Glee!fic: Cleaning Out The Crud
Cleaning Out The Crud, still on the Glee thing.
Disclaimer: I don't even own the box sets. Though I would like them <3
Rating: G! So proud of myself ^^
Spoilers: . . . not really? If you've seen Furt and Original Song there is literally nothing to shock you. For the record, we've only seen as far as Rumours over here and if you spoiler me I will. I don't even know. Cry. Please don't.
Summary: Moar Hudmel time please canon! It's cool that the whole family gets along, mostly.
Note: It appears to be my headcanon that Blaine is into Buffy? I just bet he's a geek about *something*, anyway . . .
Now available in podfic form thanks to marsmaywander, thank you honey! <3
It's cool that the whole family gets along, mostly. Like, it's cool that Mr Hummel - Burt, he has to call him Burt - never mentions the whole shouting-in-the-basement thing and they can watch sports together and look mutually perplexed at some (most) of Kurt's outfits. And it's cool that Finn's mom like, adores Kurt like he's her new best friend, and Finn's totally never seen his mom this happy and everything so, yeah, it's cool.
Mostly.
Because okay Kurt's dad's watching sports with Finn, but he makes time every week to spend with Kurt and they talk about - Finn doesn't even know sometimes. He finds them at the kitchen table at night and Burt's looking suspiciously into a cup of green tea and Kurt's talking about antioxidants and the history of heart disease in Japan. Or they're talking about college - seriously Finn hasn't even thought about college yet - or like, what would happen if Kurt does move away when he's older. Which everyone knows he will even though Kurt hangs onto his dad's hand and swears he'll never leave him, not really, and they better not touch his room. They actually talk about actual stuff. Finn hasn't had a serious talk with his mom since she got married again, and before that it was about a yearly event. They just, they don't, he's a guy.
Okay Kurt's a guy too but he's Kurt, so.
And then there's Finn's mom, who like, loves Kurt. And they talk about actual stuff too. It's not just that they spend every Sunday morning watching America's Next Top Model with their breakfast on their knees and Kurt can make her laugh until she cries, and it's not just that it's not Kurt helping her with the housework so much as her helping Kurt with the housework (he makes Finn feel like he should be doing something but he has no idea what), but they actually sit and talk about things. Feelings. Finn has never talked to his mom about his feelings even when he thought his girlfriend was carrying his baby, even when he found out that his girlfriend was carrying Puck's baby. Seriously, who talks about their feelings with their parents? Their step-parents. Seriously.
And then there's Blaine as well like, every weekend and every other night and now his mom has two best friends and they always seem to have the most fun in the world, and suddenly Finn feels really . . . like, inadequate. Like he understands for the first time that Kurt never chose to be born gay, because it's not like Finn chose to be born straight either. If his mom had totally wanted a gay son, it's not Finn's fault he's not it. He thinks he might be being immature about this. Mostly he just sulks a bit, though, and tries not to hear them laughing while he's in his room. He has aliens to kill. And it's not like he's going to talk about his feelings with his mom or anyone else anyway, so.
*
Finn gets used to the sight of Kurt in rubber gloves. He gets used to Kurt vacuuming things that Finn didn't even know needed vacuuming (Seriously, you have to do stairs? Who knew.). Kurt's always been insanely hardworking, and Finn does remember a time last year when Kurt was juggling glee practise and homework and planning an entire wedding and enduring daily psychological torture at school and apparently doing the housework too and, significantly, not having a nervous breakdown. And then he remembers that before that, Kurt maybe didn't have the wedding to plan but he was looking after his dad after he was hospitalised, he used to turn up late to practises looking harassed because he had to slip home between school and glee to check up on him, and still he wasn't having that nervous breakdown. And Finn does start to feel a bit guilty, then.
So he leans into the bathroom where Kurt's polishing the sink with the radio tuned into Lady Gaga (he's rubbing in time to the music and bopping his hips about the way he does) and says, "Dude, you want some help?"
Kurt turns and looks at him, really hard, really really hard, like's he's waiting for a punch line. Eventually he says, like he's trying out a new language for the first time, "'Help'?"
"I could." Finn stares at the bathroom. He actually doesn't know how to start cleaning one, he didn't even know it was dirty yet. "I dunno, do you just want some help?"
Kurt gives him another long look, then says, "I suppose that most of the dirt is your doing so yes, Finn, you can help." He narrows his eyes at Finn's hands. "You'll stretch my gloves out."
"S'okay, I don't mind not using them."
"But then your skin will dry out. Oh, of course, you're a boy, what do you need feeling in your hands for, sorry." He wrings his cloth out over the sink and holds it out to Finn. "You can do the bathtub. Do you know how to do it?"
He looks at the tub, and it looks pretty clean. "I wipe it?"
