Fic: A Way With Words (Part C)
A Way With Words, Part C
Return to Part B
Burt had always wondered if the twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart Supercenter on the highway was really open all night or if that was just an advertising ploy. Turned out, it was open. It was also pretty much the only thing open in Lima at two thirty in the morning, so it was the only place Burt could go when he finally gave up trying to go to sleep, slipped out of bed without waking Carole, and went for a ride.
He didn’t work as hard at being quiet when he returned an hour later with two bags of groceries. Carole was a heavy sleeper, the kitchen was all the way on the other side of the house from their bedroom, and if he was being completely honest with himself, he was half-way hoping she might wake up and keep him company. He put the bags down and unpacked: milk, eggs, shredded cheese, peppers, onions, ham, turkey sausage, Bisquick, buttermilk (either Kurt or Carole would kill him for ignoring his diet that badly, but oh well), flour, baking powder, blueberries, chocolate chips, and maple syrup. He had enough food to feed a small, hungry teenage army. As he looked around the silent kitchen, he hoped one was arriving soon.
Burt was good at breakfasts. Though he was now most definitely only the third best cook in the house (and beating Finn didn’t count for much-he was a nice kid, but he was still struggling with mac ‘n cheese from the box), Carole and Kurt were both more than willing to let Burt take over when it came to omelets and baking powder biscuits. The only problem was, none of them were morning people. Breakfasts on normal days were coffee or orange juice with a piece of fruit or yogurt or a whole wheat bagel (the post-heart attack doughnut replacement-God, how Burt missed doughnuts) grabbed on the way out the door. The only times Burt got to show off his cooking prowess, even if he did have to do it with low-fat turkey sausage instead of the real stuff now, were Sunday brunches and the rare occasions when breakfast-for-dinner was appropriate.
Pancakes were both Kurt’s and Finn’s comfort food. That meant that breakfast-for-dinner tended to be appropriate on really bad days, like when Kurt got in that bad car wreck (Kurt walked away with only a nosebleed from the airbag, thank God, but the Lincoln was totaled) and pretty much every time Finn and Rachel broke up (Burt had lost count sometime in March of the kids’ junior year). As happy as they’d been since they moved into the new house, there had been a lot of midnight-breakfast crises in the past two years. And here Burt was, armed and ready at three thirty in the morning on the night of Kurt’s and Finn’s senior prom, not sure whether he was bracing himself or almost wishing for one last disaster.
After waiting a few minutes-just in case-Burt sighed and put the refrigerator items away so they wouldn’t spoil. Maybe it was silly, expecting the kids like this, but after what happened with junior prom…well, he wasn’t going to get caught short on ingredients. There weren’t enough scrambled eggs and chocolate chip pancakes in the universe to have fixed that mess last year, though.
Burt remembered it all too clearly. The Hummel-Hudson home had been the pre-dance meet-up and photo-op location for all the New Directions kids, and everything had seemed fine and happy, if a little strange. About three weeks before junior prom, the kids started switching partners so much it was like they were square dancing. Of course, Kurt and Blaine didn’t have anyone to swap with, and Mercedes stuck with James, her boyfriend of a couple months, but the rest of the prom couples were really, really weird. Finn and Brittany, Sam and Santana, Puck and Tina, Mike and the champion wrestler Lauren, Artie and Rachel, and Quinn, of all people, going stag. Though there must have been some pretty spectacular fights for them to have paired off the way they did, they all smiled and laughed for the photos, then piled into a rented limo together.
Not long after the kids left, Carole got called to cover a night shift at the hospital, so Burt made himself some popcorn and settled in on the couch with Rush Hour 2. They’d pushed back the kids’ curfew until one thirty that night, so Burt was surprised when he heard the door slam at a quarter to eleven.
“Fucking Roberto Cavalli!” he heard Kurt yell. Burt wracked his brain, but he couldn’t remember anybody named “Roberto” in Kurt’s and Finn’s class. “They’re ruined! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find size eleven Robert Cavalli black leather buckle-closure pointed-toe dress shoes on eBay? Idiot!”
“Hey, you liked the idea of us all sharing a limo when I came up with it,” Finn said, almost as mad as Kurt. “Besides, it’s not my fault if you buy shoes that you can’t actually walk outside in.”
