READ ME: This is the final chapter of "Bright Lights". Thank you to everyone who's stuck with me on my first venture into writing Glee fanfiction—it's time for me to move onto other Glee projects, most notably "Bleeding Love", my first alternate universe attempt. Forgive me for this chapter taking such a long time.

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DISCLAIMER: I don't own Glee.

WELCOME TO THE BRIGHT LIGHTS CH. 13: "BIG CITY"

"Would it be overly pessimistic if I said that I'm nervous as hell right now?" Matt asked, adjusting his tie as he sauntered through the lobby of Carnegie Hall.

"No," I replied, shoving a clammy hand into my trouser pocket. Kurt and Randy were trotting after me, I was trailing after Matt, and Matt was following Wes and David. Wes had the handle of his gavel at his lips so that he could gnaw at the handle and he was murmuring something in Chinese that Matt was solemnly nodding his head to. "I'm actually..."

"Shocked?" Kurt supplied, striding forward to loop his arm through mine. "I'm definitely shocked. Matt, you're usually emotionless."

Matt stopped in his tracks and bit his lip. "I guess so. But I don't know."

There was a cacophony of sounds trailing from inside the theatre and into the lobby, and Wes all but ripped the swinging doors open. David was right at his heels, wearing a somber expression as he stopped to hold the door open for the rest of the Warblers. When Kurt and I finally pushed past Nick and Jeff, Wes was already at the other end of the room, where an overhead projector was beaming out a list of the top fifteen show choirs in the nation.

"This is ludicrous," Kurt complained, rubbing circles into my palm with the pad of his thumb. "Wes' reactions to everything makes us look so unprofessional and overeager."

I paused and looked at him. "Kurt," I said, amazed at his generally uncharacteristic nonchalance. "I'm shocked. You're not fazed at all by this."

Kurt heaved a great sigh. "Look, Blaine," he replied, sidestepping into one of the empty seats that filled the theatre, "I'm not going to lie. The Symphonics were amazing; there are so many other show choirs this year who are obviously better than us—"

I opened my mouth to disprove his statement, but he held a finger to my mouth and shot me a discerning look.

"Frankly, Dalton doesn't provide us with the resources to be a great show choir," he said finally.

Jeff and Nick scooted into the seats next to ours.

"Waiting for the grand totale, amigos?" Nick asked, slapping his hand against Kurt's knee, who immediately drew it away with a scandalized look on his face.

"You aren't?" I returned dubiously, exchanging a brow raise with Jeff. Jeff merely shrugged, pulled out a bag of baked pita chips, and popped open the lid to a pocket-sized plastic Tupperware set filled with creamy hummus.

Jeff scooped up a chipful of hummus and popped it into his mouth. "We'll just be waiting for what Wes has to say. We're kind of burned out at this point, honestly."

Nick leaned over and stuck his finger into some of Jeff's hummus. Bringing his finger to his mouth, he added, "Anyway. Kurt, what were you saying about Dalton's show choir resources?"

Kurt jerked a little bit in his seat (he had obviously zoned out of the conversation). "We lack the glitzy camp seen in most of the costumes of other show choirs is all," he explained.

"But the Symphonics wear their uniforms all the time, too," I said, pointing to one of the Brackville members who was milling about the almost empty theatre.

"Blaine, they sang an Enrique Iglesias song about sex. And sex always sells," Kurt said, as if it should be obvious. Jeff blanched an unnaturally white color and Nick stifled a guffaw with his Dalton tie. "I mean, just look at New Directions. They have Rachel Berry, a girl with the sex appeal of a donut, singing lead all the time. Now, Rachel Berry's voice may be fantastic, but it's overshadowed by the fact that she can't even get my dimwitted brother to fall for her.

"And then look at us. We're stuck in ill-fitting blazers. We're singing sappy P!nk ballads and our lead soloist this year is a virginal homosexual with a voice as high as a girl's. We lack finish; we lack packaging."

"More like we lack packages," Nick snorted unceremoniously.

"I think you're plenty appealing, Kurt," Jeff said through a mouthful of pita chips and hummus. "I'm mean, yeah, you're a virginal homosexual, but they really don't have to know that."

Kurt gave Jeff an uncomfortable smile. "Gee, thanks, Jeffrey. I feel so much better now."