Kurt is very still for a moment, stillness as a form of not-sighing, closes his eyes and opens them again and says, "I will give you a spray to use and then yes, you wipe it. When you're done wiping you rinse it with the shower head. Then you report to me and I will do it again because you've inevitably not done it properly. Why are you doing this? You don't care if the bathroom's dirty, I've seen the towel you use." In a mutter, "I've smelt it."
"Dude, I just want to help."
Kurt gives him a really long look this time, and Finn can actually never tell what's going on in his head anyway, and then he says, "Fine. After that you can do the top of the shower, I can't reach."
Cool, Finn's actually useful for something. He looks up and down the bathtub for dirt but can't really see anything, so he sprays pretty much the whole thing with the sneezy-spray Kurt gave him and rubs it in a bit. It's like cleaning a car, but hurts his back more leaning in like this. Kurt's clearing things from the shelves, humming along with the radio, wiping up dust and drips and putting things back tidy.
Finn says to the tap, which is easier to speak to than Kurt's suspicious glare, "So how long have you been doing this stuff?"
There's a little pause before Kurt says, "I don't know. I don't remember. I have a lower dirt threshold than my dad so it's not fair to make him clean to my standards, it's easier if I just take care of it myself."
"You do most of the cooking as well."
"If it's not barbecued then he really doesn't have a clue. He does try, though."
Finn wipes around the taps. He makes a game of it. The tub is contaminated with deadly spores, if he doesn't wipe every inch of the surface the next person who touches it will become a flesh-eating zombie. He has to finish by the end of the song. Go.
Kurt watches him looking adult and weary, then polishes the spots off the mirror.
Finn says, "Do you enjoy doing this stuff?"
"I don't think 'enjoy' is the word to use. It's just something that has to be done, like homework. But if I can have music on I don't really mind it. And I like things to be clean."
He actually won't come into Finn's bedroom anymore. He stands in the doorway and leans if he has to pass something through, like the carpet might be harbouring diseases. Finn doesn't think that Kurt's properly crazy like Miss Pillsbury or anything but he once told Finn that he needed to dust his posters. Dust his posters, seriously, like, they're vertical, how can they even get dusty? Only then he looked closely and actually he could rub a little furry residue off them with a finger. Again, who knew?
"So," Finn says. "Um. My mom really appreciates you doing all this stuff."
"I appreciate her helping too." Kurt says, like it actually should be a fifty-fifty thing between them, like it actually should be Kurt's responsibility too.
"She really likes you and everything."
"Well, she should. I saved her from a lifetime of nothing but denim." Kurt glances across at him while Finn's trying to work out if that's good or not and says, "I like her too, Finn. She's a really nice person."
"She says you're really like, mature and stuff."
"She's never seen me when there's a wasp in the room," Kurt says, a little gloomily, and begins taking all the towels down and dropping them into a wicker laundry basket.
"And she really likes your cooking."
"Where exactly is this going?" Kurt says, putting the lid back on the laundry basket and turning back to Finn. "I don't know if you think you're being subtle but all you're actually doing is being vaguely annoying and leaving streaks on the bath."
"Oh. Sorry. Um." Finn plays with the cloth for a bit. "It's just. Sometimes I think she likes you better."
"Finn, you're her son."
"I know!"
That wasn't meant to come out so loud. Kurt goes really stiff and Finn feels his own face drop because he remembers, in that second, that Kurt really does not like being shouted at and he doesn't want to be the guy who shouts at Kurt, but then Kurt puts his shoulders back and lifts his head higher and says in a very hard voice, "She's not my mom, Finn. I like her. She's a lovely person and she makes my dad happy. But she is not my mom and she is never going to be and I don't know quite what you're insinuating right now."
. . . Finn forgets that Kurt and his dad aren't a complete unit. They seem like it, in a way that he and his mom don't, so he forgets that they're missing someone too. He rubs the back of his neck and says quietly, "Sorry, man." but Kurt flaps his hands with sudden urgency.
"Your hair oh my god Finn that spray has bleach in it-"
"What?"
"Sink sink sink now or you'll end up looking like Spike-"
"Spike?" As Kurt throws his gloves in the bath, manhandles him to the sink and yanks his head down into range.
"Damn Blaine and damn Buffy," Kurt mutters, shooting the tap on over the back of Finn's head. "You'll end up looking like Sam. It's not a good look for you. I offered you gloves."
Finn tries to say something and gets a mouthful of water, while Kurt's hands rub at the back of his neck and a year ago he would have freaked out at this and he's really grown as a person if all he feels about Kurt's hands in his hair right now is annoyance.
