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Fic: Born in a Small Town
Title: Born in a Small Town
Fandom: Glee
Rating: PG
Characters: Burt Hummel/Carole Hudson, Kurt Hummel/Blaine Anderson, Mercedes Jones, Rachel Berry, Tina Cohen-Chang, Finn Hudson
Summary: Kurt looks way more disbelieving and cautious than Burt is comfortable with. Haven't they been through enough by now, hasn't he proved enough that he's gonna love Kurt and stand by him no matter what, that Kurt doesn't need to be scared to tell him that he's got a boyfriend?
Count: 4055 words
Notes: Title from "Small Town" by John Mellencamp. Most of this was written the night that "Original Song" aired. Please keep that in mind as you steadily realize just how goddamn fluffy this thing is going to be.
* * *
Burt knows something's up the second he sees Kurt waltz through the front door.
It hasn't been weird to see Kurt looking pleased around the house lately. Til Kurt transferred to Dalton and he could suddenly see the change for the better in him, Burt hadn't realized just how pinched Kurt's face had become when he came home from school every day during those last few months at McKinley. Dalton's tuition is worth every penny if it means Kurt comes through that door smiling, or at least not looking walled-off and too old for his age.
But this is different. This isn't just happy. Kurt is practically skipping. His face is shining, in an way Burt hasn't seen much of since high school hit. He looks a little dazed, to be honest; even more so than when he came home a couple days ago and announced that he was gonna have a featured part in the next glee club competition.
It's a goofy face, that's all Burt is thinking.
"Oh, hi Dad," Kurt says breathlessly, his coat drawn up against the cold and his arms full of books, and he shoots Burt a smile as he heads for the stairs. He probably thinks he's being subtle; he's not. That smile could light half of Ohio with its wattage.
"Good day?" Burt calls after him.
"It was fine!" Kurt yells over his shoulder as he goes tripping up to his room.
Burt's suspicions are confirmed 45 minutes later, when the doorbell rings and he finds himself face to face with three teenage girls.
"Hi Mr. Hummel," says Mercedes, who has been more or less a permanent fixture in his house for the last two years. She looks casual; so does Kurt's friend Tina, who's grinning beside her.
Rachel, meanwhile, is hanging back, not that Burt can really blame her on that one. She hasn't been over much since she broke up with Finn. Or Finn broke up with her. Burt isn't used to keeping track of teenage relationships; he's fuzzy on the details, and Finn wasn't real talkative about it.
"You girls here to see Kurt?" Burt asks, opening the door wide and stepping aside. "Finn's not here."
Rachel's face pulls into a deep frown as the other girls toe off their shoes on the mat. Kurt hollers something from upstairs; Burt can't make out the words, but the intent is clear enough. "Go on up," he says. The girls all go up the stairs together, one of them starting to giggle and the others shushing her.
Burt's not eavesdropping. He's standing at the foot of the stairs for a second. A man's allowed to stand places in his own house.
As the girls reach Kurt's room, there's an explosion of voices. All Burt can make out is Tina demanding that Kurt "spill it," and Kurt's, "Ladies! One at a time!" Then he says something else, something that Burt can't understand, and the girls' voices erupt again. One of them is laughing; at least one, maybe two, applauds. The door loudly closes, and their voices immediately go muffled.
Burt shakes his head to himself and goes to start dinner.
When Carole comes in from her shift, she finds Burt slapping asparagus on a pizza with more force than he probably needs to use.
"Pizza?" she asks, dropping her keys on the counter, and Burt points at her with a stalk of asparagus.
"I'm putting healthy crap on it," he defends.
"I can see that," Carole says, in that tone of voice that means she's trying not to laugh at him. She sets her purse down and shimmies out of her coat. "I saw out front that we're practically ready to open up a shoe store." She hangs her coat on the rack and then crosses to the sink to wash her hands.
"Mercedes, Tina, and Rachel are up with Kurt," Burt says, staring at the bag of spinach and wondering how little he can get away with actually putting on the pizza.
Carole stops moving around behind him for a second -- he hears it in her silence -- and then she asks, "Rachel is here? That's strange; Kurt has been pretty conscientious about not inviting her to the house when Finn will be here."
"Is he coming back for dinner?" Burt eyes the ingredients scattered across the counter. "We're gonna need another pizza."
Carole laughs, and she wraps her arms around him from behind. "Okay, what's going on with you? You look like that pizza personally insulted you."
Burt half-smiles, and he sighs and puts down the knife he's been using. Carole is warm against his back. The memory of what it was like to have to deal with all of this crap on his own is already starting to become a little fuzzy, thanks to Carole. He got by but after all those years without Melissa, he forgot what having back-up was like. He's remembering now: it's really great. "I think something happened between Kurt and that kid."
Carole, way too perceptive, asks, "Something good or something bad?"
"Something good," Burt admits.
She rests her chin on his shoulder, and he can hear her smile. "In that case -- his name is Blaine, Burt, and I know that you approve of him." She kisses his cheek and steps up beside him to pick up his discarded knife and start slicing a tomato. "I like him, too. I'm sure Kurt is over the moon."