Frowning, I reached over and clasped Kurt's shoulder tightly. "Don't worry, Kurt. At the end of the day you're always going to be my number one."

Nick stuck a finger down his throat and pantomimed a vicious gagging motion; Jeff rolled his eyes and dug around the bag of chips. The crinkling noise seemed to make Kurt's nose crinkle in distaste.

"Regardless," Kurt said, pressing his palm flat against my shoulder, "I want to know who won. So let's go."

April 20, 2011, 5:30 P.M. Carnegie Hall.

Dear Journal,

This is it. The results are too far to see from where Blaine, Nick, Jeff, and I are sitting, but we're about to move in a little bit closer to the stage. Everyone's congregated around there. It's like a sample sale at Michael Kors, only without the half-price knit sweaters with the gorgeous giant gold buttons on them.

Frankly, I feel like I could sleep for days. All of that adrenaline just barreled through my system and now I feel flat as a pancake.

Well, more like a crepe. Pancakes are much too crude.

I'd be a raspberry-mascarpone cheese crepe with powdered sugar on the top. And Blaine would be a savory crepe with prosciutto and really good cheese and eggs...

He'd be delicious.

—Kurt

There wasn't really a feeling quite like defeat, I thought, feeling Kurt's arm twine around my waist along with a cold feeling of irrational dread as I surveyed the scoreboard.

The Dalton Academy Warblers were not listed as one of the top ten show choirs in the nation. At least, that was what it looked like on the large screen projector dangling from the top of the stage, swaying slightly with the flow of the air conditioner.

"If it makes you feel any better," Wes murmured, nibbling on the end of his gavel timidly, "The Symphonics didn't make the top ten, either." David scowled and slapped Wes' hand so hard the the gavel fell from his grasp and rolled onto the carpeted floor. Matt's movements were almost robotic as he knelt down to pick it up, so stiff that Kurt eventually let out a deep sigh and picked the gavel up for him in one fluid motion.

Nick's eyes were wide with disbelief. "Brackville didn't make top ten?"

I ran my eyes over the screen projector multiple times—there were several glee clubs from California on the list, and one from New York; another one from Lincoln, Nebraska, which I thought was a little bit random. But Wes was correct in saying that neither the Warblers nor the Symphonics had placed at Nationals.

"We didn't make the top ten," a voice said from behind us. "At least, Tobias and the rest of the Symphonics didn't."

Ricardo.

"Why?" Kurt asked bitterly, pulling himself away from me and striding up to Ricardo with a hard look on his face. "You certainly pulled all of the right strings to get there. And apparently there's a lot more to show choir than talent."

"That's enough, Kurt," I murmured, more to myself than anything. If I had been just a smidge more aggressive, I would have taken Ricardo out with my fist, the way things had worked out with Jeff a few days ago. If I was anything like Rachel Berry I would have challenged him to a sing-off or something. But I wasn't, and Ricardo was generally a good guy. There was once a time when I had almost ruined everything for the sake of getting something that I wanted.

I had found out later that I could have gotten it all along if I hadn't tried so hard. And look—there I was, flanked by the best friends a guy could ask for, arguably the best show choir in Ohio, with a gorgeous, gay boyfriend to boot. The experience, I decided right then and there, would always outweigh the sting of not making top ten. At least we got into the top thirty. At least Kurt had gotten to sing his first real solo in front of a huge crowd.

Ricardo coughed awkwardly into his clenched fist. "The Symphonics got, uh, eliminated for cheating." His voice was full of suggestion; when the rest of the Warblers continued to stare at him blankly, he frowned and continued with, "Oh, hell. Let's just say that the older brother of one of the lead singers felt the need to report Brackville for cheating."

"You—you did—I'm sorry, what?" Wes demanded.

Thad looked even more appalled. "Why would you do that? You guys didn't even cheat, you took a goddamn gavel, for Chris'sakes—"

"You watch your tone," Wes said, his tone dark and dangerous.

Ricardo extended a hand in Wes' general direction. "I know that things between Dalton and Brackville are never really gonna work out. But let me just, you know. Extend the olive branch a little bit."

"Go on, Wes," I said encouragingly.

Wes reluctantly took Ricardo's hand in his and shook a little too tightly.

But the motion of repentance was still present.

"Anyway," Ricardo said finally, "I gotta go run to the panel to look at the judge's comments on our performance."

And he was gone.