"I feel like I'm babysitting half the time, do you know that? I'm scared to leave you alone with the stove, I'm scared that you'll burn the house down or accidentally drink drain cleaner or something, god you are hopeless-"
Finn comes up spluttering and Kurt wraps a clean towel around his head, and rubs hard at his hair in a way -
- that suddenly makes Finn six years old again, head obediently ducked after a swim for his mom to towel his hair off, though his mom never bitched underneath her breath, "You don't even know how to fold your clothes and where is the point in my ironing your shirts if you just flail them around in your drawers like rolled up newspapers-"
"Dude, I can dry my own hair."
"I have my doubts!" Kurt barks, but then backs off bristling, arms wrapped around himself. Finn rubs his neck dry feeling awkward, while Kurt looks to the side, then reaches down and picks his rubber gloves up again. He finishes the bath off, rinses it clean, and dries the edge so he can sit on it, dropping his gloves into it again. "When . . . our parents started going out. Do you remember? You and my dad got on great, which was lovely, but - do you remember him inviting you to sports - things, spectacles, games, whatever they are. He does it now, but back then . . ." His hands tighten on the edge of the bath and he says in a too-steady voice, "Do you know how that made me feel?"
". . . like you didn't have to do it anymore?"
"I never did it in the first place. He never asked me. Why would he? I'm-" He waves a hand, his mouth all bitter, and looks Finn angrily in the eye. "It was petty and pointless of me to be jealous and I know that, but I was. Because it just drew a picture for me of the son he could have had. Maybe should have had. If he didn't have me."
"Dude, he, you know, loves you."
"I know." Kurt shrugs. "I know that. I said it was petty. So I would now like you to put that into context. Your mom is a sweetheart and we're interested in a lot of the same things but are you actually suggesting that she is even capable of preferring me? You're her son, I just came attached to the man she married. And she is a lovely person but Finn, she is never going to be my mom. I don't want her to be. I love her dearly but she is never going to replace my mother."
Finn looks at the tiles on the floor for a bit, trying to work out what he's feeling at all before he deals with whether he wants to, whether he even can, articulate what he's feeling.
Eventually he says, gruff to the tiles, "You miss her?"
There's a horrible little pause and Finn looks up, worried, before Kurt says, very softly, "Every single day. Do you . . . do you remember your dad at all?"
"No." His shoulders hunch, he wants to kick at something; there's a reason it's better not to talk about feelings. "Nothing."
". . . I don't remember my mom much. It was . . . something I kept thinking about while my dad was in the hospital. That if - at least I would remember him. At least I know him. But I don't know if it's worse, sometimes, knowing what you're missing." Kurt rubs his arms, mouth pressed tight, and looks up at Finn - with him sitting and Finn standing, he looks a long way up. He smiles, very wanly. "I probably think about these things too much. I always wondered if you did too."
"I dunno." He ducks his head. "Well, I mean, yeah. I think about it all the time. I just - I don't like talking about these things, man."
"It's good to talk about your feelings." Kurt says calmly.
"Wait, you - you think about whether I'm thinking stuff?"
"Of course I do. We live together. And I do have to assume that some thought is going on in there, regardless of the evidence."
Finn stares at him. "I never understand what you're thinking."
Kurt says, not very accusingly, "I don't think you try very hard." and Finn feels a little gulp in that second of the truth in those words; he doesn't. It's a little - it feels in some way not right, thinking too hard about Kurt. He sticks to the simple emotions. Complexity breed disquiet, and Kurt is so very complex.
Kurt watches him with his head tilted up and eyes calm and amused, gripping the edge of the bath for balance, waiting.
Finn says, slowly, ready to try to understand, "What are you thinking right now?"
Kurt's mouth twitches, like this is actually funny. "That you look like a little boy when you're thinking really hard and it's cute. And that I need to get some chickpeas soaking for dinner tomorrow night. And that I can probably get away with doing my French homework in the library between classes because I really want to call Blaine instead. And that actually I owe Mercedes a text too. And that I'd like to listen to my mom's Joni Mitchell records again sometime soon. And that we need to make a start on that shower because it will not clean itself, Finn Hudson."
"All of that?"
"You have lots of thoughts all at once as well, Finn, you just - you focus." Kurt flits a hand. "I'm a multitasker. You, you focus. Which is why you're good at things like football, where you mustn't think too hard about anything but not getting crushed before you get the ball over the line or whatever it is you do, and I am good at-" He stops to think.
"Everything else?"
"Yes." With no embarrassment at all. "More or less. Which is why we're gradually learning not to ask you to sing and dance at the same time, and why, why . . . I would never be good leadership material." He waves a hand at the side of his head. "Too much going on for big decisions, I get distracted. You just do things."
"Oh. Cool." He's like Obama or something. He does things. Then he sees the look Kurt's giving him - amused in the bad way - and says, "Stop thinking I'm cute."
Kurt puts a hand over his mouth to not-remotely-hide the smile, shakes his head and looks up bubbling over with amusement. "You just knew exactly what I was thinking."
