Mama's Boy (Glee, gen, 2/2)
Mama's Boy
by aishuu
Fandom: Glee
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 3,300 (this part)
Characters: Kurt Hummel, Mrs. Hummel
Warnings: Language
Summary: In some other world, Burt Hummel is the one who died young, leaving his wife to raise Kurt alone. Kurt's life may be very different, but some essentials will never change for a gay kid in a conservative town.
Kate liked being right, but at the moment, she wished she hadn't been after mentally predicting Kurt would be a difficult teenager. She was so angry that she was considering shipping Kurt off to boarding school - or she would, provided she didn't kill him instead.
"If you don't unlock this door right now, I'll take it off its hinges!" She pounded on the door to the basement, wondering why she'd thought letting him have his own space was such a good idea. Especially since he'd taken to retreating to it when she said something he didn't like.
She wondered, sometimes, where her sweet little boy had gone. Right now she was living with a sixteen year old monster. Whenever she complained about how horrid Kurt acted to her best friend, Liz, Liz would joke, "I told you you should have eaten him when he was a baby."
The joke had been funny once, but now it wasn't.
The parenting books all stressed the importance of not letting your kid see how upset they made you, but Kate wondered what ten-cent shrink came up with that lovely idea. Parents were human, and Kurt was the best person in the world at hitting her buttons. She wanted to shake some common sense into him.
Truth be told, she didn't know how this particular fight had gotten started. They'd been eating dinner - salad with lemon pepper chicken - when she'd said something that had set him off. He's replied snappishly, and then they were going at it. It'd been three days since their last fight, so maybe they'd been overdue.
Before Kurt had been born, Kate had wanted a little boy. She and her mother had spent most of their time together fighting, and she didn't want to go through that from the other side. She still cringed whenever her mother called, although she knew now that her mother had genuinely wanted what was best for her.
Having Kurt had been a relief, since she'd thought she would avoid those fights that only a mother and daughter could have.
She was such a naïve fool sometimes.
Kate didn't know if it was because she was a single mother or if it was due to Kurt's burgeoning homosexuality, but they seemed to spend more time fighting than anything else. It was over clothes and rules, and Kurt's lack of respect for anyone else. They would be going along fine, and then something would set off another stupid, stupid fight.
Taking a couple deep breaths, she forced herself to step back from the doorway. Pounding on the door wasn't going to get her anything. Kurt was likely plugged into his Ipod, intentionally ignoring her. The only thing she'd get from screaming would be a sore throat.
He had to come out eventually. And when he did, she was going to ground him until next year. She was the parent here, and she wasn't about to be pushed around by her son.
Kurt didn't emerge until the next morning, just in time to skip breakfast. She looked at his outfit - wherever he got that awful bug brooch, she didn't know - and raised an eyebrow. Kurt only dressed this outrageously when he wanted to piss someone off, usually her. Their earlier name brand jeans compromise had only lasted through ninth grade, when Kurt declared he wasn't going to buckle under the whims of the losers in this cow town.
She held out her hand. "Keys," she said.
"What?"
"You know the deal. You lose your car privileges when you act like a brat."
"Mother."
"Hand them over."
He glared at her, then dug into his schoolbag to pull them out. "You're really unfair."
"It's a mother's job to make her child miserable," she said, keeping her expression blank. "I'll take you in about ten minutes, so go eat something."
His glare spoke volumes, but she stood firm. Huffing, he went to the refrigerator to pull out an apple. Kurt wasn't big on eating, since he was constantly concerned about how he looked. If Kate wasn't around to make sure he didn't conveniently miss meals, he might well develop a full blown case of anorexia.
Kurt had always been an odd little boy, and had only become more peculiar as he'd gotten older. Trying to make him fit into Lima was an impossible task, and Kate worried all the time about how he was being treated. After the first threatening phone call to her office, Kate knew Lima wasn't safe.
When it had been time for Kurt to enter high school, Kate had spent the a lot of time weighing if it would be better to move to a more enlightened area. Her medical license was only good in Ohio, but dermatologists were in demand everywhere in the state. They could move to Cleveland or Columbus or Cincinnati... any of those places might be more open-minded than Lima. It was true they wouldn't know anyone, but she was so busy she rarely saw her friends, and Kurt had none.