“I can walk outside in them. Just not through Mike’s brilliant shortcuts,” Kurt spat.
“I’ve said it a million times. I’m so, so sorry about the Fitzpatricks’ timed sprinkler system. And the Warners’ new Rottweiler,” Mike said.
“Uh-oh,” Burt muttered under his breath, pausing the movie and getting up.
He met a very sad and bedraggled one-third of the New Directions prom party in the kitchen. Kurt was stocking-footed, soaked, and scowling, and Burt wasn’t even going to ask what had happened to his suit jacket. Finn was also wet and had a black eye. Brittany was carrying her shoes, but she was covered in mud from her toes to half-way up her calves, and somehow she’d managed to get a grass stain on the bust of her dress. Large, muddy paw prints ran from the crotch of Mike’s pants up to the collar of his shirt. Only Quinn looked anything close to the way she did when she’d left that evening, though her unspoiled white dress was wrinkled from where she’d apparently bunched up the skirt to her knees in order to keep it clean.
“I don’t even want to know what happened, do I?” Burt finally said.
“We wanted to come home early, but some of the others didn’t, and they took the limo,” Finn said.
“We left early?” Brittany asked. “I thought the dance was over. I want to go back and finish. Finn?”
“No way.” He collapsed onto a stool by the kitchen island.
“Fine, I’ll find another date. Mike? Quinn? Kurt?” When all three shook their heads, Brittany slumped onto the stool next Finn, head hanging. Then she stuck out her dirty foot in Kurt’s direction. “It’s like I’m wearing Ugg Boots, only made out of mud. Mugg Boots. They’re even more comfortable.”
Kurt sighed and took a seat at the island as well. “They’re more fashionable than Uggs, too. Not that that’s saying much.” He laughed ruefully. “Hell, Blaine probably would’ve preferred I wear Uggs or Muggs over the Roberto Cavallis, because they don’t have heels, and ‘why would you work so hard to emphasize our height difference even more, Kurt?’ There is no way I’m playing the Nicole Kidman to his Tom Cruise and only wearing the flattest of flats because he has a Napoleon complex.”
Quinn took the last stool beside Kurt. “It’s better than being the Katie Holmes to his Tom Cruise,” she said.
With no more seats left, Mike boosted himself up to sit on a nearby countertop. It wasn’t exactly polite, but it wasn’t hurting anything, either, so Burt didn’t comment. Since it was clear the kids were settling in for a while, Burt got five glasses and poured them all orange juice.
He was pretty sure he’d end up regretting it, but Burt asked, “Okay, so why did you leave early, and what happened to Blaine and Lauren and the other couples?”
Kurt buried his head in one folded arm and waved the other. “You guys go first.”
Quinn, Mike, and Finn all exchanged glances. Brittany examined the bottom of her orange juice glass.
Finally, Finn said, “Okay, so the whole crazy prom date combinations thing…we never really expected to go home with the dates we came with.”
“We didn’t?” Brittany asked, sad.
“No. You were in on this, too, remember?” Finn said. “Anyway, it all started last month when Quinn broke up with Sam again.”
Quinn cut in, “No, this all started when Brittany said she wanted to dance with Santana at prom. Everyone knew that Santana did, too, but there was no way she was going to go to prom with another girl. Finn came up with the oh so brilliant scheme to have Kurt take Brittany and Blaine take Santana, get through the public promenade and photos that way, and then they could rearrange once they got to the dance and do their own thing.”
“Santana said the only girls that went to prom with other girls were Mathletes and faux-tortured-artist-Katy Perry-wannabes,” Mike added.
Quinn continued, “Then Blaine felt the need to point out that lesbians go to prom with girls, too, and ‘Santana, are you feeling a little confused? That’s totally normal. This is a very hard thing to come to terms with, and you should just know that you’re not alone.’”
Kurt’s head popped up. “Seriously? He’s still using that same line? God, he should at least get new material.” His head flopped back down.
Finn said, “Yeah, well, he should learn how to not push Santana’s buttons, because after that, she felt the need to prove to everyone that she could land any guy she wanted as a prom date. She went after Mike hard enough that Tina got insecure and jealous and broke up with him, but then because Quinn had broken up with Sam, Santana ended up with him.”
