Kurt Hummel has been cast as a regular in a new pilot for ABC. The as-yet-untitled ensemble musical will follow the lives of friends living in New York who are trying to make careers on Broadway. Sources describe it as a mixture of Friends and Smash, though hopefully it's a little more of the former and not so much the messiness of the later.

Word is that Kurt accepted the role after producers agreed to make some changes to his character and promised to make his schedule flexible enough so that he can remain on Broadway as Woody in Toy Story, the Musical, where he just signed a contract for a second year.

Just last week it was leaked that Kurt had turned down the role of Austin in the upcoming film version of The Devil You Know, reportedly due to the filming schedule that would have prevented him from remaining with Toy Story.

Kurt lives in New York with boyfriend and former bodyguard, Blaine Anderson, who recently began teaching at the prestigious Carlisle Academy, where he… — HWoodInsider, February 10th, 2021

=^..^=

February

It was the Friday before Valentine's Day and love (and glitter) was in the air.

The kindergarten classroom was buzzing with activity. The kids had brought valentines to give out and the stampede was on to get them all distributed so that they could have the cupcakes that were calling to them from the back of the room. A playlist of some of Blaine's favorite love songs was playing in the background as the kids walked along the walls of the room, slipping their little paper cards into the large decorated envelopes they'd made the day before and personalized with their names in glitter glue.

Everything was going smoothly at the moment, though it was a hard fought thing. Soon after arriving for the day, Madison had come to Blaine to say that she'd forgotten her valentines at home and she'd tearfully declared that the day was ruined. Prepared for just such a catastrophe, Blaine had reached into his bottom desk drawer and pulled out a small bag filled with several boxes of valentines for her to choose from. Madison gazed at him as if he was her hero and picked the box of Littlest Pet Shop cards, skipping back to her seat at the table to start putting names on them.

He'd also had to explain to two of the kids that, yes, they had to give a valentine to everyone in class if they were going to participate in the fun—no giving them out to just a select few. Elijah had declared that he only wanted to give cards out to the "pretty" girls because he "didn't want the ugly ones to get the wrong idea" (Blaine had cringed and made a mental note to research some lessons he could give the kids to counteract some of the misogyny a few of them seemed to be learning at home) and Amy Lynn had protested that she only wanted to give them to the "cool" kids.

After a quick talk and Blaine's firm reaffirmation that they had to treat everyone in the class equally, they'd reluctantly agreed to give out all of their pre-printed cartoon valentines. Blaine kept a watchful eye on both of them, though, as they stopped at each envelope to drop a card in, not putting it past them (especially Elijah, who definitely liked to test his authority) to still try and get around the rules he'd laid down.

The valentine distribution was about halfway done when Blaine heard a light knock behind him. He glanced back and felt his heart leap in his chest when he saw Kurt waving at him from the hallway. He rushed over and yanked the door open.

"Kurt!" Blaine grabbed his hand and pulled him into the classroom with an breathless laugh. "What are you doing here?"

Kurt grinned and unwound his scarf from his neck. "You said you were having story time today and I thought I'd come and offer my services. I hope I'm not intruding."

Blaine's face softened. "Never."

Kurt had stayed away from the school for the first part of the year, wanting to let Blaine find his place and get to know everyone without the famous boyfriend around, but as the new year had started he'd began to pop up every once and a while. Usually it was just to meet Blaine at the end of the day to walk home together, though. This was the first time he'd come when the kids were there.

Blaine could feel 15 pairs of questioning eyes on them, so he drew Kurt in close with a hand on his waist and turned to the class.

"Hey everyone," he called out, stopping the valentine march around the room, "I'd like to introduce you to someone. This is my boyfriend, Kurt. Kurt, this is the afternoon kindergarten class." He proceeded to name the kids off one-by-one. The kids smiled and waved and Kurt waved back.

It wasn't a surprise to any of the kids that his significant other was a man. The dean had told him it was, of course, up to him if he wanted to tell people (those who didn't already know) or keep his private life quiet, but that the school had no issues with him discussing the subject with his students.

