Just Around The Corner

8

After a rather grey evening at home in both the literal and figurative sense, coming to school the next morning was a shock on Kurt and Rachel's systems. It seemed that a third of the population at Pleasantville High School had become technicolored over night.

"Do you think it was the sex?" Kurt wondered. He didn't know whether or not he wanted it to be. On the one hand, that meant it would be a long while until he turned colors. On the other hand, it would be definite prove that Rachel and Blaine hadn't done it, seeing as how both of them were still in black and white as well.

Rachel shook her head. "I know for a fact that some of the people that have had sex are still grey." She didn't say how she knew this.

A fully colored Lisa Anne skipped by them and gave a happy little wave.

"What was it then?"

"I don't know," Rachel admitted. "Turning into a three dimensional character? But then, we'd both be in color."

"Are you sure you would be?" Kurt teased. Rachel grinned and shoved him lightly. "Maybe it's a love of life? Or overcoming some sort of obstacle or fear? Maybe all the people who turned colors having sex were really afraid to do it."

Rachel furrowed her brow. "That sounds horrible."

"Yeah," Kurt admitted, "it kind of does. Not what I meant, though."

"No, I got that." Rachel bit her lip. "What kind of obstacle do we need to overcome, then? What fears do we need to face?"

"I don't know about you, but I face my fears every morning just by putting on this outfit."

Rachel snorted. She looked up at him in thought. "I think you need to come out of the closet."

Kurt scoffed. "I already came out."

"You're being obtuse on purpose," Rachel said accusingly. "Maybe we both need to come out."

"Me as gay and you as Jewish?" Kurt guessed, echoing their earlier conversation. "I know we're okay with rocking the boat, but there's rocking the boat and there's turning it over on its head."

"You don't think people are ready to deal with it?"

"I know they're not."

As soon as he'd said it, Kurt knew it was a mistake. There was that light back in Rachel's eye, that signaled her incessant need to prove everyone around her wrong.

"I'll do it first," she offered. "I'll skip church next Sunday, citing religious reasons. Then, when civilization doesn't collapse, you can come out of the closet and finally teach our peers the wonders of gay sex!"

Kurt was silent for a long while. "I can't decide," he finally said, "whether this is standard Rachel Berry behavior or a horrible joke."

"You'll see," Rachel exclaimed. "I'll show you."

She swirled around to do her usual storming off, only to bump into the geometry teacher and send both of them flying. Kurt stood there for a moment, savoring it, then bent down and helped Mrs. Peters to her feet. Rachel shot him a deadly glare, got up by herself and finished storming off.

"Thank you, Bud," Mrs. Peters sighed. "I just don't understand the hurry with you children these days. It used to be that no one would run in the hallways."

"Mary Sue's a special case," Kurt assured her.

Mrs. Peters glanced at the clock on the wall. "Oh goodness, and I'm almost too late to the teachers' meeting."

Teachers' meeting? Kurt raised an eyebrow. He hadn't heard of the teachers holding morning meetings before. Maybe it was standard practice and he just hadn't noticed before, but there were alarms going off in his head. As soon as Mrs. Peters turned the corner, he followed her.

She skittered into the teachers' lounge, conveniently leaving the door open just a crack. Kurt pressed himself against the wall next to it, thankful for the fact that the lounge was in an almost vacant part of the school.

"-can't go on much longer," he heard one of the teachers saying. Kurt hadn't bothered to learn most of their names but it was definitely a woman.

"The children are reading," another person exclaimed. "They keep taking books out of the library. I checked the school rules to see if that was allowed and it is, but I just don't know."

"And the colors." This was definitely Coach and he didn't sound quite as amazed by it as he had last week by the pink rose. "Why, half the team is fully colored now and it's affecting their performance. At this rate, we're going to lose the big game. We never lose the big game."

