Fic: A Way With Words (Part A)
Title: A Way With Words (Part A)
Media: Fic
Author: kappamaki33
Characters: Burt Hummel, Kurt Hummel, Mercedes Jones, Blaine Anderson, Carole Hudson, Finn Hudson, Rachel Berry, Quinn Fabray, Brittany Pierce, Mike Chang; Kurt/Blaine, Burt/Carole, Finn/Rachel
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Burt admitted in his wedding vows that he wasn’t known for having a way with words.
Warning: Language, vague mentions of sexual activities
Spoilers: Some spoilers for episodes up to “Special Education”
Word Count: ~22,500
Note: Thanks so much to safenthecity for the awesome beta’ing, cheering, Broadway musical-squeeing, and Ohio-picking. (Is that the correct term to use for a form of editing that’s very similar to Brit-picking in HP and other fandoms, but with the culture and quirks of Ohio?) I started out with the idea: five (which became sort of seven) times Burt thought he should have a serious talk with his son about his love life but the words didn’t come out quite as planned, and one time they talked about exactly what they needed to. I am working under the assumption that in Season 2, Kurt, Finn, and Rachel are sophomores, and Blaine is a junior. (Yes, I know I’m hand-waving canon, but if Rachel can go from being vegan to eating pepperoni pizza and cooking veal for no reason, I can ignore her grade in the pilot for the sake of a bigger plot point.)
A Way With Words
The things that we love tell us what we are.
-St. Thomas Aquinas
There were very few things in life of which Burt Hummel was certain, and that list shortened the older he got. He knew he loved his son. He knew his parents had loved him but never would have accepted Kurt, and it hurt a little to be glad they’d both died when Kurt was still quite young. He knew cars, inside and out, though all those screwy quirks of Japanese construction that forced him to pass customers on to the dealerships made him question that every now and again. He had loved Jennifer, and he still did, even after so many years, but he’d be lying if he didn’t admit that Carole might be changing how he loved her.
Once, he had been fairly certain that God existed, and that He was mostly good. Burt suspected his faith might’ve rebounded someday after he lost Jennifer if he hadn’t had to watch Kurt curl up with her in her hospital bed, trying so desperately to make things better on days when she hurt so badly she just couldn’t put up a front for him anymore. Now, Burt didn’t even share Kurt’s certainty that God didn’t exist. All he had was a niggling suspicion that if God was up there somewhere, He got His kicks from making life hard, but not so hard that they’d buckle under the pressure, because then He wouldn’t have any more opportunities to harass them.
So really, all Burt was absolutely sure of were solid American-made automobiles and that he loved Kurt. That didn’t mean he understood Kurt, though. Sometimes, it felt like the kid was speaking a different language. Sometimes, he actually was-Kurt had a habit of grumbling in French whenever Burt laid down the law-but even when they were both definitely speaking English, some things got lost in translation. Like, for example, when Kurt had said something about God and Shakespeare and boys and flies, Burt had thought they might be kind of on the same page about God. But then Kurt had zoomed on to flying spaghetti monsters and a bunch of very French philosopher-sounding guys before Burt could fully process the thing about boys and flies, and the moment was gone.
Also, for example, like when Kurt sang that Somebody’s Turn song, pulling out all the stops as if it were the last thing he’d ever sing. That conversation had been good, how Kurt had gotten the jealousy off his chest, and how Burt had been able to admit where he was struggling, but all those words Burt had somehow poured out without thinking that day wouldn’t mean a damn thing if he didn’t follow through with actions. That didn’t worry him too much. Burt was good at action; it came much more naturally than words. After that performance, Burt had been going out of his way to be a little extra considerate to Kurt, but he’d turned up the intensity on the niceness since the fight in the basement with Finn. He’d gotten why Kurt was upset that he and Finn had been doing guy things together without him before, but after that word, in his home… Burt felt like he had a lot more to make up for.
That was why, instead of taking the tow truck back to the shop after pulling Mrs. Schaffer’s Honda out of the ditch, he’d gone a few blocks out of his way and picked up two of Kurt’s favorite coffee-like drinks from his favorite coffee shop, then brought the truck back to the house. It was a Saturday, so Burt knew Mercedes would be over by the time he got home. Sure enough, he could hear Kurt and Mercedes giggling in the living room when he walked in the front door.
“Wasn’t this a good idea, doing yoga in the sun for a change instead of in that dungeon?” Burt heard Mercedes say as he set the coffee down on the kitchen island. He couldn’t see them through the door to the living room, but he could hear their conversation quite clearly.
“Dungeon?” Kurt gasped in mock-offense. “There has never been a dungeon that well-appointed in all of history. Well, maybe if you count the Marquis de Sade’s cell at Charanton, but still.”
“Marquis de what?”
“You know, the guy in Quills who wasn’t Joaquin Phoenix. Back to Downward Dog position.”
“Oh yeah. Well, what I meant was, you need to get out and see the sun every once in a while. Otherwise I’m going to have to switch from calling you ‘white boy’ to ‘high gloss white boy.’”
“Plank,” Kurt said, voice straining a little. Mercedes grunted. “I work hard to maintain this porcelain complexion, thank you very much. All right, Downward Dog, then Eagle, then back to Downward Dog, then Upward Dog. Got it?”
Burt was eternally grateful that Kurt had a friend like Mercedes. In fact, he’d always half-way expected that when Kurt had his “let’s try out heterosexuality” phase, it would’ve been with her, not the weird blonde cheerleader. He supposed it was a good thing it hadn’t turned out like that, so the two hadn’t had to deal with any awkward aftermath in their friendship when the romance didn’t work out. Still, it was weird to think how back when Burt was a kid, Kurt and Mercedes dating would’ve ruffled as many feathers as his son liking a boy would now.
Burt was about to take the coffee into the living room, but when he tuned back in to their conversation and realized what they were talking about, he stopped.
“Screw Puck,” Kurt said with utter confidence.
“Men,” Mercedes ground out. “Can’t live with ‘em, and…you can live without ‘em, ‘cause we are, but it’d be nice if we didn’t have to.”
“Amen to that.”
Burt felt a little guilty eavesdropping, but the kids were in the living room, which felt much more like fair game than a conversation held in Kurt’s bedroom would have. Plus, Kurt would never talk about something like this with him. Not that he blamed Kurt for that-hell, Burt wasn’t sure he could talk about boys with Kurt directly. That hardly meant he didn’t care, or didn’t worry. He grabbed a Clorox wipe and cleaned the countertop on the pretext that having something to do made the listening in not so bad.
“Why do guys do that, the whole macho lunch-money-stealing act?” Mercedes asked.
“Your first mistake is trying to make sense out of anything Puckerman does,” Kurt said. Burt could hear the eye-roll. “But I don’t know. I like to think I understand how guys think, since I am one, but in reality, boys mystify me.”
“Straight boys,” Mercedes added, trying to soothe him. “Don’t write yourself off as a totally failed judge of human nature until you’ve at least met another gay boy.” Then she groaned. “Oh my God, how am I supposed to hold this pose?”
“Watch the blasphemy there, girl,” Kurt kidded.
“That wasn’t blasphemy-ugh. That was a prayer for deliverance from-ergh…”
“Just go back to Cobra instead of Upward Dog…or, yeah, lie on the mat. That works too.”
“Remind me again why I’m even doing yoga with you anymore, now that I’m not a Cheerio?”
“Because I still need to improve my flexibility and strength for Cheerios, and you’re the best friend ever because you’re willing to do it with me and keep me occupied with gossip the whole time?”
Mercedes laughed. “Right.” The following silence lasted long enough that Burt almost went in with the coffee, but Mercedes’s words stopped him cold yet again. He was running out of surfaces to clean. “Hey, at least once you do get a boyfriend, you’ll have it easier than me in terms of understanding him. You’ll have the same gay boy way of thinking, same hormones. He won’t be nearly as much of an infuriating mystery to you as any boy I like will be to me.”
Kurt sighed. “But it’s always going to be a ‘gay’ relationship for me, isn’t it?”
Burt felt the same confusion he heard from Mercedes. “You’re not trying to lock yourself back in the closet again, are you? ‘Cause I’m really not a Mellencamp fan.”
“No! Not-no,” Kurt said quickly. “All I mean is that you’ll have boyfriends and relationships and no doubt a wedding one day. And everyone will smile at you and be happy for you, and that’s great. But me? I’m never going to have a plain relationship, no adjectives necessary. It’s always going to be a gay relationship with a gay boyfriend, and even if I put together a wedding with the most garishly on-the-nose theme ever, it won’t be a beach wedding or a Mardi Gras wedding or even a fucking Lady Gaga wedding. It’ll still be a big gay wedding to everyone, first and foremost.”
“Wow.”
Burt thought back to the Whoever’s Turn song and cringed. His and Kurt’s overt heart-to-hearts were few and far between-that was just who they were, and that was fine. The fact that every single one of them in the past year had gone back to gayness maybe wasn’t.
“Sorry,” Kurt said. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. It’s not your fault.”
“No, that’s cool. I get it, just wanting it to be normal.” After a pause, she giggled. “A Lady Gaga wedding is a freaking fabulous idea, though.”
“Yes, but it probably wouldn’t help the whole ‘why must “gay” automatically be the first adjective you think of’ thing. Though it might be worth it, to make all the guests dress in costume.”
“Finn could pull out the red shower curtain dress,” Mercedes said. Burt felt like they’d started talking in that other language again. “How are you and he doing now, anyway?”
“He came to school wearing a red shower curtain dress, just for me. Nobody could hold a grudge after that.” He said more seriously, “We’re okay. Not great, but in time…I think it’ll be okay. Now, you’ve had your rest break. Let’s do Camel pose, then Boat pose into Plow.”
“Demonstrate.” He could hear Kurt shifting on the mat. Then Mercedes said, “Oh hell no. I get to choreograph yoga next week, because that plow thing is insane.”
“Well, I’m finishing my routine. The book is over there, if you want to start planning for next Saturday.” Another pause. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”
“What doesn’t matter?”
“Any of that about a potential boyfriend. I don’t mean for you-someday soon, Mercedes, some really great straight guy is going to pull his head out of his ass and recognize what an amazing person you are. But I’m going to be waiting until college to find someone who could even be interested in theory.”
“I wish I could make it better for you,” Mercedes said with genuine emotion. Then she chuckled, “Or you could just do this Firefly pose in the book, and you’d have every gay boy in western Ohio at your beck and call.”
“What?” There was a pause, likely Mercedes showing him the book, followed by a truly scandalized squeak. “Mercedes!”
Their fit of laughter finally snapped Burt out of his hovering. He loudly dropped his keys on the counter like he’d just walked in the house and yelled, “I brought you back coffee from that place!”
