Okay, this is my first fill. I went with the first prompt to not be filled (I think). It's tucked way back on the first page, so there is a very good chance no one will ever see this, but I'm going for it anyway. Live in hope.
"Have a nice day," Burt waves as his last customer of the day leaves.
He closes up shop in an admittedly sloppy fashion, leaving most of the tidying for the next day. The day has been a long one, with eight oil changes all after lunch. Burt figures he deserves a break.
One thing he can't complain about, however, is the commute. Burt walks the two hundred feet from his shop to his kitchen door and is home: the perk of owning your own business.
As he wipes his feet on the mat, a habit lectured into him by his son, he hears the TV playing in the living room. He'd forgotten Kurt was having that Lucas kid over again for one of their couch dates.
From the sound of it, this week's choice of entertainment is one of those teen drama things. One of the characters is shouting about someone looking at another man. Burt would prefer Deadliest Catch, but to each his own.
He figures since he'd entered the house quietly enough and the TV is on loud enough that he can just sneak off to his room and the kids won't be disturbed.
"He was working the register, Lucas! It's kind of rude to ignore him!"
That is Kurt's voice.
Burt's in the living room just in time to see Lucas smack Kurt across the face.
While his mind is still reeling over the fact that what he thought was an angsty fight on TV was actually happening to his son, Burt's body springs into action with a bellowing, "Hey!"
Before Lucas has a chance to react, Burt yanks him backwards, placing his own body between the teens.
"Did you just hit my kid?"
Suddenly Lucas doesn't look so tough.
Burt shoves his finger in the kid's face, "I asked you a question."
Lucas's eyes dart to Kurt, "He-"
Before Lucas can make the undeniably stupid mistake of pinning this on Kurt, Kurt speaks up, "It was just a stupid fight. It just got out of hand."
A revelation strikes Burt in the gut. Kurt isn't shocked over getting hit. He's actually defending the little bastard. That means this has happened before.
Lucas, brilliant Lucas, pipes up again, "This has nothing to do with you. We were just-"
"Once you hit my kid, it's my business. Get out. You're not welcome here anymore."
"Dad!" Kurt is ignored.
Burt continues as a fluke of intelligence has Lucas making his way out the door, "If I ever catch you around here again, I'm calling the cops!" Burt slams the door shut and turns to his son.
Kurt actually looks angry, "Way to over-react, Dad!"
"Did I raise you stupid?"
Kurt blanches, "It was just a fight."
"He hit you, Kurt!"
"Barely a slap." There's less force behind Kurt's words now.
"How hard does he usually hit you?"
"You... you knew?" And you didn't say anything?
"I figured it out by your reaction tonight. You defended him?"
"I can't exactly be picky, Dad!"
Burt takes a bit to figure out where Kurt's gone with that statement. "You don't think you can get a better boyfriend, so you stay with a guy who hits you?"
"This is Lima, Ohio! Not a lot of fish in the sea when you're landlocked!"
"So you let your boyfriend bully you like those jocks do? You're okay with that?"
Kurt's eyes can't rise above the ground, "You wouldn't understand."
"Yeah, well, I understand one thing: that little prick isn't stepping foot in this house ever again. I mean it, Kurt."
Kurt doesn't respond. He silently turns and makes his way down to his basement room.
Burt figures he's probably too worked up right now to have a productive conversation about this. It can wait for tomorrow, when they've both cooled down.
At 3:42 PM the next day, a text arrives on Kurt's phone. It's from Lucas.
"Hey, I want to apologize for yesterday. Can I come over?"
Umm, awkward. I just posted this under my boyfriend's account. Sorry if that means I'm spamming your email accounts!
Oh, goodness! Hi, people! You certainly make continuing a worthwhile endeavor!
Burt looks up from the hood of the Ford Focus with a broken air conditioner at the sound of screeching breaks. A familiar truck rounds the corner outside the shop.
Lucas's truck.
Shit.
"Hey, Carl," Burt calls to one of his employees, "you think you can look after the shop for a bit?"
"Sure thing, Burt." Carl was never a nosey man.
Burt runs to his house. It's not exactly inconspicuous, but he can't shake the feeling that Lucas leaving in such a hurry means he left behind something horrible to run from.
"Kurt!" Burt's shouting when he enters his home.
There's no answer.
Burt refuses to think. His imagination would not be helpful right now.
He takes the stairs down to the basement two at a time.
There's water running behind Kurt's bathroom door.
"Kurt, was he here?" Burt pounds on the door far harder than necessary.
Burt can hear a startled yelp and the thud of a small bottle hitting the ground. He didn't mean to scare Kurt, but he needs to see him right now.
The door slowly opens to reveal a battered Kurt. Blood still oozes from both nostrils and a fat lip, the areas around his left eye and below his right cheek bone are already darkening, and there are finger-shaped bruises up and down both of his pale arms.