". . . oh. Yeah. I did."
Kurt nods. "We may salvage you yet." He picks up his gloves, stands up. "I was serious about you helping with the shower. We might as well put how excessively much of you there is to good use."
". . . okay." Kurt snaps his gloves back on and faces the shower stall looking determined. Finn says, before he has the time to think about the consequences too much, "I like your dad."
Kurt looks back at him, surprised for a moment, and then says, "I know. You are allowed to, Finn."
"Okay. Cool."
Kurt looks at him carefully, like he can see the thoughts on the inside of Finn's head. "Whatever happens," he says. "It will be fine. We're all allowed to feel things. You don't have to worry about feeling anything. I know we're a non-traditional family unit but that means that we are allowed to make it up as we go along, the way we actually want to, we don't have to follow any rulebook. Now. We're going to put your muscles to actual use for once: limescale, Finn. It is the enemy of all that shines. Limescale."
"Do you have a spray for that?"
"I have a spray for everything."
Finn could definitely have got a worse new brother than Kurt. He knows his mom could definitely have got a worse new son. And actually - Kurt and Burt could have done worse than him, as well, he really believes that sometimes. He tries hard. When he screws up at least he usually realises that and feels bad about it. He tries hard, and he won't stop trying, and one day he might actually manage to learn things the way Kurt seems to slip into them with the easy curve of his quick-skidding brain, one day the steady clicking jigsaw pieces of Finn's brain might catch him up. Maybe he can teach Kurt something in return, maybe Kurt could learn to just do things.
"You're doing that face again," Kurt says. "I'm really sorry but I am actually going to have to laugh every single time until you stop doing it, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. This stuff's really hard to get off."
"Oh please. I've been delimescaling sinks since I was nine years old, do not tell me it's too hard for you."
"You're stronger than you look, man."
Kurt gives a happy little shrug. "And you're smarter than you look, Finn."
"Hey, thanks. Hey - wait a minute-"
"I'm going to go put those chickpeas in to soak. Don't stop scrubbing! I'll be back to monitor your progress!"
"Whatever," Finn mutters.
It's cool that the family all gets along, mostly. And occasionally wanting to murder your brother is probably normal. It's probably healthy. And he's allowed to feel things anyway, so.
Finn sighs, and he scrubs, and he's just had his annual talking-about-his-feelings session and he feels sort of better for it. Maybe he could do it more often, make it like, bi-annual. Does that mean twice a year or every other year? Kurt would know. He asks him when he comes back upstairs and Kurt says, "I am going to expect you to clean that thing much more frequently than that, Finn."
So Kurt doesn't always know exactly what he's thinking, which is also cool because that would be terrifying.
Kurt watches his progress and says, "Next time I'm just going to get you to hold me up while I do it. You're going to be there until Christmas."
"Kurt?"
"Yes?"
"Sometimes you should talk less."
Kurt just gives him an unimpressed look and says, "Sometimes you should scrub harder." and picks up his phone on its first ring, turning to leave the room again. "Blaine! No, I was cleaning the bathroom. Finn's helping. No, I know."
Finn rolls his eyes, scrubs. He hears someone in the doorway but Kurt's voice has wandered to the top of the staircase and it's his mom who says, "Finn, what are you doing?"
"I'm cleaning, Mom."
"That's . . ." He turns his head to see how surprised, how pleased she looks, and something flutters low inside in a way it hasn't since he was a little kid, and he understands everything Kurt does for a second, because Finn knows he'll do this more than once a year if it makes his mom look like that. "That's really good of you, Finn."
Finn shrugs, awkwardly, and hears Kurt on the stairs saying, "Where would you even get that many birds at that short notice? No, of course it wouldn't work. No I will not help, it's your guano-spattered train wreck, you organise it. Bird are a bad idea at public events even if you do feed them glitter, believe me." and Finn still stands by not wanting to understand everything that goes on in Kurt's head, actually.
He says, "Just trying to help, Mom." and goes back to scrubbing, and wonders if this is some weird joke of Kurt's because this stuff just won't go.
"He's doing the shower for me," Kurt says, and then laughs. "I know. But don't say that in front of him, he doesn't like it. He is, though."
Finn yells through the open doorway, "Stop calling me cute!"
His mom puts a hand over her mouth and doesn't remotely hide the smile, as around the corner Kurt laughs. "Oh no, he's sulking. Limescale is always a shock the first time you encounter it. Well I don't expect you would, Blaine, do you even know how to work a vacuum cleaner?"
In the doorway Finn's mom says, "It's good that you two are such good brothers."
Finn uses a strategically raised voice to say, "Yeah? Well, it's good that some of us are better brothers than others!" and hears Kurt stifling a giggle on the stairs, saying, "No, he's still sulking. I know."
