Well, here's the second chapter! This is going to be a short fic, maybe 5 or 6 chapters. this next one is quite a bit longer than the last one. Enjoy and review!
The Bells of New York City
Chapter 2
With much excited chatter the Anderson-Berrys and company began taking their carry-on bags from the overhead compartments and filed out of the plane to stand on the tarmac, which Rachel and Kurt insisted on taking a picture of because it was the first time on NYC soil and after a good 45 minutes, during which Marcus argued with the woman at the taxi service because the SUV they had hired wasn't available yet, they were on the way to their hotel. In the car, Marcus and Theo gave up trying to keep the kids separated in favor of having a seat to themselves. Theo smiled and slid his hand into his husband's.
"Thanks for dealing with the taxi service." He said softly.
Marcus grinned, "If I had let you do it we would have had to walk to the hotel." He replied, giving his lover's hand an affectionate squeeze.
Theo's distaste for confrontation with people in the service industry was a long standing joke between them and they spent several minutes lost in shared memories before Rachel's harpy-like screech broke the spell.
"Jeff, that hurts and you're MESSING UP MY HAIR!"
The couple turned around to find that Blaine's best friend, Jeff Sterling, had their oldest child in a headlock as he attempted to give her what appeared to be a nuggie while Blaine blocked Kurt from helping her. Theo sighed, steeling himself.
"Jeff, please release my daughter." He said calmly "Rachel stop screaming, we are in a car not a theater."
Theo never had to raise his voice to get his point across to anyone. The four teenagers adjusted themselves until they were facing the front of the car and began to talk to each other civilly almost instantly.
After what seemed like an eternity in New York traffic, they arrived at the posh hotel. The lobby was vast with a fountain in the center and the bellhops' polished shoes clicked on the marble floors.
While Blaine and Rachel's dads went to check in, the four teenagers hung back and began to just observe the splendor.
"Dude, look at the chandelier!" Jeff exclaimed. "Fifty bucks if you swing from it."
"Absolutely not. I might be adventurous, but I don't have a death wish. That banister on the other hand…" Blaine trailed off, shooting Jeff.
The tall blonde boy, who had been reading Blaine's mind from the day they met, had no trouble finishing his thought. "Made for sliding."
Hearing this exchange, Rachel and Kurt looked up from their debate as to whether the woman sitting in the lobby was wearing Dolce or Jimmy Choos on her slender feet to glare at the pair.
"If either one of you does anything to screw up my seeing Wicked, I will die your hair purple in your sleep." Kurt said. His trademark deadpan delivery stunning the younger boys for several seconds.
Seeming to recover, Jeff opened his mouth to offer up a snappy retort, but Kurt cut him off. "Actually, Sterling, I think I'll just shave all yours off. Eyebrows too."
Jeff let out a horrified squeak that would have lost him serious bro points if anyone on the lacrosse team had heard it, and ran his hand to smooth his shaggy blonde mane.
"Shhh, baby he didn't mean it." He murmured.
After a pause in which no one was sure if he was kidding, Jeff grinned and then the four of them burst in to a fit of loud laughter that echoed in the cavernous room.
At that moment, the two older men came toward them, waving the key cards for the large suite that awaited them upstairs.
"Dad." Blaine said as they entered the room. A stunned expression on his face "This is nicer than our house."
All of them were looking around in awe at the hotel room, all though the word room was inadequate. First of all it wasn't a single room but five. Two bedrooms, a sitting area, a small kitchen and an immense bathroom made up what would be their living quarters for this week.
All of them, Theo and Marcus included, had fun exploring. Each bedroom had a huge king sized bed with sheets that had to have an off-the-charts thread count, the chairs and long table in the sitting area where plush and of an elegant design, but the bathroom was their favorite.
The shower had about 17 different settings, and Kurt couldn't resist mentioning that it reminded him of the bath in the prefect's washroom from Harry Potter which earned him a shocked expression from Blaine.
Once the suite had been thoroughly surveyed, they unpacked their things. Rachel, Kurt, and Blaine fussed with their clothes so that they were hung or folded just right while Jeff merely threw all his into a drawer.
By the time they were settled in, it was nearly dark and Marcus and Theo called the kids into the sitting area.
"Now, I want you all to listen very carefully to what Marcus and I are about to say." Theo said, a serious expression. "We have decided that we are going to let you go out on your own this evening."
There was a great commotion of cheers that Marcus silenced with an outstretched hand. "Don't get too excited there are some rules." He said, holding up a finger for each one as he named them. "Number one: you will go where we tell you and only where we tell you. Number two: you will be back at a prearranged time and if you can't make it for whatever reason you are to call."
"And number three," Theo cut in, "You will behave yourself in a manner that is befitting of four responsible young adults at all times while out of our sight."
"Of course, Daddy." Rachel said affectionately.
