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Trevor Haryana likes to pretend that his job keeps him shackled to his desk.
He’s been working as the right-hand man for almost half his life. Well, that’s not true, but it feels like it. This job has seen him through four boyfriends, one of whom became the love of his life, his happily ever after and the partner who helps raise his beautiful baby boy.
It’s the job that let him take almost six weeks off without so much as a complaint when the adoption from India didn’t go as smoothly as all the counsellors promised it would despite it being the second fashion week ever for the brand and half the staff out with some strange flu.
That might just be because he’s close, personal friends with his boss who would shackle him to the desk if it were legal, but only because Kurt Hummel is that dedicated to his work.
Trevor likes to secretly believe that Kurt would keep him tethered to the office because Kurt is afraid that one day Trevor will outgrow him. Outgrow the position of right-hand man and take a job as head of something at a much bigger firm.
Trevor knows that he’d have to be dragged off by wild horses before he’d leave Hummable Designs, but he does like to go home at the end of the day and soak in the claw foot bath with his husband sitting on the floor telling him all about the latest brief or multimillion dollar deal he’s sat in on. Greg may only work as a mergers lawyer, but sometimes Trevor would rather hear about corporate shitstorms than the latest colours and cuts someone in Paris dubs to be in style.
He also likes to wake up really late on a Saturday after Greg’s taken Kyle to soccer (there was no choice, not when your parents are East Indian and Italian. Well, it could have been cricket, but there’s no league for the under eight set in the city) and make them pancakes for when they get home.
If he’s feeling particularly perky, he’ll slip in the latest demo tape Blaine’s given him. He likes to brag that he’s done this for years, before Blaine was doing anything more than teaching music at a bunch of prep schools by the day and playing pubs by night while Kurt struggled to get his brand noticed. Now Blaine sells out venues he never would have dreamed of and Kurt is known everywhere from suburban Ohio to Milan and Trevor still makes pancakes in his underwear.
Being able to cook in one’s underwear is a joy that comes from not being shackled to your desk. That doesn’t mean that Trevor’s phone isn’t nearby in case Kurt needs him at a moment’s notice because that’s part of how they work.
That’s why it’s not surprising when his phone rings, the familiar strains of the Wicked Witch’s theme filling the air.
(No one believes him when he tells them that Blaine set it when they were all barely out of college. Kurt actually likes it, the power tripping fool he is. Trevor knows this because he got Trevor a stuffed winged monkey the first year that Trevor worked as his employee — his only employee — and then later a pair of tiny ruby slippers so Trevor could ‘better manage the Munchkinlanders’.)
“Yes Boss?” He only calls Kurt that to annoy him. He knows now it’s because it reminds Kurt of his father’s shop and takes the glamour out of being a fashion brand. So Trevor tries to do it at least once a week. His record is forty times in one day. He had the paper cut on his cheek from the InStyle that Kurt hurled at him for three days.
“You, Greg, Kyle. Dinner tonight. 7.” Kurt’s tone is clipped as if he’s juggling a baby and a child all at once. He can hear Kurt’s eldest, Noel, in the background parroting instructions. “Noel is cooking and I’m told the theme is Paris. But I think he means Ratatouille,” there’s a pause and some chatter in the background, “no you cannot dress as a rat to serve us.”
“Sure thing.” Trevor smiles. “Did you want me to bring over the sketches you left at the office Friday?”
“You are a lifesaver,” Kurt mutters. “And bring alcohol. Not wine, I am sick of wine and champagne. Surprise me.”
Which leads to Trevor and his little family on the doorstep of Kurt’s oddly regal house in the middle of Manhattan (it looks small but the inside, whether by design or by magic, is surprisingly spacious) carrying what Trevor likes to call Fashion Week Brew.
It’s really just expensive raspberry infused vodka and a series of liqueurs that Trevor will never reveal to Kurt or Blaine. He’s seen what happens to them after one drink, and he fears for them should they ever get the recipe, but it’s helped the company through more than one crisis and loosens Kurt up like nothing else.
Well, maybe sex, but Trevor has learned not to pry, lest he learn too much and feel jealous of the intimacy and depth of knowledge Blaine and Kurt have of each other’s bodies.
Noel greets them in an authentic chef’s hat complete with pointy rat ears. He’s dressed all in grey and someone has painted his face with a tiny pink nose and whiskers, so it looks like Kurt has lost that particular battle.
“Bonjour,” Noel tells them in his “very serious” voice, except that he’s trying to squeak like a rat as well so all seriousness is sort of lost.