“Raspberry White Truffle Mocha from Java Jamboree?” Kurt called back.
That sounded like it might be right. “Uh, the lady at the shop knows I’m your dad by now, so I just asked for your regular.”
Mercedes and Kurt fairly bounded into the kitchen, grinning as they laid eyes on the cups. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Sorry if they’re a little cool. I got sidetracked on my way back.”
Burt could tell from their faces that the drinks were cold, but neither of them wanted to admit it. “A little, but it’s still good. Thanks.”
It was a good thing Kurt was concentrating on his drink, because the way Burt stared at him would’ve probably weirded him out if he’d noticed it. Something about seeing him in the sunlight streaming through the kitchen windows made all the things about Kurt’s face that reminded Burt of Jennifer stand out even more. Burt remembered all the long talks he and Jennifer had had in the hospital room, all the promises he’d made about raising Kurt right. There was no way he could manufacture a heart-to-heart conversation with Kurt. That just wasn’t how they worked. He knew his kid needed something, though, so he did the next best thing he could think of.
“So, is the glee club doing a parent’s recital or something before you guys head to Regionals?”
Kurt only looked at him out of the corner of his eye.
“Mr. Schuester hasn’t mentioned one,” Mercedes said. “That’s a really good idea, though.”
Kurt scoffed. “That would require us to actually have a set list picked out more than two days before Regionals. Like that’s going to happen.” Kurt carefully flipped his hair out of his eyes and took another sip of his drink.
Burt continued, “What about Cheerios? Coach Sylvester puts on a local show before you guys go to Nationals, doesn’t she?”
This time, Kurt looked up at him, confused. “Yes, but there isn’t a football game associated with it. It’s just the Cheerios.”
“Yeah, I know that. When is it?”
Kurt’s jaw dropped, just a little, and he stood silent with his head cocked at an odd angle for a few moments before he finally said, “The twenty-ninth, at seven thirty.”
Burt was already programming the date into his phone. “Great. I’ll ask Carole if she wants to come, too. If that’s okay with you.”
Kurt’s mouth was still hanging too far open to smile, but the corners quirked up a bit. “Uh, yeah. If she wants. C’mon, Mercedes, let’s clear the mats out of the living room.”
Burt watched after them as they left the kitchen. He could see how Kurt must have taken his turning up at the football game in the wrong light. It wasn’t because football was masculine and glee club and Cheerios weren’t, like Kurt clearly thought. Football had just happened to be Kurt’s first high school performance that had ever come up. Sure, Burt understood football, unlike the other stuff. But even Burt knew that the nice thing about singing and dancing was he didn’t have to understand what the lyrics meant or how to do the steps to enjoy the show, or to appreciate the joy and triumph on Kurt’s face.
~~**~~**~~
Burt’s first clue that something was up should have been that Kurt burned the heart-healthy baked salmon dish he was cooking for dinner that night. Kurt wasn’t a perfect chef, of course, but when he finally remembered he’d left the dish in the oven, that poor fish looked more like the gunk you scraped out of the oven when you cleaned it than actual food. It was a good thing there was a breeze that evening, so they could open the kitchen and living room windows to get rid of the smell.
The second thing that should have tipped Burt off was that Kurt had left the fish unattended because he’d changed his clothes three times in the past two hours. Kurt was very particular about what he wore, but he usually stuck with one outfit for the whole day, probably since he put so much thought into it.
The third thing Burt should have noticed was how Kurt blushed, because Kurt always blushed when he lied to him. When the clock ticked to seven on the dot, Kurt nearly leapt out of his chair and called over his shoulder, “I’m going to practice an assignment for glee-be back by eleven or so.”
Burt said, “I thought Mercedes was out of town visiting her grandparents this weekend.”
Kurt turned back for a moment, and the blush was there, no doubt about it. “Uh, no, it’s a dance…thing. Tina’s picking me up. If I’m a little late, don’t worry,” he said as he grabbed his coat and made his way to the door.
“‘Don’t worry if I’m late’-nice try, kid. Eleven o’clock curfew’s still in effect.”
But Kurt was already half-way out the door. “Right, whatever. Bye, Dad.”
Burt looked out the window at the driveway. The curtain was pulled mostly shut, but it wafted in the breeze enough that he caught glimpses of the scene outside. That was when it finally dawned on him that something was definitely not right, since he was pretty sure Tina didn’t drive a BMW. The last clue was that Tina was most definitely not the boy who was coming up the sidewalk.
“Hey Kurt!” the boy said warmly. The gears in Burt’s mind started to churn.
“Hi,” Kurt almost snapped. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”
“We have plenty of time before the curtain. Don’t you think I should at least pop my head in and meet your dad?”
“He’s…busy. It’s all fine with him. Let’s get on the road so we can get good seats.”
The curtain whipped back again, and Burt saw Kurt march past the boy and slide into the passenger seat. The other boy stood there for another second, bewildered, looking back and forth between the front door and the car. Eventually, he shrugged and climbed in the driver’s seat.
Anger percolated in Burt’s gut as soon as he heard the car pull out of the driveway. First of all, if nothing else, he and Kurt had always been honest with each other. The lie alone would be earning Kurt several days confined to his room without his phone and with the wireless router turned off. More importantly, why hadn’t Kurt been okay introducing him to the BMW-driving kid? So Kurt was probably dating. So the thought of his son dating a boy terrified Burt, somewhat. Kurt didn’t know that, and even if he suspected it, it wasn’t like the whole concept of Kurt dating was going to give Burt another heart attack.
The thought of his son on a date with some rich, snobby, slick-haired, BMW-driving stranger whose name Burt didn’t even know raised his blood pressure, though. Sure, he’d been really relaxed about the blonde cheerleader, which maybe he was regretting a little now, if that had somehow led Kurt to believe he could get away with dating somebody Burt hadn’t met. And yes, as unfair as Kurt would say he was being, the fact that this was a boy made a huge difference. Burt wanted to say it was because he knew Kurt would get emotionally tangled up with a boy in a way he’d never been at risk of with the cheerleader, and that was part of it. The truth was, though, Burt knew what teenage boys were after. He’d been one, and he was pretty sure gay or straight didn’t change that part. It certainly complicated things that Kurt was a teenage boy, too, but Kurt was young and so naïve and his son, goddamn it. That made him different from BMW Kid, no matter how little sense it made.
Burt had several hours to rehearse his pre-punishment speech before Kurt came home around ten. Kurt sent all Burt’s careful planning skittering in little pieces as soon as he opened his mouth.
“Dad, I lied. I’m sorry,” Kurt said before Burt could even get up from the couch. “There was no glee assignment with Tina. I went to a show with a boy named Blaine. He goes to Dalton Academy in Westerville, and his family lives in Mason, and yes he is gay but no we’re just friends and he’s been nothing but a gentleman to me.”
Kurt finally had to stop to breathe. His expression was so open and so-so desperate, oddly enough, that Burt already felt his anger ebbing away. “Why did you lie to me?”
Kurt winced. “I’m sorry. I just-I’ve never had a friend like Blaine before. I was so afraid that either you’d freak him out and he’d bolt or him being gay would freak you out and you wouldn’t let me see him anymore.”
Burt blinked. Okay, maybe he had a tendency to come on strong when he felt his son needed someone to look out for him, but that strong? “I never said you couldn’t have gay friends.” He’d never said anything at all on the subject. He’d never even thought about it, since the chances of Kurt ever having a gay friend in Lima had been so slim anyway.
Kurt was worried and upset enough that Burt wasn’t totally sure he was listening. “We were going to go out for coffee after the concert, but I felt so bad about how I’d left things that I couldn’t enjoy it. You and Blaine are both too important to me to lie to or about either of you. I know I screwed up, but please don’t make me stop hanging out with Blaine.”
Burt sighed and kneaded his forehead with his fingers. “All right. Since you came clean, you’re grounded for only one week, and the next time you want to do something with this Blaine kid, he comes at least twenty minutes early so I can get to know him better. Fair?”
“Absolutely.” Kurt handed over his phone. “I’ll start my sentence immediately.” As he turned toward the basement door, he hesitated. “I know this ruins the dramatic resoluteness of my last statement, but can I text Blaine that I’m grounded for a week? Just so he doesn’t worry about me if he texts and I don’t answer.”
Burt considered for a moment. “How’s this: you’ve got a fifteen-minute grace period before I shut the wi-fi off. E-mail or twit or tweet or whatever it is you do to whoever needs to know that you’re incommunicado for the week. Okay?”
Kurt exhaled in relief and ran downstairs. “Thanks, Dad!” he called over his shoulder.
There were a lot of things about trust and respect in that speech Burt had come up with, and he’d probably let Kurt off too easily by not making him sit through it. Kurt not putting up a fight about punishment for once was proof of how much this Blaine meant to him, and Burt wondered if that was a clue that he and Kurt really weren’t ‘just friends.’ But Kurt hadn’t blushed, and he’d looked Burt straight in the eye when he confessed. Burt believed Kurt’s reason for coming clean, and if he knew his kid at all, he knew that reason would have a bigger influence on pushing Kurt to do the right thing than any lecture Burt could have put together.
~~**~~**~~
Burt couldn’t quite wrap his head around how combining his and Carole’s stuff to furnish only one house made it necessary to buy new stuff. Yeah, they were newlyweds, but they were newlyweds with stuff accumulated from decades of marriage and single parenthood. They’d even had a garage sale to get rid of duplicate coffee makers and table lamps. Yet here he was, sitting beside Carole at the clunky old desktop computer in their bedroom as she pulled up the webpage for JC Penney’s Housewares department.
“Oh, come off it,” Carole said with a playful smirk, reading his mind. “If we’re banished to this room for the afternoon, we might as well make use of our time.”
“We could look at online listings of houses for sale.”
“There are always good sales on bedding between Christmas and New Year’s. Or so Kurt says.” Carole didn’t even pause in her clicking through to Bedding. “Besides, we’ve already printed out information on all the houses we could want to look at, and you said yourself that the only way to narrow them down any more is to see them in person.”
Burt didn’t recommend going out house hunting. He could tell Carole had known he wouldn’t, because that would mean leaving Kurt alone in the house with a friend who was a boy. A friend who was a good-looking, polite, and yes, gay boy whom Kurt hadn’t shut up about since he’d come home from Dalton for Christmas break.
Burt half-growled, half-groaned.
“Good,” Carole said, correctly interpreting that as the sound of defeat. “So, do you have any preferences-stripes, patterns, colors that you like?”
Burt shrugged. “Uh, warm and not too pricey? I really don’t care about this kind of stuff. Decorating has kind of always been Kurt’s department.”