“I repeat, I had nothing to do with this mess,” Quinn said. “I broke up with Sam for completely separate, personal, and reasonable reasons, and I have been the only one perfectly fine with being single this whole time. And might I add that I’m the only one besides Mercedes, James, Kurt, and Blaine who didn’t poach someone else’s crush or significant other just so I could have a prom date.”
“Fine,” Finn said. “At that point, everybody was single except for Kurt, Blaine, Mercedes, James, me, and Rachel, right? So then, Tina figured she had Artie as a fall-back, but Puck convinced Artie to pull the whole treat girls like crap to get them to like you routine that he did at first with Brittany, which Artie stupidly did when he and Tina were doubling with Puck and Brittany.”
“You dated Puck?” Mike asked Brittany. “I missed that part.”
“Me, too,” Brittany said. “Breadstix’s spaghetti was especially good that night.”
“Anyway,” Finn sighed, “Puck was there to pick up the pieces of Tina’s broken heart when Artie screwed it up.”
“That was about the time Rachel and Finn had a very loud and public fight over Finn allegedly making eyes at Santana, and then they broke up, again,” Quinn said, sipping her juice calmly. “Artie knew Puck still had a thing for Rachel, God knows why, so he asked her to prom in the hope that she could distract Puck, leaving him open to swoop in and pick up the pieces of Tina’s heart after Puck broke it. Then Finn asked Brittany because he knows Rachel has always been insecure when it comes to competing for his affections with Cheerios-”
“I did not!” Finn protested.
Quinn ignored him, “-and because I would have nothing to do with any of this. How did you end up with Lauren, Mike?”
“She told me we were going together,” Mike said. “I was too intimidated to question it.”
Finn continued, “So then we all got to prom-”
“We weren’t even to prom yet?” Burt asked, overwhelmed. “I…think I’m going to make scrambled eggs and sausage.”
Finn kept talking even as Burt collected ingredients and cookware and moved over to the stove. “So then we all got to prom, and all hell broke loose. Everyone went thinking that they were going to convince someone else’s date that they were really in love with them, but nobody likes being ditched by their date, or having somebody else horn in on your own date, either. By ten o’clock, everyone was screaming at everyone else, and Sam may or may not have hooked up with Lauren, and I did something that I don’t know what it was that pissed off Rachel in yet another new way. Somehow we got divided up into factions, and when most all of us decided to leave, the Puck, Santana, and Rachel faction made it to the limo first and took it. Then they felt sorry for Artie having to roll his way home so they let him in, too. Mike, Brittany, and I decided we could walk home-”
“I joined them because all the guys who’d promised they’d make going stag fun for me because they’d dance with me were gone or leaving or sulking,” Quinn interjected, glaring at everyone.
“-Lauren and Sam were making out under the bleachers or something, Tina was doing slam poetry with half the boys’ basketball team for some reason, and then we found Kurt outside when we were leaving, and…now we’re here.”
Burt handed the kids plates and forks, then set out the first round of scrambled eggs with cheese and turkey sausages. Everyone but Kurt shoveled food onto their plates. Kurt didn’t even raise his head. Burt took that as a cue not to ask about his part of the story yet. “What happened to Mercedes in all this?”
“Actually, last I saw, she and James were having a really happy, typical prom,” Quinn said. “She made him dance with me once, but they were having too much fun together for me to butt in more than that.”
“Good for her,” Burt said, still at a loss. Quinn nodded and smiled in genuine agreement.
With nothing else left to talk about, everyone turned to Kurt. Finn asked tentatively, “You never said what happened with you and Blaine. Where’d he go?”
Kurt growled.
“I’m gonna start on the second course,” Burt said, retreating to the stove.
“We had a fight, again,” Kurt muttered. He picked his head up and set his chin on his arms. “More accurately, we had the fight again.”
“What fight?” Mike asked.
Burt, Finn, and Quinn all sighed and answered in sync with Kurt, “NYU versus UCLA.”