“You look like a mouse,” Kyle informs him bluntly. They stare at each other for a few seconds and Trevor tried to judge if today is one of the days where they hate each other, or if it’s (please God let it be) a day when they’re best friends. “That’s cool. Your hat has ears.”
Trevor hears Greg let out an identical sigh of relief as Blaine appears to help with ushering them inside since Noel seems to have forgotten how. “Come in. Noel, why don’t you let Kyle be your sous-chef with Rory?” He rolls his eyes at the adults, clearly bemused by the entire situation.
“Maybe,” Noel informs Kyle. “Come audition first. Rory isn’t allowed to carry, because he dropped the plate of cheese and so now he’s only announcing the dishes as I bring them in.”
“Please tell me you brought something alcoholic,” Blaine begs, steering the children into the kitchen.
Trevor holds up the canvas bag as the bottles clink cheerfully inside which earns a rushed “I love you” from Blaine. There’s a resounding crash from the kitchens, something metallic and big by the sounds of it, and Kurt appears, the front half of his t-shirt and pressed pants combo engulfed by the papoose holding his youngest.
“Your turn,” he informs Blaine. “Please tell Remy that if he dents any more things that we’ll be having plain pasta for a week.”
“Kurt.”
“Blaine.”
“Kurt.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“Go sit and let Trevor funnel some of his magic juice into you and I’ll take care of the kitchen.”
They exchange a brief kiss as they pass each other and Kurt greets Trevor and Greg, hands on his hips. It would be a lot more intimidating if the baby wasn’t peeking through the sparkly pink material, gurgling happily. “Well, are you just going to stand there?”
“It seems safer,” Greg says at last.
“Nonsense. Come sit in the den.” They follow Kurt dutifully until he blocks Trevor’s path from the couch. “You, make me a drink. Stat.”
He unwinds the baby from his chest and places her on her play rug. Katy rolls over and throws her legs in the air, staring at them intently. When she does that, Trevor assumes she plotting her eventual take over of the world.
“Yes Master.” He heads to the bar and starts to pull the various tumblers and glasses out. For people with a complete and overly classy bar in the den (one of those very discreet and very modern ones to boot), it always seems to Trevor that they only use it to store the latest wine that Kurt’s clients send as gifts. He watches as his boss flops down on the couch and begins discussing the latest political scandal with Greg. They chat amicably for almost half an hour, while Trevor plays a quiet game of how many drinks he can get into Kurt before dinner.
Finally, Blaine reappears. He’s been dressed in a black bow tie and has a curly black moustache painted on, which serves to explain who must have painted Noel’s whiskers on.
“Dinner iz served,” he informs the other adults in an exaggerated French accent.
“Not until you was that off your face,” Kurt deadpans, standing anyways and scooping the baby up. Blaine comes up to them both and gets right into Kurt’s personal bubble, the only person above the age of ten who has the permission to do so.
“You know you find me dashing in a moustache.” He wriggles his nose and the painted lines dance merrily.
“I know you’ll regret leaving it on later tonight,” Kurt counters, kissing him anyways. It’s amazing how such a tiny threat works so well.
“I would never paint a moustache on,” Greg promises Trevor. Trevor leans over and bumps shoulders with his husband.
“Yes, you would.” They’re not Kurt and Blaine, no couple will be ever again in the history of the world, but their relationship suits them. Leave the theatrics to the theatrical and all that.
The adults seat themselves around the formal dining room table and Blaine pours the wine. Trevor notes that anything even remotely warm is already on the table and he suspects that Noel was none too pleased with this arrangement. Kurt slides Katy into her high chair and the baby immediately begins banging on the table and singing to herself quietly. Trevor’s not sure what to make of her yet, but he suspects she’ll be his boss at some point in his imminent future. That is if she doesn’t take over the world first.
“How was soccer practice this morning?” Blaine settles himself beside Kurt and eyes the archway into the kitchen warily. Muffled by the walls, they can’t quite make out what Noel is saying, but Kyle’s frequent annoyed “I know” make Trevor suspect that it’s not well-received.
“Not bad.” Greg shrugs. “He’s not going to play professionally, but he’s better than most of the kids.” He chuckles and squeezes Trevor’s hand. “There’s this one brat, his parents pay for private lessons and everything and he falls on his ass every game.”
They discuss the various merits of forcing children to be co-ordinated before their time as the three young boys join them. Noel coughs twice loudly (and he must have picked that up from Kurt, because it’s clipped and very forced) and twitches his nose when his parents don’t immediately stop talking and pay attention to him.
“We were going to have courses,” he whines. “But Rory and Kyle are hungry so we just brought out everything.”
