Kurt sat with his legs crossed, leaning back slightly in the cushioned auditorium chair as he flipped through the script that had been dropped in his lap two seconds before. West Side Story. Oh sweet Jesus. Finally—finally—McKinley was putting on a show that was not only worth his time and effort, but one that truly had a chance of getting off the ground without being prematurely shot out of the sky by the close-minded, short-sighted, honk-if-you-hate-the-arts people who ran this sorry excuse for a school.

For the first time in his three-and-some years at McKinley, the school play was a sure thing. This time around, there were no weird club separations that would cause points of contention, like there had been with Cabaret. Someone had actually had the good sense to give the glee club free reign (which should've been a no-brainer, given the fact that the thing was a musical), bringing aboard three capable directors to coax West Side to life. And although this play had its fair share of mature themes, unlike Rocky Horror it was tastefully done and not too risqué for delicate Ohioan sensibilities. This was a legitimate musical based on a legitimate play with legitimate characters and had a legitimate storyline; there was absolutely no way it was going to be cancelled. Kurt wouldn't allow it.

Oh, did he mention the fact that it may or may not have been one of his favorite musicals of all time? Well, it was.

And even though he wasn't going to be playing Tony or Riff or even Bernardo, he was still going to be involved in the show in some capacity, and that was all the reason he needed to turn mama-bear on anyone who dared touch it with an ill-meaning hand. This play was going to happen. He'd put up with too many craptastic assemblies and benefits and pep rallies with the likes of New Directions and the Cheerios for it not to.

Besides, it was his senior year. Everything had to be perfect this year, and no West Side meant imperfection—an angry zit on the glowing, porcelain face that was the most important year of his high school career. Uh-uh. No way.

He quit his leisurely skimming of the script's pages and began reading through them with more attention and determination, taking note of the lines and breaks and stage blocking he should consider if he was to do his job properly. He clicked open the pen in his hand, ready to start scribbling notes in the margins.

He began writing "LP" next to certain names on the character list, indicating which actors would need to be strapped with lapel mics and then noting just how many of those mics he would need to have on-hand. He supposed he could always have the actors use handhelds, but honestly he felt like those were better suited for concerts where they could be used sort of like props, adding to the performance instead of retracting from it. For plays, he much preferred lapels since they freed the actors' hands for gesturing and didn't distract the audience from whatever scene was unfolding onstage. Yes, he decided. Lapel mics, definitely.

He was moving onto marking scene changes and points where he'd have to deal with possible breakaways, not at all listening to whatever 'Let's have fun, hooray!' speech Miss Pillsbury was completing, when a voice piped up in the row in front of him and a couple seats to his right. "Man, this is gonna be so amazing, I can't wait to get started!"

Kurt's head shot up, his eyes searching out the source of that voice, quickly landing on the speaker's smiling profile.

Blaine Anderson. Dreamboat, nice guy, enigma. From anyone else, that statement might have sounded contrived, but from him…

Kurt could never quite figure out this Blaine character. He was a junior, a transfer student from some prep school out in Westerville that Kurt would have killed to attend, and he fit right in at McKinley like a round peg. Despite Blaine's new-kid status and his strange affinity for bright colors, bold patterns and bowties, everybody seemed to like him. Apparently he was the right amount of unique-but-typical, special-but-approachable, strange-but-normal, and people were inexplicably drawn to him. He could probably get away with wearing a pin that read: "Geology rocks!" without receiving much grief. How the hell did he do that?

If Kurt's gaydar was accurate, which it almost always was, Blaine was positively flaming underneath the could-be-straight act—a fact that Kurt forced his heart to ignore (Not a chance, Hummel, so don't even think about it)—which meant that he should be receiving slushy facials and getting thrown into dumpsters and against lockers on a regular basis. Instead, Blaine was getting leads in musicals and enjoying inexplicable relief from bullying in spite of his gaudy clothes and glee club membership. Whatever. He was probably in deep, deep denial about his sexuality anyway. He seemed like the type to have an enormous chip on his shoulder that he tried desperately to hide and didn't think other people noticed.