Kurt glared at them, then focused his attention on Brittany and Mike, his more receptive audience. “Blaine applied to a bunch of colleges, and he got accepted at most of them, including both NYU and UCLA. In a mere sixteen months and thirteen days, I will be a freshman at NYU. It’s always been New York or bust for me. Blaine knows that.”
“And Blaine’s leaning UCLA,” Burt furnished. He’d pretended not to overhear that argument for three months. For the past few weeks, they’d gotten so loud it was impossible to fake ignorance.
“He’s no longer leaning. He told me tonight that he sent UCLA his deposit last week.”
Even Finn winced. “Man, for as smart as Blaine is, that was really dumb timing.”
“Yeah,” Kurt scoffed. “Even more idiotic, he thought he had a ‘solution.’ Long-distance for one year, because we’d have to do that no matter where he went, and then when I graduate, he’ll transfer to any University of California campus I want to be at. Because apparently Berkeley is interchangeable with Greenwich Village in his mind, except not, because if it was, what would be the problem with NYU?”
Finn shook his head. “I don’t know, dude. They’re both big, arty cities a hell of a long ways from Ohio.”
Kurt went livid. “You’re not allowed to take Blaine’s side! You’re my step-brother!”
“I’m not taking his side,” Finn said, shrugging. “I just always thought getting the fuck out of Lima was all you ever cared about.” Finn sounded oddly wounded, Burt noticed.
Burt admitted silently that he’d thought the same way as Finn-not that Kurt was wrong for what he wanted, but that Burt really didn’t understand the difference between New York and L.A., other than the weather. Then again, Burt had lived in Lima all his life. His big childhood dream had been escaping to Columbus someday, and even that hadn’t happened.
Kurt barreled on. “There’s a difference. Trust me. Even if there wasn’t, just on principle- It’s like this. Blaine likes football. He has a nice, masculine speaking voice. He reeks old money strongly enough that most people would chalk up his knowledge of the arts to snobbery rather than gayness. Me? My natural walk is a sashay, my voice is perfect for Minnie Mouse impressions, and everybody’s gaydar pings madly as soon as I walk into a room, even if I’m dressed like a trucker. The world is going to cast me as the girl in this relationship, even though that’s stupid. I should not be expected to be the tag-along housewife in Blaine Anderson’s California Dream Life on top of that.”
Quinn’s mouth hung open. “As a woman, I am offended by that on so many levels, I don’t know where to start.”
“If you do go California, you should say hi to Mr. Schuester’s son who dated Rachel and then egged her. He goes to college there.” Brittany chewed thoughtfully on a forkful of egg. “Is Blaine Mr. Schuester’s other secret son? He must have had an affair with a female jockey. Why are you all looking at me funny?”
Kurt cleared the Brittany-induced confusion from his head first. “I told Blaine where he could shove his ‘plan,’ and he stormed out of the gym. I wandered around for I don’t know how long, then finally I went outside for some air. That’s when you guys found me, and we proceeded to top off what was already a catastrophic evening by bumbling through a dog shit and automatic sprinkler obstacle course in formal wear.” He dropped his head to the table one last time, covering it with his arms.
“Wow, that sucks, Kurt,” Quinn said sympathetically. “Breaking up on prom night…”
Kurt nearly jumped off his stool. “Broke up? We didn’t break up!” He looked around the room at all of them. “Did we?”
“That sounds like a pretty nasty fight,” Finn said.
“His car wasn’t parked out front anymore when we got back,” Mike added.
Kurt blinked in shock. He started forming words a few times but never got any out.
Burt hated to do it, but it needed to be said. “You haven’t been happy for a while now, son.”
Quinn got up, caught Kurt by the shoulders, and sat him back down on the stool beside hers. “It’s okay. You cry or scream or whatever you feel like tonight. Tomorrow, you can call Blaine and work on getting some closure. Trust me, closure is important. Give it a little time, and I think you two could even go back to being good friends.”
“Call tomorrow? No, I have to call and fix this, now,” Kurt said, snapping out of his daze and fumbling for his phone.
“And say what, Kurt?”
Everyone in the room, even Brittany, reeled when Quinn’s tone changed from sensitive to cold and almost angry.