Kurt looked curious, cocking his head to the side with a quizzical expression on his face. "The judges release comments?"

"They do," David said sagely. "I actually have 'em right here, man." He held up a creamy white envelope held shut by a golden sticker.

Jeff crossed his arms dubiously. "You haven't looked at them yet?"

"Couldn't bring myself to do it without you guys," David explained.

"I don't want to see it," Kurt said stubbornly.

"Well, if you insist," I said in a singsong voice. "But I think that we can all assume that they loved us."

The events following the competition day passed in a blur. I honestly wouldn't be able to tell you what happened. All I remember is Kurt and I heading back to the Hyatt with the rest of the Warblers, bone tired, and collapsing onto a bed—both of us in one bed, since maintenance had separated the two double beds when they had cleaned—wrapping my arms around Kurt, feeling the last pains of loss ebb away until I genuinely didn't care.

There was packing, there were goodbyes to MoMo. As a final swan song, the Warblers left several of their striped red-and-navy ties all over the Hyatt. Future guests would arrive only to find a Dalton tie wrapped up in a cloth napkin or stuffed into the ceramic cotton swab holder.

There was makeout after makeout session with Kurt. And honestly, it got a little bit ridiculous after a while, since Kurt seemed to be relinquishing his feelings of defeat by sucking face with his boyfriend. Did I object? Never. But there were times when the kissing made me feel a little bit too empty for my liking—was Kurt, at this point, kissing me because he wanted to, or because his loss depressed him?

"I just," Kurt muttered, running his hands along the sides of my stomach and enthusiastically nuzzling his head into my neck, "I just really wanted to win, Blaine."

We were lying in a questionable position atop Kurt's bed on the morning of our leaving New York.

I felt frozen in my position, like a snowman whose body heat was slowly but surely being melted by Kurt and his Elie Tahari cardigan. I just smiled into Kurt's hair and told him, "Doesn't matter. I think you did just fine."

"I didn't," Kurt insisted, moving on to my face now that he was done rubbing up against my neck, "It was my fault, the judges probably thought I was a girl or something—"

"Kurt," I said sharply, pulling him off of my face, "Stop that."

Kurt's face fell. "Look, I'm sorry, I forgot you had boundaries—"

I scooted into a sitting position at the foot of the bed and massaged my temples. "It's not that."

"Then what is it?" Kurt asked, smoothing his disheveled hair into something more recognizably Kurt-ish.

"You just," I said.

"I just," Kurt repeated blankly.

"You need to stop pretending that you have it all together," I said to my shoes. "It's okay to lose faith sometimes. Because I don't see any need for you to pretend."

Kurt's face lit up with a small smile. "You mean—?"

"You're fantastic, Kurt. So stop...stop blaming everything on yourself. Or something. I don't know. For all we know, we didn't place because Randy didn't shuffle in the right direction. Maybe our alignment was off, I don't know." I paused. "Maybe they had a problem with the goober in the front with the gelled hair."

Kurt came up to rest against my back. "You know what? I'm sure that it was the goober in the front with the stupid hair."

"We're coming back here," I said, turning around so that Kurt could resume his enthusiastic cuddling.

To my surprise, he didn't take the bait. I frowned and instead decided to pull him in so I could plant a small kiss to his forehead.

"To New York?" Kurt murmured.

"Someday."

April 21, 2011, 5:30 P.M. Dalton Academy.

Dear Journal,

The magic's over. New York is gone.

But we're going back there, Blaine and I. Someday.

Someday, when he's a ridiculously talented attorney or something, and I'm designing killer dresses for H&M. We'll live there. We'll go back.

—Kurt

JUDGE'S TABULATIONS: THE DALTON ACADEMY WARBLERS

1st Judge: Maureen Sawyers

High in emotion, low in energy. Alignment crooked. Strange assortment of songs. Did not feel unified. Poor movement around the stage.

20th place.

2nd Judge: Donald Lawrence

Odd pairing of countertenor and baritenor. Chemistry. Great performance, but perhaps too sentimental. Not enough dancing.

15th place.

3rd Judge: Florence McAvoy

Not flashy, but simple and sweet. Nice vocals, maybe a little bit weak. Song selection was strange.

16th place.

OVERALL 17th PLACE.

does not merit an advance to 2011 Show Choir Showcase.