"I don't think his feet have hit the floor since he got home," Burt says, and Carole gives a breath of a laugh and then smiles enormously. He can't not smile back, even if it's smaller.
Carole draws back and stares at him for a minute. Then she asks, "What's got you so worked up about this?"
There's a minute where Burt wonders if she'll let him get away with saying 'everything,' but he knows she won't, and it wouldn't be a fair answer. "As tough as it is for him when he's by himself, people are gonna be that much uglier when he's holding hands with another guy," Burt says. "Blaine's dad doesn't sound like he's too happy about his kid bein' gay, and Kurt's gonna end up right in the middle of that. And this is high school, Carole; he's gonna get his heart broken. It seems like yesterday, we were having tea parties and he was begging for some doll with hair that grew back after you cut it. I wouldn't tell Kurt this for all the tea in China, 'cause he'd take it the wrong way, but I'm not ready for this."
Carole is smiling when she covers his hand with hers and threads their fingers together. "I don't think any parent is, Burt," she says. "I wasn't, when Finn wanted to take Missy Strazinsky to the movies in seventh grade. We've just got to -- buck up, and be there for them." Burt smiles faintly and lets go of her hand so he can wrap his arm around her waist and tug her against his side. She squeezes his arm. "It's not a permanent solution, but Dalton is the safest place those boys could be right now," she points out, soft but firm. "Now, come on. What did Kurt have to say about all this?"
"Nothing yet." Carole shoots him a really dubious look, then, and Burt raises a hand in self-defense. "Hey, Kurt's a lotta things, but he isn't subtle." Carole laughs softly, in clear agreement with that statement. "He didn't have to say anything."
"Well, wait and see what he says about it." His expression must give away what he's thinking, because she suddenly laughs and says, "Burt, if you think he's not going to talk to you about this after those conversations you two had a few weeks ago, you've got another thing coming. The sex talk is as bad as it gets. If Kurt would sit through that one, you know he'll come to you about something easier."
"He didn't exactly want to have those talks."
"But he'll want to have this one," Carole assures him, hand resting on his arm.
And it is reassuring, looking at her and seeing how sure she seems. Burt lets himself lighten up a little. "How'd you get so smart, huh?"
"I studied up when I realized I was going to have to be the brains of this operation," she says, tart and teasing, gesturing between the two of them, and Burt's laugh ruins any plan of faking indignance.
"I'm a lucky man, Carole," he says, and she smiles and leans up to kiss him. And it's not like anybody's clamoring for dinner yet (though the kids are definitely clamoring about something upstairs), so they kiss some more, until the back door opens.
"Oh God," Finn groans, and he claps a hand over his eyes and nearly trips over a stool as he fumbles his way to the stairs, dragging his backpack behind him.
Burt and Carole laugh for at least three minutes straight.
In the morning, Burt sits at the table with a mug of coffee (it's not decaf, which would make Kurt start hissing furious health facts at him; he sneaked the bag of beans into the house and is hiding it from Kurt in his sock drawer, much to Carole's bemusement) and the paper. Carole's at work, Finn will be asleep until Burt hollers up the stairs for the second or third time, and Kurt is zipping around getting ready for school. It's a normal morning, except that Kurt has a whole lot more pep in his step than he typically does. He's alternately humming and whistling, the first time Burt has heard him do either since the bird died last week, and Burt doesn't have much of an eye for this kind of thing, but he's pretty sure Kurt did his hair even more carefully than usual this morning.
"I'm going to be home late," Kurt calls, pulling on his coat as he pauses in the kitchen doorway and checks his hair in the glass of the china cabinet. Burt looks at his bright face, then checks his watch. Kurt's got a commute ahead of him so he always leaves early, but this is real early. "Blaine and I need to practice our duet for Regionals."
"Your featured thing is a duet with Blaine, huh?" Burt asks. Kurt nods, looking a little breathless and unsure. Burt wants to just come right out and ask, he really does, and they really ought to sit down and have a conversation about it. But he figures this is one of those things where he gives Kurt a little time to bring it up himself. Kurt has earned at least that much trust. He's a good kid. "Well, okay," Burt says, over the rim of his mug. "Call if you're gonna be home later than 6:30."
Kurt blinks at him, almost wary, and then he says, "All ... right," and turns to go. Burt watches him disappear around the corner, bag over his shoulder and arms full of textbooks, and then he glances back down at the newspaper. Apparently, somebody on the council got caught spending public funds on her mission to warn the people of northwest Ohio about the visions she had of the sun exploding on May 16 of this year. Burt reaches for his coffee; he's got an employee who believes in all that apocalypse crap -- though Marty is more worried about zombies than the rapture -- and Burt can already tell that he's going to take this and run like hell with it. This is a morning that's going to require caffeine.
"--Dad?" asks Kurt's voice. Burt's head comes up sharply and he finds Kurt in the doorway again, his books dumped somewhere and his hand on the strap of his bag. God, he's getting so tall. "It's not just a duet with Blaine."