If this is the price for talking about his feelings then Kurt can keep it, seriously.
Disclaimer: I don't even own the box sets. Though I would like them <3
Rating: G! So proud of myself ^^
Spoilers: . . . not really? If you've seen Furt and Original Song there is literally nothing to shock you. For the record, we've only seen as far as Rumours over here and if you spoiler me I will. I don't even know. Cry. Please don't.
Summary: Moar Hudmel time please canon! It's cool that the whole family gets along, mostly.
Note: It appears to be my headcanon that Blaine is into Buffy? I just bet he's a geek about *something*, anyway . . .
Now available in podfic form thanks to marsmaywander, thank you honey! <3
It's cool that the whole family gets along, mostly. Like, it's cool that Mr Hummel - Burt, he has to call him Burt - never mentions the whole shouting-in-the-basement thing and they can watch sports together and look mutually perplexed at some (most) of Kurt's outfits. And it's cool that Finn's mom like, adores Kurt like he's her new best friend, and Finn's totally never seen his mom this happy and everything so, yeah, it's cool.
Mostly.
Because okay Kurt's dad's watching sports with Finn, but he makes time every week to spend with Kurt and they talk about - Finn doesn't even know sometimes. He finds them at the kitchen table at night and Burt's looking suspiciously into a cup of green tea and Kurt's talking about antioxidants and the history of heart disease in Japan. Or they're talking about college - seriously Finn hasn't even thought about college yet - or like, what would happen if Kurt does move away when he's older. Which everyone knows he will even though Kurt hangs onto his dad's hand and swears he'll never leave him, not really, and they better not touch his room. They actually talk about actual stuff. Finn hasn't had a serious talk with his mom since she got married again, and before that it was about a yearly event. They just, they don't, he's a guy.
Okay Kurt's a guy too but he's Kurt, so.
And then there's Finn's mom, who like, loves Kurt. And they talk about actual stuff too. It's not just that they spend every Sunday morning watching America's Next Top Model with their breakfast on their knees and Kurt can make her laugh until she cries, and it's not just that it's not Kurt helping her with the housework so much as her helping Kurt with the housework (he makes Finn feel like he should be doing something but he has no idea what), but they actually sit and talk about things. Feelings. Finn has never talked to his mom about his feelings even when he thought his girlfriend was carrying his baby, even when he found out that his girlfriend was carrying Puck's baby. Seriously, who talks about their feelings with their parents? Their step-parents. Seriously.
And then there's Blaine as well like, every weekend and every other night and now his mom has two best friends and they always seem to have the most fun in the world, and suddenly Finn feels really . . . like, inadequate. Like he understands for the first time that Kurt never chose to be born gay, because it's not like Finn chose to be born straight either. If his mom had totally wanted a gay son, it's not Finn's fault he's not it. He thinks he might be being immature about this. Mostly he just sulks a bit, though, and tries not to hear them laughing while he's in his room. He has aliens to kill. And it's not like he's going to talk about his feelings with his mom or anyone else anyway, so.
*
Finn gets used to the sight of Kurt in rubber gloves. He gets used to Kurt vacuuming things that Finn didn't even know needed vacuuming (Seriously, you have to do stairs? Who knew.). Kurt's always been insanely hardworking, and Finn does remember a time last year when Kurt was juggling glee practise and homework and planning an entire wedding and enduring daily psychological torture at school and apparently doing the housework too and, significantly, not having a nervous breakdown. And then he remembers that before that, Kurt maybe didn't have the wedding to plan but he was looking after his dad after he was hospitalised, he used to turn up late to practises looking harassed because he had to slip home between school and glee to check up on him, and still he wasn't having that nervous breakdown. And Finn does start to feel a bit guilty, then.
So he leans into the bathroom where Kurt's polishing the sink with the radio tuned into Lady Gaga (he's rubbing in time to the music and bopping his hips about the way he does) and says, "Dude, you want some help?"
Kurt turns and looks at him, really hard, really really hard, like's he's waiting for a punch line. Eventually he says, like he's trying out a new language for the first time, "'Help'?"
"I could." Finn stares at the bathroom. He actually doesn't know how to start cleaning one, he didn't even know it was dirty yet. "I dunno, do you just want some help?"
Kurt gives him another long look, then says, "I suppose that most of the dirt is your doing so yes, Finn, you can help." He narrows his eyes at Finn's hands. "You'll stretch my gloves out."
"S'okay, I don't mind not using them."
"But then your skin will dry out. Oh, of course, you're a boy, what do you need feeling in your hands for, sorry." He wrings his cloth out over the sink and holds it out to Finn. "You can do the bathtub. Do you know how to do it?"
He looks at the tub, and it looks pretty clean. "I wipe it?"