Everything, it appears, is a cheese platter (arranged by Kurt if Trevor knows anything about his boss), a bunch of devilled eggs and several finger sandwiches.
“I made everything,” Noel announces as the adults relieve the boys of the dishes and Kyle and Rory scramble up onto chairs. “From my cookbook. That Remy signed and gave me personally.”
“It looks awesome, Noel.” Blaine pulls out the free chair to his left. “Thank you for cooking dinner.”
Noel doesn’t move. He looks at Blaine dubiously. “The chef doesn’t eat in his own restaurant,” he explains as if his Papa is slow.
“This one does.” Kurt points at the seat with the butt of his knife. “Sit, please, so we can start eating. You’re starving your guests.” Noel wavers for only a second longer before hopping begrudgingly into his appointed chair.
“Fine, but I have to explain each dish before you can eat it,” he tells Kurt. “That is what a real chef does.” He looks right at Greg. “I hope you write me a good review.”
Greg smiles at him, having had a soft spot for Noel ever since he complimented Greg’s tie and cufflinks by way of telling him that if all lawyers were dressed that nice that people probably wouldn’t hate them so much. “I’m sure I will.”
“Good, but don’t be too easy on me. I may be only six, but I have to learn.”
If someone had told Trevor at sixteen when he took the co-op at a fashion magazine in the accounting department that he would be sitting at the dining room table of Out Magazine’s Hottest Men slot number one and two being instructed on his dinner by a small boy dressed as a rat, well, he would have laughed in their face.
That’s what Kurt Hummel does, though: he sweeps into your life when you think you have it all figured out and drags you in the direction he’s going instead. And somehow that makes you better, happier.
He had just meant to be polite. Kurt looked out of place and in need of a friend. They forged a bond based on age, feeling everyone was hipper, cooler, and able to drink after work. Kurt’s boyfriend had been easy on the eyes, a good segue as Trevor tried to navigate his own type in the big city. (“Not everyone gets the perfect guy to pass him on a staircase after all,” Trevor had bitched when he’d struck out four times — dating in New York should have been easier than in Ohio, but it wasn’t.)
And, when he’d been floundering after college, unsure why he’d gotten a degree in economics when it crushed his soul to sit in an office and look at spreadsheets all day, Kurt had rescued him, from the same place he’d rescued Kurt in the first place with a stupid cup of coffee and an offer of friendship.
The office had been so small when they’d moved in, practically just the two of them: Trevor balancing the books and answering the phones, Kurt sewing and sketching until they could afford their own interns and part-time seamstress. Now they take up two whole floors in New York and have smaller offices in Milan and a stylist specific headquarters in L.A.
Every time they think they’ve got it under control the company needs to expand. It doesn’t help that Kurt is notoriously picky with his inner circle and viciously critical every time Trevor begs him to add just one more person.
Blaine manages to get a word in edgewise some time around dessert (between Kurt’s running commentary of the latest award show season and the horrible stylists that he’s blacklisting and Noel’s insistence in walking them through each recipe, there was little need for small talk) and asks Trevor which of the songs from the latest mix tape he should bother keeping.
“He likes the one about backstage,” Greg and Kurt answer in near unison. They look at each other and exchange sympathetic looks. Apparently no one thinks Trevor should be allowed to sing it as loudly as he does.
Blaine shakes his head. “Always the ones about—” he looks at the children. “Fans. Man, Trevor you’re so easy.”
“Do you want my opinion or not?” He grins, knowing that Blaine will take it because Kurt is biased and Blaine thinks everyone is lying when they say his stuff is good.
He knows Blaine will still doubt himself, and that he’ll still press a new mix into Trevor’s hand at the end of the evening. It’s one of the perks.
Kurt dismisses the children to gather the supplies for dessert — make your own sundaes, all made by Noel, and turns to them again. “How’s the adoption going — did they actually call back like they said they would Friday?”
Greg dismisses it with a wave of his hand. “No, of course not. Friday probably meant Wednesday if we’re lucky.”
“If you need time off to go down there—” Kurt starts.
“I’ll ask,” Trevor assures him. He knows his boss can be seen as slave driver but he’s not. He’s kind and caring and might seem above it all, but he pays fierce attention to his friends and is always there to lend a hand or offer advice.
So what if people think he’s chained to a desk? If that’s what they think, so be it. No one will ever take his job and he can continue on this strange, wonderful path that lets him cook pancakes in his underwear on a Saturday and listen to demo tapes before anyone else from a Billboard Hot 100 Artist.
And he works for the best boss in the world, no matter what he tells people. Pretend shackles or not, he’s there for good.