Chapter Text
Almost eighteen months after they moved back to New York, Kurt got a text from Blaine in the middle of the day. He was in a History of Theater seminar, so he surreptitiously moved his phone down to his lap to check it. Usually Blaine was very considerate of Kurt’s class schedule. He wouldn’t be texting now if it wasn’t important. It was.
From Blaine: They’re recasting Hamilton.
Blaine had been obsessed with the hip-hop musical Hamilton since it opened the last summer. He and Kurt owned the soundtrack, and Blaine had been trying for months to win tickets on the Ham4Ham lottery, so far to no avail. Kurt had been saving money on the side, trying to figure out how he could buy tickets, even if it was months from now, but the seats were going for hundreds of dollars apiece. He didn’t think he would ever be able to save that much.
When Kurt finally got home after class that night, the Hamilton soundtrack was blaring from the bluetooth speaker in their apartment, and Blaine was rapping along with Lin-Manuel Miranda,
“ Hey yo, I’m just like my country, I’m young, scrappy and hungry and I’m not throwin’ away my shot!”
He broke into a wide smile when he saw Kurt come through the door, grabbed his arms, swept him into a spin, and twirled him around their tiny living room.
“We’re gonna rise up! Time to take a shot, rise up!”
Kurt was laughing by the time the song was over, Blaine’s cheeks bloomed rosy from the dancing, he was breathing hard, and his eyes were bright with excitement.
“So what’s going on?” Kurt finally managed to ask, when Blaine turned the music down.
“Most of the cast is leaving this summer, after the Tonys, or in the fall. They posted open auditions for recasting almost everything, from King George to George Washington. My advisor wants me to try out. Kurt, you have to help me find a rap audition piece.”
Kurt’s smile dimmed a little. This was a lot to take in. They were both still in school, although he was finishing up his final semester at NYADA. Blaine was thriving at NYU, but he still had dark days, days when getting out of bed was a struggle, when he turned to Kurt, wordless, eyes brimming with tears for reasons he couldn’t even begin to explain. Kurt was better at understanding those days, better at helping Blaine, not by trying to fix things, or offering solutions like he would have in the past, but by just being there at Blaine’s side.
And Blaine was better at giving Kurt his space without taking it as a personal affront. He belonged to an a cappella group at school, and checked out new bands with Elliott, and had played the Baker last semester in a school production of Into the Woods, which earned him positive reviews in the NYU student newspaper.
But even though they were getting better at figuring things out, happy to be together back in New York in their own tiny apartment, and even though this was exactly the kind of acting opportunity both of them were always looking for, something was giving Kurt pause. Auditioning for one of the most popular and arguably demanding musicals in the city meant a lot of time and dedication. And the chances of Blaine being cast, even in the chorus, were so slim, that Kurt knew the whole idea was a long shot. Not to mention the fact that the cast in Hamilton was notoriously racially diverse, and even though Blaine was biracial, he passed pretty solidly as white. They both knew the score, having played it endlessly for months. Kurt couldn’t help but think of Washington warning the impetuous Hamilton, “Dying is easy, young Man. Living is Harder.”
Blaine must have seen the look on Kurt’s face, because his own face dimmed a little.
“What? Kurt? Is there a problem with me auditioning for Hamilton?”
Kurt shook his head a bit to clear it. Yes, it might come to nothing. Yes, he knew Blaine might have a depressive episode or fall behind in school if it didn’t work out, but Kurt also knew better than to try to tell Blaine not to audition for something he really wanted. This was what they came to New York to do. Neither of them thought it would be easy, making a living as actors and performers. He couldn’t ask Blaine to give up before he even started. Blaine was now Washington to Kurt’s Hamilton, “I need someone like you to lighten the load.” He turned to Blaine and asked him carefully, “You’re sure you want to do this?” Blaine leapt onto the couch and flung his arms wide, answering Kurt with a broad smile and another Hamilton lyric,
“I’m past patiently waitin’,
I’m passionately smashin’ every expectation,
every action’s an act of creation.
I’m laughin’ in the face of casualties and sorrow,
for the first time I’m thinkin’ past tomorrow,” He jumped back down to the floor and pulled Kurt back in for another hug,
“And I am not throwin’ away my shot.”
