurt snapped out of it. He looked down at the digits and wondered if this was the opportunity he had been waiting for to get over his sexual frustration so he could stop lusting after his best friend like some perv. He saved the number into his phone contacts for later.
Then Rachel's turn was up. She was wearing a bedazzled pink dress and petticoat that her dads had bought her when they visited a few weeks earlier. She had seated herself on top of the piano, which had garnered a few frowns in the orchestra- from his table, Kurt could see the pianist roll his eyes at the pretty first violinist, and her acknowledging it with a brief nod. All of the musicians were students themselves and would be graded for their performance. They didn't take kindly to being used as a prop. That was something Rachel had never understood.
As she started singing, Kurt understood why she had glared at him earlier. Rachel was also singing a song from Follies. Her song however, Broadway Babies, had a very different tone, so there was no danger of her sounding repetitive.
Kurt was startled as, after two lines, Blaine suddenly rose from his seat and started singing along. He got up with waving jazz hands and danced around Madame Tibideaux's table before joining Rachel.
The Dean didn't look very charmed. In fact, she was staring at the two of them woodenly, and Kurt felt like if this was a casting show, she would have hit the red button right about now.
Both Rachel and Blaine were mugging wildly- Blaine looking perpetually surprised and Rachel sort of aggressive.
"What is he doing?" Kurt whispered to himself softly as Blaine made his way through the audience with something that was probably supposed to be a Groucho Marx walk but made him look like a waddling duck instead. It got him a few laughs- but not of the positive kind. They danced their way around the Round Room and ended up right in front of Madame Tibideaux, sing-shouting their lines at her and making their faces. Madame Tibideaux was sitting back with her arms crossed over her chest, her face a calculated blank.
Rachel and Blaine clearly had agreed on some kind of choreography, but they both seemed too eager to show off their own skills to really work as a couple. It was like their Glee club duets, only worse. Kurt didn't understand what they were trying to achieve. He had expected Rachel to go with a ballad like she had for last year's Winter Showcase. That was clearly what Madame Tibideaux liked to see from her. Trying out new things was fine, of course- but why risk it at something as important as a midterm?
The song ended with Rachel back on top of the piano and Blaine posing next to her. A polite applause followed. Then, Madame Tibideaux spoke up.
"Miss Berry. Mister Anderson. I don't recall this assignment being a duet. Apparently you both feel that you are above this class, and all that governs it."
Rachel's beaming show smile faded fast and she started stuttering an explanation. "No, Madame Tibideaux, not at all-"
"I am flunking you both," the Dean cut her off. "Next!"
Then, she shook her head as if she couldn't believe she was doing this, and added: "Wait - I am going to give you the opportunity to give me what I asked for originally. An individual performance, like every other student has given me today. Reschedule this week."
Though Rachel and Blaine had been nodding demurely like chastised children, that last remark made Rachel jump off the piano and rush to the Dean.
"I'm sorry Madame Tibideaux, it's just - I'm in the middle of tech rehearsals for my show right now…" she started to ramble.
"Ms Berry, I've said everything I have to say to you," Madame Tibideaux cut her off again. "Either you do it this week or you fail. Next!"
Kurt had followed the exchange with his mouth hanging open. What was wrong with her? Once again, she was given a second chance- a chance others would kill for- and still she wanted more? Kurt let out a deep sigh and resigned himself to yet another evening he'd be spending giving Rachel pep talks, advice and hot chocolate. He just hoped it wouldn't be tonight. He hadn't seen his band in weeks, and he had really been hoping to play off some post-midterm stress with a good rehearsal before he got back to work and started cramming for his theoretical exams. He took out his phone and texted Elliott and Dani, asking if they could meet at one of their places instead, all the while feeling like a bad friend.