"Where are we going?" Jeff asked, ever the bottom line seeker.
"Tonight the four of you will be attending Mainstream. It's a club for people under 21."
The room once again erupted into cheers. Telling a group of teenagers who spent most of their time striving to be the center of attention to a dance club was like inviting a small child to run amuck in a toy store.
And after a flurry of activity while they all got ready, distributing of funds for the cover charge, and repeated reminders to be careful because this wasn't Lima, the group was packed into a cab and on their way to their evening.
As soon as the door clicked closed, Theo grabbed his husband around the middle and pressed their lips together in a fierce kiss.
When they came up for air, Marcus smirked. "Mr. Berry, you should at least buy me dinner first." He admonished playfully.
"Deal." said Theo and began to pull Marcus out the door, both of them laughing.
"Oh my God, I have got to text Mercedes and Tina; they are going to be so jealous." said Kurt, as they pulled up to the club entrance.
"Picture!" Rachel said holding her camera out until the four of them had crowded into the viewfinder and snapped a photo. This was a mark of how the rest of the night would go it turned out.
When they weren't dancing for all they were worth Rachel had her camera out. "I am preserving memories!" she would insist when they protested.
Toward the end of the evening, Blaine abandoned Kurt and Jeff on the dance floor to join his sister on one of the plush couches that surrounded it.
"Having fun?" he asked when he caught his breath, nudging Rachel's shoulder as he did so.
"The time of my life," she replied with a big smile. "I do wish that Finn where here but, he wouldn't find most of this stuff interesting anyway." She said, shrugging off her boyfriend's absence, although he could tell she really did wish that he were here. She had texted him as soon as they had gotten off the plane.
"Well on the bright side, when you get back, the two of you can have some great reunion sex." Blaine quipped, his smile devilish.
Rachel swatted him on the arm. "I think that Sterling boy is a bad influence on you. You used to be as pure as the driven snow and now all you ever talk about is sex." She scolded. "Besides, Finn and I haven't reached that milestone in our relationship, thank you very much."
Blaine laughed. For someone so outgoing, his sister was kind of a prude. He felt his phone buzz in his pocket and pulled it out to check the text.
"That was Daddy. Thirty minute warning." He said. "We had better round up the troops. Where did they get to anyway?"
The siblings started looking around for their friends. Soon the crowd parted to reveal Kurt dancing with a handsome Asian boy with purple tipped hair and Blaine's brain short-circuited. Man that kid could move. He shook his head to clear it quickly though. "Your sister's best friend." he reminded himself.
He finally spotted Jeff a few feet away and laughed. The tall blonde boy was attempting to teach a group of girls how to tango on the fringes of the crowd. He had them all laughing because he had folded a flyer from the wall into a paper rose and was dancing flamboyantly with it clenched in his teeth.
" I'll get Kurt. You are on your own with pulling Jeff away from his fan club." Rachel declared.
"I get no help at all?" Blaine asked with an exasperated expression. Jeff was notoriously difficult to convince it was time to leave.
"He's your friend. A fact which still puzzles me to this day." Rachel shot back, rolling her eyes.
"Oh, you like him and you know it. Remember when Grandpa Berry had his heart attack when we were little and he pulled your hair because he said he'd rather you be mad at him than cry? And he was only 12 then"
Rachel smiled a little at the memory. "Yeah…okay fine, I'll help."
"That's better."
In another ten minutes they were in the cab on the way back to the hotel. Rachel called their dads who met them in the lobby. None of them expected to get any sleep because of all the excitement but within an hour or so, everyone in the suite was fast asleep. Rachel, Blaine, Kurt, and Jeff all piled up on one bed and Marcus and Theo in the other.
Everyone rose late the next morning and talked of nothing but the events of the day ahead at brunch. They spent the entire afternoon just sightseeing and shopping.
When they reached the top of the Empire State Building, Rachel turned to Blaine. "Look Blaine, you don't have to look up at anyone from here!"
"You're an inch and a half shorter than me, Ray." He pointed out with a look of annoyance.
"Not in these heels I'm not." she said popping her foot up to display her tiny kitten heels.
Blaine, who had always been faster than his sister, snatched her shoe off her foot and threatened to throw it over the side of the building. After calmly pointing out that this would kill someone and that he wouldn't get to go to the Yankee's game on Saturday if he committed involuntary manslaughter, Kurt plucked the shoe out of Blaine's grasp and handed it to Rachel.
After that, they went back to the hotel to change for the show. The volume of their voices increased as the time got closer. Even Jeff, who wasn't as into musical theater as the rest, was in a blusterous mood. Kurt and the Anderson-Berrys had something of a penchant for infectious moods.
After a quick dinner at a nearby restaurant and more traffic, all the occupants of the car seemed to take a collective breath as they pulled in front of the theater where they would be seeing an actual Broadway show.