“Well, today it gets to be your department, because this is our room, and Kurt is busy.” Carole shook her head gently at Burt’s wild-eyed look. “Busy, not getting busy. He’s fine, honey. And if you’re that nervous about it, you can always check on them in the living room.”
Burt sighed. “No. I know he’s fine.”
“How about this one, the Burgundy Rococco seven-piece comforter set?” Carole pointed and read off the screen.
“Eh, too flowery. I do trust Kurt. It’s just-ugh, isn’t that one too…pink for this room?” he said, cringing at Carole’s next selection.
“That’s salmon, and it’s just an accent color at that. I take it that’s a ‘no,’ though?” Carole clicked away from the gold-and-pink bed and started scrolling again. “And ‘it’s just’ what about Kurt?”
“It’s just-what are he and Blaine? To each other? They’ve gone to movies and plays and dinner together for months now, but Kurt does that with Mercedes, too. Then they went shopping together this morning. What does that mean? I never went shopping with a girl unless I was dating her.”
“I can believe that,” Carole laughed. “But this is Kurt. If shopping were a sport, he’d be on the Olympic team.”
“And now they’re in the living room watching a movie. That’s a date thing. On the other hand, Kurt and Finn did the exact same thing yesterday.”
“It’s hard to tell. Kurt does seem a little smitten,” Carole admitted.
“I’ve noticed. But Blaine…I can’t get a bead on him.”
Carole shrugged. “He’s harder to read.” She added almost as an afterthought, “He did drive over a hundred miles today to see Kurt, though.”
“So they are dating.”
“I don’t know,” Carole said. “I’m not so sure they know. I think they enjoy being with each other very much, but they’re teenage boys. The fact that it’s two teenage boys means there’s twice the normal clumsiness in figuring out how to define a relationship. How about this pattern?”
Burt winced. “It’s got an awful lot of lines on it.”
Carole’s head flopped down to the keyboard in frustration. When she sat up, she said, “Okay, time for a new approach.” She scooted the mouse over to him. “Why don’t you pick one out you like?”
Burt scrolled through the pages of bedspreads as he talked. “Maybe that’s true with most boys, but not those two. They’re really good at talking. Kurt’s always got either a smart or smartass answer for anything you throw at him, just like that,” he said, snapping his finger. “As for this Blaine kid, he’s always so put together and polished and knows the word for everything. Don’t you feel like you should stand up straighter whenever he walks in the room?” Carole patted Burt on the shoulder. Burt felt ridiculous, being insecure because of a seventeen-year-old kid, but it was such a relief that Carole understood. “He calls me ‘sir.’ Kids only do that with their girlfriend’s or…or boyfriend’s fathers, don’t they? Or would he only be less formal if he was actually with my kid?”
“Why is it so important to you?” Carole asked. “Blaine seems like a nice kid. You’re okay with them hanging out together as friends. Is there really anything extra he has to prove to you for you to be okay with him and Kurt going shopping or to the movies as dates rather than as friends?”
Burt shifted restlessly in his chair. From the very first time they’d met, Burt had felt like Blaine was interviewing to become Kurt’s boyfriend. He was so goddamn polite all the time, all neat and formal and composed. Burt had figured nobody worked that hard to please a mere friend’s parents. After knowing him for a couple months now, Burt was getting the feeling that that level of politeness was Blaine’s default setting, but it still made him uncomfortable.
“Do you want to talk to him about…mechanics?” Carole ventured when Burt didn’t answer. “Because I know from experience that ‘the Talks’ kids have with their parents aren’t nearly as important to them as we think they are. Mine with Finn wasn’t perfect, but I’m pretty sure I did well enough that he would have figured out he hadn’t impregnated Quinn if he’d actually been listening.”
“No, we got that covered,” Burt mumbled. Carole raised her eyebrows in surprise at that.
Not long after Kurt came out to him, Burt had visited Ms. Pillsbury at Parent-Teacher Conference Night, hoping she could give him tips on parenting a gay child. She’d sent a dozen pamphlets home with him. It had taken him months to work up the courage to sit Kurt down, with the “‘Carnal Knowledge’ Isn’t Just a Jack Nicholson Movie: How to Talk to Your Kids About Sexual Practices That Were Illegal When You Were Their Age” pamphlet clutched in his sweating hand. Before Burt had even started speaking, Kurt saw it, flushed so badly his face was almost purple, and begged, “If I read the pamphlet myself, can we not talk about any of this? Ever?” Burt had never been so relieved. He didn’t feel like telling Carole that story now, though.
“I guess they’re depriving me of my chance to put the fear of God in Blaine. If they’re dating, it’s my right as a father to ask Blaine whether his intentions towards my son are honorable and to scare him into making his intentions honorable. If they’re dating, he’ll understand that and put up with it if he likes Kurt. If they’re just friends, that same speech will scare the kid right out the door, and Kurt will ream me out for assuming that all gay guys are attracted to each other for the rest of my life.” Burt rubbed his temples in frustration. “But that kid has to have noticed by now that Kurt’s crazy about him. It’s so obvious, astronauts can probably see it from the space station. Is he using him? Kurt falls so hard and so fast…”
Carole rubbed his shoulder comfortingly. “You can’t protect him from getting his heart broken.”
Burt sighed. “I know.”
“Who knows, maybe Blaine is just shy under all the goofy dancing and politeness. If things don’t turn out well, though, it’ll be okay. You raised a strong kid.” Carole’s voice softened. “It’s a part of life. All you can do is be there for him when it happens, and remind him that life does go on after that.”
It hit him hard, knowing that they weren’t just talking about Kurt anymore. He could tell from Carole’s eyes that she knew they were talking about a whole lot more than that, too. Burt would never, ever stop being grateful for how beautifully Carole had reminded him of how life could go on and even be great after so many years of forgetting.
“I know,” he said softly. He smiled and kissed her on the cheek. “Okay, back to bedspreads. How ‘bout that one?”
Carole paused for a long moment before firmly saying, “No.”
“What’s wrong with it? It’s simple, and it’s a good price, and-”
“It’s plain black,” Carole said.
Burt just wanted to be done. “No, look, it’s even reversible, blue on the other side. Reversible is…fashionable, isn’t it?”
“It looks like something Finn would have-in fact, it’s-yes, that is a king-size version of Finn’s bedspread.” Carole appraised him in silence again. “Give me the mouse back.”
He did so reluctantly. Carole clicked with purpose for a few minutes, then announced, “We are now the proud future owners of the Studio Alpine eight-piece comforter set in green, chocolate, and ivory. Simple, no flowers, not too many lines, and yet it actually looks like something you’d find in an adult’s bedroom. Any objections?” She said the last with an expression that suggested he’d better not have any objections. “Good.”
As she was closing out the browser, a weather.com alert popped up at the bottom of the screen. “Winter Storm Warning,” Carole read. A few clicks later, and they were watching swirls of heavy snow sweeping through Indiana and on their way to Ohio on the radar.
“Blaine better get on the road if he’s going to make it back to Mason before the wind picks up,” Burt said, already standing.
Carole gently caught his forearm before he could get too far. “If you do say something to him about…don’t be too scary, all right?”
“I’m not gonna scare him. Not tonight, at least. I think I am gonna ask about whether he’s…is it too goofy to ask what his intentions are towards my son?”
Carole smiled. “It does sound a little 1950s when you phrase it that way, but I think Blaine will understand.”
Burt took a deep breath and left the bedroom. He kept his pace slow as he made his way down the hallway, in case some way of saying “what are your intentions toward my son” that sounded less like something from Leave it to Beaver came to him in the meantime.
He wasn’t at all expecting what he saw when he rounded the corner into the living room. The TV came into view first. Meet Me in St. Louis was playing. They were to the part where Tootie destroys the snowman family because she’s so upset about moving to New York City, but Burt would’ve known what movie it was instantly, no matter what scene was playing.
Meet Me in St. Louis had been Jennifer’s favorite musical of all time. They’d watched it every year at Christmastime at least once, but usually three or four times once Kurt was old enough to say, “Play it again!” When Kurt was five, he and Jennifer had done an exact reenactment of Judy Garland and Tootie’s “Under the Bamboo Tree,” complete with Kurt dressed in one of Jennifer’s nightgowns. When Kurt was eight and they’d brought Jennifer home for the last time, they watched it in the middle of April. He and Jennifer had never intended for Kurt to figure it out that way, but Burt could tell: Kurt knew from that moment that his mom wasn’t going to be there the next Christmas.
Neither he nor Kurt had watched the movie since. It shook all the calm and resolve that Carole had helped Burt pull together, knowing how much Kurt must trust this boy to watch it with him. Kurt trusted way too easily. Even if Kurt had told him the story behind the movie, there was no way this kid could understand what this must mean to Kurt.
Burt could barely see the top of Kurt’s head over the back of the couch. He couldn’t see Blaine’s. Many scary thoughts popped into Burt’s mind at that. He knew he should enter noisily, holler out his presence and give them a chance to jump apart if need be. Maybe it was because he was still a little irritated that they wouldn’t just come out and say they were dating or just friends or whatever and make life easier on him, but Burt decided to take his chances and walk around the couch without saying anything first.
If he’d been hoping that seeing how they were together might resolve the boyfriend or boy who is a friend uncertainty, he was disappointed. They were both sitting up, but fast asleep. They were leaning against each other, but they weren’t wrapped up in one another the way Burt might’ve expected if they were dating. Kurt’s head was flopped back against the backrest, and Blaine’s head was on Kurt’s shoulder in a way that might’ve been deliberate. It also could’ve just as easily happened if they’d started apart and Blaine’s head drooped as they slept. Either way, they looked so comfortable that Burt almost felt guilty waking them.
He shook Kurt’s free shoulder gently. “Hey, kiddo. Wake up.”
Kurt shifted and opened his eyes slowly, looking up at Burt. Burt could tell the moment Kurt realized there was a weight on his shoulder; clearly, Blaine hadn’t been like that when Kurt nodded off. He could see Kurt tense, but Burt made sure he acted like it was nothing.
“Weather report says there’s a snowstorm coming this way. Blaine better leave so he can get home before the roads get dangerous.”
Kurt nodded, then shifted and turned towards Blaine. He lifted his hand that Blaine didn’t have pinned to the couch. “Blaine.” Blaine only sighed in his sleep. It looked to Burt like Kurt almost brushed his fingertips against the other boy’s cheek, but he stopped himself and nudged his shoulder instead. “Blaine, you have to go.”
Burt had learned from experience that there was a moment between waking and sleeping in which it was physically and mentally impossible for a person to lie, or even to mask over what he or she really felt. He saw Blaine’s expression in that open, defenseless moment as the boy looked up at Kurt. It didn’t matter whether they called themselves friends or lovers; Burt had his answer.