Tears spill, "I'm sorry, Dad-"
Burt pulls his son into a hug. His son's alive. It's okay. Kurt's alive.
Kurt breaks into sobs, clinging to his dad, willing him not to pull away and yell at him, not yet.
Through his tears, he repeats, "I sorry, Dad! I'm so sorry!" over and over.
Burt just rubs his son's back until the sobs subside.
Burt pulls back a bit, holding his kid at arm's length to get a look at him. Kurt's eyes are trained on his shoes.
Burt gives Kurt's shoulder a pat and lets go, moving over to the nightstand.
The distance feels cold to Kurt. He has no idea what his dad is doing, and the unknown is terrifying. He doesn't look up, though. He can't bring himself to look his dad in the face. He just wraps his arms around himself, mimicking the comfort he's already missing from his father.
Then, he hears his dad's voice and it all makes sense.
"Hello, this is Burt Hummel, and I'd like to report the son-of-a-bitch who beat up my son."
Re: Filled 2/3soblonde1202July 29 2010, 19:57:57 UTC
Here's the rest...damnit.
The police take statements and promise to keep the Hummels apprised. The hospital offers sympathetic glances and a prescription for pain killers. Kurt goes through it all in a daze, not coming back to himself until they arrive home.
Burt's reheating something for dinner and Kurt's tracing the patterns in the wooden kitchen table.
Kurt can't take the silence. His father hasn't spoken to him since this started. This isn't like Burt. He's always been there for Kurt, and now that Kurt feels he needs his dad the most...
Kurt says the only thing he can think of: "I'm sorry I let him back in."
Kurt can't tell that Burt has nodded in response. He continues trying to elicit a response, hoping humor is a good idea, "I guess I'm really gonna' get it this time, huh?"
Burt's voice is small and sad, "I don't make rules to punish you, Kurt."
Humor was not a good idea. Kurt feels like he's been taken down another ten pegs.
"I know, Dad. I'm sor-"
"I do it because I want to keep you safe. I want to prevent stuff like this from happening to you." Burt takes a seat at the table and faces his son.
Kurt's eyes stayed glued on the tabletop, tears dropping in his lap.
"When I saw that kid drive away like a bat out of Hell, I thought, maybe," Burt's throat constricts at the memory, but he continues, "I thought I might find you dead."
Kurt flinches. That thought hadn't actually occurred to him. "I'm sorry, Dad."
Now, Burt's crying, too. "I know you are." He takes a minute to compose himself, fails, and just decides to continue through the tears. "Kurt, I trusted you to have your friends over, to have Lucas," Burt spits out the name, "over when I wasn't here. That trust wasn't just that you wouldn't burn the house down or have sex on the good sofa. That trust was that you'd take care of yourself."
Kurt's head drops a little lower.
"Now, I'm not blaming you for getting hit. No one deserves that. But, you didn't go for help. You just let him keep doing it. You gave him permission to hit you. Kurt, you're smarter than that!"
Burt slams his fist into the table. Kurt jumps in his seat, finally making eye contact with his father.
"He said he wanted to apologize. I...I wanted to give him another chance."
"Jesus, Kurt, why?"
"I hate being alone!" Kurt's shaking now, loathing how pathetic he sounds.
"Alone?" Kurt, you're not alone."
"You see any rainbow flags or pride parades? Anywhere? I'm the Lima Fag and that makes me pretty alone."
Burt thinks he should have expected Kurt would feel this way, but just hearing the label Kurt has given himself throws him for a bit.
"Lima Fag? You-you are not just... Kurt, I know that being gay here isn't easy. Hell, I don't know if it will get any easier when you make it out of here, but, Kurt, you are so much more than just gay."
Kurt looks offended, so Burt continues before his kid can get a tirade in edgewise, "Now, I'm not discounting it. I know being gay is an important part of who you are. But, you are great in so many other ways. You taught yourself French, and dress like those Project Runway models, and you can rotate a tire faster than any of us at the shop, and you have the best singing voice I've ever heard. Plus, you're on the Cheerios team and have Glee; and those kids, Artie, Tina, Mercedes, all of them; they make you not alone, Kid. They're good to you, they're your friends, and in time you'll see that friends are way more important than dates."
The speech has it's desired effect: Kurt's tears are all but dried, and a smile forms on his face.
Burt isn't finished, though, "And, even though I drive you nuts sometimes, you have me. I love you, and I don't ever want you letting someone hurt you again, okay? Because above all else, you're my kid, and no one pushes the Hummels around." His tone is serious, but not scolding, so Kurt's mood doesn't drop at the sentiment.
Instead, he nods and launches himself at his father's chest, "I love you, too, Dad!"
