Fic: Watch Me Fly
Title: Watch Me Fly, 1/1
Author: knittycat99
Rating: PG-13 for mild language
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Kurt/Burt/Karofsky
Genre: friendship, parent/child/, angst
Warning: speculative fic
Spoilers: for 2x20, Prom Queen
Disclaimer: I don't own any of them
Author Notes: My take on what might happen during the rest of Prom weekend. A companion piece to Much Too High A Cost
Summary: Burt can't stand the silence. And then Karofsky interrupts his baseball game.
Word Count: 2,242
Burt knows that something had happened at Prom, that much is clear by the way loud silence has been echoing through the house since Saturday morning. Both Kurt and Finn have been in their rooms all weekend, and it seems that neither of them will be emerging before tomorrow morning. Saturday hadn’t been too big a deal; Burt had been called in to work, and Carole was working as well. But Sundays were usually family days. Burt knew that something was really wrong when Kurt refused to come down and help him with brunch this morning, and when Finn refused to eat. The most response he’s gotten to his questions and threats is “I’m not hungry, just leave me alone” (Finn) and “Please, Dad, I just want to be alone” (Kurt). He’s fielded calls from Quinn (“Finn’s not answering his cell. Tell him to call me when he manages to pull his head out of his ass”) and Blaine (“Kurt’s not answering his cell. Tell him I love him and I’ll see him at the Lima Bean after school tomorrow”). After pizza that Carole orders in (which neither boy comes downstairs to eat), Burt settles in with a beer to watch the Reds play in San Francisco. That freaky kid is pitching for the Giants. Burt kind of hates him. Hell, he just plain hates the Giants. Carole takes over the other end of the couch with a thick library book. At the break between the third and fourth innings, the doorbell rings. Burt isn’t sure what to think when he opens it to find that Karofsky kid, pale and shaking, on his doorstep.
“Mr. Hummel, I’m sorry. I know it’s late and it’s a school night, but I really need to talk with Kurt. Is he home?”
Burt levels him with a stare, and watches as the boy turns away. Burt knows that look, the one of a teenage boy struggling to stuff his emotions back into a lockbox. He had been planning on turning the punk away (because really, he didn’t care what the kid’s dad said, or even what Kurt said; there was something going on with that boy, and none of it was good), but seeing him on the edge of tears makes him feel bad. He stands back and ushers Karofsky into the entryway. “Wait here.”
Burt runs up the stairs and pounds on Kurt’s door. “I don’t care what’s going on. But that Karofsky kid is here and wants to talk with you.”
Burt is surprised when the door opens a crack and Kurt says “I don’t want to talk to him.”
“He looks like he’s in a bad place, Kurt. He said that he needs to talk with you.”
“Oh, crap. Fine. Send him up.”
“I’ll send him up, but you need to come down and talk to me after he leaves. Because I know that something happened the other night, and I want to hear it from you before I hear it from somebody else.”
His heart hurts when Kurt looks at him, hollow-eyed like the days last fall before he transferred. Kurt looks resigned. “Fine,” he answers before closing the door behind him.
Burt motions Karofsky up the stairs. “Second door on the right.” Now his beer is warm, and the damn Giants are up by 4.
“Honey, come sit down. Everything’s going to be fine.” Carole moves her feet aside, and he leans into her and listens to the silence echoing from upstairs.
*****
Kurt stands in his half-opened doorway expecting brawling Dave in his letterman jacket. The Dave who rounds the corner at the top of the stairs is someone else entirely, shrunken into a pair of holey jeans and a crazy-soft looking McKinley Titans hoodie. His face is pale, eyes bloodshot, and his hair issticking up. He looks lost. He doesn’t even move away when Kurt takes his hand and pulls him into the room. Kurt is surprised at how frail Dave feels under his hand. “Sit,” he commands, and Dave sits gingerly on the edge of Kurt’s unmade bed.
“Kurt, I’m-”
“Stop. Just stop. Answer me something first. Did you have anything to do with that fiasco?”
“Shit. No. God. You thought I did?”
“No. Not really.” That is the honest truth that he’s come to after two sleepless nights and the movie version of Rent on endless repeat. “I just needed to make sure.”
“I could have lied.”
“You could have, but you wouldn’t. Not about that.” He looks more closely at Dave, and notices that his leg is shaking subtly. He lowers his voice to a gentle hush. “What’s going on?”
“I. Um. So, I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Running off on you, leaving you alone in front of everyone. I wanted to dance with you. I did. But I couldn’t.”
“I understand that, Dave. You don’t have to apologize.”
“Yeah. I kinda do. Because I don’t want you to think that it had anything to do with you. It was me.”
Kurt wants to say that he knows it had nothing to do with him, but the insecure boy under his hardened exterior had really needed to hear that. He smiled faintly at Dave. “I didn’t think I needed to hear that, but thank you.”
He feels Dave draw in a shaky breath. His next words came out in a rush. “I came out to my dad tonight.” And then there were tears. Not the swallowed-back tears of hallways and corners that had so shocked Kurt outside of his French class the other day. This was full-on, shuddering sobbing, the kind of crying that came with an intense emotional release. Kurt doesn’t want to push, doesn’t want to scare Dave even more. But he knows from his own coming out that sometimes the best thing to counter the adrenaline of confession is contact. He puts a careful arm around Dave’s shoulder and lets him cry for a few minutes. When the sobbing begins to subside, Kurt speaks again. “What did he say?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“No.” Another shaky breath. “I kind of didn’t give him a chance.”
“Oh.” Kurt thinks about that for a minute. “You told him and then bailed?”
“Pretty much. Cowardly, right?”
“No. Like I’ve told you, coming out can be scary. Do it in your own way in your own time. How did it feel?”