It wasn't a decision she had wanted to make. She was comfortable in Lima, and feared that moving would only traumatize Kurt even more. Burt's family was close by, and she relied on Gary and Steve (Burt's other brother) to provide positive male role models for Kurt (not that Kurt showed any interest in "acting like a man," but she should at least expose him to the traditional idea of masculinity, right?).
In the end, she had decided that staying made more sense. No matter where Kurt went, he was going to attract attention. Running away would teach him the wrong lesson, since Kurt was going to have to learn to be able to cope with bigotry. High school might seem like forever to a teenager, but it was only four years. She hated to see Kurt miserable, but that was part of growing up.
She thought it'd been the right decision. Kurt had joined the Glee Club and made a couple of good friends, which was a healthy development for him. She still worried about his superiority complex, but she was starting to believe it was just a self defense mechanism.
When they pulled into the McKinley parking lot fifteen minutes later, Kurt made her park the car in the teacher's parking area. He didn't want any of his friends to see him being dropped off by his mother.
"Have a good day at school," she said.
"Enjoy work," Kurt replied, but his hand lingered over the door handle when he caught sight of something outside the window by the dumpsters.
Kate frowned, watching as a bunch of boys in Letterman jackets tossed a smaller boy into the dumpster. Kurt had told her they had tried to do it to him once, but Kurt had kicked two of them in the nads. The jocks had decided to leave his torment to verbal bullying and the occasional slushie since getting too close to him wasn't a good idea.
"Should I go get a teacher?"
He shook his head. "Not worth it. Nobody'll do anything except maybe send them to a session with Ms. Pillsbury about their self-esteem issues."
"Ah." She really hated the psychobabble explanation for bullying, almost as much as she hated the parenting psychobabble.
For a moment, she thought Kurt was wisely waiting for the bullies to move on, but then she noticed the dreamy expression on his face. Kate blinked, turning her head to see what he was looking at.
She wasn't surprised to see Finn Hudson was one of the ringleaders.
For the past six months, she'd been treated to a litany of Finn Hudson's praises. Kurt made no secret that he liked the school's quarterback, and would spend the nights that they were on speaking terms babbling about what Finn had done that day.
Kate would have thought it strange, if she hadn't realized Finn was Kurt's first crush. She was glad Kurt felt comfortable enough to talk to her about him. Kurt had never officially announced his sexuality to her, but he'd never really been in the closet. The fact that he assumed Kate accepted him as he was made her feel like supermom.
She glanced at her son, wishing he had better taste in men. He was going to get his heart broken, and there was nothing she could do to spare him that. She hurt already, because the last thing she wanted was for her little boy to feel that kind of pain.
Kate was always busy at work. Between paperwork, consultations and managing her staff, she rarely had time to worry about her son, which was a good thing. The last thing she wanted was to become a hovering mother, since Kurt would hate it. Her boy had an independent streak the width of the Mississippi.
So a week later when her receptionist Amy intercepted her before she could get to her two o'clock, she was shocked.
"Kurt's gotten into a fight," Amy said, holding a clipboard against her chest defensively. Kate knew the staff respected her, but were wary of rousing her occasional displays of temper.
She shut her eyes, struggling to keep calm. "Do I need to bring him to the hospital?"
"I don't know. The school just said you needed to come and pick him up."
As messages went, it sucked. Kate looked around, weighing what she should do. She could send Amy or another staff member, or call her next door neighbor to come and get Kurt. There were two patients in the exam rooms, and more likely in the lobby, and they would be upset if she left.
Screw them. Her boy needed her.
"Cancel my appointments for the rest of today, and I'll call to let you know if you need to cancel for tomorrow, too. Apologize to everyone, but I've got a family emergency I need to take care of."
Amy nodded, her face fierce and approving. "I'll handle the rescheduling," she promised.