"I kinda figured," Burt says, and Kurt starts and arches an eyebrow in an eerie mirror of his mother. "You and me, Kurt, we're not real subtle when it comes to this stuff. Last night at dinner, you smiled at the wall and poured dressing on your plate til you had salad soup."
Kurt's face is priceless.
"So is he your boyfriend or what?" Burt asks gruffly. He has prepared himself for a certain amount of ambiguity. Kids these days seem to move faster, but go slower with labels, than when he was in high school. He just has to look at Finn, and Carole's private (justified, in Burt's mind) conniption fits over whether he is or isn't dating Quinn Fabray again, to remember that.
Kurt smiles, though -- really smiles, his whole face lighting up -- and he immediately nods. "Yes," he says. "He's my boyfriend." He looks starry-eyed and stunned as soon as he says it, like it's still hard to believe. That face makes Burt's heart clench; not, thankfully, in the way that it had in the garage in September.
"Good," Burt says, firm, and Kurt's eyes flick to him like he's asking a silent, uncertain question. "I wanna see you happy, Kurt. As long as Blaine makes you happy, and you're good to each other, then I'm good."
Kurt's smile this time is quieter but no less real-looking. "Neither of those points is in any doubt," he says. "But--" He looks like he's not so sure he should be saying this part, and he stops. Burt has gotten a lot better at waiting him out, over the last year. He waits. "You're -- really okay with this?"
He looks way more disbelieving and cautious than Burt is comfortable with. Haven't they been through enough by now, hasn't he proved enough that he's gonna love Kurt and stand by him no matter what, that Kurt doesn't need to be scared to tell him that he's got a boyfriend?
Kurt goes on, "I wasn't sure how you felt about Blaine." Burt's eyebrows lower in some confusion. Kurt shoots him a clear oh, please look. "You walked in on him sleeping off a hangover in my bed, and he went to talk to you at the garage," he says matter of factly.
"--You know about that?"
"We tell each other everything," Kurt says impatiently.
He says it like it's obvious; like he doesn't understand why Burt would even ask that question.
Burt has known that his kid is gay for years, and he's spent the last year in particular working on dealing with it. Kurt isn't the son he always pictured himself with; they don't have the common interests that Burt had counted on before Kurt started toddling around in his mom's shoes. So now he lets Kurt teach him how to make fancy French pastries -- ones that somehow never seem to have much butter or fat in them -- and smack him with wooden spoons when he tries to taste the dough; he listened to a scathing play-by-play of the Lima community theater's production of Copacabana, and then he looked up the plot online so he could understand what the hell Kurt was complaining about. And all of that stuff, as complicated as it can get and as happy as he is to do it, was a lot easier than coming to terms with the fact that Kurt was going to date eventually.
It's not the gay thing. It's the "Burt's son" thing. Kurt's growing up and Burt's not one of those psycho parents who wants his kid to stay young forever, but Kurt is always gonna be the baby who Burt carried up and down the hallway for hours while he cried and he's always gonna be the chubby-cheeked toddler who lived for tea parties. The thought of him getting involved with some pimple-faced 18-year-old who's only got one thing on his mind and doesn't appreciate him and is gonna break his heart -- well, it's kept Burt awake some nights.
And then Blaine Anderson showed up. Burt watched him like a hawk at first. Like he told Carole, Kurt's not half as subtle as he thinks he is. Burt could tell how he felt about the kid before he even started bringing him home; everything was "Blaine this" and "Blaine that." Burt was fully prepared to be skeptical. But Blaine was unfailingly polite and earnest and respectful. He came to dinner and insisted on helping to clear the table; he went to McKinley basketball games and fit in some cheering for Finn around talking to Kurt and his friends. He helped Kurt with chemistry lab reports and asked Kurt to tutor him in French and clearly was in awe of Burt's son and made him damn happy all the damn time.
And still, even after watching the two of them together for months, and having a pretty good idea of exactly how close their friendship is and the way they respect each other -- the way Kurt said "we tell each other everything" floors Burt. It was like it was silly that Burt could think that Blaine wouldn't have told him about that. Blaine took one of the dumbest (most selfless, and it's not that Burt doesn't appreciate what he did, but dumbest) things he could have done, and he did it, and then he immediately went and told Kurt about it. And Burt is beginning to understand that if the shoe had been on the other foot, and Kurt had been the one to do something that cast him in an unflattering light or might make Blaine angry -- he would have immediately done the same thing.
Burt was a teenage boy, once. He doesn't remember it being like this.
"Right," says Burt. He shakes it off. "Look, Kurt, I'm not thrilled about the drinking, and you know how I felt about Blaine being in your bed." Kurt's mouth tightens up, but he doesn't comment. "But you told me that's the first and last time he's partied like that, and the fact that he was willing to walk into my garage, where I had a whole lot of power tools handy," (Kurt's face twitches like he's trying not to smile), "and say I had to talk to my kid about sex -- that tells me what I need to know."
"That he's so well-meaning it hurts?" Kurt asks dryly, his arms folded.
"You're sayin' that like it's a bad thing," Burt says, and this time Kurt does smile faintly. "But what I mean is he was willing to walk into an awkward, potentially ugly situation, just because he thought it would help you."