Burt gives him a tight hug in return.
They stay like that for a few minutes, just remembering that they love each other.
Kurt sniffs the air, "I think I smell dinner burning."
"Have a nice day," Burt waves as his last customer of the day leaves.
He closes up shop in an admittedly sloppy fashion, leaving most of the tidying for the next day. The day has been a long one, with eight oil changes all after lunch. Burt figures he deserves a break.
One thing he can't complain about, however, is the commute. Burt walks the two hundred feet from his shop to his kitchen door and is home: the perk of owning your own business.
As he wipes his feet on the mat, a habit lectured into him by his son, he hears the TV playing in the living room. He'd forgotten Kurt was having that Lucas kid over again for one of their couch dates.
From the sound of it, this week's choice of entertainment is one of those teen drama things. One of the characters is shouting about someone looking at another man. Burt would prefer Deadliest Catch, but to each his own.
He figures since he'd entered the house quietly enough and the TV is on loud enough that he can just sneak off to his room and the kids won't be disturbed.
"He was working the register, Lucas! It's kind of rude to ignore him!"
That is Kurt's voice.
Burt's in the living room just in time to see Lucas smack Kurt across the face.
While his mind is still reeling over the fact that what he thought was an angsty fight on TV was actually happening to his son, Burt's body springs into action with a bellowing, "Hey!"
Before Lucas has a chance to react, Burt yanks him backwards, placing his own body between the teens.
"Did you just hit my kid?"
Suddenly Lucas doesn't look so tough.
Burt shoves his finger in the kid's face, "I asked you a question."
Lucas's eyes dart to Kurt, "He-"
Before Lucas can make the undeniably stupid mistake of pinning this on Kurt, Kurt speaks up, "It was just a stupid fight. It just got out of hand."
A revelation strikes Burt in the gut. Kurt isn't shocked over getting hit. He's actually defending the little bastard. That means this has happened before.
Lucas, brilliant Lucas, pipes up again, "This has nothing to do with you. We were just-"
"Once you hit my kid, it's my business. Get out. You're not welcome here anymore."
"Dad!" Kurt is ignored.
Burt continues as a fluke of intelligence has Lucas making his way out the door, "If I ever catch you around here again, I'm calling the cops!" Burt slams the door shut and turns to his son.
Kurt actually looks angry, "Way to over-react, Dad!"
"Did I raise you stupid?"
Kurt blanches, "It was just a fight."
"He hit you, Kurt!"
"Barely a slap." There's less force behind Kurt's words now.
"How hard does he usually hit you?"
"You... you knew?" And you didn't say anything?
"I figured it out by your reaction tonight. You defended him?"
"I can't exactly be picky, Dad!"
Burt takes a bit to figure out where Kurt's gone with that statement. "You don't think you can get a better boyfriend, so you stay with a guy who hits you?"
"This is Lima, Ohio! Not a lot of fish in the sea when you're landlocked!"
"So you let your boyfriend bully you like those jocks do? You're okay with that?"
Kurt's eyes can't rise above the ground, "You wouldn't understand."
"Yeah, well, I understand one thing: that little prick isn't stepping foot in this house ever again. I mean it, Kurt."
Kurt doesn't respond. He silently turns and makes his way down to his basement room.
Burt figures he's probably too worked up right now to have a productive conversation about this. It can wait for tomorrow, when they've both cooled down.
At 3:42 PM the next day, a text arrives on Kurt's phone. It's from Lucas.
"Hey, I want to apologize for yesterday. Can I come over?"
Kurt responds with just two letters: "OK."
Reply
Oh, goodness! Hi, people! You certainly make continuing a worthwhile endeavor!
Burt looks up from the hood of the Ford Focus with a broken air conditioner at the sound of screeching breaks. A familiar truck rounds the corner outside the shop.
Lucas's truck.
Shit.
"Hey, Carl," Burt calls to one of his employees, "you think you can look after the shop for a bit?"
"Sure thing, Burt." Carl was never a nosey man.
Burt runs to his house. It's not exactly inconspicuous, but he can't shake the feeling that Lucas leaving in such a hurry means he left behind something horrible to run from.
"Kurt!" Burt's shouting when he enters his home.
There's no answer.
Burt refuses to think. His imagination would not be helpful right now.
He takes the stairs down to the basement two at a time.
There's water running behind Kurt's bathroom door.
"Kurt, was he here?" Burt pounds on the door far harder than necessary.
Burt can hear a startled yelp and the thud of a small bottle hitting the ground. He didn't mean to scare Kurt, but he needs to see him right now.
The door slowly opens to reveal a battered Kurt. Blood still oozes from both nostrils and a fat lip, the areas around his left eye and below his right cheek bone are already darkening, and there are finger-shaped bruises up and down both of his pale arms.
