Sept. 28, 2012, 10:14 a.m.
New York, New York: Chapter 6
E - Words: 2,265 - Last Updated: Sep 28, 2012 Story: Closed - Chapters: 17/? - Created: Jun 24, 2012 - Updated: Sep 28, 2012 305 0 0 0 0
The first rays of sunlight fell through the window, gently touching the two entwined bodies on the couch. The blanket was more on the floor than it was covering the sleepers and the positions they were in didn't look comfortable or healthy. Even so neither of them stirred until a particularly daring sunbeam wandered higher and higher, until it fell on the boy's face.
Ever so slowly, Kurt blinked his eyes open, bit by bit becoming aware of his surroundings. His brain was still too sleep-addled to process his whereabouts and he looked around the room in confusion. Just when he was about to stand up and see if he would find the bathroom in his half-awake state, he finally noticed the still sleeping figure splayed on top of him.
Despite the fact that sunlight was falling right onto her face, Tash showed no signs of waking up any time soon. After last night's heart-to-heart Kurt wouldn't actually mind lying like this all too much, if it weren't for his protesting bladder. On top of which his roommate happened to lie.
Nature's urges left him with no choice but to try and wake her. That turned out to be one of the most difficult tasks he'd ever been set. No amount of shaking and telling her to wake up did anything to rouse her from her sleep. He even tried tickling her but there was no reaction at all. She might as well have been dead if it hadn't been for the fact that she was still breathing.
In the end, Kurt found himself out of options. The only thing left to do was stand up and throw her off the couch. He really didn't want to do that but it seemed that he had no choice. Either that or ruin that perfectly white piece of furniture while simultaneously humiliating himself to a degree even the jocks at McKinley had never accomplished.
Sighing to himself, Kurt took a deep breath and swiftly stood up. He almost cried out in relief as the pressure on his bladder disappeared, nearly missing the muffled cry the girl currently splayed on the floor uttered. Tash blearily blinked up at him, disheveled hair standing up everywhere and eyes still heavy with sleep.
"Where am I?" she mumbled, trying to stand up and failing gloriously. Amused, Kurt held out his hand to help her get up. She missed the first few times she tried to grab it but finally got it right on the fourth try. Kurt had to refrain from laughing out loud. This was just adorable. He'd never met anyone so out of it when just awoken. And that was saying a lot, considering he'd lived with Finn and woken up next to Blaine.
"You're in your room, in our apartment. We're in New York, if that helps."
She blinked at him three, four, five times and at last something akin to recognition settled in her eyes. She frowned at him before looking down at herself, finally realizing the state she was in. The death glare she was shooting in his direction looked very much not frightening with her red hair surrounding her head like a lion's mane.
"Jerk," she growled, rubbing her eyes one last time before stumbling back to the couch and curling up under the blanket she grabbed from the floor.
"Someone's not much of a morning person," Kurt chirped, enjoying the fact that he hardly had any problems waking in the morning thoroughly. It was always a useful weapon against sleepyheads. He had lost count of the many times he'd been able to convince Finn to do him a favor by annoying him to no end early in the morning. Preferably before the first cup of coffee.
"Leave me alone. Don't talk to me before I had my coffee. Go away and make me some," was the muffled reply he got, Tash's head already buried in a pillow again. Chuckling to himself, Kurt decided to follow the order since he could really need some coffee, too. And as much fun as it was to tease her when she was like this, Kurt preferred the Tash he could actually have a conversation with.
Thirty minutes later they had made themselves comfortable on the floor in front of the couch (white furniture and coffee stains didn't go well together, after all, and Tash's coordination was not to be trusted before the first cup). Kurt had been shooed out of his own apartment to get them some bagels. When he had protested that he wanted to shower before he set a foot out of the door his roommate had lazily thrown pillows in his direction and pouted until he finally gave in and compromised on quickly washing his face over the sink before leaving.
So there they were, Tash still in her pajamas, Kurt at least somewhat acceptably dressed, both nursing a huge mug of coffee and a bagel with cream cheese, eyes glued to the TV.
"I can't believe I'm watching Blue's Clues right now," Kurt muttered under his breath, his eyes following the animated dog almost against his will.
"Psst! It's just getting interesting," Tash hissed back, completely fascinated with the 'plot' of the show.
"Why are we even watching this?" Kurt asked, truly curious. He had no idea how they'd ended up watching a TV show for children while drinking their coffee in their first apartment in New York, less than three days away from their first day at college.
"Because it's Blue's Clues. You don't ask people why they're watching Disney, do you?"
"I don't think you can compare those two."
"Right. Blue would win any day."
For a second, Kurt stared at his roommate as if she'd grown a second head. Then he decided that it probably wasn't worth it to comment and settled for just watching the show. For some reason it was oddly fascinating and in no time at all, he found himself screaming at the screen along with Tash. He felt at the same time incredibly stupid and thrilled, a mixture he was well acquainted with. It was how he felt around Blaine a lot of the time, how he'd felt right from the start, even before love had began to earnestly play a part in the equation. Only this time around there was no need to impress.
"I can't believe that! This is the single most obvious hint in the world! If your child doesn't get this, you should probably drag it to a doctor!" Tash screamed at the TV, effectively interrupting his thought process. Or maybe it was the bagel that nearly ended up in his face due to her wild gesturing.