Kurt is very still for a moment, stillness as a form of not-sighing, closes his eyes and opens them again and says, "I will give you a spray to use and then yes, you wipe it. When you're done wiping you rinse it with the shower head. Then you report to me and I will do it again because you've inevitably not done it properly. Why are you doing this? You don't care if the bathroom's dirty, I've seen the towel you use." In a mutter, "I've smelt it."
"Dude, I just want to help."
Kurt gives him a really long look this time, and Finn can actually never tell what's going on in his head anyway, and then he says, "Fine. After that you can do the top of the shower, I can't reach."
Cool, Finn's actually useful for something. He looks up and down the bathtub for dirt but can't really see anything, so he sprays pretty much the whole thing with the sneezy-spray Kurt gave him and rubs it in a bit. It's like cleaning a car, but hurts his back more leaning in like this. Kurt's clearing things from the shelves, humming along with the radio, wiping up dust and drips and putting things back tidy.
Finn says to the tap, which is easier to speak to than Kurt's suspicious glare, "So how long have you been doing this stuff?"
There's a little pause before Kurt says, "I don't know. I don't remember. I have a lower dirt threshold than my dad so it's not fair to make him clean to my standards, it's easier if I just take care of it myself."
"You do most of the cooking as well."
"If it's not barbecued then he really doesn't have a clue. He does try, though."
Finn wipes around the taps. He makes a game of it. The tub is contaminated with deadly spores, if he doesn't wipe every inch of the surface the next person who touches it will become a flesh-eating zombie. He has to finish by the end of the song. Go.
Kurt watches him looking adult and weary, then polishes the spots off the mirror.
Finn says, "Do you enjoy doing this stuff?"
"I don't think 'enjoy' is the word to use. It's just something that has to be done, like homework. But if I can have music on I don't really mind it. And I like things to be clean."
He actually won't come into Finn's bedroom anymore. He stands in the doorway and leans if he has to pass something through, like the carpet might be harbouring diseases. Finn doesn't think that Kurt's properly crazy like Miss Pillsbury or anything but he once told Finn that he needed to dust his posters. Dust his posters, seriously, like, they're vertical, how can they even get dusty? Only then he looked closely and actually he could rub a little furry residue off them with a finger. Again, who knew?
"So," Finn says. "Um. My mom really appreciates you doing all this stuff."
"I appreciate her helping too." Kurt says, like it actually should be a fifty-fifty thing between them, like it actually should be Kurt's responsibility too.
"She really likes you and everything."
"Well, she should. I saved her from a lifetime of nothing but denim." Kurt glances across at him while Finn's trying to work out if that's good or not and says, "I like her too, Finn. She's a really nice person."
"She says you're really like, mature and stuff."
"She's never seen me when there's a wasp in the room," Kurt says, a little gloomily, and begins taking all the towels down and dropping them into a wicker laundry basket.
"And she really likes your cooking."
"Where exactly is this going?" Kurt says, putting the lid back on the laundry basket and turning back to Finn. "I don't know if you think you're being subtle but all you're actually doing is being vaguely annoying and leaving streaks on the bath."
"Oh. Sorry. Um." Finn plays with the cloth for a bit. "It's just. Sometimes I think she likes you better."
"Finn, you're her son."
"I know!"
That wasn't meant to come out so loud. Kurt goes really stiff and Finn feels his own face drop because he remembers, in that second, that Kurt really does not like being shouted at and he doesn't want to be the guy who shouts at Kurt, but then Kurt puts his shoulders back and lifts his head higher and says in a very hard voice, "She's not my mom, Finn. I like her. She's a lovely person and she makes my dad happy. But she is not my mom and she is never going to be and I don't know quite what you're insinuating right now."
. . . Finn forgets that Kurt and his dad aren't a complete unit. They seem like it, in a way that he and his mom don't, so he forgets that they're missing someone too. He rubs the back of his neck and says quietly, "Sorry, man." but Kurt flaps his hands with sudden urgency.
"Your hair oh my god Finn that spray has bleach in it-"
"What?"
"Sink sink sink now or you'll end up looking like Spike-"
"Spike?" As Kurt throws his gloves in the bath, manhandles him to the sink and yanks his head down into range.
"Damn Blaine and damn Buffy," Kurt mutters, shooting the tap on over the back of Finn's head. "You'll end up looking like Sam. It's not a good look for you. I offered you gloves."
Finn tries to say something and gets a mouthful of water, while Kurt's hands rub at the back of his neck and a year ago he would have freaked out at this and he's really grown as a person if all he feels about Kurt's hands in his hair right now is annoyance.
"I feel like I'm babysitting half the time, do you know that? I'm scared to leave you alone with the stove, I'm scared that you'll burn the house down or accidentally drink drain cleaner or something, god you are hopeless-"
Finn comes up spluttering and Kurt wraps a clean towel around his head, and rubs hard at his hair in a way -
- that suddenly makes Finn six years old again, head obediently ducked after a swim for his mom to towel his hair off, though his mom never bitched underneath her breath, "You don't even know how to fold your clothes and where is the point in my ironing your shirts if you just flail them around in your drawers like rolled up newspapers-"
"Dude, I can dry my own hair."
