𝑷𝒓𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒚 𝑩𝒐𝒚 ꨄ︎ 𝑮𝒍𝒆𝒆

Part Six [What A Wicked Game You Play]

"Hey, Cole!"

I jumped, startled. "Oh. Hey there, Kurt."

"You busy?"

"No, not really. What's up?"

"Follow me." Kurt smiled, and I couldn'y help smile back a little. Kurt has that effect on me. I crammed the last of my books back into my locker, and shut it with a push. I began walking after Kurt, wondering where on earth he could be taking me.

He pushed through a set of large thick doors that I had never payed any attention to before, and my whole body froze as I saw what was behind them. A huge stage. A million lights. Rows and rows of seats.

The auditorium.

My nightmare.

"Kurt," I choked. "What are you doing?"

He was all the way down by the stage. He smiled. "Come on. There's no one here, Cole."

"I can't be here," I muttered. Did he want me to sing on that stage? My stomach turned upside down.

Kurt reappeared with a guitar. "I got this from the choir room for you."

"Dear god." I felt like I might pass out.

"Come on... you promised." He looked up at me from the bottom of the staircase down to the stage.

I took a deep breath and sighed. It didn't help. "I take that promise back." I told him and turned around to leave.

"No." He said, putting the guitar down and running up to meet me. I had barely made it through the doors before he grabbed my arm. "It's too late for that, Cole." He told me, dragging me down to the stage. Lightly, he shoved me into a chair sitting in the smack middle of the stage and handed me the familiar instrument. "You've done it before, and you can do it again." He reassured me with a smile.

"Not here," I muttered, looking down at the guitar, not wanting to meet his eyes.

"Exactly. Progress." I heard the smile in his voice.

I took a deep breath. I could do this. I had to do this- I promised, afterall. I don't want to be that kind of guy. "Alright." I said as I always do, it helps calm me down. I shut my eyes, trying to think of a song, but my mind was just thinking about Kurt. Eventually the perfect one blew by my thoughts, and I couldn't help muttering it out loud before I could stop myself. "Wicked Game,"

"Oh, I know that one!"

Well, fuck. Now I was going to have to sing a love song in front of the guy I kind of like. Wonderful. I was nervous enough already... "I'm not surprised," I couldn't help grinning a little at his enthusiasm, however. I started strumming the tune, this was the easy part. But it didn't last forever. "The world was on fire, and no one could save me but you. It's strange what desire will make foolish people do... I never dreamed that I'd meet somebody like you, and I never dreamed that I'd lose somebody like you..." I got my shit together and mustered the courage to look at the face of the pretty boy in front of me. He had his signature happy grin spread across his smooth features and he threw a side glance to our left at the seats covered in darkness. My insides entertwined with each other and my voice got stuck in my throat at the thoughts of what that could mean. But he looked at me and placed his hand on my knee comfortingly. "It's okay," he smiled.

Comforted, staring at him, the next part came easy. "No, I don't want to fall in love. No, I don't want to fall in love... with you, with you..."

Kurt's smile faded, and his expression turned softer, into something more like understanding. "What a wicked game you play, to make me feel this way. What a wicked thing to do; to let me dream of you. What a wicked thing to say; you never felt this way... What a wicked thing to do; to make me dream of you... and I, don't want to fall in love."

The rest of the song came and went, eventually it became easy with Kurt's eyes resting on me the whole time looking more than impressed, urging me to continue. There was no way this was really working, was there...? Probably not, I bet it's just his presence in particular that helps.

"Nobody loves no one..." I sang the last line, played the last couple chords and my eyes never left his, or his mine. I felt good, for once- and not just because I was relieved the song was over. I was actually happy with what I'd done, happy that I'd done it. Singing was about expressing yourself, not making yourself want to throw up afterall. I was starting to get that.

Thanks to Kurt.

"That was amazing, Co-"

I cut him off. "Hey, Kurt?"

"Yeah?"

They say think before you speak, but I did not do that then. "Can I kiss you?"

His expression fell straight to something completely unreadable before it fell into surprise. "I- You-" He stuttered before stating, "Stop messing with me."

"I..." I muttered. "I'm not."

There were a couple more seconds of silence as he stared at me dumbfounded, as if he was struggling to believe me. But suddenly I heard a cough and froze. Kurt turned towards it knowingly, but I couldn't move. The lights turned up like as if this was some dramatic TV show and from the corner of my eye I saw three other humans sitting in the audience seats. No, I thought- no no no no no...

"Wow, Cole." The voice of Mr. Schuester echoed through the large room. "That was really impressive. I love what you did with the song, it suits it well." He complimented me. I guessed he meant the acoustic hard rock twist I put on it like one of my favorite bands, Stone Sour, did. In my opinion, it suits the song better. But like hell I was going to argue. My head was swimming and I was still frozen. My hand instictively covered my mouth as I thought, holy shit, they heard me. Oh fuck. Kill me now. Oh fuck.

To make it all worse, they'd witnessed me ask Kurt if I could kiss him. I turned my head to see who else was there, but that did the opposite of helping. My throat, my heart, my stomach, pretty much all my organs suddendly felt heavy and dropped to the ground.

Finn Hudson.

He sat there, perfectly still, his mouth open. That homophobic bastard had just heard me sing. And now, the whole football team is going to find out that I really am the faggot they accuse me of being.

This brunette chick sat on the other side of the Spanish teacher, looking incredibly pissed.

I stood up, too fast, and made myself dizzier than I already was. I felt like crying, screaming, and retching out my insides all at once.

"We need you in the Glee Club, man." Mr. Schue continued, his arms stretched out by his sides in a welcoming manner. I felt like I could hit someone. "What the fuck, Kurt," is all I managed to say.

"Look, Cole, you performed in front of four people..." He tried to rationalize, but it was quiet and not filled with much of his usual confidence. He probably took my initial reaction as a bad one and realised I wouldn't take anything he said very well. And he'd be right, because I didn't.

I couldn't believe he'd done this to me. He knew how I felt about singing... and people... and Glee... did he want me to hurl? To burst into tears? To be so embarrassed I'd consider plunging a knife into my own heart? "Fuck you. Fuck all of you." Was all I could say, my resolution of trying not to be rude to Kurt going right out the window.

So I did the one thing my body was screaming at me to do for a minute now.

I ran.

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