"I didn't think about it like that," Kurt admits after a second, sounding a little softer. "I refused to speak to him for six hours after he told me he went to you."
Burt peers at him. "Is six hours a long time?"
"It's forever," Kurt says, in that obviously, Dad tone that Burt has come to know very well in the last few years.
"Okay then." He clears his throat. "Listen, everything thing I said when we talked a couple weeks ago--"
"Oh God please stop," says Kurt stiffly, but he looks more typical-teenager-horrified than panicked, this time around, which Burt takes as improvement.
"--it still stands," Burt says, ignoring him. "You matter; you take things slow and talk 'em out. That's all. Okay?"
"Dad. We haven't so much as been on a single date yet!" Kurt insists, outraged, his face going red. He looks like he's about three seconds from covering his ears and starting to sing again.
Burt's not backing down; not on this one. He knows by now that he can count on Blaine to appreciate Kurt (and he has a sneaking suspicion that if anyone's heart is going to get broken harder than anyone else's, here, it's Blaine), but he doesn't put anything past the combined stupidity of two teenage boys. "Okay?"
Kurt sighs and flicks his bangs, and says okay.
There's an awkward moment.
"You, uh, you wanna talk about what went down yesterday?" Burt offers.
"Can I take a raincheck?" Kurt asks, after a quick hesitation. "I'm -- late." He smiles, faintly apologetic and also obviously suppressing excitement, as he adds: "For a coffee date."
"--Oh," says Burt. "Okay, yeah. You should go." At some point, they've got to have a talk that Burt is dreading, one about how Kurt shouldn't feel like he has to stick himself in the middle of whatever this thing between Blaine and his family is, but more importantly, about being careful and safe. It's not fair, and it makes Burt mad as hell that he has to do this with one kid and not the other, that Kurt has to even think about other people's small-mindedness and potential reactions to seeing him kiss his boyfriend, but it's reality. They've got to talk about it eventually. The morning of Kurt's first date isn't the time for it, though. Let him be happy.
Kurt flashes him a smile, the sweet one that Burt doesn't see so often anymore. "I'll relate the full saga tonight," he says, coming across the kitchen. "It was very romantic; he was petrified." He leans down and slings his arm across Burt's shoulders in a half a hug. They're not always the touchy-feeliest family, even after the heart attack, so Burt has a general idea of just how happy and grateful Kurt is that he approves of all this business and they can talk about it.
"I'll clear my calendar," Burt promises, squeezing Kurt's shoulder hard, and Kurt laughs as he draws back.
Then he sniffs Burt's coffee and his eyes narrow. "Is this decaf?"
"Go meet your boyfriend," Burt says, and Kurt shoots him another suspicious, disapproving look, but it's not all that convincing, given the way that his face has brightened.
"I'll see you at dinner," he says, pulling away, and he wags his fingers over his shoulder and yells back, "Bye Dad!" after Burt calls a reminder to be home by 6:30.
Shaking his head to himself and raising his mug of coffee to his mouth, Burt wonders how long he can get away with using the word "boyfriend" to distract Kurt from policing his diet.
Then he shouts, "Finn! Come on already; you're gonna be late!" and there's a loud thud from overhead.
Kurt wasn't kidding when he said it wasn't just a duet with Blaine. It's a love song, pure and simple, in front of a couple hundred people, and Burt has never been prouder.
Carole grabbed his arm when Kurt first stepped off the risers and she hasn't loosened her grip since, though she's filming the whole thing with the camera in her other hand.
Blaine swings around behind Kurt, who watches him all the way and then takes a couple teasing steps backward as he sings the next line of the song. Blaine looks spellbound as he follows like there's an invisible string connecting them; like they can't be more than a couple feet apart. Kurt sort of shimmies during Blaine's solo lines, watching Blaine proudly, and he doesn't see the lovestruck way that Blaine stares at him on his lines, but Burt does. Even from the twelfth row of the auditorium and from under crappy spotlights, Burt can see the light in his kid's face, and in Blaine's.
"Oh, Burt, look at them," Carole breathes, squeezing his arm, and he is looking; at the swaying waves of electric candles and cell phones, all held by people who are appreciating his son for who he is and what he can do, but mostly, Burt is looking at Kurt himself. He has no idea where Kurt got that voice. Burt himself couldn't carry a tune even if he had a bucket to catch it in, and Melissa, despite loving music, had been the same way. But Kurt's up there singing his heart out, being a star like he's always wanted -- and he's only got eyes for the boy beside him. There's a moment where they turn and sing right at each other, smiling, and Burt would bet the mortgages of the house and the garage that they forgot about the audience.
Burt already knew, and the song and Blaine hauling Kurt into the spotlight only cement it: they'd better get used to Blaine, 'cause he's gonna be around a whole lot more than he even was before. By the look of things, if Kurt was any happier, he would probably start floating.
Burt's good with Blaine sticking around.
Carole puts two fingers in her mouth and gives a piercing whistle. Burt claps until his hands are raw and tells everyone sitting (standing now, for the ovation that Kurt earned) around them that that's his boy.