"I have my doubts!" Kurt barks, but then backs off bristling, arms wrapped around himself. Finn rubs his neck dry feeling awkward, while Kurt looks to the side, then reaches down and picks his rubber gloves up again. He finishes the bath off, rinses it clean, and dries the edge so he can sit on it, dropping his gloves into it again. "When . . . our parents started going out. Do you remember? You and my dad got on great, which was lovely, but - do you remember him inviting you to sports - things, spectacles, games, whatever they are. He does it now, but back then . . ." His hands tighten on the edge of the bath and he says in a too-steady voice, "Do you know how that made me feel?"
". . . like you didn't have to do it anymore?"
"I never did it in the first place. He never asked me. Why would he? I'm-" He waves a hand, his mouth all bitter, and looks Finn angrily in the eye. "It was petty and pointless of me to be jealous and I know that, but I was. Because it just drew a picture for me of the son he could have had. Maybe should have had. If he didn't have me."
"Dude, he, you know, loves you."
"I know." Kurt shrugs. "I know that. I said it was petty. So I would now like you to put that into context. Your mom is a sweetheart and we're interested in a lot of the same things but are you actually suggesting that she is even capable of preferring me? You're her son, I just came attached to the man she married. And she is a lovely person but Finn, she is never going to be my mom. I don't want her to be. I love her dearly but she is never going to replace my mother."
Finn looks at the tiles on the floor for a bit, trying to work out what he's feeling at all before he deals with whether he wants to, whether he even can, articulate what he's feeling.
Eventually he says, gruff to the tiles, "You miss her?"
There's a horrible little pause and Finn looks up, worried, before Kurt says, very softly, "Every single day. Do you . . . do you remember your dad at all?"
"No." His shoulders hunch, he wants to kick at something; there's a reason it's better not to talk about feelings. "Nothing."
". . . I don't remember my mom much. It was . . . something I kept thinking about while my dad was in the hospital. That if - at least I would remember him. At least I know him. But I don't know if it's worse, sometimes, knowing what you're missing." Kurt rubs his arms, mouth pressed tight, and looks up at Finn - with him sitting and Finn standing, he looks a long way up. He smiles, very wanly. "I probably think about these things too much. I always wondered if you did too."
"I dunno." He ducks his head. "Well, I mean, yeah. I think about it all the time. I just - I don't like talking about these things, man."
"It's good to talk about your feelings." Kurt says calmly.
"Wait, you - you think about whether I'm thinking stuff?"
"Of course I do. We live together. And I do have to assume that some thought is going on in there, regardless of the evidence."
Finn stares at him. "I never understand what you're thinking."
Kurt says, not very accusingly, "I don't think you try very hard." and Finn feels a little gulp in that second of the truth in those words; he doesn't. It's a little - it feels in some way not right, thinking too hard about Kurt. He sticks to the simple emotions. Complexity breed disquiet, and Kurt is so very complex.
Kurt watches him with his head tilted up and eyes calm and amused, gripping the edge of the bath for balance, waiting.
Finn says, slowly, ready to try to understand, "What are you thinking right now?"
Kurt's mouth twitches, like this is actually funny. "That you look like a little boy when you're thinking really hard and it's cute. And that I need to get some chickpeas soaking for dinner tomorrow night. And that I can probably get away with doing my French homework in the library between classes because I really want to call Blaine instead. And that actually I owe Mercedes a text too. And that I'd like to listen to my mom's Joni Mitchell records again sometime soon. And that we need to make a start on that shower because it will not clean itself, Finn Hudson."
"All of that?"
"You have lots of thoughts all at once as well, Finn, you just - you focus." Kurt flits a hand. "I'm a multitasker. You, you focus. Which is why you're good at things like football, where you mustn't think too hard about anything but not getting crushed before you get the ball over the line or whatever it is you do, and I am good at-" He stops to think.
"Everything else?"
"Yes." With no embarrassment at all. "More or less. Which is why we're gradually learning not to ask you to sing and dance at the same time, and why, why . . . I would never be good leadership material." He waves a hand at the side of his head. "Too much going on for big decisions, I get distracted. You just do things."
"Oh. Cool." He's like Obama or something. He does things. Then he sees the look Kurt's giving him - amused in the bad way - and says, "Stop thinking I'm cute."
Kurt puts a hand over his mouth to not-remotely-hide the smile, shakes his head and looks up bubbling over with amusement. "You just knew exactly what I was thinking."
". . . oh. Yeah. I did."