ADDENDUM:

The Dalton Academy Warblers have now been moved to 16th PLACEwith the disqualification of the Brackville Boys' Choir. —Maureen Sawyer, April 20, Carnegie Hall.

"Warblers," Kurt said as we filed in for our post-competition meeting. "I have an announcement to make."

Jeff and Nick looked up from where they were sitting on the leather chaise; Wes, Thad, and David sat up in their seats at the front of the senior commons.

"Yes, Warbler Kurt?" David asked.

Wes scowled and pounded his gavel against the table. "Warbler Kurt, you now have the floor."

"This semester and a half has been...nothing short of fantastic," he said, exchanging a look with me. "I've made so many new friends, shared so many experiences. I got a boyfriend, a solo. Got to visit New York."

"But...?" Randy asked, looking up from his pocket Bible.

I stood up and crossed the room so that I was standing by Kurt, ignoring the surprised gasps. Warblers weren't supposed to call attention to themselves during meetings without the permission from the Council. "We think that it's time for him to return to McKinley."

"What?" Jeff demanded.

"Well, think about it," Kurt said defensively. "Most of you are seniors, you're going to be gone next year. It's time for me to face my demons next school year."

"Plus, we figure that a lot of the problems at his old school have died down," I added.

David shot a quizzical look at me. "Wait, Blaine. You're fine with all of this?"

"I'm supportive of whatever Kurt wants to do, yes. I mean, within reason, of course," I replied. Kurt beamed at me with that smile of his that never showed teeth.

"But I've prepared a song for all of you," Kurt said, "As a goodbye, I suppose. To all of the Warblers I'll be leaving—" He looked at Thomas and his gaggle of freshmen. "—to all of the Warblers that are leaving me." He glanced at Jeff, who was at that point looking about ready to pee himself.

I turned to him. "A song? Really?"

"Well, yes," Kurt said defensively. "I'm definitely not going to go down without a fight." He strode over the the boombox and popped in a tiny cassette. "Now, I know you're all expecting me to pull another Don't Cry For Me Argentina, but I decided to go with something a bit more contemporary. Blaine, hit play for me?"

I dutifully walked over to the boombox and pressed play; Nick snickered at me and whispered "Whipped," under his breath.

"Stop it," Kurt said sharply, and he composed himself just in time for his cue.

Little boy, six years old

A little too used to being alone.

Another new mom and dad, another school,

Another house that'll never be home

When people ask him how he likes this place...

He looks up and says, with a smile upon his face,

This is my temporary home

It's not where I belong.

Windows and rooms that I'm passing through

This is just a stop on the way to where I'm going

I'm not afraid because I know this is my

temporary home.

"You just—and—wow," I mumbled to myself as Kurt smiled again and looked me straight in the eye.

And I paused and let the lyrics wash over me.

This is my temporary Home

It's not where I belong.

Windows and rooms that I'm passing through

This was just a stop, on the way to where I'm going

I'm not afraid because I know... this was

my temporary home.

This is our temporary home.

I danced with him at the McKinley High prom. He wore an improbably ridiculous kilt number, I went for a sleekly fitted suit that made me look perhaps a little bit more tall than usual. Somehow Kurt had coerced me into dancing along to ABBA's Dancing Queen with gusto, and Mercedes, all wrapped up in the highlighter blond Sam Evans, shot knowing glances at me the entire evening.

We left before the prom queen and king could be announced, bored out of our wits and ready to do something else. Kurt decided that he needed frozen yogurt to cool himself off (the dance floor had been sweltering) and drove us to the nearest Yogurt Island for his favorite, cake batter with Cinnamon Toast Crunch, a combination that I quite frankly found disgusting but he found absolutely delicious.

"I love you," he told me after I finished off the last gummy bear in my yogurt.

"Love you too," I replied, voice full of conviction.

I honestly think he had made plans on ravishing me in his car in some sort of after-prom deflowering ceremony, but for some reason, he refrained.

Not that I didn't want it, too.

Which was why I may or may not have slipped one or two condoms into my wallet. When Kurt thumbed through it in order to find a ten dollar bill to pay the frozen yogurt lady with, he found them and instantly began to laugh so hard that they skittered to the floor in all of their aluminum-foiled glory.

"Stop that," I said, sliding the condoms back into my wallet. "Those were just precautionary—"

"Precautionary my ass, Blaine," Kurt responded easily, pulling me through the parking lot and kissing me quiet. "I appreciate the gesture, though."

