Looking for White Buffalo (fic)
Title: Looking for White Buffalo
Rating: PG
Characters: Kurt (as part of Kurt/Blaine), Burt, David Karofsky mentioned
Spoilers: 3.14 ("On My Way")
Word Count: 1,647
Warnings: things that happened in the episode, a couple swear words
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, and I don't make any money writing this stuff.
Summary: Burt wants to make sure that Kurt is doing things for the right reasons. (For the spoiler-containing summary, highlight the black part: Burt's not sure visiting his former bully in the hospital is the right thing for Kurt to do.)
Thanks: Thanks to anxioussquirrel and lavender_love00 for betaing. Author's note at the end of story.
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Kurt pulls the car keys off the hook by the front door. "I'm taking the car, Dad. I'll be back by dinner." He keeps it vague, even if it's inevitable that Burt will ask.
"Hold on, kiddo." Burt steps out into the living room, hugging a mixing bowl to his chest with one hand, steadying a whisk in it with the other. "I'm making egg-white quiche. Who's gonna keep me from burning it?"
Kurt smiles reticently. "We've made it a hundred times now, Dad. You'll do fine." He steps back across the living room and squeezes Burt's shoulder. "I trust you."
"I would hope so by now," Burt mutters. "So maybe you can tell me where you're going."
Kurt sighs. His father always makes him talk about the difficult things. "I thought I'd go to the hospital. To visit - to visit David."
"It's becoming a regular hangout for you lately, isn't it?" Burt says, but there's no humor in his voice.
"Kind of." Kurt shrugs. He isn't going to cry. Not about Blaine and not about Dave. Not right now.
"Come here." Burt drops the whisk into the bowl and puts his hand on Kurt's shoulder, pushing him into the kitchen. "We're going to talk."
"I don't want to talk, Dad. I hate talking." Well, that's not quite true. Kurt loves talking most of the time. He excels at banter and witty repartee. He adores lying in bed with Blaine and listing all the things that are beautiful about his face, his eyes, his skin, his laugh, his everything.
"You only hate talking when it needs to be done," Burt says, setting the bowl on the island and walking over to the table to pull out a chair. He gestures to it with his open hand. It's not an invitation for Kurt to sit. It's a command.
Kurt acquiesces. His father is right, of course. He almost always is.
Burt sits down across from Kurt. He's wearing the gray-and-white pinstriped apron that Kurt sewed for him - the one with the three narrow pockets for spoons and spatulas and the loop at the side for holding a towel - and Kurt notices that the blueberry stain from last summer still hasn't disappeared. It's still there, just below Burt's sternum, like a faded stab wound. Kurt makes a note to himself to make his dad another apron - this time black, to hide everything; or white, so everything can be bleached out.
"Why are you going to the hospital?"
"I told you," Kurt says. "To see David." He knows that's not what his father meant.
"You know what I mean, Kurt. Why are you visiting him?"
Kurt knows why his father is asking this, that it's for the best possible reasons, but he can't keep himself from evincing a glare. "Because that's what decent people do, Dad. I believe you taught me to be a decent person."
"No," Burt laughs bitterly. "That was your mom. What I've tried to teach you is to watch out for yourself."
"Dad." Kurt breathes, tries not to clench his teeth. He stares at the pepper grinder in the middle of the table - a glass cylinder filled with red, white, green and black peppercorns that he bought for Carole at Christmas, because every meal deserves a bit of elegance. "He tried to kill himself."
"I know, Kurt." Kurt thinks he sees the hint of a tear creeping over the bottom lid of his father's left eye. But Burt blinks, and it's gone. "It makes me sick thinking about it. About what led him to do it, about his father finding him, about - " Burt swallows hard, reaches across the table to grab Kurt's hand. His hands are smaller than Kurt's now, but they're still strong, and the grip is tight, bordering on painful. "But you can't save him."
"I know, Dad," Kurt says, and why does he always have to cry? He's been trying so hard for the past month not to fall apart in front of his dad, pretend that the only thing on his mind was his NYADA audition - not the Warblers he thought had been his friends, not whether Blaine's eye would recover from the injury or Blaine’s heart would recover from the betrayal, not whether Kurt would ever be able to eat butterscotch again without a bitter taste in his mouth.
Kurt doesn't want to worry his dad. He hates worrying his dad. And yet somehow, he manages to do it, anyway.