Fandom: Glee
Rating: PG
Characters: Burt Hummel/Carole Hudson, Kurt Hummel/Blaine Anderson, Mercedes Jones, Rachel Berry, Tina Cohen-Chang, Finn Hudson
Summary: Kurt looks way more disbelieving and cautious than Burt is comfortable with. Haven't they been through enough by now, hasn't he proved enough that he's gonna love Kurt and stand by him no matter what, that Kurt doesn't need to be scared to tell him that he's got a boyfriend?
Count: 4055 words
Notes: Title from "Small Town" by John Mellencamp. Most of this was written the night that "Original Song" aired. Please keep that in mind as you steadily realize just how goddamn fluffy this thing is going to be.
* * *
Burt knows something's up the second he sees Kurt waltz through the front door.
It hasn't been weird to see Kurt looking pleased around the house lately. Til Kurt transferred to Dalton and he could suddenly see the change for the better in him, Burt hadn't realized just how pinched Kurt's face had become when he came home from school every day during those last few months at McKinley. Dalton's tuition is worth every penny if it means Kurt comes through that door smiling, or at least not looking walled-off and too old for his age.
But this is different. This isn't just happy. Kurt is practically skipping. His face is shining, in an way Burt hasn't seen much of since high school hit. He looks a little dazed, to be honest; even more so than when he came home a couple days ago and announced that he was gonna have a featured part in the next glee club competition.
It's a goofy face, that's all Burt is thinking.
"Oh, hi Dad," Kurt says breathlessly, his coat drawn up against the cold and his arms full of books, and he shoots Burt a smile as he heads for the stairs. He probably thinks he's being subtle; he's not. That smile could light half of Ohio with its wattage.
"Good day?" Burt calls after him.
"It was fine!" Kurt yells over his shoulder as he goes tripping up to his room.
Burt's suspicions are confirmed 45 minutes later, when the doorbell rings and he finds himself face to face with three teenage girls.
"Hi Mr. Hummel," says Mercedes, who has been more or less a permanent fixture in his house for the last two years. She looks casual; so does Kurt's friend Tina, who's grinning beside her.
Rachel, meanwhile, is hanging back, not that Burt can really blame her on that one. She hasn't been over much since she broke up with Finn. Or Finn broke up with her. Burt isn't used to keeping track of teenage relationships; he's fuzzy on the details, and Finn wasn't real talkative about it.
"You girls here to see Kurt?" Burt asks, opening the door wide and stepping aside. "Finn's not here."
Rachel's face pulls into a deep frown as the other girls toe off their shoes on the mat. Kurt hollers something from upstairs; Burt can't make out the words, but the intent is clear enough. "Go on up," he says. The girls all go up the stairs together, one of them starting to giggle and the others shushing her.
Burt's not eavesdropping. He's standing at the foot of the stairs for a second. A man's allowed to stand places in his own house.
As the girls reach Kurt's room, there's an explosion of voices. All Burt can make out is Tina demanding that Kurt "spill it," and Kurt's, "Ladies! One at a time!" Then he says something else, something that Burt can't understand, and the girls' voices erupt again. One of them is laughing; at least one, maybe two, applauds. The door loudly closes, and their voices immediately go muffled.
Burt shakes his head to himself and goes to start dinner.
When Carole comes in from her shift, she finds Burt slapping asparagus on a pizza with more force than he probably needs to use.
"Pizza?" she asks, dropping her keys on the counter, and Burt points at her with a stalk of asparagus.
"I'm putting healthy crap on it," he defends.
"I can see that," Carole says, in that tone of voice that means she's trying not to laugh at him. She sets her purse down and shimmies out of her coat. "I saw out front that we're practically ready to open up a shoe store." She hangs her coat on the rack and then crosses to the sink to wash her hands.
"Mercedes, Tina, and Rachel are up with Kurt," Burt says, staring at the bag of spinach and wondering how little he can get away with actually putting on the pizza.
Carole stops moving around behind him for a second -- he hears it in her silence -- and then she asks, "Rachel is here? That's strange; Kurt has been pretty conscientious about not inviting her to the house when Finn will be here."
"Is he coming back for dinner?" Burt eyes the ingredients scattered across the counter. "We're gonna need another pizza."
Carole laughs, and she wraps her arms around him from behind. "Okay, what's going on with you? You look like that pizza personally insulted you."
Burt half-smiles, and he sighs and puts down the knife he's been using. Carole is warm against his back. The memory of what it was like to have to deal with all of this crap on his own is already starting to become a little fuzzy, thanks to Carole. He got by but after all those years without Melissa, he forgot what having back-up was like. He's remembering now: it's really great. "I think something happened between Kurt and that kid."
Carole, way too perceptive, asks, "Something good or something bad?"
"Something good," Burt admits.
She rests her chin on his shoulder, and he can hear her smile. "In that case -- his name is Blaine, Burt, and I know that you approve of him." She kisses his cheek and steps up beside him to pick up his discarded knife and start slicing a tomato. "I like him, too. I'm sure Kurt is over the moon."