"A student just ran into me in the hallway," Mrs. Peters lamented. "It's becoming unsafe for us to walk around the school. That's not to mention all the questions." There was a murmur of agreements. "Last Wednesday, a girl asked me what was outside of Pleasantville. How am I supposed to answer that?"

Kurt pulled away, having heard enough. The teachers were displeased but ineffectual. Not one of them had what it took to discipline a classroom full of real teenagers.

But what if this was just the tip of the iceberg? He didn't know yet how the other adults in Pleasantville were reacting to all the recent changes. Could the others handle it if their parents turned against them? Or the police?

Hopefully it wouldn't come to that.

---

While the police didn't arrive to interrogate them that evening, Kurt found himself alone in the living room with George after dinner. Betty had called for Rachel to help her with the dishes, which in on itself wasn't so unusual but the nervous look on George's face certainly was.

George indicated for Kurt to sit opposite him. "We need to have a little chat, son."

Kurt sat down, feeling both curious and apprehensive. "Yeah?"

"Bud," George started, "perhaps you've been noticing certain changes around here."

"You mean people changing color," Kurt clarified.

George looked supremely uncomfortable. "Well, yes. I talked to Bob today," he smiled proudly, "the Mayor, that is, and we agreed that in times such as these, the most important thing is to keep up the family values and stay a strong and upstanding citizen. So I want you to know, and Mary Sue too, of course, that if you feel even the slightest tingle of a change, you can come right to me or your mother."

Kurt pressed his lips together. "So in other words, we should try our best to stay black and white."

George nodded, pleased to have gotten his message across clearly.

"What if we don't want to?" Kurt asked quietly.

George's face fell. "Don't want to?"

"Have you seen any of the colored people?" At George's hesitant nod, Kurt smiled. "Don't they look happier? More beautiful? They were pleasant before but now they're something else."

"Son," George pleaded, "you and Mary Sue, you're such goshdarn wonderful people. Why would you want to change that?"

"Because we could be more."

Kurt stood up and George followed his movements with those big, lost eyes of his far too young for the rest of his face.

"I'm glad we had this talk," Kurt said. He patted George's shoulder and went up to his room.

---

"Hand me the rest of the plates, would you dear?"

Rachel obeyed, sighing at the unfairness of it all. Here she was, stuck in the kitchen, while Kurt got to walk away scott-free just because he was a boy.

"Mary Sue?"

"What?" Rachel snapped.

Betty's eyes, which had been focused on Rachel, darted quickly down to the dishes again. "I suppose you've noticed what's been going on lately."

"The colors?" Rachel guessed.

"Yes," Betty said quietly. She handed Rachel one more dish and pulled her hands out of the sink. "Do you know why it's been happening?"

Rachel had been half-expecting an interrogation but Betty sounded so genuinely curious. "I'm not quite sure what causes people to change. I think it's because they're discovering who they are, and each other. Through sex, mostly, but other things too."

"Oh."

'Three, two, one...'

"What's sex?"

Rachel clenched the washcloth in her hand. This had to be easier the second time around. At least without Kurt, she had to seriously cut down on the musical numbers. "Well, mom. Do you know the difference between a man and a woman?"

---

A while after Rachel's explanation, Betty stood by the kitchen counter, staring sadly into nothing. Rachel took the opportunity to put the rest of the dishes away.

"Are you okay?" she finally asked.

"I am," Betty said in a voice that showed she was anything but. "It's just... your father would never do something like that."

Rachel sat down by the dinner table. She'd already explained sex to her supposed mother. What was one more mortifying speech, really? "You could always do it by yourself."

Betty looked up at Rachel, her eyes watery but full of hope.

---

"You taught our mother how to masturbate?"

Rachel flinched, looking around to see if anyone else in the hallway had heard. "She's not actually our mother, you know. And besides, all I did was teach her how to love herself."

"This is beyond weird," Kurt whimpered. "I'm pretty sure she's already done it, too, because the bathroom went from grey to fully colored in one night."

"You're being close-minded," Rachel accused. "The first step to sexual liberation is self-love. I talked about it during my seminar."