Driving might have been a challenge, if Burt hadn't been such a safety freak about cars and passed that onto Kate. It made his death at the hands of a drunk driver all that more sad, when she stopped to think about it. Right now she forced herself to pay attention to the roads, driving the three miles from her office to the school. It kept her from worrying too much about how much her baby was hurting.
When she arrived at the school, she stopped in the office to sign in. As soon as she entered the room, the two school receptionists looked up and froze. Kate felt a lump of fear growing in her throat.
"Where is my son? she asked. She wasn't screaming - no one would see Dr. Hummel lose her cool - but it was a command.
The two woman both pointed at a wall, before the one closer to her swallowed and spoke. "In Principal Figgins' office."
Kate gave them a jerky nod before turning and stalking out. That had to be good news, that Kurt was in the principal's office instead of the nurse's office, right?
Unfortunately for her, her arrival coincided with the beginning of final period for the students, and the hallways were packed. Students were at their lockers in clumps, gossiping and horsing around. Their presence was a barrier between her and Kurt, and she wasn't in the mood to deal with anything.
Her Tom James suit marked her as out of place, and a couple of the more observant students noticed her. She was wearing her four-inch heels today, so she was almost tall enough to be imposing, glaring at a couple of the students who bumped into her.
She was half a hallway from her goal when a teenage boy deliberately stepped in her path, wearing a smirk and ridiculous mohawk. "Heya, sweet thing," he said, undressing her with his eyes. "Haven't seen you around here before."
"The next place you'll see me is at court pressing a harassment charge if you don't get out of my way," she snapped. Satisfyingly, he backed up, his eyes a bit wide, as she passed.
She thought she heard Mercedes Jones' voice, telling the boy, "That's Dr. Hummel, Kurt's mother. You're an idiot if you think she's gonna be one of your cougars."
Luckily she didn't hear anything else. She could see Kurt through the glass doors of Principal Figgins' office, and nothing was going to stop her until she had a chance to examine her son with her own eyes. She breezed right through, ignoring the secretaries and opening the principal's door without knocking.
Kurt turned his head, and she couldn't see any damage to his face. "Hi, mom," he said, his voice cool and not particularly welcoming, but unashamed as well.
"Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine," he replied, but something in his voice indicated he might not be. She frowned, looking for signs of injury, but saw none.
The principal apparently decided they'd had enough time to talk. "Mrs. Hummel-" Figgins started, but Kate cut him off.
"It's Dr. Hummel."
"Yes, Dr. Hummel," Figgins corrected, a humoring smile on his face. "I'm sorry to call you from work, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to suspend your son for a week for fighting."
Kate blinked. She hadn't been expecting that. "You're kidding me," she said.
"I'm afraid I'm not," Principal Figgins replied. "We at William McKinley take fighting very seriously."
Kurt stared stonily at the principal, not saying anything to defend himself.
Kate felt her own temper start to rise. "Like I'm supposed to believe that? I know about the slushies and the way some of your students toss others into the dumpster on a daily basis. I also know those students are never punished."
"That's kids being kids," Principal Figgins dismissed. "Your son broke Finn Hudson's nose!"
"He did know I was a two dan in kickboxing," Kurt said, buffing his nails on his jacket.
Of all things she might have expected, that was at the bottom of the list. No, it wasn't even on the list, since she knew her son was head over heels in love with Finn. She looked at Kurt, wondering if he was lashing out after being turned down. "Can you excuse us for a moment? I need to talk to my son."
Figgins nodded. "Of course."
Several seconds ticked by, and no one moved.
"I thought you were leaving?" Kate said pointedly. "It makes more sense, since I don't think I'll be able to find somewhere private to talk to Kurt."
Figgins gave her a shocked look, but obediently rose to his feet and left the room. She watched him head over to the coffeemaker, seeming dazed. Then she turned her attention to Kurt.
"Spill," she ordered.
He shrugged. "He had it coming."
"Why? Because he doesn't like you like you like him?"
"It's not about that. I can't believe I thought...."
"Then tell me what it is about."
"Finn is really mad at the glee club right now," he said. "Remember how I told you about Quinn Fabray?"
Kate nodded. "His pregnant girlfriend."