“Hey,” Blaine murmured at Kurt, his face still all soft and warm. Burt shifted his weight, which made Blaine notice he was in the room. Blaine’s body snapped up straight and away from Kurt.
Kurt said, “My dad says the weather’s getting bad, so you need to get on the road.”
Blaine’s eyelids were still fluttering like he wasn’t completely awake. “Oh. Okay. Uh, thank you, sir, for letting me know. I should’ve been keeping a closer eye on the weather myself.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Burt said. He paused for a moment, then decided, what the hell. “You can call me Burt, by the way.” At Blaine’s shocked look, he added, “Or Mr. Hummel, if that’d be more comfortable. Either way, we’re kind of past ‘sir,’ aren’t we?”
It took a moment, but Burt watched the realization of what that meant slowly dawning on Blaine as a smile spread across his face. “Yeah. Yeah, we are.” Blaine turned to Kurt, who was still staring at Burt, trying to figure out what this exchange meant for himself. “I still have that sheet music for ‘Not While I’m Around’ in my bag by the door.” He took Kurt’s hand and pulled him up off the couch. He didn’t let go as he said, “Thank you again, Mr. Hummel,” and led Kurt out of the room.
Burt had come up with a scheme to follow Blaine out to his car on the pretense of checking the antifreeze, but there wasn’t much reason to butt into the boys’ good-byes and have that conversation now. He knew what they felt, and he knew that if they broke each other’s hearts someday-and, knowing teenagers, that was probably more a matter of when than if-it was going to hit Kurt hard. That was okay. It wasn’t going to be because one of them was stringing the other along, and that was one of the few forms of heartbreak Burt felt he could legitimately scare guys off to save Kurt from. It was hard to admit, but whatever kind of heartbreak ended them, whatever time they had between now and then would probably make it worth it.
~~**~~**~~
Finding a new house with an extra bedroom had moved down the priority list when Kurt started boarding at Dalton. What had looked to Burt and Carole like a comfortable amount of savings to use to upgrade in a buyer’s market suddenly didn’t look like so much money when faced with five more semesters of tuition, room, and board at a prep school. They always had Finn in the backs of their minds, too. Even if Finn wasn’t the prime bullying target that Kurt had been, if something ever did happen, pulling Finn out of McKinley would probably be the only solution the damnable school board would leave open for him.
More than that, though, a lot of the necessity was gone. Burt wasn’t naïve enough to think that a song and dance could genuinely fix something, but the boys’ relationship did seem to be a lot different since “Just the Way You Are.” Kurt had let Finn move into his room and Finn had made himself comfortable there with no objections on either side, save Kurt’s mutterings about how Hurricane Dirty Laundry always hit the basement while he was at school. Kurt came home most weekends, and if there was any drama between the boys about sharing a bedroom and bathroom, Burt and Carole never heard about it.
That was why it surprised Burt so much when, not five minutes after he and Finn had gotten home from watching the McKinley Titans Girls’ Basketball team kick the Lexington Lady Lex’s butts, he heard Finn shout down in the basement. He heard Kurt yelling, too, before he even made it to the basement steps.
Just when I’d thought this family had finally caught a break, Burt thought to himself as he pounded down the stairs. “Hey, hey, what the hell is going on down here!”
Neither Finn nor Kurt ripped their attention away from each other at the sound of Burt’s voice. Blaine, however, looked up, eyes wide.
Huh, Blaine was there. Burt hadn’t known he was coming over.
Also, Blaine was missing his shirt, and possibly a belt.
Oh.
“Dude, I’m sorry I didn’t knock-really, really sorry-but it’s my room, too. I didn’t even know Blaine was here. His car isn’t out front,” Finn said, his arms swinging with big, nervous gestures.
Just then, Burt also noticed that Kurt was wearing his t-shirt inside out. He wished so very, very badly that he could believe that was some sort of weird fashion statement and not because-don’t go there, don’t go there…
He would’ve expected Kurt to be embarrassed, but instead, he was beet red and spitting mad. Literally spitting mad-Burt had noticed a long time ago that he enunciated really clearly when he was pissed. “He bummed a ride to Lima with David. But that’s not the point! How could you say that, after everything!”
That was enough to set Burt off. He stepped in close so neither boy could ignore him anymore. “What did you say?”
“Nothing!” Finn defended, his voice and eyebrows climbing higher and higher. “Well, not nothing-I mean, I think I hit a couple of the seven words you can’t say on TV-but I didn’t call you or Blaine or the furniture anything. It was all just…shock.”
“Finn’s right,” Blaine said to Kurt. He’d found his shirt and was buttoning it up. He stopped half way through and put a hand on Kurt’s shoulder. “Maybe you thought you heard something else because you’re…not more sensitive to it, but you’re half-way expecting it. But I didn’t hear him say anything mean or hateful or homophobic at all.”
Of the three red-faced boys standing before him, Burt had an overwhelming urge to argue with Blaine, as little sense as that made. Half-way expecting it? In his home? Maybe this family was rougher around the edges than those unnaturally polite Dalton families who apparently paid for political correctness lessons, but to assume that Kurt feared Burt would let that f-word slide, or hell, even that Finn would ever use it again-what the hell did this kid think he knew about their family?
The problem was, the look on Kurt’s face showed clear as day that Blaine was right. Maybe not in the details. Burt was still sure Kurt trusted him when he’d said that word had no place under his roof. But Kurt’s expression of relief at Blaine’s words proved that at least the knee-jerk, instinctive fear was still there.
Finn said, “I was surprised, but I don’t think I said anything that you wouldn’t have said if you’d walked in on Rachel and me doing that.” Finn’s eyes went funny and dull. “Except, not exactly like that, since, y’know, Rachel and I couldn’t do that, with the two-and the different-and…yeah, just put a sock on the doorknob or something next time?”
Blaine made the mistake of looking at Burt at the beginning of Finn’s awkward description. He looked like he was about to melt into the floor in embarrassment.
Burt wasn’t surprised when Blaine turned down Carole’s invitation to stay for dinner when they all emerged from the basement. Even if Burt was only imagining that Blaine thought Kurt lived with a bunch of Neanderthals, there were plenty of other reasons that dinner would’ve been awkward. Finn’s random wide-eyed expressions and blushes as he apparently replayed the fiasco in his head was one. Burt’s flat glare of I know there was more clothing off than what I saw was still missing by the time I got down there that he couldn’t stop himself from doing was another. He couldn’t blame Blaine for wanting to make an early exit.
A little after five o’clock, a Jag pulled into the driveway and honked, and Kurt helped Blaine with his jacket. Burt followed after them out to the entryway, figuring it would be more polite if he showed Blaine out, too, but he stopped short when he heard the boys talking.
“You’re not ashamed, are you? Kurt,” Blaine said gently when Kurt turned his face away. “If you’re acting this way out of embarrassment, that’s fine-I’m embarrassed, too.”
“Ashamed, embarrassed-there’s a difference?” Kurt muttered.
“A huge difference. We weren’t doing anything wrong. Private, yes. Wrong, no.” He lowered his voice even more. “You liked it, right? I did.”
Kurt gave an almost pained smile. “I did, too. I know what you’re saying. I just-” Kurt shook his head, completely out of words.
Blaine wrapped his arms around Kurt, and Kurt snugged himself into the embrace like it was home. “I will never, ever be ashamed of you, Kurt.”
They lingered for a few silent moments. Once they pulled apart, Kurt leaned in and gave him a quick peck. Burt could see Blaine took it as the “me, too,” Kurt clearly intended it to be.
Burt coughed loudly and blanked his expression so it wouldn’t look like he’d been there for the whole conversation. Blaine had the good manners to appear a little nervous under Burt’s gaze but to offer no apologies and to look right back at him. He meant what he said about no shame.
“Safe trip. Hope you can stay for dinner next time,” Burt said to Blaine.
Blaine exhaled in relief, subtle and almost concealed, but there. “I will, Mr. Hummel.”
Dinner was uneventful. Carole had a really good story from work that she wanted to tell so badly she didn’t ask any of them why they weren’t very talkative. Their unspoken agreement not to tell her about what had happened in the basement was definitely not at risk. Even Finn, who had a habit of screwing up cover stories with inconsistent details, didn’t betray any weirdness when Carole asked why Blaine didn’t stay.
The basement was still on Burt’s mind even after Kurt cleared the table, though. Burt entered the kitchen, pretending he was wandering in casually. Kurt was at the sink, scrubbing tomato sauce off the silverware. “Need any help?”
Kurt glanced over his shoulder at him and returned immediately to work. “That’s okay. It’s my night to wash dishes.”
“Then I’ll help dry.” He grabbed a dishtowel and stood beside Kurt. He took a deep breath to help collect his thoughts, but Kurt spoke first.
“I really don’t want to have this talk, Dad.”
Damn. “What talk?”
“You don’t lie any better than I do.”
Both of them focused on the dishes so they didn’t have to look at each other. “This isn’t exactly easy for me, either, but I gotta do parental due diligence.” He swallowed hard. “Are you two safe?”
Burt forced himself to look up from the plate he was drying. Kurt blushed, but not at all like the way he did when he was lying. He stared at the faucet so intensely it was like he was trying to melt it using only his brain. “We-we haven’t…”
“But when you do-”
“Yes. I promise.”
“And he never pressures you to…to do…”
“No,” Kurt half-laughed, half-snorted in a way that made Burt completely reevaluate the ‘you liked it, right?’ part of Kurt and Blaine’s conversation at the door. Well, that and the entire dynamic he’d assumed existed between his son and his son’s boyfriend.
“Okay, then.”
Burt had been thinking about what he should say to Kurt all through dinner. He should say that as much as he’d meant everything he’d said after Kurt sang “Rose’s Turn” (yes, he’d even looked it up online between dinner and now so he’d get the title right, and maybe also to stall a bit), there were a few things he hadn’t said quite right. That talk shouldn’t have been about Mellencamp and monster truck rallies. Or maybe it should have, but it shouldn’t have been about Kurt being gay, then, because Burt did get that taking him to Riverdance wasn’t really what accepting him being gay was all about. It was about accepting that Blaine was not, in fact, an overly friendly friend who learned manners in one of those European countries where it was totally normal for guys to hold hands and kiss each other on the cheek. It was about accepting how that not-just-friends hand-holding made Kurt’s face light up. It was about accepting what happened in the basement, even if it scared Burt shitless.
They stood beside each other in silence until Kurt was draining the dishwater. With all those great thoughts, Burt figured he should’ve been able to say something important. A quiet “I do like him, you know,” was all he could manage.
For the first time that evening, Kurt met Burt’s eyes and smiled. “I’m glad.”