On his first day teaching kindergarten he'd put a photo of him and Kurt out on his desk and he'd talked about Kurt when the class had done a family tree project a few weeks later. The kids had all taken the revelation so much in stride that he wondered if their parents had all prepped them ahead of time.

"So, what's going on here?" Kurt asked as he took in the ring of students and the hanging envelopes.

"The kids are handing out valentines and then we're going to eat cupcakes before we make valentines for their parents."

Kurt's face lit up. "Cupcakes? Then I came at just the right time. Do you need any help?"

Blaine glanced around the room thoughtfully. "You could get the cupcakes out of the boxes while the kids finish up here." He tipped his head towards the waiting pastry boxes in the back of the room.

"That I can do." Kurt glanced around quickly before sneaking in a quick kiss to Blaine's cheek and heading towards the back table.

Fighting a silly grin that he knew would just get him teased endlessly, Blaine turned his attention back to the matter at hand. Within 10 minutes they were all finished up and the kids were sitting cross-legged around the room on the floor with their full envelopes at their feet and cupcakes in hand.

The room was quiet for the first time all day as everyone made short work of the treats. Blaine walked around with a little trash can to collect the cupcake wrappers, while Kurt followed along behind with a stack of wet wipes to take care of any stray frosting. Once everything was cleaned up, the kids dug into their cards, squealing excitedly at the different designs and comparing what each of them had gotten.

Blaine reached into his own envelope to pull out a handful of cards. He read each one with a smile before passing it on to Kurt, who read them before stacking them neatly near his knee. Few of the cards were personalized with more than just his name, but most had a pre-printed joke or pun that greatly amused Blaine's inner five-year old.

He reached into the envelope again and pulled out another handful. Almost all of the cards were small and made of simple double-sided cardstock, but he looked down to find one larger card inside an expensive feeling envelope. It was sealed with a red heart sticker and had his name scrawled elegantly across the front in beautiful handwriting.

With a confused look in Kurt's direction, Blaine slid his finger along the opening to break the seal and drew the card out. Jameson, one of the more outgoing kids in the class, saw him holding the card and called out "My mom asked me to give you that, Mr. A" before returning his attention to his friends.

Blaine opened the card, which had a cartoon bear with hearts in its eyes holding a bouquet of roses on the front, and felt his face flush as he read the contents. He looked up at Kurt with wide eyes before blinking exaggeratedly several times.

The card was plucked from his fingers by Kurt, who was looking at it with a gleeful smile. "Okay, what's the smitten mom got to say?" Kurt had gotten a lot better about the female attention Blaine tended to get, coming a long way from the jealousy he'd shown at the New Year's party they'd attended a few years before. Now he tended to just be amused and seemed to enjoy teasing Blaine about how he'd be such a player if he was straight. "I can't bear keeping silent any longer. I've got a crush on you," Kurt whispered, reading the pre-printed section of the card before continuing on to the handwritten section. "Mr. Anderson, I've never done anything like this before, but I can't stop thinking about you. I'm embarrassed to say I'm jealous of my six-year old because he gets to spend part of every day with you while I only get glimpses. I know you won't return these feelings, but I wanted you to know what someone notices and appreciates you bringing the sexy to Carlisle Prep."

Kurt finished reading and cleared his throat. "Well. That was…nice of her? Um, single mom, I hope?"

Blaine groaned and buried his face in his hands. "How am I going to look her in the eye the next time she picks Jameson up?"

"I think she's the one that will be embarrassed. I'll bet this was a spur of the moment thing that she's already regretting. Did you have any idea she had a crush on you?"

"No. I mean she's nice and talkative and she touches my arm a lot, but I thought she was just one of those touchy-feely people. I didn't know it, you know, meant anything."

"Poor Blaine, chick magnetic extraordinaire. Just think about all the straight guys who can't get a girl to look twice at them no matter what they do." Kurt shook his head sadly. "So unfair."