"For fifteen minutes." Kurt shuddered. "With appropriate hand movements and visual aid."

Rachel grinned. "Bill really did an outstanding job on that series, didn't he? I was thinking we could recruit him again when we hold our next lesson."

"Mr. Johnson's not really interested in realistic paintings anymore. Last I knew, he was experimenting with impressionism." Kurt frowned. "No, wait, expressionism."

"Whatever," Rachel handwaved. "The important thing is that there's going to be another lesson."

"I guess," Kurt grumbled. "So long as it's-"

"At your own speed," Rachel finished for him. "You've told me already, Kurt, but your own speed is glacial."

Kurt crossed his arms. "Don't you have geography?"

Rachel sweetly flipped him the bird and walked off.

"This place has terrible influence on you," Kurt yelled after her.

"Does it now?"

Kurt put his hand over his heart, glaring at Blaine who'd just showed up next to him. "You've got to stop that." He looked to where Rachel had disappeared around the corner then back to Blaine. "Wait, are you hiding from her?"

Blaine's guilty expression gave him away. "Not hiding."

"Just avoiding." Kurt was not going to be happy about this. No way. He was far too classy for schadenfreude. "I would've thought after you two had sex that you'd be closer than ever."

Blaine's eyes widened. "We didn't have sex."

"Oh." Kurt smiled despite his best efforts. "Not that Mary Sue told me you did, I just assumed something had happened."

"Nothing happened," Blaine said empathetically.

Kurt nodded, trying to look unaffected. He was unaffected. This didn't concern him in the least. "Didn't you want to?"

An unreadable expression crossed Blaine's face. "I suppose-"

"Don't suppose," Kurt interrupted. "Just tell me what you felt."

"Not really," Blaine admitted. "I like kissing Mary Sue. It's nice. But I can't imagine wanting to do anything more."

"Nice," Kurt deadpanned. "I don't have the most experience, in fact all of my kisses have ranged from dull to terrifying, but I'm pretty sure that if you're kissing the right person, it should be more than just nice."

Blaine worried his lower lip between his teeth. "But I've always liked Mary Sue that way."

The bell rang, cutting off Kurt's response.

"We'll talk about this later," he swore.

He ran around the corner, almost bumping into Rachel. She stood leaning against the wall, her arms crossed and her expression furious.

Which could only mean one thing.

"You were eavesdropping."

"And you were trying to convince my boyfriend to break up with me," Rachel hissed. "I can't believe you'd try and pull something like this on me again. At least with Finn, we hadn't become friends yet."

Kurt scowled. "You mean the same Finn you were calling the love of your life just two weeks ago?"

"That's got nothing to do with this," Rachel argued.

"You're right," Kurt agreed. "So quit comparing him to Blaine. Finn is straight."

Rachel clenched her jaw. "So is Blaine. Don't forget that he was made to be my love interest."

Kurt laughed, the sound completely devoid of joy or humor. "He was made to be Mary Sue's love interest. You're not Mary Sue and this Blaine is not the same Blaine who wanted to ask her out or give her his school pin. He's a different person."

"Maybe," Rachel grudgingly allowed. "But he's no less straight than he was before, so you need to back off Blaine and respect our relationship."

"I wasn't hitting on your boyfriend," Kurt groaned, his traitorous mind adding: 'Not today anyway.'

"I just wanted to make sure." Rachel flashed him a tiny smirk. "I know you've had issues with boundaries in the past."

Issues with boundaries. Those words hit Kurt like a slap across the face. Reality began to sink in. Was she right? Had he been projecting something onto Blaine, the way he had with Finn and Sam? Only seeing what he wanted to see, using every opportunity to cultivate that image in his mind. Had he been making Blaine uncomfortable all along with his long eye contacts and inappropriate closeness? He'd been so sure that it was reciprocated, but what if he was wrong?

He couldn't afford it if he was wrong. Rachel was right, he needed to back off.