~~**~~**~~
On to Part B
Media: Fic
Author: kappamaki33
Characters: Burt Hummel, Kurt Hummel, Mercedes Jones, Blaine Anderson, Carole Hudson, Finn Hudson, Rachel Berry, Quinn Fabray, Brittany Pierce, Mike Chang; Kurt/Blaine, Burt/Carole, Finn/Rachel
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Burt admitted in his wedding vows that he wasn’t known for having a way with words.
Warning: Language, vague mentions of sexual activities
Spoilers: Some spoilers for episodes up to “Special Education”
Word Count: ~22,500
Note: Thanks so much to safenthecity for the awesome beta’ing, cheering, Broadway musical-squeeing, and Ohio-picking. (Is that the correct term to use for a form of editing that’s very similar to Brit-picking in HP and other fandoms, but with the culture and quirks of Ohio?) I started out with the idea: five (which became sort of seven) times Burt thought he should have a serious talk with his son about his love life but the words didn’t come out quite as planned, and one time they talked about exactly what they needed to. I am working under the assumption that in Season 2, Kurt, Finn, and Rachel are sophomores, and Blaine is a junior. (Yes, I know I’m hand-waving canon, but if Rachel can go from being vegan to eating pepperoni pizza and cooking veal for no reason, I can ignore her grade in the pilot for the sake of a bigger plot point.)
A Way With Words
The things that we love tell us what we are.
-St. Thomas Aquinas
There were very few things in life of which Burt Hummel was certain, and that list shortened the older he got. He knew he loved his son. He knew his parents had loved him but never would have accepted Kurt, and it hurt a little to be glad they’d both died when Kurt was still quite young. He knew cars, inside and out, though all those screwy quirks of Japanese construction that forced him to pass customers on to the dealerships made him question that every now and again. He had loved Jennifer, and he still did, even after so many years, but he’d be lying if he didn’t admit that Carole might be changing how he loved her.
Once, he had been fairly certain that God existed, and that He was mostly good. Burt suspected his faith might’ve rebounded someday after he lost Jennifer if he hadn’t had to watch Kurt curl up with her in her hospital bed, trying so desperately to make things better on days when she hurt so badly she just couldn’t put up a front for him anymore. Now, Burt didn’t even share Kurt’s certainty that God didn’t exist. All he had was a niggling suspicion that if God was up there somewhere, He got His kicks from making life hard, but not so hard that they’d buckle under the pressure, because then He wouldn’t have any more opportunities to harass them.
So really, all Burt was absolutely sure of were solid American-made automobiles and that he loved Kurt. That didn’t mean he understood Kurt, though. Sometimes, it felt like the kid was speaking a different language. Sometimes, he actually was-Kurt had a habit of grumbling in French whenever Burt laid down the law-but even when they were both definitely speaking English, some things got lost in translation. Like, for example, when Kurt had said something about God and Shakespeare and boys and flies, Burt had thought they might be kind of on the same page about God. But then Kurt had zoomed on to flying spaghetti monsters and a bunch of very French philosopher-sounding guys before Burt could fully process the thing about boys and flies, and the moment was gone.
Also, for example, like when Kurt sang that Somebody’s Turn song, pulling out all the stops as if it were the last thing he’d ever sing. That conversation had been good, how Kurt had gotten the jealousy off his chest, and how Burt had been able to admit where he was struggling, but all those words Burt had somehow poured out without thinking that day wouldn’t mean a damn thing if he didn’t follow through with actions. That didn’t worry him too much. Burt was good at action; it came much more naturally than words. After that performance, Burt had been going out of his way to be a little extra considerate to Kurt, but he’d turned up the intensity on the niceness since the fight in the basement with Finn. He’d gotten why Kurt was upset that he and Finn had been doing guy things together without him before, but after that word, in his home… Burt felt like he had a lot more to make up for.
That was why, instead of taking the tow truck back to the shop after pulling Mrs. Schaffer’s Honda out of the ditch, he’d gone a few blocks out of his way and picked up two of Kurt’s favorite coffee-like drinks from his favorite coffee shop, then brought the truck back to the house. It was a Saturday, so Burt knew Mercedes would be over by the time he got home. Sure enough, he could hear Kurt and Mercedes giggling in the living room when he walked in the front door.
“Wasn’t this a good idea, doing yoga in the sun for a change instead of in that dungeon?” Burt heard Mercedes say as he set the coffee down on the kitchen island. He couldn’t see them through the door to the living room, but he could hear their conversation quite clearly.
“Dungeon?” Kurt gasped in mock-offense. “There has never been a dungeon that well-appointed in all of history. Well, maybe if you count the Marquis de Sade’s cell at Charanton, but still.”
“Marquis de what?”
“You know, the guy in Quills who wasn’t Joaquin Phoenix. Back to Downward Dog position.”
“Oh yeah. Well, what I meant was, you need to get out and see the sun every once in a while. Otherwise I’m going to have to switch from calling you ‘white boy’ to ‘high gloss white boy.’”
“Plank,” Kurt said, voice straining a little. Mercedes grunted. “I work hard to maintain this porcelain complexion, thank you very much. All right, Downward Dog, then Eagle, then back to Downward Dog, then Upward Dog. Got it?”
Burt was eternally grateful that Kurt had a friend like Mercedes. In fact, he’d always half-way expected that when Kurt had his “let’s try out heterosexuality” phase, it would’ve been with her, not the weird blonde cheerleader. He supposed it was a good thing it hadn’t turned out like that, so the two hadn’t had to deal with any awkward aftermath in their friendship when the romance didn’t work out. Still, it was weird to think how back when Burt was a kid, Kurt and Mercedes dating would’ve ruffled as many feathers as his son liking a boy would now.
Burt was about to take the coffee into the living room, but when he tuned back in to their conversation and realized what they were talking about, he stopped.
“Screw Puck,” Kurt said with utter confidence.
“Men,” Mercedes ground out. “Can’t live with ‘em, and…you can live without ‘em, ‘cause we are, but it’d be nice if we didn’t have to.”
“Amen to that.”
Burt felt a little guilty eavesdropping, but the kids were in the living room, which felt much more like fair game than a conversation held in Kurt’s bedroom would have. Plus, Kurt would never talk about something like this with him. Not that he blamed Kurt for that-hell, Burt wasn’t sure he could talk about boys with Kurt directly. That hardly meant he didn’t care, or didn’t worry. He grabbed a Clorox wipe and cleaned the countertop on the pretext that having something to do made the listening in not so bad.
“Why do guys do that, the whole macho lunch-money-stealing act?” Mercedes asked.
“Your first mistake is trying to make sense out of anything Puckerman does,” Kurt said. Burt could hear the eye-roll. “But I don’t know. I like to think I understand how guys think, since I am one, but in reality, boys mystify me.”
“Straight boys,” Mercedes added, trying to soothe him. “Don’t write yourself off as a totally failed judge of human nature until you’ve at least met another gay boy.” Then she groaned. “Oh my God, how am I supposed to hold this pose?”
“Watch the blasphemy there, girl,” Kurt kidded.
“That wasn’t blasphemy-ugh. That was a prayer for deliverance from-ergh…”
“Just go back to Cobra instead of Upward Dog…or, yeah, lie on the mat. That works too.”
“Remind me again why I’m even doing yoga with you anymore, now that I’m not a Cheerio?”
“Because I still need to improve my flexibility and strength for Cheerios, and you’re the best friend ever because you’re willing to do it with me and keep me occupied with gossip the whole time?”
Mercedes laughed. “Right.” The following silence lasted long enough that Burt almost went in with the coffee, but Mercedes’s words stopped him cold yet again. He was running out of surfaces to clean. “Hey, at least once you do get a boyfriend, you’ll have it easier than me in terms of understanding him. You’ll have the same gay boy way of thinking, same hormones. He won’t be nearly as much of an infuriating mystery to you as any boy I like will be to me.”
Kurt sighed. “But it’s always going to be a ‘gay’ relationship for me, isn’t it?”
Burt felt the same confusion he heard from Mercedes. “You’re not trying to lock yourself back in the closet again, are you? ‘Cause I’m really not a Mellencamp fan.”
“No! Not-no,” Kurt said quickly. “All I mean is that you’ll have boyfriends and relationships and no doubt a wedding one day. And everyone will smile at you and be happy for you, and that’s great. But me? I’m never going to have a plain relationship, no adjectives necessary. It’s always going to be a gay relationship with a gay boyfriend, and even if I put together a wedding with the most garishly on-the-nose theme ever, it won’t be a beach wedding or a Mardi Gras wedding or even a fucking Lady Gaga wedding. It’ll still be a big gay wedding to everyone, first and foremost.”
“Wow.”
Burt thought back to the Whoever’s Turn song and cringed. His and Kurt’s overt heart-to-hearts were few and far between-that was just who they were, and that was fine. The fact that every single one of them in the past year had gone back to gayness maybe wasn’t.
“Sorry,” Kurt said. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. It’s not your fault.”
“No, that’s cool. I get it, just wanting it to be normal.” After a pause, she giggled. “A Lady Gaga wedding is a freaking fabulous idea, though.”
“Yes, but it probably wouldn’t help the whole ‘why must “gay” automatically be the first adjective you think of’ thing. Though it might be worth it, to make all the guests dress in costume.”
“Finn could pull out the red shower curtain dress,” Mercedes said. Burt felt like they’d started talking in that other language again. “How are you and he doing now, anyway?”
“He came to school wearing a red shower curtain dress, just for me. Nobody could hold a grudge after that.” He said more seriously, “We’re okay. Not great, but in time…I think it’ll be okay. Now, you’ve had your rest break. Let’s do Camel pose, then Boat pose into Plow.”
“Demonstrate.” He could hear Kurt shifting on the mat. Then Mercedes said, “Oh hell no. I get to choreograph yoga next week, because that plow thing is insane.”
“Well, I’m finishing my routine. The book is over there, if you want to start planning for next Saturday.” Another pause. “It doesn’t matter, anyway.”
“What doesn’t matter?”
“Any of that about a potential boyfriend. I don’t mean for you-someday soon, Mercedes, some really great straight guy is going to pull his head out of his ass and recognize what an amazing person you are. But I’m going to be waiting until college to find someone who could even be interested in theory.”
“I wish I could make it better for you,” Mercedes said with genuine emotion. Then she chuckled, “Or you could just do this Firefly pose in the book, and you’d have every gay boy in western Ohio at your beck and call.”
“What?” There was a pause, likely Mercedes showing him the book, followed by a truly scandalized squeak. “Mercedes!”
Their fit of laughter finally snapped Burt out of his hovering. He loudly dropped his keys on the counter like he’d just walked in the house and yelled, “I brought you back coffee from that place!”