"I don't think his feet have hit the floor since he got home," Burt says, and Carole gives a breath of a laugh and then smiles enormously. He can't not smile back, even if it's smaller.
Carole draws back and stares at him for a minute. Then she asks, "What's got you so worked up about this?"
There's a minute where Burt wonders if she'll let him get away with saying 'everything,' but he knows she won't, and it wouldn't be a fair answer. "As tough as it is for him when he's by himself, people are gonna be that much uglier when he's holding hands with another guy," Burt says. "Blaine's dad doesn't sound like he's too happy about his kid bein' gay, and Kurt's gonna end up right in the middle of that. And this is high school, Carole; he's gonna get his heart broken. It seems like yesterday, we were having tea parties and he was begging for some doll with hair that grew back after you cut it. I wouldn't tell Kurt this for all the tea in China, 'cause he'd take it the wrong way, but I'm not ready for this."
Carole is smiling when she covers his hand with hers and threads their fingers together. "I don't think any parent is, Burt," she says. "I wasn't, when Finn wanted to take Missy Strazinsky to the movies in seventh grade. We've just got to -- buck up, and be there for them." Burt smiles faintly and lets go of her hand so he can wrap his arm around her waist and tug her against his side. She squeezes his arm. "It's not a permanent solution, but Dalton is the safest place those boys could be right now," she points out, soft but firm. "Now, come on. What did Kurt have to say about all this?"
"Nothing yet." Carole shoots him a really dubious look, then, and Burt raises a hand in self-defense. "Hey, Kurt's a lotta things, but he isn't subtle." Carole laughs softly, in clear agreement with that statement. "He didn't have to say anything."
"Well, wait and see what he says about it." His expression must give away what he's thinking, because she suddenly laughs and says, "Burt, if you think he's not going to talk to you about this after those conversations you two had a few weeks ago, you've got another thing coming. The sex talk is as bad as it gets. If Kurt would sit through that one, you know he'll come to you about something easier."
"He didn't exactly want to have those talks."
"But he'll want to have this one," Carole assures him, hand resting on his arm.
And it is reassuring, looking at her and seeing how sure she seems. Burt lets himself lighten up a little. "How'd you get so smart, huh?"
"I studied up when I realized I was going to have to be the brains of this operation," she says, tart and teasing, gesturing between the two of them, and Burt's laugh ruins any plan of faking indignance.
"I'm a lucky man, Carole," he says, and she smiles and leans up to kiss him. And it's not like anybody's clamoring for dinner yet (though the kids are definitely clamoring about something upstairs), so they kiss some more, until the back door opens.
"Oh God," Finn groans, and he claps a hand over his eyes and nearly trips over a stool as he fumbles his way to the stairs, dragging his backpack behind him.
Burt and Carole laugh for at least three minutes straight.
In the morning, Burt sits at the table with a mug of coffee (it's not decaf, which would make Kurt start hissing furious health facts at him; he sneaked the bag of beans into the house and is hiding it from Kurt in his sock drawer, much to Carole's bemusement) and the paper. Carole's at work, Finn will be asleep until Burt hollers up the stairs for the second or third time, and Kurt is zipping around getting ready for school. It's a normal morning, except that Kurt has a whole lot more pep in his step than he typically does. He's alternately humming and whistling, the first time Burt has heard him do either since the bird died last week, and Burt doesn't have much of an eye for this kind of thing, but he's pretty sure Kurt did his hair even more carefully than usual this morning.
"I'm going to be home late," Kurt calls, pulling on his coat as he pauses in the kitchen doorway and checks his hair in the glass of the china cabinet. Burt looks at his bright face, then checks his watch. Kurt's got a commute ahead of him so he always leaves early, but this is real early. "Blaine and I need to practice our duet for Regionals."
"Your featured thing is a duet with Blaine, huh?" Burt asks. Kurt nods, looking a little breathless and unsure. Burt wants to just come right out and ask, he really does, and they really ought to sit down and have a conversation about it. But he figures this is one of those things where he gives Kurt a little time to bring it up himself. Kurt has earned at least that much trust. He's a good kid. "Well, okay," Burt says, over the rim of his mug. "Call if you're gonna be home later than 6:30."
Kurt blinks at him, almost wary, and then he says, "All ... right," and turns to go. Burt watches him disappear around the corner, bag over his shoulder and arms full of textbooks, and then he glances back down at the newspaper. Apparently, somebody on the council got caught spending public funds on her mission to warn the people of northwest Ohio about the visions she had of the sun exploding on May 16 of this year. Burt reaches for his coffee; he's got an employee who believes in all that apocalypse crap -- though Marty is more worried about zombies than the rapture -- and Burt can already tell that he's going to take this and run like hell with it. This is a morning that's going to require caffeine.
"--Dad?" asks Kurt's voice. Burt's head comes up sharply and he finds Kurt in the doorway again, his books dumped somewhere and his hand on the strap of his bag. God, he's getting so tall. "It's not just a duet with Blaine."