Dave smiles faintly. “Like flying, like I could take on the world. After I stopped feeling like I was going to throw up.”
“Even though you didn’t let your dad talk with you about it?”
“Even though.”
“Do you regret it?”
Dave pulls in a hard breath, and is silent for a moment. “No,” he answers finally before turning to Kurt and asking “Have you ever regretted it?”
“Never. But my situation is a little different from yours, Dave. Kids have been calling me queer since I was in preschool.”
“I hate it when people make those jokes, but I feel like I have no choice, like I have to make them myself. I’m always so scared that they can see through me.”
“Trust me. They can’t.” And Kurt knows that is the truth, too, because if Dave hadn’t kissed him that day in the fall, he wouldn’t see it either. At least not as long as he doesn’t look too hard or too long at the crumbling façade that is Dave Karofsky, football star.
Kurt watches as Dave twists his hands in his lap, sliding them in and out of the pocket of his sweatshirt, toying with the frayed edges of the sleeves. It makes Kurt anxious by proxy, but he bites back the urge to still Dave’s hands with his own; he feels like he’s walking a fine line between appropriate, friendly-yet-supportive conduct and territory that would be better defined as a little too intimate. But Dave is leaning against him like he needs Kurt to hold him up, so Kurt reaches over and puts gentle pressure against the back of Dave’s hands. They still almost instantly, but Kurt can feel the adrenaline curling up Dave’s arm where it rests against his own; it feels like Dave is trying to crawl out of his own skin. Kurt swallows around his better instincts that are screaming let it go and don’t you dare and instead does the one thing he knows will help. It’s what Blaine does for him when he can’t get out of his own head. He tells Dave “don’t take this as anything other than a friend trying to help” before pulling Dave full into his arms and stretching them both out on his bed. Dave isn’t much taller than he is anymore, so he’s able to curl around the other boy easily. He holds Dave tight, feels him struggle for a moment before giving in to the warmth and the contact and the support. He stops shaking almost immediately. Kurt sighs with relief; he really thought that Dave would fight him more.
“It’s going to be okay,” he whispers against the unfamiliar scent of Dave’s shampoo and aftershave. “Your dad will be fine. You’ll be fine.”
He feels Dave shudder, and worries that he’s crossed the “too intimate” line until he feels the warm and damp of silent tears dripping onto his bare arm.
“Thank you,” Dave chokes out before going quiet again. Kurt fumbles behind him for his throw blanket, which he pulls over both of them. He supposes it’s okay if they fall asleep with the lights on; it’s better than another sleepless night.
*****
It’s the top of the ninth inning when the phone rings. Burt has long since covered Carole with an afghan and set her book aside. The Reds are still losing, but he figures he’ll stick it out until the end. He jumps up to grab at the receiver before the noise wakes Carole, and the rough voice on the other end sounds vaguely familiar.
“Mr. Hummel? Burt?”
“Yeah.”
“This is Paul Karofsky. David’s father?”
“Uh huh.”
“I’ve called all around to David’s friends, and none of them have seen him. Is there a chance he might be at your house?”
“Uh huh. He’s here. Showed up a while ago. He’s up talking with Kurt. Is . . . is everything okay?”
Karofsky lets out a puff of air that Burt thinks is supposed to be a laugh, but it sounds like anything but. “No,” the other man says finally. “Everything is not okay. Tonight, David told me that . . . well, that he’s. Um. Gay.”
Well. That explained a lot.
“Hmmm. That explains a lot. Are you all right? I mean, I was expecting it with Kurt, and it was still a bit of a shock.”
“I’ll be fine. Thank you for asking. It’s David I’m worried about. He told me, just sort of blurted it out and then ran off.”
“Uh huh. Hold on.” Burt sets the handset down on the coffee table and pads upstairs. Kurt’s door is open a crack, and he can see from the hall that the light is on, but he doesn’t hear anything. He nudges the edge with his toe and peeks in to see where the boys are asleep, Kurt with his body wrapped around Dave in a protective kind of way. His kid looks strong and secure in himself, and Dave looks broken, even in sleep. The irony of the turnaround isn’t lost on him as he closes the door completely behind him. He picks up the handset and wanders back to the kitchen so that he can prep the coffee maker for the morning while he talks.
“Paul?”
“Yes.”
“Dave is still here. He’s with Kurt and he’s safe. He’s sleeping. He’s going to be fine.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Kurt’s taking care of him.”
“They’re just kids.”
Burt sighs to himself and thinks about Kurt, about how much he’s grown in the past year. “Kurt hasn’t been a kid in a long time. He’ll take good care of your boy, I promise. I’ll send him home to you in the morning.”
Burt can hear Karofsky thinking, and the silence before he gives in. “Yeah. Maybe that’s a good idea. Give us each a little distance to clear our heads. Thank you, Burt.”
“You’re welcome. And Paul?”
“Yes?”
“David is still your kid. He told you because he loves you. You’re both going to be just fine.”
There’s another sigh, and the defeated sound of a parent weak with worry and sadness. “I hope you’re right. Goodnight.”
Burt putters around the kitchen with no real purpose for a few minutes after hanging up the phone. He thinks that it doesn’t matter so much anymore what happened at Prom. He’ll find out when Kurt’s ready to tell him, but he also wonders if it’s so important now. Maybe what’s happening upstairs, his son comforting a kid who hurt him so terribly, is bigger than any of them realize. Maybe he’s changing. Maybe they all are.
He shuts the kitchen down before going back out to the living room to find that the Reds have lost. He turns the tv off and wakes Carole, who leads him to their bedroom.
“Is Karofsky still here?” she asks him in a whisper.
“Uh huh.”
“Are things okay?”
“They will be.”
As he settles into bed with Carole warm beside him, he thinks that the silence is almost peaceful tonight.