Tears spill, "I'm sorry, Dad-"
Burt pulls his son into a hug. His son's alive. It's okay. Kurt's alive.
Kurt breaks into sobs, clinging to his dad, willing him not to pull away and yell at him, not yet.
Through his tears, he repeats, "I sorry, Dad! I'm so sorry!" over and over.
Burt just rubs his son's back until the sobs subside.
Burt pulls back a bit, holding his kid at arm's length to get a look at him. Kurt's eyes are trained on his shoes.
Burt gives Kurt's shoulder a pat and lets go, moving over to the nightstand.
The distance feels cold to Kurt. He has no idea what his dad is doing, and the unknown is terrifying. He doesn't look up, though. He can't bring himself to look his dad in the face. He just wraps his arms around himself, mimicking the comfort he's already missing from his father.
Then, he hears his dad's voice and it all makes sense.
"Hello, this is Burt Hummel, and I'd like to report the son-of-a-bitch who beat up my son."
Reply
The police take statements and promise to keep the Hummels apprised. The hospital offers sympathetic glances and a prescription for pain killers. Kurt goes through it all in a daze, not coming back to himself until they arrive home.
Burt's reheating something for dinner and Kurt's tracing the patterns in the wooden kitchen table.
Kurt can't take the silence. His father hasn't spoken to him since this started. This isn't like Burt. He's always been there for Kurt, and now that Kurt feels he needs his dad the most...
Kurt says the only thing he can think of: "I'm sorry I let him back in."
Kurt can't tell that Burt has nodded in response. He continues trying to elicit a response, hoping humor is a good idea, "I guess I'm really gonna' get it this time, huh?"
Burt's voice is small and sad, "I don't make rules to punish you, Kurt."
Humor was not a good idea. Kurt feels like he's been taken down another ten pegs.
"I know, Dad. I'm sor-"
"I do it because I want to keep you safe. I want to prevent stuff like this from happening to you." Burt takes a seat at the table and faces his son.
Kurt's eyes stayed glued on the tabletop, tears dropping in his lap.
"When I saw that kid drive away like a bat out of Hell, I thought, maybe," Burt's throat constricts at the memory, but he continues, "I thought I might find you dead."
Kurt flinches. That thought hadn't actually occurred to him. "I'm sorry, Dad."
Now, Burt's crying, too. "I know you are." He takes a minute to compose himself, fails, and just decides to continue through the tears. "Kurt, I trusted you to have your friends over, to have Lucas," Burt spits out the name, "over when I wasn't here. That trust wasn't just that you wouldn't burn the house down or have sex on the good sofa. That trust was that you'd take care of yourself."
Kurt's head drops a little lower.
"Now, I'm not blaming you for getting hit. No one deserves that. But, you didn't go for help. You just let him keep doing it. You gave him permission to hit you. Kurt, you're smarter than that!"
Burt slams his fist into the table. Kurt jumps in his seat, finally making eye contact with his father.
"He said he wanted to apologize. I...I wanted to give him another chance."
"Jesus, Kurt, why?"
"I hate being alone!" Kurt's shaking now, loathing how pathetic he sounds.
"Alone?" Kurt, you're not alone."
"You see any rainbow flags or pride parades? Anywhere? I'm the Lima Fag and that makes me pretty alone."
Burt thinks he should have expected Kurt would feel this way, but just hearing the label Kurt has given himself throws him for a bit.
"Lima Fag? You-you are not just... Kurt, I know that being gay here isn't easy. Hell, I don't know if it will get any easier when you make it out of here, but, Kurt, you are so much more than just gay."
Kurt looks offended, so Burt continues before his kid can get a tirade in edgewise, "Now, I'm not discounting it. I know being gay is an important part of who you are. But, you are great in so many other ways. You taught yourself French, and dress like those Project Runway models, and you can rotate a tire faster than any of us at the shop, and you have the best singing voice I've ever heard. Plus, you're on the Cheerios team and have Glee; and those kids, Artie, Tina, Mercedes, all of them; they make you not alone, Kid. They're good to you, they're your friends, and in time you'll see that friends are way more important than dates."
The speech has it's desired effect: Kurt's tears are all but dried, and a smile forms on his face.
Burt isn't finished, though, "And, even though I drive you nuts sometimes, you have me. I love you, and I don't ever want you letting someone hurt you again, okay? Because above all else, you're my kid, and no one pushes the Hummels around." His tone is serious, but not scolding, so Kurt's mood doesn't drop at the sentiment.
Instead, he nods and launches himself at his father's chest, "I love you, too, Dad!"
Burt gives him a tight hug in return.
They stay like that for a few minutes, just remembering that they love each other.
Kurt sniffs the air, "I think I smell dinner burning."
"How does Chinese sound?"
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