"I kinda figured," Burt says, and Kurt starts and arches an eyebrow in an eerie mirror of his mother. "You and me, Kurt, we're not real subtle when it comes to this stuff. Last night at dinner, you smiled at the wall and poured dressing on your plate til you had salad soup."
Kurt's face is priceless.
"So is he your boyfriend or what?" Burt asks gruffly. He has prepared himself for a certain amount of ambiguity. Kids these days seem to move faster, but go slower with labels, than when he was in high school. He just has to look at Finn, and Carole's private (justified, in Burt's mind) conniption fits over whether he is or isn't dating Quinn Fabray again, to remember that.
Kurt smiles, though -- really smiles, his whole face lighting up -- and he immediately nods. "Yes," he says. "He's my boyfriend." He looks starry-eyed and stunned as soon as he says it, like it's still hard to believe. That face makes Burt's heart clench; not, thankfully, in the way that it had in the garage in September.
"Good," Burt says, firm, and Kurt's eyes flick to him like he's asking a silent, uncertain question. "I wanna see you happy, Kurt. As long as Blaine makes you happy, and you're good to each other, then I'm good."
Kurt's smile this time is quieter but no less real-looking. "Neither of those points is in any doubt," he says. "But--" He looks like he's not so sure he should be saying this part, and he stops. Burt has gotten a lot better at waiting him out, over the last year. He waits. "You're -- really okay with this?"
He looks way more disbelieving and cautious than Burt is comfortable with. Haven't they been through enough by now, hasn't he proved enough that he's gonna love Kurt and stand by him no matter what, that Kurt doesn't need to be scared to tell him that he's got a boyfriend?
Kurt goes on, "I wasn't sure how you felt about Blaine." Burt's eyebrows lower in some confusion. Kurt shoots him a clear oh, please look. "You walked in on him sleeping off a hangover in my bed, and he went to talk to you at the garage," he says matter of factly.
"--You know about that?"
"We tell each other everything," Kurt says impatiently.
He says it like it's obvious; like he doesn't understand why Burt would even ask that question.
Burt has known that his kid is gay for years, and he's spent the last year in particular working on dealing with it. Kurt isn't the son he always pictured himself with; they don't have the common interests that Burt had counted on before Kurt started toddling around in his mom's shoes. So now he lets Kurt teach him how to make fancy French pastries -- ones that somehow never seem to have much butter or fat in them -- and smack him with wooden spoons when he tries to taste the dough; he listened to a scathing play-by-play of the Lima community theater's production of Copacabana, and then he looked up the plot online so he could understand what the hell Kurt was complaining about. And all of that stuff, as complicated as it can get and as happy as he is to do it, was a lot easier than coming to terms with the fact that Kurt was going to date eventually.
It's not the gay thing. It's the "Burt's son" thing. Kurt's growing up and Burt's not one of those psycho parents who wants his kid to stay young forever, but Kurt is always gonna be the baby who Burt carried up and down the hallway for hours while he cried and he's always gonna be the chubby-cheeked toddler who lived for tea parties. The thought of him getting involved with some pimple-faced 18-year-old who's only got one thing on his mind and doesn't appreciate him and is gonna break his heart -- well, it's kept Burt awake some nights.
And then Blaine Anderson showed up. Burt watched him like a hawk at first. Like he told Carole, Kurt's not half as subtle as he thinks he is. Burt could tell how he felt about the kid before he even started bringing him home; everything was "Blaine this" and "Blaine that." Burt was fully prepared to be skeptical. But Blaine was unfailingly polite and earnest and respectful. He came to dinner and insisted on helping to clear the table; he went to McKinley basketball games and fit in some cheering for Finn around talking to Kurt and his friends. He helped Kurt with chemistry lab reports and asked Kurt to tutor him in French and clearly was in awe of Burt's son and made him damn happy all the damn time.
And still, even after watching the two of them together for months, and having a pretty good idea of exactly how close their friendship is and the way they respect each other -- the way Kurt said "we tell each other everything" floors Burt. It was like it was silly that Burt could think that Blaine wouldn't have told him about that. Blaine took one of the dumbest (most selfless, and it's not that Burt doesn't appreciate what he did, but dumbest) things he could have done, and he did it, and then he immediately went and told Kurt about it. And Burt is beginning to understand that if the shoe had been on the other foot, and Kurt had been the one to do something that cast him in an unflattering light or might make Blaine angry -- he would have immediately done the same thing.
Burt was a teenage boy, once. He doesn't remember it being like this.
"Right," says Burt. He shakes it off. "Look, Kurt, I'm not thrilled about the drinking, and you know how I felt about Blaine being in your bed." Kurt's mouth tightens up, but he doesn't comment. "But you told me that's the first and last time he's partied like that, and the fact that he was willing to walk into my garage, where I had a whole lot of power tools handy," (Kurt's face twitches like he's trying not to smile), "and say I had to talk to my kid about sex -- that tells me what I need to know."
"That he's so well-meaning it hurts?" Kurt asks dryly, his arms folded.
"You're sayin' that like it's a bad thing," Burt says, and this time Kurt does smile faintly. "But what I mean is he was willing to walk into an awkward, potentially ugly situation, just because he thought it would help you."