“What are you going to say, Kurt?” she repeated. “How are you going to fix this? Are you going to give up on ‘NYU or bust,’ on your dream that you’ve been working your whole life for?”
“Of course not.”
“Then how else does this end other than the way it did at the dance? Because I don’t think Blaine is a total doormat, and that’s the only way I see him giving in to your equally stupid ‘But there are so many colleges in New York City, Blaine!’ plan.” Quinn folded her arms across her chest, knowing she’d made her point.
Brittany patted Kurt’s arm. “Maybe he wants to be with his brother, Kurt.”
Kurt, in typical Kurt fashion, started arguing something else completely when he realized he was beat. “God, why are you all taking his side?”
Quinn wasn’t having any of it. Burt was so glad Quinn was doing this so he didn’t have to, and doing it much better than he would’ve to boot. He flipped the last chocolate chip pancake from the pan to the tall stack he’d made.
“How can you possibly construe what I said as me taking anyone’s side?” she said. “I think you’re both way out of line, not to mention crazy.”
“Screw this,” Kurt muttered, almost snarling. He took out his phone again.
“What are you going to say to him?” Quinn asked, still angry.
“I’m not calling him. I’m calling Mercedes.”
“No, you’re not.” Quinn snatched the phone out of his hand.
“What the hell-Quinn, you bitch-”
“Hey!” Burt yelled at Kurt. He even made Brittany jump. “No names like that in this house. Never in this house.” Kurt did look chastened at least. Burt was still glowering when he said, “Also, pancakes.” He set the plate down with an insistent clatter.
Burt was surprised at what Quinn said next, though. “Yes, Kurt, I am being a bitch, because you’re being ridiculously self-centered, and ‘bitch’ is the only thing that gets through to you when you’re like this,” she said evenly. “Mercedes is having the time of her life at the prom with James. If you call her, because she is a much better friend than I am, she will ruin her own evening to deal with your dysfunction. That’s not fair, Kurt. If you were at your normal level of self-absorption right now, you’d realize you can’t do that to her.”
He could see the moment the fire died in Kurt, leaving a brokenhearted boy in a ruined suit poking at the chocolate chips in his pancake. “I’m breaking up with Blaine. Oh my god. I’m breaking up with him,” he murmured.
“You don’t have to do it now,” Mike offered quietly. “You could spend the summer together, and then when he goes to California, let it peter out naturally. Relationships don’t have to last forever to still be good.”
The kid looked like he was speaking from experience. Quinn patted Mike’s knee consolingly, and Burt plopped another pancake on his plate.
“No. I need a clean break,” Kurt said. His bangs flopped down on his forehead as he shook his head, making him look very young.
Brittany spoke up. “You got to dance with him before you fought, right? You always said you wanted to dance with a boy you liked at prom, and you got your wish. Not everybody got their prom wish.” She frowned and stared at her hands in her lap.
Kurt smiled understandingly and pulled her into a hug.
“For example, I didn’t get to arrive riding a camel and holding a snake on my shoulders. It’s okay, though. The snake and the camel would’ve scared each other.” Kurt pulled back when Brittany said that, the same befuddlement on his face as everyone else’s.
It wasn’t her smile that made Burt realize, whoa, Brittany was making an honest-to-God, conscious attempt at a joke there. No, it was when she tried to chuckle and it came out a half-sob. Matching choked giggles bubbled up out of Kurt uncontrollably. Both laughs had changed to sobs by the time they’d wrapped their arms around each other again.
“What did I do wrong? Why doesn’t she like me anymore?” Brittany asked.
No one could answer her. Burt wanted to do something, even if it was just put a hand on his son’s shoulder, but he sensed that that wasn’t what Kurt wanted right now. All he could do was wash the dishes as his boy cried his heart out.
Burt sighed at the memory as he stared at the now-empty stools in the kitchen. No, he wasn’t hoping for a repeat of last year’s prom drama. He looked at the college acceptance letters hanging side-by-side on the fridge: Finn’s from Cleveland State University, Kurt’s from NYU, both fought for equally hard and displayed equally proudly. The boys only had a few months left living at home. Burt wanted those months to be good ones, and certainly less…crazy than the previous year had been.