Not that Kurt would ever dare to bring it up or ask about such things. He'd never even spoken to the guy. Blaine was just way too friendly for no reason, which Kurt found terribly suspicious, nevermind that his wardrobe was entirely too distracting for Kurt's taste. It was like the closets of Frankie Avalon and Buddy Holly had gotten drunk together and thrown up on him. And even if Kurt did approach him, what would he say? "Hey there, kid. Nice ankles. Tom Ford would be proud." Yeah, no. It was probably best to keep their relationship (if they ever interacted) purely professional. Kurt didn't need to worry about someone else's problems when he already had so many of his own to deal with.

"Well, of course it's going to be amazing with me as Maria and you as my Tony," said the girl to Blaine's right, patting his shoulder placatingly. "No one else in this school could have been better choices for the leads; your baritenor is the ideal complement to my flawless mezzo soprano, and we'll be absolutely perfect—as long as you don't upstage me."

Christ but Rachel Berry was annoying. Kurt might have been able to stand her constant babbling if she didn't always inevitably circle back to talking about herself, but no such luck. And now he was going to have to deal with her in full diva mode for the next several weeks until the production was finished. Crap.

He tried his best to burn a hole through the back of her head with his glare.

"That's nice, Rachel," said Artie, the one student out of the three directors that were responsible for the musical (and probably the most qualified for the position). "But Coach Beiste, Miss Pillsbury and I will be the ones who decide what's perfect and what isn't, and until we see you perform to our expectations, there will be no boasting or showboating. You're not good 'til we say you are."

Eyebrows were collectively raised. Everyone knew Artie—knew that he was, for the most part, a consistently honest guy—but no one had ever seen him like this. It was new. He was very clearly taking charge and not afraid to tell it like it was. Director Artie was in the house, and Kurt had a feeling he was going to like him very much.

Rachel was left gaping, her mouth opening and closing in a decent impersonation of a fish, but she didn't talk back or argue, which was a very rare occurrence with her. Kurt soaked it up. Yes, he was definitely going to like Director Artie.

Said director steepled his fingers, propping his elbows on the armrests of his wheelchair and addressing the group of students in the house seats across from where he was positioned onstage between Coach Beiste and Miss Pillsbury. "I know you guys are excited to be here, to be a part of a show and wear costumes and dance around and have fun—which you definitely should be, I'm not saying that you shouldn't—but do not forget that this isn't just going to be all fun and games. If we want this thing to be as amazing as we all know it has the potential to be, then we're all going to have to work our asses off to make it happen. And that goes as much for the extras as it does for the leads."

Some of the football players grumbled, but otherwise the assembly was silent.

Artie continued. "Mr. Shue entrusted the three of us," he gestured to his fellow directors, "to put together the best musical that we possibly can, and we will, but we need you guys to trust us and our vision and not get carried away with your own agendas. Put your pride aside, let us do our job, and we'll make sure y'all look damn good when the curtains are drawn on opening night."

There were some hoots as the company applauded Artie's little speech, clearly appreciating and respecting the man's words. Well then. The tone was set.

"OK, y'all. Let's get down to business and start the read-through. Since we're beginning late," Artie gave a mohawked boy near the side aisle a pointed look, "we'll only be doing Act I today. "

Sitting a few seats apart from everyone else, Kurt was the only member of McKinley's Stage Crew and Management Club present at the script handout and read-through. No one was using any stage equipment today or requiring someone to operate lights or curtains, but because Kurt was the club's president (and, therefore, stage manager), it was in his purview to attend all rehearsals even if his crew wasn't technically needed. Any small decision made by the directors could affect how he did his job, and so he made it a point to be present no matter how mundane the meeting.

The read-through wasn't anything special—Kurt had seen its like before. There was always the overenthusiastic actor who got way too garish (Rachel, in this case), the bored actor who couldn't care less about plain reading (the kid with the mohawk, Puck), the green actor who was still getting the hang of things (Mike, one of the jock-and-glee-club gadflies), and the exceptional actor who was somehow completely engaging without being overzealous (oh hell, of course it was Blaine). Kurt was only partially paying attention to the reading, having employed his selective 'Okay now this is relevant to me' hearing, taking notes when he needed to. But when they got to the final scene of the act, he became utterly captivated.

He wasn't sure what it was exactly; he knew the story and had read the script before, but the scene felt different this time. He couldn't explain it.

Kurt looked over at Mike, Blaine and Puck, who were reading the scene—Puck having moved closer to the group at Artie's insistence—and tried to figure out what it was that was different.