"Ha ha. Help me out here. What do I do?"

"No way. I told you when you started this job that you'd have to figure out a way to deal with student and mommy infatuation and you didn't believe me. Now I'm just gonna sit here and enjoy the show."

Blaine stuck his lower lip out a little and batted his eyelashes. "No fair."

The sound of the music going up several decibels preempted Kurt's retort and Blaine jumped to his feet to go investigate. He found Hazy and Siobhan bent over his iPod, arguing in loud stage whispers.

"Girls?" he asked, his hands on his hips as he looked down at them.

"Mr. A!" Hazy yelped as she dropped the music player back onto the desk. "We just wanted to see what other songs you have."

"And was touching something I've asked you not to play with the right way to do that?"

"Nooooo, but you and Kurt were looking at each other the way my mommy and daddy do before they go into their room and play music really loud, so I didn't want to interrupt."

Blaine nearly choked on his own saliva and hurried the girls back to the group. Seeing Kurt laughing into his hand wasn't helping matters.

He clapped his hands to get everyone's attention. "Alright everyone. Now we're going to have craft time and make valentines for you to bring back to your parents. Everyone grab a space at the tables and let's get started."

There was a mad scramble for the seats and soon everyone was immersed in cutting and gluing. Thankfully, there were no meltdowns like there had been the last time, not even when Siobhan got glue in her hair.

Kurt started out just standing back and observing, but Blaine watched as he got drawn in until he was sitting between two of the girls as they "helped" him construct a large glitter and doily covered heart that had "Blaine" spelled out in stickers across the top.

"So, Kurt," Carly asked, trying very hard to sound like an adult. "Do you like being an actor?"

"I do, very much." Kurt took the tube of glitter she offered him and spun the cap off. "Thank you for asking."

Carly squeezed out some glue onto the heart and spread it around with her finger before nodding for Kurt to pour the glitter. "You're welcome. I haven't seen a whole one of your movies, yet, 'cause I'm too young. You should do a kids movie. You sound like a cartoon."

Kurt paused and tilted his head as if trying to figure out if he'd just been complimented or not. Given the source, he seemed to take it as a good thing. "Thank you again. I'll see what I can do about that."

"You should. My mommy wouldn't like it, but I really would."

"Why wouldn't she like it?" Kurt raised his eyes to Blaine's, who could see the gears turning in his head as he thought of the obvious reasons why someone wouldn't want Kurt in a kids movie.

"'Cause it'd be just your voice. She really liked you as an X-man, but she told my Aunt Jodi that you needed to be naked in your next movie and you can't be naked if it's just your voice."

Blaine smirked at Kurt's stunned expression and began to catalog all the ways he'd torture him with that story when they got home. After all, he deserved it for the way he'd teased Blaine about the mommy crush. Kurt knew intellectually that women found him attractive—he'd seen the Tumblr posts, after all—but it wasn't often someone mentioned it directly to him like that. Turnabout was fair play.

Kurt stumbled through his response to Carly's statement and then turned to the girl on his other side, who was cutting out a heart chain, the tip of her tongue poked slightly out between her teeth. "Katy, right?"

The girl shook her head. "Katniss. I'm named after a great faminist heroine."

The urge to correct her pronunciation of "feminist" was strong, but Blaine decided not to interrupt, instead just tucking his bottom lip under and smiling when Kurt mouthed "Katniss?" at him.

"Well, Katniss," Kurt responded. "Do you think I should add anything else to this masterpiece we're making?"

Katniss considered the paper in front of him carefully. "It needs candy hearts." She reached over and picked up a bowl of the candies and set it in front of Kurt.

"Perfect," Kurt said as he flicked his fingers through the bowl looking for the right message. "Just what it needed."

"Kurt, you and Mr. A. can borrow my nanny, if you need to." The offer came out of nowhere from next to Blaine and both he and Kurt turned to Parker in confusion.