After prom, Kurt and Finn spent most of the remainder of the month of May prowling around the house moodily and playing Zombie Apocalypse. Burt was heartened when Finn and Rachel made amends before school let out for the summer. Besides it being good to see Finn happy, when both Finn and Kurt were depressed, they kind of scarily fed off each other’s mopeyness. He was even happier when Rachel, of all people, pulled Kurt out of his funk, too. She simply walked in on one of Kurt’s now-solo Zombie Apocalypse sessions, plopped a stack of sheet music in his lap, and informed him that the two of them were auditioning for a musical at the local community theatre.
It didn’t strike Burt as strange at all that Kurt’s spirits picked up so much once he and Rachel were cast as Colin and Mary in The Secret Garden. He’d always loved to sing and act, and getting out of the house was good for him. It wasn’t until Kurt brought home the boy playing Dickon and Rachel winked theatrically at Burt as the three of them and Finn left for a double date that Burt suspected Rachel may have had more than cheering Kurt up with show tunes in mind all along.
Of course, even though Burt had rather liked Dickon, he hadn’t lasted, not even long enough for Burt to remember his real name now. He knew a rebound date when he saw one. Kurt’s affair with community theatre, on the other hand, was much more lasting. Even once school started in the fall, Kurt and Rachel remained the darlings of the area community theatres, flitting from company to company in search of productions that best fit their voices.
Though Rachel seemed more than satisfied to have only one ardent admirer-so long as Finn remembered to bring flowers to give to her onstage every opening night-every new production meant Kurt got a new boyfriend (or two). During The Wizard of Oz, there was the Tin Man to Kurt’s Scarecrow (whom Burt had sort of liked but whom Kurt eventually dismissed as “musically incompatible”). There was Hans (who had made Burt itch to get out his shotgun) and then Herman (whom Burt actually did threaten to pull out the shotgun on) when Kurt was the Emcee in Cabaret. (When Burt and Carole went to opening night, they decided they should count themselves lucky they’d only had to deal with Hans and Herman. Also, Carole had to talk him down from threatening the costume designer with the shotgun.) And then there was Way Too Old For You, the director of the talent show where Kurt and Rachel performed their “Get Happy”-“Happy Days” duet. (Okay, so Way Too Old For You was still in college, but he was a junior in college.)
The only one of Kurt’s revolving-door boyfriends Burt actually got to know was Jaime: a junior at Central Catholic High, a stage hand for the Lima community theatre group, and so painfully shy that Burt couldn’t put him through his normal ‘you hurt him and I’ll kill you’ dad routine. They’d appeared pretty happy together for a few months that winter, and Kurt seemed to enjoy being the experienced, self-assured one in a relationship for a change. But by Valentine’s Day, Kurt and Finn were both back to moping, eating late-night breakfasts, and shooting zombies, Kurt muttering darkly about gay boys falling for the first other gay boy they meet.
Then, something changed. Kurt and Rachel still went to auditions together, even when she and Finn were in the “off” phases of their continuously on-again, off-again relationship. This time, though, there were no new boyfriends. Just when Burt was wondering if Kurt had managed to exhaust the pool of eligible gay theatre geek bachelors in western Ohio, he started noticing Kurt was on the phone more than usual. Then Blaine’s name, verboten for so many months, started cropping up in dinner table conversations. Finally, one night, Kurt announced that Blaine was driving from L.A. back home the weekend of prom to go to his cousin’s wedding. They’d agreed that since Kurt didn’t have a date, and since they’d returned to being such good friends in the past few months, Kurt was going to take Blaine to prom.
This prom night had started off so differently than the last one, with so much less fuss. Carole took the boys out to lunch when they picked up their boutonniere and corsage. Rachel called Finn constantly throughout the afternoon to make sure everything was running smoothly, then called Kurt to confirm that Finn really wasn’t screwing anything up.
Blaine arrived around four in jeans and a t-shirt, carrying his suit in a dry cleaning bag. He was maybe a little heavier than Burt had remembered, and his hair was no longer gelled into a helmet, but otherwise he looked about the same. He showered and dressed in their bathroom and was ready about a half-hour before Rachel, Mercedes, and Mercedes’s boyfriend Aaron arrived. Burt and Carole took pictures, tried not to laugh at Finn’s intense expression as he pinned on Rachel’s corsage, and waved good-bye from the front porch as the kids piled into Mercedes’s boyfriend’s Toyota 4Runner. He and Carole had snuggled on the couch and watched The Wedding Singer, then gone to bed, knowing full well that Finn and Kurt were going to blow off their curfews.
