There was a warm breeze in the Ohio air despite the sun having gone down hours ago. However, the rambunctious crowd inside the Columbus Basement was feeling an overwhelming, inescapable heat emanating from the gritty chords of an electric guitar. The concert venue’s amps held a thousand or so people captive as a local rock band blared its way through a ballad. Kurt Hummel wasn’t typically one to join this crowd of headbanging young adults. It was too sticky sweaty and too loud to even hear intelligible words.

Perhaps that’s the glory of rock though, he thinks as the people around him sway to the music as well as in response to the random pushing occurring on the floor.

“I’m gonna run to the bathroom!” his friend, Rachel, shrieks in his ear. Good god, he could still hear that girl still over the thrumming of a bass guitar. Kurt nodded with exaggeration. This concert had all been her idea, but he surmised that he did instigate it.

Rachel and Kurt had been having one of their girl sleepovers, discussing their post-high school plans on Rachel’s incredibly pink plush bed. Graduation loomed on a year away.

“What I’m saying is that maybe NYADA wants to see more than just musical and Glee performances on people’s applications,” Kurt was saying. He threw some popcorn into his mouth.

“NYADA is for performers though,” Rachel replied. “It’s literally in the name- ‘dramatic arts’.”

“Don’t you think they get the same applications hundreds of times though?” Kurt picked at his fingernails. This had been a question he’d kept to himself for a while. It wasn’t like the school guidance counselor could know the answer; Rachel was his only partner in this.

“Honestly, what else do you think they’d want?” she asked incredulously.
“Well, I don’t know,” Kurt huffed. “Maybe how to play an instrument or be in a band?” he guessed aloud. There was so much incorporated into the worlds of music and performing arts; he had played around with these ideas before.

“My dads put me in piano lessons when I was one, so I’m pretty set in that,” Rachel flicked her hair back. Kurt scrunched up his face. A one year old, playing piano? Sure. And he isn’t gay.

“A band though,” Rachel paused in her narcissism. “What do you mean by a band?”

“Like a garage band that you put together with friends? I don’t know; it was just a random thought,” Kurt shrugged it off.

“No, no, Kurt,” she scrambled up to her knees, “that’s a brilliant idea!”

“Wait, what?” Kurt spoke through a mouthful of popcorn.

“Yeah! I mean, what if the band had a little bit of fame attached to it? That would boost our applications so much!” she squealed.

From there the night had been full of grandiose dreams about making a glamorous band with some other Glee members, supplied with Rachel’s adequate lyrics and Kurt’s gorgeous fashion design. A key thing had been missing however: what did a real band look like when pulled all together? Kurt and Rachel’s performance exposures had truly only been ballets and musicals. Concert-going wasn’t necessarily something they did.

Trust Rachel to text Kurt the next day with plans already made to drive into the nearest metropolis to see some random band playing that night. Kurt’s dad had just made the pair promise to text when they got into Columbus and when they began home again.

And here they were- attending some concert for an underdog rock band from Ohio, Kurt attempting to blend himself in with an all-black outfit and a tiny hint of eyeliner.

“I’m gonna run to the bathroom!” Rachel had yelled and walked off- well, more like wrestled her way out of the crowd’s bulk. Kurt was just about to admit that he too needed to go to the bathroom just to escape the snake-like squeezing the crowd began to do. Unfortunately, Kurt wasn’t prepared for the band to end their current song and immediately start back into a song with a tangible energy.

The crowd instantly responding to the electric currents of the notes penetrating the venue. The singer let out a shriek as the drums kicked in with a ferocious energy. There was no preparation for the crowd to begin opening up a circle in the middle of the floor.

Kurt panicked. A mosh pit? You only saw those on early MTV or something. He had to get out and fast as the circle opened ominously wider. The guitar began strumming lowly, steadily rising in amplitude. Nothing could have helped Kurt’s escape when the chorus finally hit the crowd.

It was like hell broke loose, and all the demons escaped. Arms were thrown every which way, bodies smacking into each other with ferocity. Kurt managed to duck through a hole in the crowd, lowering himself to the ground just a bit, finagling his way through to freedom when- BAM!

It was like someone had flashed a bright light in his face before taking away his sight. However, a searing pain in his face made him see stars. What the hell had hit him?

“Oh my god!” he heard someone yell before feeling himself be led out of the rest of the crowd by his arm. Both of Kurt’s hands were busy holding his face through the delirious pain, but surely that sudden liquid-y feeling was sweat?

He was still being led blindly through the venue and into a place with brighter lights. Through teary eyes, Kurt noted that his saviour had take him into the safety of the bathrooms.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” he heard a male’s disembodied voice. When Kurt blinked away the tears, he was seriously thrown off by the person in front of him.

“You’re bleeding. I broke your nose in a mosh pit, oh my god,” this demurely handsome boy was frantically flitting about. The boy was definitely shorter than Kurt, with slightly gelled dark hair. However, the chinos paired with a bright red sweater vest significantly ostracized him from the other rockers in the crowd with their faded black leather and tattoos.

“You hit me?” Kurt blubbered through his hands. Pulling them away briefly, he saw the flood of red decorating his fingers, running down his wrists. “Oh, Gaga. Yeah, that’s blood.”

“Whoa, whoa,” the guy caught on, gripping Kurt’s upper arms and pushing him back against a wall that he could slide down. “I’m sure those Ralph Lauren pants will hate sitting here, but you just got creepy pale. Not that you look creepy, you’re actually stunning, and I think I might could just die from the fact that I hurt you, and, my god, now I probably sound creepy. Also, what that a ‘YOU hit me’ or a ‘you HIT me’ because-”

“Shut up,” Kurt hissed. This boy was seriously cute in a fantastically dorky way, but there was still blood coming out of Kurt’s body when he was pretty sure it should stay on the inside.

“Oh, god!” the boy finally jumped into action, grabbing a handful of paper towels to give to Kurt.

Holding the wad to his nose, Kurt said, “While I appreciate a man with an eye for designers, I think you’re right. I just need to sit here for a bit.”

“I am so unbelievably sorry for hitting you,” the guy squat down to Kurt’s level and blinked like an owl at him. Kurt waved a hand nonchalantly.

“It’s fine. I doubt you meant to,” he admitted.

“I wouldn’t want to hit anyone as beautiful as you,” the boy claimed before sucking in a harsh breath. “Fuck. I said that out loud.”

Kurt couldn’t help but let out a chuckle despite the heavy blush rising to the surface of his face. Thank Gage for the towels covering up most of his face.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“I’m Blaine,” the guy reached out automatically to shake his hand but thought better when he realized that Kurt’s hands were still covered in blood.

“I’m Kurt. It’s nice to meet you despite the circumstances,” Kurt mused. For a couple more minutes, he held the paper towels to his face, politely declining the other guy’s help.

“Do you need water?”
“No.”
“There might be a medic around that I can get.”
“No, thank you.”
“I could ask for ice at the concessions.”
“I’m good.”

“Well, at least let me take you out to coffee sometime to make up for it,” the boy finally said, raking his fingers through his gelled curls.

“You know what,” Kurt smiled behind the paper towels, “I just might take you up on that.”