“Raspberry White Truffle Mocha from Java Jamboree?” Kurt called back.
That sounded like it might be right. “Uh, the lady at the shop knows I’m your dad by now, so I just asked for your regular.”
Mercedes and Kurt fairly bounded into the kitchen, grinning as they laid eyes on the cups. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Sorry if they’re a little cool. I got sidetracked on my way back.”
Burt could tell from their faces that the drinks were cold, but neither of them wanted to admit it. “A little, but it’s still good. Thanks.”
It was a good thing Kurt was concentrating on his drink, because the way Burt stared at him would’ve probably weirded him out if he’d noticed it. Something about seeing him in the sunlight streaming through the kitchen windows made all the things about Kurt’s face that reminded Burt of Jennifer stand out even more. Burt remembered all the long talks he and Jennifer had had in the hospital room, all the promises he’d made about raising Kurt right. There was no way he could manufacture a heart-to-heart conversation with Kurt. That just wasn’t how they worked. He knew his kid needed something, though, so he did the next best thing he could think of.
“So, is the glee club doing a parent’s recital or something before you guys head to Regionals?”
Kurt only looked at him out of the corner of his eye.
“Mr. Schuester hasn’t mentioned one,” Mercedes said. “That’s a really good idea, though.”
Kurt scoffed. “That would require us to actually have a set list picked out more than two days before Regionals. Like that’s going to happen.” Kurt carefully flipped his hair out of his eyes and took another sip of his drink.
Burt continued, “What about Cheerios? Coach Sylvester puts on a local show before you guys go to Nationals, doesn’t she?”
This time, Kurt looked up at him, confused. “Yes, but there isn’t a football game associated with it. It’s just the Cheerios.”
“Yeah, I know that. When is it?”
Kurt’s jaw dropped, just a little, and he stood silent with his head cocked at an odd angle for a few moments before he finally said, “The twenty-ninth, at seven thirty.”
Burt was already programming the date into his phone. “Great. I’ll ask Carole if she wants to come, too. If that’s okay with you.”
Kurt’s mouth was still hanging too far open to smile, but the corners quirked up a bit. “Uh, yeah. If she wants. C’mon, Mercedes, let’s clear the mats out of the living room.”
Burt watched after them as they left the kitchen. He could see how Kurt must have taken his turning up at the football game in the wrong light. It wasn’t because football was masculine and glee club and Cheerios weren’t, like Kurt clearly thought. Football had just happened to be Kurt’s first high school performance that had ever come up. Sure, Burt understood football, unlike the other stuff. But even Burt knew that the nice thing about singing and dancing was he didn’t have to understand what the lyrics meant or how to do the steps to enjoy the show, or to appreciate the joy and triumph on Kurt’s face.
~~**~~**~~
Burt’s first clue that something was up should have been that Kurt burned the heart-healthy baked salmon dish he was cooking for dinner that night. Kurt wasn’t a perfect chef, of course, but when he finally remembered he’d left the dish in the oven, that poor fish looked more like the gunk you scraped out of the oven when you cleaned it than actual food. It was a good thing there was a breeze that evening, so they could open the kitchen and living room windows to get rid of the smell.
The second thing that should have tipped Burt off was that Kurt had left the fish unattended because he’d changed his clothes three times in the past two hours. Kurt was very particular about what he wore, but he usually stuck with one outfit for the whole day, probably since he put so much thought into it.
The third thing Burt should have noticed was how Kurt blushed, because Kurt always blushed when he lied to him. When the clock ticked to seven on the dot, Kurt nearly leapt out of his chair and called over his shoulder, “I’m going to practice an assignment for glee-be back by eleven or so.”
Burt said, “I thought Mercedes was out of town visiting her grandparents this weekend.”
Kurt turned back for a moment, and the blush was there, no doubt about it. “Uh, no, it’s a dance…thing. Tina’s picking me up. If I’m a little late, don’t worry,” he said as he grabbed his coat and made his way to the door.
“‘Don’t worry if I’m late’-nice try, kid. Eleven o’clock curfew’s still in effect.”
But Kurt was already half-way out the door. “Right, whatever. Bye, Dad.”
Burt looked out the window at the driveway. The curtain was pulled mostly shut, but it wafted in the breeze enough that he caught glimpses of the scene outside. That was when it finally dawned on him that something was definitely not right, since he was pretty sure Tina didn’t drive a BMW. The last clue was that Tina was most definitely not the boy who was coming up the sidewalk.
“Hey Kurt!” the boy said warmly. The gears in Burt’s mind started to churn.
“Hi,” Kurt almost snapped. “Come on, we’re going to be late.”
“We have plenty of time before the curtain. Don’t you think I should at least pop my head in and meet your dad?”
“He’s…busy. It’s all fine with him. Let’s get on the road so we can get good seats.”
The curtain whipped back again, and Burt saw Kurt march past the boy and slide into the passenger seat. The other boy stood there for another second, bewildered, looking back and forth between the front door and the car. Eventually, he shrugged and climbed in the driver’s seat.
Anger percolated in Burt’s gut as soon as he heard the car pull out of the driveway. First of all, if nothing else, he and Kurt had always been honest with each other. The lie alone would be earning Kurt several days confined to his room without his phone and with the wireless router turned off. More importantly, why hadn’t Kurt been okay introducing him to the BMW-driving kid? So Kurt was probably dating. So the thought of his son dating a boy terrified Burt, somewhat. Kurt didn’t know that, and even if he suspected it, it wasn’t like the whole concept of Kurt dating was going to give Burt another heart attack.
The thought of his son on a date with some rich, snobby, slick-haired, BMW-driving stranger whose name Burt didn’t even know raised his blood pressure, though. Sure, he’d been really relaxed about the blonde cheerleader, which maybe he was regretting a little now, if that had somehow led Kurt to believe he could get away with dating somebody Burt hadn’t met. And yes, as unfair as Kurt would say he was being, the fact that this was a boy made a huge difference. Burt wanted to say it was because he knew Kurt would get emotionally tangled up with a boy in a way he’d never been at risk of with the cheerleader, and that was part of it. The truth was, though, Burt knew what teenage boys were after. He’d been one, and he was pretty sure gay or straight didn’t change that part. It certainly complicated things that Kurt was a teenage boy, too, but Kurt was young and so naïve and his son, goddamn it. That made him different from BMW Kid, no matter how little sense it made.
Burt had several hours to rehearse his pre-punishment speech before Kurt came home around ten. Kurt sent all Burt’s careful planning skittering in little pieces as soon as he opened his mouth.
“Dad, I lied. I’m sorry,” Kurt said before Burt could even get up from the couch. “There was no glee assignment with Tina. I went to a show with a boy named Blaine. He goes to Dalton Academy in Westerville, and his family lives in Mason, and yes he is gay but no we’re just friends and he’s been nothing but a gentleman to me.”
Kurt finally had to stop to breathe. His expression was so open and so-so desperate, oddly enough, that Burt already felt his anger ebbing away. “Why did you lie to me?”
Kurt winced. “I’m sorry. I just-I’ve never had a friend like Blaine before. I was so afraid that either you’d freak him out and he’d bolt or him being gay would freak you out and you wouldn’t let me see him anymore.”
Burt blinked. Okay, maybe he had a tendency to come on strong when he felt his son needed someone to look out for him, but that strong? “I never said you couldn’t have gay friends.” He’d never said anything at all on the subject. He’d never even thought about it, since the chances of Kurt ever having a gay friend in Lima had been so slim anyway.
Kurt was worried and upset enough that Burt wasn’t totally sure he was listening. “We were going to go out for coffee after the concert, but I felt so bad about how I’d left things that I couldn’t enjoy it. You and Blaine are both too important to me to lie to or about either of you. I know I screwed up, but please don’t make me stop hanging out with Blaine.”
Burt sighed and kneaded his forehead with his fingers. “All right. Since you came clean, you’re grounded for only one week, and the next time you want to do something with this Blaine kid, he comes at least twenty minutes early so I can get to know him better. Fair?”
“Absolutely.” Kurt handed over his phone. “I’ll start my sentence immediately.” As he turned toward the basement door, he hesitated. “I know this ruins the dramatic resoluteness of my last statement, but can I text Blaine that I’m grounded for a week? Just so he doesn’t worry about me if he texts and I don’t answer.”
Burt considered for a moment. “How’s this: you’ve got a fifteen-minute grace period before I shut the wi-fi off. E-mail or twit or tweet or whatever it is you do to whoever needs to know that you’re incommunicado for the week. Okay?”
Kurt exhaled in relief and ran downstairs. “Thanks, Dad!” he called over his shoulder.
There were a lot of things about trust and respect in that speech Burt had come up with, and he’d probably let Kurt off too easily by not making him sit through it. Kurt not putting up a fight about punishment for once was proof of how much this Blaine meant to him, and Burt wondered if that was a clue that he and Kurt really weren’t ‘just friends.’ But Kurt hadn’t blushed, and he’d looked Burt straight in the eye when he confessed. Burt believed Kurt’s reason for coming clean, and if he knew his kid at all, he knew that reason would have a bigger influence on pushing Kurt to do the right thing than any lecture Burt could have put together.
~~**~~**~~
Burt couldn’t quite wrap his head around how combining his and Carole’s stuff to furnish only one house made it necessary to buy new stuff. Yeah, they were newlyweds, but they were newlyweds with stuff accumulated from decades of marriage and single parenthood. They’d even had a garage sale to get rid of duplicate coffee makers and table lamps. Yet here he was, sitting beside Carole at the clunky old desktop computer in their bedroom as she pulled up the webpage for JC Penney’s Housewares department.
“Oh, come off it,” Carole said with a playful smirk, reading his mind. “If we’re banished to this room for the afternoon, we might as well make use of our time.”
“We could look at online listings of houses for sale.”
“There are always good sales on bedding between Christmas and New Year’s. Or so Kurt says.” Carole didn’t even pause in her clicking through to Bedding. “Besides, we’ve already printed out information on all the houses we could want to look at, and you said yourself that the only way to narrow them down any more is to see them in person.”
Burt didn’t recommend going out house hunting. He could tell Carole had known he wouldn’t, because that would mean leaving Kurt alone in the house with a friend who was a boy. A friend who was a good-looking, polite, and yes, gay boy whom Kurt hadn’t shut up about since he’d come home from Dalton for Christmas break.
Burt half-growled, half-groaned.
“Good,” Carole said, correctly interpreting that as the sound of defeat. “So, do you have any preferences-stripes, patterns, colors that you like?”
Burt shrugged. “Uh, warm and not too pricey? I really don’t care about this kind of stuff. Decorating has kind of always been Kurt’s department.”