"Pay attention to where you put that bagel, young lady! This may not be the most expensive outfit I've ever worn but I still don't appreciate getting cream cheese all over my Marc Jacobs jeans."
"Someone's being bitchy in the morning! Drink your coffee and enjoy the show, Hummel!" she laughed at him.
"That has nothing to do with it being morning. More with your food almost getting on my clothes," Kurt complained, trying to suppress the smile threatening to spread on his face.
"Whatever you say. I loved this show when I was younger. It's still cute but I somehow get the feeling that guy might be a bit on the wrong side of high..."
"Does he ever change that shirt? It's a fashion sin as it is but it somehow looks like he's been sleeping in it..."
"I think we might fare better if we stick with Blue and mostly ignore Steve."
The rest of the day was pretty much the same. Once they were through with children's TV they switched to reality shows, only getting up from the couch to make a trip to the bathroom or get something to eat from the kitchen. Whenever they got fed up with TV they'd shuffle through someone's iPod and sing along until one of them suggested a show or film they hadn't watched yet.
Sometime around four the thought occurred to Kurt that it was probably a shame that he spent his third day in New York lazing around on a couch watching reality shows. But he couldn't find it in him to mind. After all, they'd have a few years at the very least to explore the city and it was raining outside, anyway. They had originally planned to make the trip to Ellis Island and they'd wanted to visit the Statue of Liberty but they most certainly didn't want to put that plan to action when it was such bad weather outside.
Thus they just stayed in, doing nothing. Around eight they decided that they were too hungry to survive the rest of the night on snacks only. Since neither of them was in a mood to cook something they ordered take-out again. The delivery boy took it surprisingly well when they greeted him with the mail song from Blue's Clues. Kurt supposed that he probably got to see weirder things than that when delivering in a city the size of New York.
Only moments after they'd made themselves comfortable on the floor again with their pizza, Tash's phone started ringing. Since both of her hands were occupied at the moment she just looked at Kurt.
"You want me to pick up your phone?"
"Duh, of course. My hands are sort of occupied with a giant slice of delicious pizza and I'm not willing to put it down. Just put it on speaker."
Kurt just rolled his eyes. Trust him to find a girl for a roommate that had Finn's eating habits when it came to pizza. Pointing that out probably wouldn't help him, though, so he just grabbed for the device and did as he'd been told.
"Hey darling."
"Hi love," Tash chirped in the general direction of the phone before taking a good bite of her pizza. She moaned at the taste, her eyes rolling back in her head. It was quite an amusing sight, actually.
Rowena seemed to have heard it on the other end of the line, too. "Are you eating pizza again?"
Since Tash seemed busy with her food, Kurt took the liberty to answer. "In fact, she is."
"Oh, hi. You must be Kurt. I'm Rowena, in case you couldn't tell. Nice to sort of meet you."
"The pleasure's all mine. I don't assume Tash is going to stop eating anytime soon, so either you call later or you'll have to bear with me for a while, I fear."
"I don't mind talking to you for a bit. After all, you're the guy who gets to live together with my girlfriend. She wouldn't shut up about you. So I'm just going to assume that you're interesting enough to keep me entertained."
Kurt rolled his eyes. "I can see how the two of you work out together. You're both so nice and shy and not bossy in the least."
"Speak for yourself, Queen Bitch!" Tash managed to get out between two bites, immediately returning to devouring another size. Since they'd been acting so maturely all day, Kurt just stuck his tongue out and focused his attention back on his phone conversation.
"I guess you need some sass to survive Tash. She can be worse than a natural disaster. A very cuddly natural disaster."
"That she is. Is there any way to get her to wake up in the morning without throwing her off the surface she's been sleeping on?"
"Oh, so you've already slept together. And you've been telling me that you wanted to wait and sexually deprived me for months. I'm disappointed in you, Miss Bolschoi."
Tash snorted into her pizza before quickly swallowing so she could answer. "If I remember correctly, you were the one who wouldn't put out for me. And it doesn't really count because we didn't sleep in a bed. It was only my white couch."
"Oh well, if that's so. I know you wouldn't ruin that one. So, how's your day been? Assuming that you spent it together."
So they told her everything about their incredibly lazy day in - not that there was that much to tell - and Rowena basically delivered a report on the book she was currently reading. It probably sounded unbelievably boring to everyone else, but Kurt thought it was really interesting. Not just because that particular book had been on his to-read list for who knew how long but also because Rowena had a really intriguing way of telling a story.
Once the last slice of pizza had been eaten, Kurt excused himself to his own room, leaving his roommate and her girlfriend to a more private conversation while making himself comfortable in his bed, laptop within arm's reach, waiting for Blaine to call him on Skype. Not fifteen minutes later Blaine was being filled in on the oh so exciting details of their day, doubling over in hysterics at the image of Kurt screaming at the screen while watching Blue's Clues.
"Honestly, I don't even want to know what you had to say to poor Steve's clothes. Good thing he can't hear you or you'd probably have brought him to tears."
"He doesn't need my comments to burst into tears. One sober look in the mirror would be enough."
They promptly cracked up again. Blaine insisted on not ending the call but this time he was the one that nearly fell asleep while still talking, so Kurt ordered him to get some sleep and call him tomorrow. Maybe he and Tash would really be visiting Ellis Island the next day and he promised Blaine livetexting if he admitted defeat and went to bed before he'd have ugly keyboard marks on his cheek.
That night sleep claimed him the minute he put away the laptop and turned off the lights.