Kurt nods. "We may salvage you yet." He picks up his gloves, stands up. "I was serious about you helping with the shower. We might as well put how excessively much of you there is to good use."
". . . okay." Kurt snaps his gloves back on and faces the shower stall looking determined. Finn says, before he has the time to think about the consequences too much, "I like your dad."
Kurt looks back at him, surprised for a moment, and then says, "I know. You are allowed to, Finn."
"Okay. Cool."
Kurt looks at him carefully, like he can see the thoughts on the inside of Finn's head. "Whatever happens," he says. "It will be fine. We're all allowed to feel things. You don't have to worry about feeling anything. I know we're a non-traditional family unit but that means that we are allowed to make it up as we go along, the way we actually want to, we don't have to follow any rulebook. Now. We're going to put your muscles to actual use for once: limescale, Finn. It is the enemy of all that shines. Limescale."
"Do you have a spray for that?"
"I have a spray for everything."
Finn could definitely have got a worse new brother than Kurt. He knows his mom could definitely have got a worse new son. And actually - Kurt and Burt could have done worse than him, as well, he really believes that sometimes. He tries hard. When he screws up at least he usually realises that and feels bad about it. He tries hard, and he won't stop trying, and one day he might actually manage to learn things the way Kurt seems to slip into them with the easy curve of his quick-skidding brain, one day the steady clicking jigsaw pieces of Finn's brain might catch him up. Maybe he can teach Kurt something in return, maybe Kurt could learn to just do things.
"You're doing that face again," Kurt says. "I'm really sorry but I am actually going to have to laugh every single time until you stop doing it, okay?"
"Yeah, yeah. This stuff's really hard to get off."
"Oh please. I've been delimescaling sinks since I was nine years old, do not tell me it's too hard for you."
"You're stronger than you look, man."
Kurt gives a happy little shrug. "And you're smarter than you look, Finn."
"Hey, thanks. Hey - wait a minute-"
"I'm going to go put those chickpeas in to soak. Don't stop scrubbing! I'll be back to monitor your progress!"
"Whatever," Finn mutters.
It's cool that the family all gets along, mostly. And occasionally wanting to murder your brother is probably normal. It's probably healthy. And he's allowed to feel things anyway, so.
Finn sighs, and he scrubs, and he's just had his annual talking-about-his-feelings session and he feels sort of better for it. Maybe he could do it more often, make it like, bi-annual. Does that mean twice a year or every other year? Kurt would know. He asks him when he comes back upstairs and Kurt says, "I am going to expect you to clean that thing much more frequently than that, Finn."
So Kurt doesn't always know exactly what he's thinking, which is also cool because that would be terrifying.
Kurt watches his progress and says, "Next time I'm just going to get you to hold me up while I do it. You're going to be there until Christmas."
"Kurt?"
"Yes?"
"Sometimes you should talk less."
Kurt just gives him an unimpressed look and says, "Sometimes you should scrub harder." and picks up his phone on its first ring, turning to leave the room again. "Blaine! No, I was cleaning the bathroom. Finn's helping. No, I know."
Finn rolls his eyes, scrubs. He hears someone in the doorway but Kurt's voice has wandered to the top of the staircase and it's his mom who says, "Finn, what are you doing?"
"I'm cleaning, Mom."
"That's . . ." He turns his head to see how surprised, how pleased she looks, and something flutters low inside in a way it hasn't since he was a little kid, and he understands everything Kurt does for a second, because Finn knows he'll do this more than once a year if it makes his mom look like that. "That's really good of you, Finn."
Finn shrugs, awkwardly, and hears Kurt on the stairs saying, "Where would you even get that many birds at that short notice? No, of course it wouldn't work. No I will not help, it's your guano-spattered train wreck, you organise it. Bird are a bad idea at public events even if you do feed them glitter, believe me." and Finn still stands by not wanting to understand everything that goes on in Kurt's head, actually.
He says, "Just trying to help, Mom." and goes back to scrubbing, and wonders if this is some weird joke of Kurt's because this stuff just won't go.
"He's doing the shower for me," Kurt says, and then laughs. "I know. But don't say that in front of him, he doesn't like it. He is, though."
Finn yells through the open doorway, "Stop calling me cute!"
His mom puts a hand over her mouth and doesn't remotely hide the smile, as around the corner Kurt laughs. "Oh no, he's sulking. Limescale is always a shock the first time you encounter it. Well I don't expect you would, Blaine, do you even know how to work a vacuum cleaner?"
In the doorway Finn's mom says, "It's good that you two are such good brothers."
Finn uses a strategically raised voice to say, "Yeah? Well, it's good that some of us are better brothers than others!" and hears Kurt stifling a giggle on the stairs, saying, "No, he's still sulking. I know."
If this is the price for talking about his feelings then Kurt can keep it, seriously.