"I didn't think about it like that," Kurt admits after a second, sounding a little softer. "I refused to speak to him for six hours after he told me he went to you."
Burt peers at him. "Is six hours a long time?"
"It's forever," Kurt says, in that obviously, Dad tone that Burt has come to know very well in the last few years.
"Okay then." He clears his throat. "Listen, everything thing I said when we talked a couple weeks ago--"
"Oh God please stop," says Kurt stiffly, but he looks more typical-teenager-horrified than panicked, this time around, which Burt takes as improvement.
"--it still stands," Burt says, ignoring him. "You matter; you take things slow and talk 'em out. That's all. Okay?"
"Dad. We haven't so much as been on a single date yet!" Kurt insists, outraged, his face going red. He looks like he's about three seconds from covering his ears and starting to sing again.
Burt's not backing down; not on this one. He knows by now that he can count on Blaine to appreciate Kurt (and he has a sneaking suspicion that if anyone's heart is going to get broken harder than anyone else's, here, it's Blaine), but he doesn't put anything past the combined stupidity of two teenage boys. "Okay?"
Kurt sighs and flicks his bangs, and says okay.
There's an awkward moment.
"You, uh, you wanna talk about what went down yesterday?" Burt offers.
"Can I take a raincheck?" Kurt asks, after a quick hesitation. "I'm -- late." He smiles, faintly apologetic and also obviously suppressing excitement, as he adds: "For a coffee date."
"--Oh," says Burt. "Okay, yeah. You should go." At some point, they've got to have a talk that Burt is dreading, one about how Kurt shouldn't feel like he has to stick himself in the middle of whatever this thing between Blaine and his family is, but more importantly, about being careful and safe. It's not fair, and it makes Burt mad as hell that he has to do this with one kid and not the other, that Kurt has to even think about other people's small-mindedness and potential reactions to seeing him kiss his boyfriend, but it's reality. They've got to talk about it eventually. The morning of Kurt's first date isn't the time for it, though. Let him be happy.
Kurt flashes him a smile, the sweet one that Burt doesn't see so often anymore. "I'll relate the full saga tonight," he says, coming across the kitchen. "It was very romantic; he was petrified." He leans down and slings his arm across Burt's shoulders in a half a hug. They're not always the touchy-feeliest family, even after the heart attack, so Burt has a general idea of just how happy and grateful Kurt is that he approves of all this business and they can talk about it.
"I'll clear my calendar," Burt promises, squeezing Kurt's shoulder hard, and Kurt laughs as he draws back.
Then he sniffs Burt's coffee and his eyes narrow. "Is this decaf?"
"Go meet your boyfriend," Burt says, and Kurt shoots him another suspicious, disapproving look, but it's not all that convincing, given the way that his face has brightened.
"I'll see you at dinner," he says, pulling away, and he wags his fingers over his shoulder and yells back, "Bye Dad!" after Burt calls a reminder to be home by 6:30.
Shaking his head to himself and raising his mug of coffee to his mouth, Burt wonders how long he can get away with using the word "boyfriend" to distract Kurt from policing his diet.
Then he shouts, "Finn! Come on already; you're gonna be late!" and there's a loud thud from overhead.
Kurt wasn't kidding when he said it wasn't just a duet with Blaine. It's a love song, pure and simple, in front of a couple hundred people, and Burt has never been prouder.
Carole grabbed his arm when Kurt first stepped off the risers and she hasn't loosened her grip since, though she's filming the whole thing with the camera in her other hand.
Blaine swings around behind Kurt, who watches him all the way and then takes a couple teasing steps backward as he sings the next line of the song. Blaine looks spellbound as he follows like there's an invisible string connecting them; like they can't be more than a couple feet apart. Kurt sort of shimmies during Blaine's solo lines, watching Blaine proudly, and he doesn't see the lovestruck way that Blaine stares at him on his lines, but Burt does. Even from the twelfth row of the auditorium and from under crappy spotlights, Burt can see the light in his kid's face, and in Blaine's.
"Oh, Burt, look at them," Carole breathes, squeezing his arm, and he is looking; at the swaying waves of electric candles and cell phones, all held by people who are appreciating his son for who he is and what he can do, but mostly, Burt is looking at Kurt himself. He has no idea where Kurt got that voice. Burt himself couldn't carry a tune even if he had a bucket to catch it in, and Melissa, despite loving music, had been the same way. But Kurt's up there singing his heart out, being a star like he's always wanted -- and he's only got eyes for the boy beside him. There's a moment where they turn and sing right at each other, smiling, and Burt would bet the mortgages of the house and the garage that they forgot about the audience.
Burt already knew, and the song and Blaine hauling Kurt into the spotlight only cement it: they'd better get used to Blaine, 'cause he's gonna be around a whole lot more than he even was before. By the look of things, if Kurt was any happier, he would probably start floating.
Burt's good with Blaine sticking around.
Carole puts two fingers in her mouth and gives a piercing whistle. Burt claps until his hands are raw and tells everyone sitting (standing now, for the ovation that Kurt earned) around them that that's his boy.
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