And yet here he was, sitting in the kitchen in the middle of the night, waiting and wondering and staring at the college acceptance letters. He thought Finn would be okay. Finn was taking Rachel going out East for college better than he’d expected. They'd said they’d make long distance work, which in all likelihood meant they’d drift apart naturally.
Kurt, on the other hand, was way too hopeless of a romantic. He’d said he and Blaine were going to prom as friends, but no one really believed that. Burt was afraid that Blaine might break Kurt’s heart yet again, yes, but he was more afraid of Kurt deciding he hadn’t made the right choice last year.
Dreams changed. Burt understood that. He wasn’t a hypocrite, either-Jennifer was so smart and could’ve done so many big, beautiful things, but she’d never regretted staying in Lima. But this was different, even if he couldn’t articulate how. This was Kurt.
Burt jumped at the sound of the front door opening and keys jangling in the lock. He suddenly regretted sitting here looking like he was waiting up, but it was too late to do anything about it.
Kurt entered alone. His grin was not the look of a broken heart. Burt took a bracing breath.
“Oh no, I completely blew curfew, didn’t I?” Kurt said as if it were just now dawning on him.
Burt waved it off. “Eh, it’s senior prom. The fact that you don’t smell like a liquor cabinet helps, too.”
“Yeah, Blaine had to get on the road right away to get back to L.A. in time for an exam, so we didn’t…” Kurt wisely stopped himself before actually implying there were other times they did drink. He quickly changed the subject. “Are you waiting up for Finn? I think that might be a while.”
“Actually, I was, uh, hungry,” he replied, gesturing at the vast quantities of breakfast food still sitting out.
He could see the realization dawn on Kurt’s face. “It’s just me, but…you want to handle the eggs while I do the pancakes?”
“Sounds good.”
Kurt shucked off his tux jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. They worked together in the kitchen in easy, comfortable silence, beating eggs and mixing batter and finding the right pans.
“Finn’s going to be out a while yet, huh?” Burt asked casually.
Kurt rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I heard so much more about the vicissitudes of heterosexual continence and deflowering tonight than I ever wanted. I was tempted to turn in my honorary girl membership.”
Though Burt was pretty sure none of that was actually French, it might as well have been, for as much as he understood.
Kurt saw his confusion. “To put it crudely, Finn’s busy with Rachel probably giving up her V-card.”
“Oh.” Burt focused on the eggs, throwing a little more cheese in. “You looked pretty happy when you walked in.”
“Well, yes, but, uh, the virginity ship sailed a long time ago for me. It’s probably circling Tahiti by now.”
On the one hand, it was good that Kurt had grown more comfortable talking with Burt about this sort of thing. On the other hand, it wasn’t so great for Burt, because he’d only improved at faking composure.
“I guessed that, but I was actually trying to change the subject,” Burt said.
Kurt blushed, but not nearly as much as he would have a year ago. “Sorry. Yes, I had a wonderful time.” He expertly flipped a pancake onto the small stack. “It was everything that last year wasn’t.”
“Good to see Blaine again?”
Kurt’s smile was sweet and full of love. “Very. We had a very good, very long talk.”
Burt winced. Screw what he’d thought before. He’d rather be feeding an army of pissy, wet, lovelorn teenagers than be trying to convince Kurt not to throw away everything for a boy, especially because he was pretty sure he was going to fail. He picked up both his pan and Kurt’s and put them in the sink. Kurt followed his lead, putting the bowl of eggs and plate of pancakes on the island before setting plates and silverware out for them and sitting down.
Burt sat across from him, but before he could speak, Kurt blurted, “Blaine hates California.”
Burt leaned back on his stool. He put his hand up to tip back his hat like he usually did when he was surprised, realizing he wasn’t actually wearing a hat too late.