"She's pregnant, but he's not the father." Kurt took a deep breath. "And we - the club - knew it. So when he found out, he was pretty pissed off."
In other circumstances, Kate might have reacted more visibly, but right now she didn't care about some teenage girl's drama. "That's understandable. How did this end up with you breaking his nose?"
"Mercedes and I thought we'd talk to him. We were going to apologize for the club and ask him to come back. Sectionals is in two days, and we need him to compete."
Despite his brilliant mind, her son was an idiot. Kate shut her eyes, counting backwards from ten. "I'm guessing that upset him quite a lot."
"It did." Kurt kept quiet for a couple of heartbeats, before adding, "He told me he didn't want to listen to me, since what did I know about girlfriends since I was a fag?"
Kate had to struggle not to get to her feet and hunt down Finn so she could demonstrate what happened to someone who hurt her son. She'd gotten use to hearing the word from all the anonymous phone calls and Gary's thoughtless comments, but it was still hateful. Hearing it from the boy he'd liked had to make it a hundred times worse.
"Oh, Kurt." She reached out to touch his arm. "I know getting called names may hurt, but you can't attack everyone who calls you something ugly."
"That's not why I kicked him, mom," he said, looking down his nose at her. "I get that all the time."
"I'm confused?"
"Mercedes got offended on my behalf. She got in his face and was telling him off, and Finn pushed her away... he pushed her into a chair and she fell on the floor. That's why I hit him. A guy shouldn't treat a girl like that, and she's my girl. I couldn't let him get away with it."
Kate stopped breathing for a moment. His words were like hearing Burt talk to her. Looking into Kurt's face, all she could see was his blue green eyes, which were exactly the same as his father's. She must have been quiet for too long, because Kurt started to babble to fill the silence.
"I know Mercedes can take care of herself, but she shouldn't have to. I respect her, really I do, but stepping in to defend her was the right thing to do..."
She didn't know when she started to cry, but she could feel the moisture of tears on her cheeks. She rose to her feet, then leaned over so she could wrap her son - and when had he gotten so big? - in a hug.
"Mommy?" he whispered.
"You're just like your father," she said as she pulled back, brushing a couple of strands of hair away from his forehead so she could kiss his temple. "You've got his sense of right and wrong, his sense of justice."
Kurt blinked at her. "I thought I wasn't anything like him."
"You're like him in the ways that matter most," she said. "A child is supposed to get the best of each of their parents. And you did."
Kate Hummel wasn't fond of mushy displays, especially not in a glass-enclosed areas where anyone could look in. Taking a deep breath, she let go of her son to gather her composure. Kurt, apparently equally uncomfortable, pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to her. She used it to dab her face dry.
"Am I presentable?" she asked.
Kurt squinted a bit, before rising to his own feet to take the handkerchief back to make touch-ups. It felt really weird to look up at him as he rubbed around her eyes. Somewhere along the way, he'd become a man.
"There you go," he announced.
She nodded, turning her head to look out at Figgins. "I'm going to have him adjust your punishment to two weeks of detention. A suspension would look horrible on your permanent record."
"Thanks." He smiled down at her, but looked incredibly sad. "I really liked him, mom," he said softly. His eyes looked moist, like he was about to cry, but somehow he kept the tears from falling.
"I know, kiddo," she said. "But maybe it's better to learn he's a jackass now so you don't waste anymore time on him. Do you want to do a Disney night?" she asked. "We can pick up some Ben and Jerrys on the way home?"
A slight smile formed on his lips. "Can we watch The Little Mermaid?"
She laughed, slinging an arm around his waist, since he was too tall for her to reach anywhere else comfortably. "Sure. I don't think I've seen it in a couple years, and I'm almost over the trauma."
Kate opened the door, pulling her son through with her as she went to corner the principal to demand the adjusted punishment. She didn't mind if she had an audience for this fight.
Kurt stood beside her, straight and proud, and she took comfort in his strength. For so long, she'd only seen what Burt wouldn't have liked about his son, missing the most obvious things. Kurt was a Hummel, through and through, and no one would get away with hurting those he loved.