Kurt squeezes back at Burt's hand. "I'm not trying to save him. I just - I just want to be there for him. He needs someone who understands."
"Kurt, I know. But I'm not sure it should be you. After everything - " At first, Kurt thinks he's going to continue. But then Burt lets out a heavy breath like the deflating of a balloon, and he looks - Exhausted. Spent. His grip on Kurt’s hand loosens a little.
"I haven't forgotten," Kurt says.
"I don't want you forgiving him, or becoming his friend, out of some misplaced sense of guilt. It won't be good for you and it won't be good for him, either."
Kurt laughs. It's not funny, but he laughs. "I forgave him, like, a year ago."
Burt raises his eyebrows.
"I mean, if forgiveness means you stop being angry at someone, stop resenting them, stop replaying over and over in your mind what they did to you and expecting them to always be that way - then, yes."
"I don't understand you sometimes." The tone is more incredulity than disapproval.
Kurt shrugs. "He changed. There was no point in holding onto it. The only person my anger was hurting by then was me."
Burt cocks his head to the side. "I’m noticing a pattern here."
"What?" Kurt shifts in his chair, lets go of his dad's hand.
Burt leans back in his chair and folds his hands on his stomach, just below the blueberry stain on his apron. "You forgiving people. You and Finn when I was ready to kick him out of the house and call off the wedding. You and Rachel and the whole presidential thing. You and Blaine and whatever was going on last spring."
Kurt can't help but smirk a little. "Teenagers are prone to mistakes, Dad. But when someone makes a mistake and apologizes and means it, and then they change, well - might as well move on. I mean, sometimes I wish Rachel had changed a little more, but - " He waves the thought away with his hand. That's a discussion for another time.
"Did David change, Kurt? Or did he just go from beating you up to beating himself up and then he's going to go back to beating you up again? Maybe differently this time? Because apparently he still hates gay people."
"No, Dad. He doesn't. He's just scared."
"How do you know?"
Kurt never told his dad about prom, or about Scandals, or about the secret Valentines that Dave sent. He's not going to now. "Because I know. And if he does - I won't let myself be around that. Not even to save his life." He pauses. "Really, there would be no way to save his life if that was the case."
Burt looks pale and tired and wan, not unlike when he awoke in the hospital a year and a half ago. It makes Kurt's stomach ache.
Burt reaches across the table and takes both of Kurt's hands this time. "I'm really glad you're here."
"I know, Dad." Kurt holds on tight to Burt's hands, to everything Burt and his mother have given him. "I am, too."
Burt gives Kurt's hands one last, bone-crushing squeeze before he lets them go. "Okay," he says, scooting back in his chair and standing up from the table. "Say hi to David for me and be back by dinner."
"I will." Kurt rises and kisses his father on the cheek. It's not something he does often. "And maybe you can give Dave's dad a call. If you want."
"I will." Burt pulls Kurt in and holds him tight, and Kurt feels something like a sob heave in his father's chest before Burt lets go. "Now get going."
Kurt wipes the tears off of his face with the back of his hand as he walks out to the car. He could go back inside and wash off, maybe put something under his eyes so he doesn't look so dreary and depress Dave even further. But he's going to start crying as soon as he sees Dave, anyway.
When his mother was dying, there was nothing that Kurt could do but climb in her bed, trying not to get tangled in the tubes. He would snuggle next to her, and if she was strong enough, she would curl her arm around him while he told her about his day or read her Stone Soup. It seemed to make her happier for a while, but that was the only power that Kurt had. He couldn't keep her body from failing her.
When his father was in a coma, Kurt was condemned to the same impotence. He sat in his dad's room and hoped to hell that the doctors knew what they were doing. But he knew his hope would have no effect on the swelling in his father's arteries or the weakness of his heart.
This time, it's different. Dave is sick, but it's not a virus or a cancer or blood vessels collapsing that threaten to kill him. It's human hatred, pure and simple. And Kurt can do something about that.
He can't get rid of all the evil in the world. But what he can do is sit next to Dave and be there, let the fact that he gives a fuck act as one sandbag in the buffer that protects Dave from that flooding hate.
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Author's note: The title of the story comes from the song "White Buffalo" by Rod MacDonald. Here is the song; here are the lyrics. I LOVE COMMENTS, but I like to stay unspoiled for future episodes; please don't mention anything that's coming up, including guest stars and song choices. Thanks!