“Well, today it gets to be your department, because this is our room, and Kurt is busy.” Carole shook her head gently at Burt’s wild-eyed look. “Busy, not getting busy. He’s fine, honey. And if you’re that nervous about it, you can always check on them in the living room.”
Burt sighed. “No. I know he’s fine.”
“How about this one, the Burgundy Rococco seven-piece comforter set?” Carole pointed and read off the screen.
“Eh, too flowery. I do trust Kurt. It’s just-ugh, isn’t that one too…pink for this room?” he said, cringing at Carole’s next selection.
“That’s salmon, and it’s just an accent color at that. I take it that’s a ‘no,’ though?” Carole clicked away from the gold-and-pink bed and started scrolling again. “And ‘it’s just’ what about Kurt?”
“It’s just-what are he and Blaine? To each other? They’ve gone to movies and plays and dinner together for months now, but Kurt does that with Mercedes, too. Then they went shopping together this morning. What does that mean? I never went shopping with a girl unless I was dating her.”
“I can believe that,” Carole laughed. “But this is Kurt. If shopping were a sport, he’d be on the Olympic team.”
“And now they’re in the living room watching a movie. That’s a date thing. On the other hand, Kurt and Finn did the exact same thing yesterday.”
“It’s hard to tell. Kurt does seem a little smitten,” Carole admitted.
“I’ve noticed. But Blaine…I can’t get a bead on him.”
Carole shrugged. “He’s harder to read.” She added almost as an afterthought, “He did drive over a hundred miles today to see Kurt, though.”
“So they are dating.”
“I don’t know,” Carole said. “I’m not so sure they know. I think they enjoy being with each other very much, but they’re teenage boys. The fact that it’s two teenage boys means there’s twice the normal clumsiness in figuring out how to define a relationship. How about this pattern?”
Burt winced. “It’s got an awful lot of lines on it.”
Carole’s head flopped down to the keyboard in frustration. When she sat up, she said, “Okay, time for a new approach.” She scooted the mouse over to him. “Why don’t you pick one out you like?”
Burt scrolled through the pages of bedspreads as he talked. “Maybe that’s true with most boys, but not those two. They’re really good at talking. Kurt’s always got either a smart or smartass answer for anything you throw at him, just like that,” he said, snapping his finger. “As for this Blaine kid, he’s always so put together and polished and knows the word for everything. Don’t you feel like you should stand up straighter whenever he walks in the room?” Carole patted Burt on the shoulder. Burt felt ridiculous, being insecure because of a seventeen-year-old kid, but it was such a relief that Carole understood. “He calls me ‘sir.’ Kids only do that with their girlfriend’s or…or boyfriend’s fathers, don’t they? Or would he only be less formal if he was actually with my kid?”
“Why is it so important to you?” Carole asked. “Blaine seems like a nice kid. You’re okay with them hanging out together as friends. Is there really anything extra he has to prove to you for you to be okay with him and Kurt going shopping or to the movies as dates rather than as friends?”
Burt shifted restlessly in his chair. From the very first time they’d met, Burt had felt like Blaine was interviewing to become Kurt’s boyfriend. He was so goddamn polite all the time, all neat and formal and composed. Burt had figured nobody worked that hard to please a mere friend’s parents. After knowing him for a couple months now, Burt was getting the feeling that that level of politeness was Blaine’s default setting, but it still made him uncomfortable.
“Do you want to talk to him about…mechanics?” Carole ventured when Burt didn’t answer. “Because I know from experience that ‘the Talks’ kids have with their parents aren’t nearly as important to them as we think they are. Mine with Finn wasn’t perfect, but I’m pretty sure I did well enough that he would have figured out he hadn’t impregnated Quinn if he’d actually been listening.”
“No, we got that covered,” Burt mumbled. Carole raised her eyebrows in surprise at that.
Not long after Kurt came out to him, Burt had visited Ms. Pillsbury at Parent-Teacher Conference Night, hoping she could give him tips on parenting a gay child. She’d sent a dozen pamphlets home with him. It had taken him months to work up the courage to sit Kurt down, with the “‘Carnal Knowledge’ Isn’t Just a Jack Nicholson Movie: How to Talk to Your Kids About Sexual Practices That Were Illegal When You Were Their Age” pamphlet clutched in his sweating hand. Before Burt had even started speaking, Kurt saw it, flushed so badly his face was almost purple, and begged, “If I read the pamphlet myself, can we not talk about any of this? Ever?” Burt had never been so relieved. He didn’t feel like telling Carole that story now, though.
“I guess they’re depriving me of my chance to put the fear of God in Blaine. If they’re dating, it’s my right as a father to ask Blaine whether his intentions towards my son are honorable and to scare him into making his intentions honorable. If they’re dating, he’ll understand that and put up with it if he likes Kurt. If they’re just friends, that same speech will scare the kid right out the door, and Kurt will ream me out for assuming that all gay guys are attracted to each other for the rest of my life.” Burt rubbed his temples in frustration. “But that kid has to have noticed by now that Kurt’s crazy about him. It’s so obvious, astronauts can probably see it from the space station. Is he using him? Kurt falls so hard and so fast…”
Carole rubbed his shoulder comfortingly. “You can’t protect him from getting his heart broken.”
Burt sighed. “I know.”
“Who knows, maybe Blaine is just shy under all the goofy dancing and politeness. If things don’t turn out well, though, it’ll be okay. You raised a strong kid.” Carole’s voice softened. “It’s a part of life. All you can do is be there for him when it happens, and remind him that life does go on after that.”
It hit him hard, knowing that they weren’t just talking about Kurt anymore. He could tell from Carole’s eyes that she knew they were talking about a whole lot more than that, too. Burt would never, ever stop being grateful for how beautifully Carole had reminded him of how life could go on and even be great after so many years of forgetting.
“I know,” he said softly. He smiled and kissed her on the cheek. “Okay, back to bedspreads. How ‘bout that one?”
Carole paused for a long moment before firmly saying, “No.”
“What’s wrong with it? It’s simple, and it’s a good price, and-”
“It’s plain black,” Carole said.
Burt just wanted to be done. “No, look, it’s even reversible, blue on the other side. Reversible is…fashionable, isn’t it?”
“It looks like something Finn would have-in fact, it’s-yes, that is a king-size version of Finn’s bedspread.” Carole appraised him in silence again. “Give me the mouse back.”
He did so reluctantly. Carole clicked with purpose for a few minutes, then announced, “We are now the proud future owners of the Studio Alpine eight-piece comforter set in green, chocolate, and ivory. Simple, no flowers, not too many lines, and yet it actually looks like something you’d find in an adult’s bedroom. Any objections?” She said the last with an expression that suggested he’d better not have any objections. “Good.”
As she was closing out the browser, a weather.com alert popped up at the bottom of the screen. “Winter Storm Warning,” Carole read. A few clicks later, and they were watching swirls of heavy snow sweeping through Indiana and on their way to Ohio on the radar.
“Blaine better get on the road if he’s going to make it back to Mason before the wind picks up,” Burt said, already standing.
Carole gently caught his forearm before he could get too far. “If you do say something to him about…don’t be too scary, all right?”
“I’m not gonna scare him. Not tonight, at least. I think I am gonna ask about whether he’s…is it too goofy to ask what his intentions are towards my son?”
Carole smiled. “It does sound a little 1950s when you phrase it that way, but I think Blaine will understand.”
Burt took a deep breath and left the bedroom. He kept his pace slow as he made his way down the hallway, in case some way of saying “what are your intentions toward my son” that sounded less like something from Leave it to Beaver came to him in the meantime.
He wasn’t at all expecting what he saw when he rounded the corner into the living room. The TV came into view first. Meet Me in St. Louis was playing. They were to the part where Tootie destroys the snowman family because she’s so upset about moving to New York City, but Burt would’ve known what movie it was instantly, no matter what scene was playing.
Meet Me in St. Louis had been Jennifer’s favorite musical of all time. They’d watched it every year at Christmastime at least once, but usually three or four times once Kurt was old enough to say, “Play it again!” When Kurt was five, he and Jennifer had done an exact reenactment of Judy Garland and Tootie’s “Under the Bamboo Tree,” complete with Kurt dressed in one of Jennifer’s nightgowns. When Kurt was eight and they’d brought Jennifer home for the last time, they watched it in the middle of April. He and Jennifer had never intended for Kurt to figure it out that way, but Burt could tell: Kurt knew from that moment that his mom wasn’t going to be there the next Christmas.
Neither he nor Kurt had watched the movie since. It shook all the calm and resolve that Carole had helped Burt pull together, knowing how much Kurt must trust this boy to watch it with him. Kurt trusted way too easily. Even if Kurt had told him the story behind the movie, there was no way this kid could understand what this must mean to Kurt.
Burt could barely see the top of Kurt’s head over the back of the couch. He couldn’t see Blaine’s. Many scary thoughts popped into Burt’s mind at that. He knew he should enter noisily, holler out his presence and give them a chance to jump apart if need be. Maybe it was because he was still a little irritated that they wouldn’t just come out and say they were dating or just friends or whatever and make life easier on him, but Burt decided to take his chances and walk around the couch without saying anything first.
If he’d been hoping that seeing how they were together might resolve the boyfriend or boy who is a friend uncertainty, he was disappointed. They were both sitting up, but fast asleep. They were leaning against each other, but they weren’t wrapped up in one another the way Burt might’ve expected if they were dating. Kurt’s head was flopped back against the backrest, and Blaine’s head was on Kurt’s shoulder in a way that might’ve been deliberate. It also could’ve just as easily happened if they’d started apart and Blaine’s head drooped as they slept. Either way, they looked so comfortable that Burt almost felt guilty waking them.
He shook Kurt’s free shoulder gently. “Hey, kiddo. Wake up.”
Kurt shifted and opened his eyes slowly, looking up at Burt. Burt could tell the moment Kurt realized there was a weight on his shoulder; clearly, Blaine hadn’t been like that when Kurt nodded off. He could see Kurt tense, but Burt made sure he acted like it was nothing.
“Weather report says there’s a snowstorm coming this way. Blaine better leave so he can get home before the roads get dangerous.”
Kurt nodded, then shifted and turned towards Blaine. He lifted his hand that Blaine didn’t have pinned to the couch. “Blaine.” Blaine only sighed in his sleep. It looked to Burt like Kurt almost brushed his fingertips against the other boy’s cheek, but he stopped himself and nudged his shoulder instead. “Blaine, you have to go.”
Burt had learned from experience that there was a moment between waking and sleeping in which it was physically and mentally impossible for a person to lie, or even to mask over what he or she really felt. He saw Blaine’s expression in that open, defenseless moment as the boy looked up at Kurt. It didn’t matter whether they called themselves friends or lovers; Burt had his answer.