End.
by aishuu
Fandom: Glee
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 3,300 (this part)
Characters: Kurt Hummel, Mrs. Hummel
Warnings: Language
Summary: In some other world, Burt Hummel is the one who died young, leaving his wife to raise Kurt alone. Kurt's life may be very different, but some essentials will never change for a gay kid in a conservative town.
Kate liked being right, but at the moment, she wished she hadn't been after mentally predicting Kurt would be a difficult teenager. She was so angry that she was considering shipping Kurt off to boarding school - or she would, provided she didn't kill him instead.
"If you don't unlock this door right now, I'll take it off its hinges!" She pounded on the door to the basement, wondering why she'd thought letting him have his own space was such a good idea. Especially since he'd taken to retreating to it when she said something he didn't like.
She wondered, sometimes, where her sweet little boy had gone. Right now she was living with a sixteen year old monster. Whenever she complained about how horrid Kurt acted to her best friend, Liz, Liz would joke, "I told you you should have eaten him when he was a baby."
The joke had been funny once, but now it wasn't.
The parenting books all stressed the importance of not letting your kid see how upset they made you, but Kate wondered what ten-cent shrink came up with that lovely idea. Parents were human, and Kurt was the best person in the world at hitting her buttons. She wanted to shake some common sense into him.
Truth be told, she didn't know how this particular fight had gotten started. They'd been eating dinner - salad with lemon pepper chicken - when she'd said something that had set him off. He's replied snappishly, and then they were going at it. It'd been three days since their last fight, so maybe they'd been overdue.
Before Kurt had been born, Kate had wanted a little boy. She and her mother had spent most of their time together fighting, and she didn't want to go through that from the other side. She still cringed whenever her mother called, although she knew now that her mother had genuinely wanted what was best for her.
Having Kurt had been a relief, since she'd thought she would avoid those fights that only a mother and daughter could have.
She was such a naïve fool sometimes.
Kate didn't know if it was because she was a single mother or if it was due to Kurt's burgeoning homosexuality, but they seemed to spend more time fighting than anything else. It was over clothes and rules, and Kurt's lack of respect for anyone else. They would be going along fine, and then something would set off another stupid, stupid fight.
Taking a couple deep breaths, she forced herself to step back from the doorway. Pounding on the door wasn't going to get her anything. Kurt was likely plugged into his Ipod, intentionally ignoring her. The only thing she'd get from screaming would be a sore throat.
He had to come out eventually. And when he did, she was going to ground him until next year. She was the parent here, and she wasn't about to be pushed around by her son.
Kurt didn't emerge until the next morning, just in time to skip breakfast. She looked at his outfit - wherever he got that awful bug brooch, she didn't know - and raised an eyebrow. Kurt only dressed this outrageously when he wanted to piss someone off, usually her. Their earlier name brand jeans compromise had only lasted through ninth grade, when Kurt declared he wasn't going to buckle under the whims of the losers in this cow town.
She held out her hand. "Keys," she said.
"What?"
"You know the deal. You lose your car privileges when you act like a brat."
"Mother."
"Hand them over."
He glared at her, then dug into his schoolbag to pull them out. "You're really unfair."
"It's a mother's job to make her child miserable," she said, keeping her expression blank. "I'll take you in about ten minutes, so go eat something."
His glare spoke volumes, but she stood firm. Huffing, he went to the refrigerator to pull out an apple. Kurt wasn't big on eating, since he was constantly concerned about how he looked. If Kate wasn't around to make sure he didn't conveniently miss meals, he might well develop a full blown case of anorexia.
Kurt had always been an odd little boy, and had only become more peculiar as he'd gotten older. Trying to make him fit into Lima was an impossible task, and Kate worried all the time about how he was being treated. After the first threatening phone call to her office, Kate knew Lima wasn't safe.
When it had been time for Kurt to enter high school, Kate had spent the a lot of time weighing if it would be better to move to a more enlightened area. Her medical license was only good in Ohio, but dermatologists were in demand everywhere in the state. They could move to Cleveland or Columbus or Cincinnati... any of those places might be more open-minded than Lima. It was true they wouldn't know anyone, but she was so busy she rarely saw her friends, and Kurt had none.