I was going to retort back with something equally as embarrassing, but I decided against it.

"Come home with me," I said instead.

Nothing sexual happened at the Anderson household.

After taking off his jacket and hanging it against one of the chairs, Kurt noticed the pile of letters sitting on the counter and picked it up.

"What are these?" he asked, gently handing them over to me. I sighed and led him to the couch.

I told him, "College acceptance letters."

"We're looking at your college acceptance letters on prom night?" Kurt asked. "How nice. I went into this entire affair expecting some sexually charged act by now—"

I pouted. "You look very sexy tonight, Kurt, I promise, but we aren't doing that."

Kurt let out a sigh of relief. "Good. I'm not ready for that."

"But you—!"

"College acceptance letter opening time!" Kurt squealed, reaching for the one at the top and tearing it open unceremoniously.

"I refuse to go anywhere too far from you," I said without preamble.

"Correction," Kurt said, holding up his index finger. "I refuse to let you go anywhere that's too far for me to follow you to."

He pressed a teasing kiss to my nose and scanned the opened letter. "This is for the University of Connecticut, Blaine."

"Did I make the cut?"

"Well, yes, but that's where Jeff's going, and I refuse to let you go to the same college as him. You'll end up killing each other, and don't you dare give me that look, you know you would."

He sidled up closer to me as I reached for the next one, a letter from Georgetown.

"Washington, DC. The capital of the free world," Kurt said approvingly.

I opened the letter (my finger ripped the envelope open in a jagged line) and read the first few lines. "Not accepted," I said after a few moments of silence.

"Aw," Kurt said.

"I wasn't really looking that far into Georgetown. It's just my dad's alma mater, so..."

Kurt looked at me. "So indeed."

"Will you be able to live without a boyfriend going to Georgetown?" I asked him playfully. "I'm sure they'd let me in if you had a talk with the dean or something."

"Shh," Kurt said, and I managed to squeeze myself so close that I feared I'd crease his kilt. "I'm sure that I'll still love you, even if you go to the crappiest college in the world."

"Sounds like a great plan," I told him enthusiastically. "Maybe I could become a house-husband and you could become the family breadmaker."

"I'm going to be spending my salary on fabulous clothing items. You're going to be spending your money and our house bills."

"Does this mean that you're agreeing to a marriage with me?" I asked.

Silence.

Kurt kissed me square on the mouth. "Does your question mean that you'd ever doubted that theory?" He grinned. "I love you, Blaine Warbler."

"I love you, Kurt New Direction," I returned emphatically. "So much."

We sat there and looked at each other for what seemed to be an eternity before Kurt hopped up to grab the last letter.

"It's either this one or Ohio State," he warned me. "If you go to OSU, you'll never be rid of me."

I shrugged. "Is that a threat or a promise?"

The envelope was a stark white with a powder blue crown on the top corner.

"This university?" Kurt inquired quizzically.

"It's been my top choice for ages," I explained. "I love the campus, love the people."

Kurt opened the letter slowly. "I, for one, am in love with the city." He stopped. "And you. I've always been in love with you."

"Not always," I said.

"Since the staircase, then," Kurt amended, pressing the opened envelope into my hands. "I want you to read it."

And I did.

CODA

"You've decided on a college, then?" my mother asked as she chopped up onions for her soup. "It better be someplace good."

My father frowned. "It's would be nice if you went to a good college after all of that money we invested in Dalton—"

"Hopefully not someplace too far, dear, we'd miss you too much. Kurt would miss you, too."

"Kurt," my father muttered gruffly, swirling around his red wine at the stem of the glass with his right hand and holding out his left.

"My boyfriend has nothing to do with my choice of higher education, father," I assured him, pressing the acceptance letter into his open palm.

"Columbia University?" he asked after a few seconds of rushed reading. "As in, Columbia Columbia University?"

My mother beamed. "Sweetie, I'm so proud of you!"

"I thought you might be," I said.

There was a strange feeling of nostalgia I received while packing up my things three months later. I think that Kurt, rubbing soothing circles into my back as we laid on my bed the night before my flight, had summed it up the most succinctly.

"Well," he had said, pressing feather-light kisses to the back of my neck, "Back to New York."

End.

A/N: That's it, folks. Thanks for reading!

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