"Get with the gang," Mike read, trying to sound like a tough guy and nearly succeeding. He turned in his seat to face Blaine, who was behind him with Puck to his left.

"No," Blaine responded as Tony, glancing up from the script to make eye contact with Mike. Blaine looked a bit tense around his neck and shoulders, like he knew something bad was about to happen and he was physically ready to defend against it. That was interesting, Kurt thought. It was almost as if Blaine wasn't even acting but was instead simply responding naturally to the thrum of impending violence in the scene. Maybe that was what Kurt had noticed? But why would an instinctive performance bother him? (And it did bother him.) It was just good acting, right?

Mike returned Blaine's stare, looking confused—because of Blaine or because of the scene, Kurt couldn't say. "What're you doing?" he continued the repartee, though somewhat unsurely.

Puck cut in with Bernardo's line. "Maybe he's found the guts to fight his own battles," he said, not without some derision.

Blaine smiled at him warily, eyes flicking to his script for a second. "It doesn't take guts if you have a battle," he said. "But we haven't got one, 'Nardo." He extended his hand for Puck to take, but Puck promptly shoved away.

Everyone in the room was on edge, the air thick with tension that should have been fictional but was decidedly not. Blaine, Puck and Mike kept up the exchange, one of the other football players chiming in as Diesel, but no one really paid him any attention. All eyes were on Blaine.

"Bernardo, you've got it wrong," Blaine said, voice going up half an octave as he rushed to get the words out. Kurt frowned at him. Was he afraid? Why was he afraid? They were just running through the script; there was no reason to get worked up.

Puck sneered at him. "Are you chicken?" he teased, adding buckawk noises to illustrate his question.

"You won't understand!" Blaine exclaimed, his eyes near panicked. What in the world?

This was actually a very technical scene, management-wise, and Kurt should have been jotting down notes and turning his script into a veritable comic book, but his pen was all but forgotten in his hand as it hovered an inch above the paper, all of his attention focused on Blaine.

"What'd you say, chicken?" Puck taunted further, either enjoying the stress he was causing or else entirely clueless to the authenticity of the anxiety in the room.

Blaine was clutching the script tightly in his hand, crumpling it in one corner. "Bernardo, don't," he pleaded.

"Don't what, pretty little chicken?" Puck buckawk'd again, causing Blaine to jump slightly in his seat.

Mike interjected, addressing Blaine. "Tony, don't just stand—" But Puck interrupted him in turn.

"Yellow-bellied chicken!" he yelled at Blaine's face, which was barely controlling a look of fear.

And then the football players who had minor roles started to join in with their respective lines.

"Get him!"

"Tony!"

"Murder him!"

"Kill him!"

Puck kept going, caught up in the momentum of the scene, eventually coming to a head with Mike's Riff as the two characters battled it out.

"Riff, don't!" Blaine all but screamed as he stared in horror at the deaths that were written out on the pages he had grasped in his hands. Tears were building up in his eyes, tumbling down his cheeks as he delivered the act's final, anguished line.

"MARIA!"

No one spoke, the reverberation of Blaine's voice ringing in the silence.

Kurt stared wide-eyed at the boy's profile, which had long since stopped smiling. Blaine slowly put down his script and wiped at his face with the backs of his hands, sniffling quietly. There wasn't a closed mouth in the auditorium. Coach Beiste was actually crying (openly weeping, really), as was Rachel, who looked deeply moved with a hand clutched to her chest.

"Blaine," she said breathily, visibly in awe. "That was… wow, that was… incredible. It was so real!" Her eyes were impressed and almost comically wide as she swallowed audibly before asking, "What were you thinking about?"

Oh my god, why would she ask that? Why the fuck would she ask that? Had she not been present for the past five minutes? Did she not see how vulnerable Blaine was clearly feeling right now? Did she have no tact?

Feeling extremely protective for some reason, Kurt turned up his glare to its highest level. Screw burning a hole through her head; he was going to blow the whole damn thing off her neck.

But Blaine didn't respond. He didn't acknowledge or even look at her.

Rising from his seat and avoiding eye contact with anyone, Blaine hastily collected his bag, muttering a quiet 'Excuse me' as he escaped into the aisle and quickly rushed out of the auditorium.