It wasn't a decision she had wanted to make. She was comfortable in Lima, and feared that moving would only traumatize Kurt even more. Burt's family was close by, and she relied on Gary and Steve (Burt's other brother) to provide positive male role models for Kurt (not that Kurt showed any interest in "acting like a man," but she should at least expose him to the traditional idea of masculinity, right?).
In the end, she had decided that staying made more sense. No matter where Kurt went, he was going to attract attention. Running away would teach him the wrong lesson, since Kurt was going to have to learn to be able to cope with bigotry. High school might seem like forever to a teenager, but it was only four years. She hated to see Kurt miserable, but that was part of growing up.
She thought it'd been the right decision. Kurt had joined the Glee Club and made a couple of good friends, which was a healthy development for him. She still worried about his superiority complex, but she was starting to believe it was just a self defense mechanism.
When they pulled into the McKinley parking lot fifteen minutes later, Kurt made her park the car in the teacher's parking area. He didn't want any of his friends to see him being dropped off by his mother.
"Have a good day at school," she said.
"Enjoy work," Kurt replied, but his hand lingered over the door handle when he caught sight of something outside the window by the dumpsters.
Kate frowned, watching as a bunch of boys in Letterman jackets tossed a smaller boy into the dumpster. Kurt had told her they had tried to do it to him once, but Kurt had kicked two of them in the nads. The jocks had decided to leave his torment to verbal bullying and the occasional slushie since getting too close to him wasn't a good idea.
"Should I go get a teacher?"
He shook his head. "Not worth it. Nobody'll do anything except maybe send them to a session with Ms. Pillsbury about their self-esteem issues."
"Ah." She really hated the psychobabble explanation for bullying, almost as much as she hated the parenting psychobabble.
For a moment, she thought Kurt was wisely waiting for the bullies to move on, but then she noticed the dreamy expression on his face. Kate blinked, turning her head to see what he was looking at.
She wasn't surprised to see Finn Hudson was one of the ringleaders.
For the past six months, she'd been treated to a litany of Finn Hudson's praises. Kurt made no secret that he liked the school's quarterback, and would spend the nights that they were on speaking terms babbling about what Finn had done that day.
Kate would have thought it strange, if she hadn't realized Finn was Kurt's first crush. She was glad Kurt felt comfortable enough to talk to her about him. Kurt had never officially announced his sexuality to her, but he'd never really been in the closet. The fact that he assumed Kate accepted him as he was made her feel like supermom.
She glanced at her son, wishing he had better taste in men. He was going to get his heart broken, and there was nothing she could do to spare him that. She hurt already, because the last thing she wanted was for her little boy to feel that kind of pain.
Kate was always busy at work. Between paperwork, consultations and managing her staff, she rarely had time to worry about her son, which was a good thing. The last thing she wanted was to become a hovering mother, since Kurt would hate it. Her boy had an independent streak the width of the Mississippi.
So a week later when her receptionist Amy intercepted her before she could get to her two o'clock, she was shocked.
"Kurt's gotten into a fight," Amy said, holding a clipboard against her chest defensively. Kate knew the staff respected her, but were wary of rousing her occasional displays of temper.
She shut her eyes, struggling to keep calm. "Do I need to bring him to the hospital?"
"I don't know. The school just said you needed to come and pick him up."
As messages went, it sucked. Kate looked around, weighing what she should do. She could send Amy or another staff member, or call her next door neighbor to come and get Kurt. There were two patients in the exam rooms, and more likely in the lobby, and they would be upset if she left.
Screw them. Her boy needed her.
"Cancel my appointments for the rest of today, and I'll call to let you know if you need to cancel for tomorrow, too. Apologize to everyone, but I've got a family emergency I need to take care of."
Amy nodded, her face fierce and approving. "I'll handle the rescheduling," she promised.