"Um, that's a nice offer," Kurt responded, "but why would we need to borrow your nanny?"

"When my mom went to visit my grandma last year she was gone a whole month and my dad and I kinda made a mess of our apartment. It was so bad I thought we might have to move! But dad said it'd be okay when mom got back home, because all the place needed was a woman's touch. If you and Mr. A live together alone then your mess must be huge! I got a nanny when my mom went back to work, so you can borrow her for her touch, if you want."

The little boy looked so earnest that Blaine wanted to hug him tight. "That's really nice of you, Parker, but I think we're good. We keep things pretty tidy at home."

Craft time wound down and the finished pieces of art were laid out to dry. After the supplies were put away, Blaine gathered everyone together for story time. He handed the book he'd picked out to Kurt and then took a seat with the kids, wrapping his arms around his bent knees. Kurt began reading and he was so good with the voices that he had everyone entranced within minutes.

Blaine looked around at the enraptured little faces and felt like life was just about perfect. He loved teaching, but almost even more than that he loved that it had brought his relationship with Kurt into equilibrium. He'd worked for Kurt's management company when he'd been his bodyguard, so he'd never been his personal employee—which had made moving from bodyguard to boyfriend relatively painless—but there had always been a notable difference in their statuses: bodyguard and client, unemployed aspiring teacher and successful actor.

Now that he was building a part of his life that was separate from Kurt, he felt like it was actually making them stronger as a couple. He had stories himself to tell at night and not just listen to Kurt's. He had found his dream, too, so they were on equal footing.

Kurt growled out a line in a deep voice as he introduced a new character, setting the kids giggling. Blaine leaned his head against the wall and sighed as he let Kurt's voice carry him away.

=^..^=

Valentine's Day was Sunday and Blaine had made a romantic dinner reservation and wrapped his present for Kurt (he'd gone to a studio and recorded a CD of love songs, since Kurt was always commenting on how much he loved Blaine's voice every time he sang in the shower), but he had something up his sleeve for Saturday, too.

Unbeknownst to Kurt, he'd gotten a ticket for Toy Story—something he hadn't done in several months— and he'd conspired with the stage manager to make the evening special for Kurt.

He dressed up in his nicest suit—picked out by Kurt, naturally—and arrived at the theater just as the house lights were flickering for the last time. He slipped into his seat just as the curtain rose, his toe already tapping along with the jaunty opening music. He'd seen the show almost too many times to count, but he was still amazed by how alive Kurt became on the stage. Though he was great in the movies, he shined even brighter in the theater, playing off the crowd, putting a little extra into his performance when he felt the energy of the crowd dropping.

Kurt had told him once that he tried to do something different in his performance every night, usually by changing one of two lines that were ripe for ad-libbing. Blaine listened intently for that moment and laughed along with the audience when Kurt made a ridiculous pun that had the actor playing Buzz Lightyear fighting to keep a straight face.

The show flew by and Blaine was one of the first ones on his feet to give the cast a standing ovation. He clapped and cheered even harder when Kurt took his bow and was glad that everyone else was applauding just as loudly so that Kurt didn't hear his voice. He didn't want to ruin the surprise just yet.

Just as the cast clasped hands and stepped back so that the curtain could come down for the last time, the stage manager stepped out from the wings carrying a bouquet of red and yellow roses so large he almost couldn't carry it. The audience held its collective breath as he walked, whispering to themselves as they tried to guess who the flowers might be for. Wild applause broke out when he came to a stop in front of Kurt.

Though Blaine would have loved to have brought the roses out on stage himself, he knew that the spectacle would be too much for Kurt, that exposing his personal life in front of all those people wouldn't be something that he'd like, especially after the publicity of the previous summer.

So he was content to watch from his seat as Kurt read the card, a gigantic smile spreading across his face. Kurt buried his face in the roses and inhaled deeply before lowering them and searching the crowd until his eyes meet Blaine's. Kurt's smile deepened with promise.

Oh yes, it was going to be a good Valentine's Day.