So… apparently they were doing this. Kurt stepped into Blaine’s open arms and hugged him, hard. “What can I do to help?” he asked, though he wondered if “Foes oppose us/We taken honest stand, we roll like Moses, claimin’ our promised land” applied or might “We are outgunned/outmanned/outmaneuvered/outplanned” be more appropriate.
The casting calls were scheduled for two weeks away, and Blaine immediately began trying to memorize the entire Hamilton soundtrack.
“Blaine, I’m pretty sure you don’t need to play every part,” said Kurt with a fond smile, as Blaine struggled to hit Angelica’s Schuyler’s notes the next morning before breakfast.
Blaine looked at him and took another swig of his orange juice before intoning, “I will never be satisfied...”
“Oh, brother,” said Kurt. “This is going to be interesting.” Inwardly, “Stay alive ‘til this horror show is past. We’re gonna fly a lot of flag half-mast.”
For the next several days Blaine spoke almost entirely in Hamilton quotes, while Kurt thought them to himself in response.
When Kurt came home from school, tired at the end of a long day, and called out, ”Blaine, are you home?” Blaine responded from the bedroom “ I’m Alexander Hamilton, I’m at your service, sir.” Kurt thought, “I’m getting nervous.”
When someone at NYADA gave Kurt two free tickets to an off-off Broadway show, and he called Blaine to tell him not to plan anything for that Friday night, Blaine burst into song over the phone, “Look around, look around, at how lucky we are to be alive right now...”
Kurt laughed patiently, “Yes, Blaine, we are very lucky. But I need to make sure you can get back from your afternoon seminar that day in time for us to have dinner before the show. Can you get everything done in time to make it,” thinking Blaine, like Hamilton, “[d]oesn’t hesitate. He exhibits no restraint. He takes and he takes and he takes” but could “he keep winning anyway?”
Blaine’s response through the phone, in staccato rap only made Kurt laugh harder, “Why do you write, like you’re running out of time?”
But Blaine was happy and excited, during those two weeks before the auditions, even if Kurt wasn’t always quite sure when he was channeling Hamilton, as opposed to Aaron Burr or George Washington. Together Blaine and Kurt transposed and reworked a segment of will.i.am’s Hall of Fame arrangement that the glee club had performed Blaine’s senior year at Regionals for his audition piece, in order to showcase both his singing and his rapping skills. Kurt came home every day to find Blaine following dance routines on Youtube, focused and intense. Kurt’s concerns that this audition might be too much started to subside a bit, and he found himself joining in the Hamilton banter with Blaine, teasing him by singing King George’s part as Blaine worked and reworked an intricate hip-hop dance step,
“Time will tell.
You’ll remember that I served you well.
Oceans riiiise, empires fall,
We have seen each other through it all,
and when push comes to shove, I will send
a fully armed battalion to remind you of my love!”
Blaine just stuck out his tongue at Kurt and kept dancing.
* * *
The day of the auditions, Blaine seemed more subdued than he had been in the past two weeks. He had flat ironed and teased his hair out that morning, in a wild, high style, so different from his usual gelled coif that Kurt couldn’t stop staring at it. He was wearing dark workout clothes with a bright red, infinity scarf around his neck, and had borrowed a couple of Kurt’s bigger fashion rings to catch the light when he danced. Kurt helped him double-check his head shot and his sheet music for the piano player. Blaine was fidgeting with the duffle bag that had his dance shoes in it, and he frowned as he put another water bottle in the bottom.
“Do you really think I have a chance, Kurt?” This was the first time he had expressed any doubt about this audition. Kurt could see worry in his eyes, the shadow of a cloud starting to cross his face.
“Hey,” said Kurt, reaching out to take Blaine by the hand. “Hey.” Internally, he worried like Eliza, “If I could grant you peace of mind, would that be enough?”
They sat on the loveseat in their tiny living room, and Kurt waited for Blaine to tell him what was on his mind.