Driving might have been a challenge, if Burt hadn't been such a safety freak about cars and passed that onto Kate. It made his death at the hands of a drunk driver all that more sad, when she stopped to think about it. Right now she forced herself to pay attention to the roads, driving the three miles from her office to the school. It kept her from worrying too much about how much her baby was hurting.
When she arrived at the school, she stopped in the office to sign in. As soon as she entered the room, the two school receptionists looked up and froze. Kate felt a lump of fear growing in her throat.
"Where is my son? she asked. She wasn't screaming - no one would see Dr. Hummel lose her cool - but it was a command.
The two woman both pointed at a wall, before the one closer to her swallowed and spoke. "In Principal Figgins' office."
Kate gave them a jerky nod before turning and stalking out. That had to be good news, that Kurt was in the principal's office instead of the nurse's office, right?
Unfortunately for her, her arrival coincided with the beginning of final period for the students, and the hallways were packed. Students were at their lockers in clumps, gossiping and horsing around. Their presence was a barrier between her and Kurt, and she wasn't in the mood to deal with anything.
Her Tom James suit marked her as out of place, and a couple of the more observant students noticed her. She was wearing her four-inch heels today, so she was almost tall enough to be imposing, glaring at a couple of the students who bumped into her.
She was half a hallway from her goal when a teenage boy deliberately stepped in her path, wearing a smirk and ridiculous mohawk. "Heya, sweet thing," he said, undressing her with his eyes. "Haven't seen you around here before."
"The next place you'll see me is at court pressing a harassment charge if you don't get out of my way," she snapped. Satisfyingly, he backed up, his eyes a bit wide, as she passed.
She thought she heard Mercedes Jones' voice, telling the boy, "That's Dr. Hummel, Kurt's mother. You're an idiot if you think she's gonna be one of your cougars."
Luckily she didn't hear anything else. She could see Kurt through the glass doors of Principal Figgins' office, and nothing was going to stop her until she had a chance to examine her son with her own eyes. She breezed right through, ignoring the secretaries and opening the principal's door without knocking.
Kurt turned his head, and she couldn't see any damage to his face. "Hi, mom," he said, his voice cool and not particularly welcoming, but unashamed as well.
"Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine," he replied, but something in his voice indicated he might not be. She frowned, looking for signs of injury, but saw none.
The principal apparently decided they'd had enough time to talk. "Mrs. Hummel-" Figgins started, but Kate cut him off.
"It's Dr. Hummel."
"Yes, Dr. Hummel," Figgins corrected, a humoring smile on his face. "I'm sorry to call you from work, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to suspend your son for a week for fighting."
Kate blinked. She hadn't been expecting that. "You're kidding me," she said.
"I'm afraid I'm not," Principal Figgins replied. "We at William McKinley take fighting very seriously."
Kurt stared stonily at the principal, not saying anything to defend himself.
Kate felt her own temper start to rise. "Like I'm supposed to believe that? I know about the slushies and the way some of your students toss others into the dumpster on a daily basis. I also know those students are never punished."
"That's kids being kids," Principal Figgins dismissed. "Your son broke Finn Hudson's nose!"
"He did know I was a two dan in kickboxing," Kurt said, buffing his nails on his jacket.
Of all things she might have expected, that was at the bottom of the list. No, it wasn't even on the list, since she knew her son was head over heels in love with Finn. She looked at Kurt, wondering if he was lashing out after being turned down. "Can you excuse us for a moment? I need to talk to my son."
Figgins nodded. "Of course."
Several seconds ticked by, and no one moved.
"I thought you were leaving?" Kate said pointedly. "It makes more sense, since I don't think I'll be able to find somewhere private to talk to Kurt."
Figgins gave her a shocked look, but obediently rose to his feet and left the room. She watched him head over to the coffeemaker, seeming dazed. Then she turned her attention to Kurt.
"Spill," she ordered.
He shrugged. "He had it coming."
"Why? Because he doesn't like you like you like him?"
"It's not about that. I can't believe I thought...."
"Then tell me what it is about."
"Finn is really mad at the glee club right now," he said. "Remember how I told you about Quinn Fabray?"
Kate nodded. "His pregnant girlfriend."