“Hey,” Blaine murmured at Kurt, his face still all soft and warm. Burt shifted his weight, which made Blaine notice he was in the room. Blaine’s body snapped up straight and away from Kurt.
Kurt said, “My dad says the weather’s getting bad, so you need to get on the road.”
Blaine’s eyelids were still fluttering like he wasn’t completely awake. “Oh. Okay. Uh, thank you, sir, for letting me know. I should’ve been keeping a closer eye on the weather myself.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Burt said. He paused for a moment, then decided, what the hell. “You can call me Burt, by the way.” At Blaine’s shocked look, he added, “Or Mr. Hummel, if that’d be more comfortable. Either way, we’re kind of past ‘sir,’ aren’t we?”
It took a moment, but Burt watched the realization of what that meant slowly dawning on Blaine as a smile spread across his face. “Yeah. Yeah, we are.” Blaine turned to Kurt, who was still staring at Burt, trying to figure out what this exchange meant for himself. “I still have that sheet music for ‘Not While I’m Around’ in my bag by the door.” He took Kurt’s hand and pulled him up off the couch. He didn’t let go as he said, “Thank you again, Mr. Hummel,” and led Kurt out of the room.
Burt had come up with a scheme to follow Blaine out to his car on the pretense of checking the antifreeze, but there wasn’t much reason to butt into the boys’ good-byes and have that conversation now. He knew what they felt, and he knew that if they broke each other’s hearts someday-and, knowing teenagers, that was probably more a matter of when than if-it was going to hit Kurt hard. That was okay. It wasn’t going to be because one of them was stringing the other along, and that was one of the few forms of heartbreak Burt felt he could legitimately scare guys off to save Kurt from. It was hard to admit, but whatever kind of heartbreak ended them, whatever time they had between now and then would probably make it worth it.
~~**~~**~~
Finding a new house with an extra bedroom had moved down the priority list when Kurt started boarding at Dalton. What had looked to Burt and Carole like a comfortable amount of savings to use to upgrade in a buyer’s market suddenly didn’t look like so much money when faced with five more semesters of tuition, room, and board at a prep school. They always had Finn in the backs of their minds, too. Even if Finn wasn’t the prime bullying target that Kurt had been, if something ever did happen, pulling Finn out of McKinley would probably be the only solution the damnable school board would leave open for him.
More than that, though, a lot of the necessity was gone. Burt wasn’t naïve enough to think that a song and dance could genuinely fix something, but the boys’ relationship did seem to be a lot different since “Just the Way You Are.” Kurt had let Finn move into his room and Finn had made himself comfortable there with no objections on either side, save Kurt’s mutterings about how Hurricane Dirty Laundry always hit the basement while he was at school. Kurt came home most weekends, and if there was any drama between the boys about sharing a bedroom and bathroom, Burt and Carole never heard about it.
That was why it surprised Burt so much when, not five minutes after he and Finn had gotten home from watching the McKinley Titans Girls’ Basketball team kick the Lexington Lady Lex’s butts, he heard Finn shout down in the basement. He heard Kurt yelling, too, before he even made it to the basement steps.
Just when I’d thought this family had finally caught a break, Burt thought to himself as he pounded down the stairs. “Hey, hey, what the hell is going on down here!”
Neither Finn nor Kurt ripped their attention away from each other at the sound of Burt’s voice. Blaine, however, looked up, eyes wide.
Huh, Blaine was there. Burt hadn’t known he was coming over.
Also, Blaine was missing his shirt, and possibly a belt.
Oh.
“Dude, I’m sorry I didn’t knock-really, really sorry-but it’s my room, too. I didn’t even know Blaine was here. His car isn’t out front,” Finn said, his arms swinging with big, nervous gestures.
Just then, Burt also noticed that Kurt was wearing his t-shirt inside out. He wished so very, very badly that he could believe that was some sort of weird fashion statement and not because-don’t go there, don’t go there…
He would’ve expected Kurt to be embarrassed, but instead, he was beet red and spitting mad. Literally spitting mad-Burt had noticed a long time ago that he enunciated really clearly when he was pissed. “He bummed a ride to Lima with David. But that’s not the point! How could you say that, after everything!”
That was enough to set Burt off. He stepped in close so neither boy could ignore him anymore. “What did you say?”
“Nothing!” Finn defended, his voice and eyebrows climbing higher and higher. “Well, not nothing-I mean, I think I hit a couple of the seven words you can’t say on TV-but I didn’t call you or Blaine or the furniture anything. It was all just…shock.”
“Finn’s right,” Blaine said to Kurt. He’d found his shirt and was buttoning it up. He stopped half way through and put a hand on Kurt’s shoulder. “Maybe you thought you heard something else because you’re…not more sensitive to it, but you’re half-way expecting it. But I didn’t hear him say anything mean or hateful or homophobic at all.”
Of the three red-faced boys standing before him, Burt had an overwhelming urge to argue with Blaine, as little sense as that made. Half-way expecting it? In his home? Maybe this family was rougher around the edges than those unnaturally polite Dalton families who apparently paid for political correctness lessons, but to assume that Kurt feared Burt would let that f-word slide, or hell, even that Finn would ever use it again-what the hell did this kid think he knew about their family?
The problem was, the look on Kurt’s face showed clear as day that Blaine was right. Maybe not in the details. Burt was still sure Kurt trusted him when he’d said that word had no place under his roof. But Kurt’s expression of relief at Blaine’s words proved that at least the knee-jerk, instinctive fear was still there.
Finn said, “I was surprised, but I don’t think I said anything that you wouldn’t have said if you’d walked in on Rachel and me doing that.” Finn’s eyes went funny and dull. “Except, not exactly like that, since, y’know, Rachel and I couldn’t do that, with the two-and the different-and…yeah, just put a sock on the doorknob or something next time?”
Blaine made the mistake of looking at Burt at the beginning of Finn’s awkward description. He looked like he was about to melt into the floor in embarrassment.
Burt wasn’t surprised when Blaine turned down Carole’s invitation to stay for dinner when they all emerged from the basement. Even if Burt was only imagining that Blaine thought Kurt lived with a bunch of Neanderthals, there were plenty of other reasons that dinner would’ve been awkward. Finn’s random wide-eyed expressions and blushes as he apparently replayed the fiasco in his head was one. Burt’s flat glare of I know there was more clothing off than what I saw was still missing by the time I got down there that he couldn’t stop himself from doing was another. He couldn’t blame Blaine for wanting to make an early exit.
A little after five o’clock, a Jag pulled into the driveway and honked, and Kurt helped Blaine with his jacket. Burt followed after them out to the entryway, figuring it would be more polite if he showed Blaine out, too, but he stopped short when he heard the boys talking.
“You’re not ashamed, are you? Kurt,” Blaine said gently when Kurt turned his face away. “If you’re acting this way out of embarrassment, that’s fine-I’m embarrassed, too.”
“Ashamed, embarrassed-there’s a difference?” Kurt muttered.
“A huge difference. We weren’t doing anything wrong. Private, yes. Wrong, no.” He lowered his voice even more. “You liked it, right? I did.”
Kurt gave an almost pained smile. “I did, too. I know what you’re saying. I just-” Kurt shook his head, completely out of words.
Blaine wrapped his arms around Kurt, and Kurt snugged himself into the embrace like it was home. “I will never, ever be ashamed of you, Kurt.”
They lingered for a few silent moments. Once they pulled apart, Kurt leaned in and gave him a quick peck. Burt could see Blaine took it as the “me, too,” Kurt clearly intended it to be.
Burt coughed loudly and blanked his expression so it wouldn’t look like he’d been there for the whole conversation. Blaine had the good manners to appear a little nervous under Burt’s gaze but to offer no apologies and to look right back at him. He meant what he said about no shame.
“Safe trip. Hope you can stay for dinner next time,” Burt said to Blaine.
Blaine exhaled in relief, subtle and almost concealed, but there. “I will, Mr. Hummel.”
Dinner was uneventful. Carole had a really good story from work that she wanted to tell so badly she didn’t ask any of them why they weren’t very talkative. Their unspoken agreement not to tell her about what had happened in the basement was definitely not at risk. Even Finn, who had a habit of screwing up cover stories with inconsistent details, didn’t betray any weirdness when Carole asked why Blaine didn’t stay.
The basement was still on Burt’s mind even after Kurt cleared the table, though. Burt entered the kitchen, pretending he was wandering in casually. Kurt was at the sink, scrubbing tomato sauce off the silverware. “Need any help?”
Kurt glanced over his shoulder at him and returned immediately to work. “That’s okay. It’s my night to wash dishes.”
“Then I’ll help dry.” He grabbed a dishtowel and stood beside Kurt. He took a deep breath to help collect his thoughts, but Kurt spoke first.
“I really don’t want to have this talk, Dad.”
Damn. “What talk?”
“You don’t lie any better than I do.”
Both of them focused on the dishes so they didn’t have to look at each other. “This isn’t exactly easy for me, either, but I gotta do parental due diligence.” He swallowed hard. “Are you two safe?”
Burt forced himself to look up from the plate he was drying. Kurt blushed, but not at all like the way he did when he was lying. He stared at the faucet so intensely it was like he was trying to melt it using only his brain. “We-we haven’t…”
“But when you do-”
“Yes. I promise.”
“And he never pressures you to…to do…”
“No,” Kurt half-laughed, half-snorted in a way that made Burt completely reevaluate the ‘you liked it, right?’ part of Kurt and Blaine’s conversation at the door. Well, that and the entire dynamic he’d assumed existed between his son and his son’s boyfriend.
“Okay, then.”
Burt had been thinking about what he should say to Kurt all through dinner. He should say that as much as he’d meant everything he’d said after Kurt sang “Rose’s Turn” (yes, he’d even looked it up online between dinner and now so he’d get the title right, and maybe also to stall a bit), there were a few things he hadn’t said quite right. That talk shouldn’t have been about Mellencamp and monster truck rallies. Or maybe it should have, but it shouldn’t have been about Kurt being gay, then, because Burt did get that taking him to Riverdance wasn’t really what accepting him being gay was all about. It was about accepting that Blaine was not, in fact, an overly friendly friend who learned manners in one of those European countries where it was totally normal for guys to hold hands and kiss each other on the cheek. It was about accepting how that not-just-friends hand-holding made Kurt’s face light up. It was about accepting what happened in the basement, even if it scared Burt shitless.
They stood beside each other in silence until Kurt was draining the dishwater. With all those great thoughts, Burt figured he should’ve been able to say something important. A quiet “I do like him, you know,” was all he could manage.
For the first time that evening, Kurt met Burt’s eyes and smiled. “I’m glad.”
~~**~~**~~
On to Part B