“I mean, it’s huge, and it’s so huge, that everyone is going out for it--I know at least ten people in my dance class at NYU who are going to be there today, and that doesn’t even count the thousands of other people who will have seen the ad and who are preparing. And lots of them probably have professional credits. Maybe I shouldn’t go. I might just end up embarrassing myself.” Blaine was looking at the floor as he was talking, the toe of one shoe dragging slowly against the other. His hands were gripping the edge of the love seat tightly, as though he was afraid he would fall off. (“Outgunned/Outmanned/Outmaneuvered/Outplanned”).
Kurt reached out and pulled Blaine to him, pushing his face into Blaine’s crazy hairdo. Blaine smelled of lavender soap and bergamot and a little like Kurt’s hairspray.
“Hey,” he said again softly, into Blaine’s ear. “You’re going to be amazing. It doesn’t matter how many people are there. None of them have worked as hard as you, and none of them want it more than you, and even if you don’t get a part, you have to go try, right? I mean you definitely won’t get cast if you stay home this morning. But if you go, you never know what might happen.” To himself, “Look into your eyes, and the sky’s the limit. I’m helpless.”
Blaine nodded, a tiny nod, still looking at the floor. He glanced over at Kurt with a sad smile, then said “Will you be here when I get home?”
“Always,“ Kurt replied, and then he pulled Blaine to his feet, and, holding his hands tightly, sang to Blaine, in his clear countertenor, the Eliza Schuyler lyrics that had been filling the apartment for the past two weeks.
“I don’t pretend to know
the challenges that you’re facing,
the worlds you keep erasing and creating in your mind.
But I’m not afraid
I know who I married
So long as you come home at the end of the day
that would be enough.
And I could be enough and we could be enough
that would be enough.”
Before he had finished the last lyric, Blaine had buried his face in Kurt’s neck and was holding on to him tight. And then he let go without another word, and turned to pick up his dance bag. “Wish me luck,” he said, glancing at Kurt as he opened the front door.
“Break a leg, Blaine,” said Kurt. “‘That would be enough.’”
* * *
It was hours before Blaine came back through the door of the apartment. He had been texting Kurt all day, a roller coaster of excited and terrified messages, which had Kurt clutching his phone, waiting for the next update.
“The line is around the block. There must be fifteen hundred people here.
“Lin-Manuel Miranda just said hi to us!”
Ten minutes later:
“And Jonathan Groff just walked by, but he didn’t say hi.”
Half an hour after that:
“The dance routine they want us to learn isn’t too bad, except for one kick-cross-step combo in the middle.”
An hour later:
“I nailed the combo. Made it to the second rounds.”
And then Kurt’s phone went silent.
Four hours later Blaine came crashing through the door, flinging his dance bag to the floor, and calling Kurt’s name. He sounded excited, elated. Kurt came in from the bedroom in a rush, and grabbed Blaine, twirling him in a circle, before leading him back to the love seat where they had been that morning.
“Tell, tell,” He demanded, blue eyes steady on Blaine, “It’s been hours since your last text. What happened?”
“Oh,” said Blaine, “I got cut after the third round, there were so many amazing dancers, Kurt, and lots of them had been professionally cast before. I didn’t have a chance.” He didn’t look the least bit upset.
“But you made it to the third round,” said Kurt. “That’s amazing! Out of all those people…”
“I know,” said Blaine, laughing a bit. “It really was incredible, just being there. Lin-Manuel Miranda was there the whole time, and he was demonstrating dance moves with the choreographer, and it just felt so real. Like I belonged there, at least auditioning, even if I wasn’t quite ready to be cast.” His hair, still wild from the morning, was sticking out in all directions now, and he had a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead. “I really was ‘in the room where it happened’ Kurt.” He smiled at Kurt then, and Kurt could see the clouds had gone from his face, and his smile was full, and bright.
“Thank you, Kurt,”said Blaine, “for helping me with...all of it. You really do make it safe.”
Kurt kissed him then, because he couldn’t help kissing Blaine when he looked like that, and as Blaine went to shower and change, Kurt could hear him singing to himself yet another Hamilton lyric,
“We rise and we fall and we break and we make our mistakes.
And if there’s a reason I’m still alive when everyone who loves me has died,
I’m willing to wait for it. I’m willing to wait for it.”