"She's pregnant, but he's not the father." Kurt took a deep breath. "And we - the club - knew it. So when he found out, he was pretty pissed off."
In other circumstances, Kate might have reacted more visibly, but right now she didn't care about some teenage girl's drama. "That's understandable. How did this end up with you breaking his nose?"
"Mercedes and I thought we'd talk to him. We were going to apologize for the club and ask him to come back. Sectionals is in two days, and we need him to compete."
Despite his brilliant mind, her son was an idiot. Kate shut her eyes, counting backwards from ten. "I'm guessing that upset him quite a lot."
"It did." Kurt kept quiet for a couple of heartbeats, before adding, "He told me he didn't want to listen to me, since what did I know about girlfriends since I was a fag?"
Kate had to struggle not to get to her feet and hunt down Finn so she could demonstrate what happened to someone who hurt her son. She'd gotten use to hearing the word from all the anonymous phone calls and Gary's thoughtless comments, but it was still hateful. Hearing it from the boy he'd liked had to make it a hundred times worse.
"Oh, Kurt." She reached out to touch his arm. "I know getting called names may hurt, but you can't attack everyone who calls you something ugly."
"That's not why I kicked him, mom," he said, looking down his nose at her. "I get that all the time."
"I'm confused?"
"Mercedes got offended on my behalf. She got in his face and was telling him off, and Finn pushed her away... he pushed her into a chair and she fell on the floor. That's why I hit him. A guy shouldn't treat a girl like that, and she's my girl. I couldn't let him get away with it."
Kate stopped breathing for a moment. His words were like hearing Burt talk to her. Looking into Kurt's face, all she could see was his blue green eyes, which were exactly the same as his father's. She must have been quiet for too long, because Kurt started to babble to fill the silence.
"I know Mercedes can take care of herself, but she shouldn't have to. I respect her, really I do, but stepping in to defend her was the right thing to do..."
She didn't know when she started to cry, but she could feel the moisture of tears on her cheeks. She rose to her feet, then leaned over so she could wrap her son - and when had he gotten so big? - in a hug.
"Mommy?" he whispered.
"You're just like your father," she said as she pulled back, brushing a couple of strands of hair away from his forehead so she could kiss his temple. "You've got his sense of right and wrong, his sense of justice."
Kurt blinked at her. "I thought I wasn't anything like him."
"You're like him in the ways that matter most," she said. "A child is supposed to get the best of each of their parents. And you did."
Kate Hummel wasn't fond of mushy displays, especially not in a glass-enclosed areas where anyone could look in. Taking a deep breath, she let go of her son to gather her composure. Kurt, apparently equally uncomfortable, pulled out a handkerchief and handed it to her. She used it to dab her face dry.
"Am I presentable?" she asked.
Kurt squinted a bit, before rising to his own feet to take the handkerchief back to make touch-ups. It felt really weird to look up at him as he rubbed around her eyes. Somewhere along the way, he'd become a man.
"There you go," he announced.
She nodded, turning her head to look out at Figgins. "I'm going to have him adjust your punishment to two weeks of detention. A suspension would look horrible on your permanent record."
"Thanks." He smiled down at her, but looked incredibly sad. "I really liked him, mom," he said softly. His eyes looked moist, like he was about to cry, but somehow he kept the tears from falling.
"I know, kiddo," she said. "But maybe it's better to learn he's a jackass now so you don't waste anymore time on him. Do you want to do a Disney night?" she asked. "We can pick up some Ben and Jerrys on the way home?"
A slight smile formed on his lips. "Can we watch The Little Mermaid?"
She laughed, slinging an arm around his waist, since he was too tall for her to reach anywhere else comfortably. "Sure. I don't think I've seen it in a couple years, and I'm almost over the trauma."
Kate opened the door, pulling her son through with her as she went to corner the principal to demand the adjusted punishment. She didn't mind if she had an audience for this fight.
Kurt stood beside her, straight and proud, and she took comfort in his strength. For so long, she'd only seen what Burt wouldn't have liked about his son, missing the most obvious things. Kurt was a Hummel, through and through, and no one would get away with hurting those he loved.
End.