Kurt rambled on, looking way too happy about his friend being unhappy. “I knew he was having a rough time at UCLA from our phone calls and Skype chats and everything, but tonight, we talked about all these things that were going on in his life last year that he hadn’t told me before. How his parents were pressuring him to pick an Ivy League school, and were still playing their old game of using money and tuition to mess with his head, and how California but not Stanford was kind of the best way he could think of to flip them the bird but still get a good education-so many things. It explained so much.”
“And now he hates it there?” Burt asked cautiously.
Kurt nodded. “He was miserable all year. So miserable, he’s transferring.”
Burt knew he should be happy that his fears about Kurt giving up NYU weren’t panning out, but this turn of events still wasn’t sitting very well with him. “Let me guess, to NYU?”
Kurt’s smile didn’t falter. “No, UConn. His brother Miles just got hired as a lecturer there, so Blaine’s going to live with him and his family. He says it’s so he can afford his loans without having to take money from his parents anymore, but I think he misses his family. Things are probably never going to be normal or healthy with his parents, but he and his brothers had been really close.” Kurt chuckled to himself. “Brittany did say Blaine wanted to be with his brother. How is it that she’s right so often, even when she’s absolutely bizarre?”
Burt chewed on a bite of pancake. “How far is UConn from NYU?”
“One hundred forty-three miles, drive time three hours to three hours and forty minutes, depending on traffic,” Kurt said without missing a beat. Burt felt like he needed to say something about priorities, but before he could come up with a subtler way of saying it than ‘college before boys,’ Kurt added, “It’s a manageable distance for weekend visits every now and then.”
“‘Every now and then’?” Burt’s brow furrowed. “Aren’t you two-”
“What, dating again?” Kurt finished. “No. At least, not yet. I don’t know if we will again or not.” Burt did wonder if maybe Kurt’s acting skills had improved with all the community theatre gigs, but based on his expression, Burt believed him. “I think we both need time to settle into new schools-new lives, really-before deciding if we truly want to go there again.”
While Kurt was focused on mopping the last bit of maple syrup off his plate with what was left of his pancake, Burt took a good, long look at his son. He’d grown up a lot over the past year: not in any way as noticeable as the huge growth spurt between freshman and sophomore years, but his features were a little sharper and more mature in a way Burt couldn’t quite describe. It was more than that, though. He still loved nothing more than getting double- and triple-takes for wearing sweaters that looked to Burt more like a cross between an afghan and a toga, but Kurt seemed comfortable in his own skin in a different way now. Like he didn’t need to use the clothes or the snobbery or any of those things as armor anymore, because he was both tough and happy enough underneath it all to take it.
“Do I have something on my face?” Kurt asked, wiping at the corners of his mouth. Burt snapped out of his reverie and shook his head. “What this all boils down to is, Blaine isn’t changing schools for me. I’m glad-I’d feel guilty if he did.” Kurt smiled and bit his lip, like he had a wonderful secret. “But there was no wedding.”
“What-?” Burt stopped himself from saying, “What was he doing out here, then?” when he saw the light in Kurt’s eyes.
“He’s not changing his life for me, but he did drive two thousand miles just to take me to prom.”
Burt returned his son’s smile. He was happy for Kurt, to have someone love him like that. That was love, no matter what they labeled it. Still, that kind of intensity scared Burt a little, too. It was a lot for a nineteen-year-old to handle. As they sat together in the kitchen, finishing off their breakfasts as the red, hazy light of early dawn crept over the horizon, Burt couldn’t help but think how unfair it was that so much of parenting came down to hoping you’d done your job earlier in your kid’s life, because it was too late to do much now.
“Thanks, Dad,” Kurt said, breaking the silence.
Burt shrugged. “Like I said, I was hungry.”
“I wasn’t really talking about breakfast.” Kurt looked at him steadily. “I know it’s been a crazy year, but thank you.”
To be perfectly honest, Burt still wasn’t quite sure what Kurt was thanking him for. It was nice to know he’d done something right, though.
“Any time, kiddo,” Burt said.
~~**~~**~~
Burt and Carole didn’t travel much. When you lived in the same town all your life, family that had gone out into the wide world tended to come back to visit you rather than the other way around. In fact, Burt had only used his suitcase twice in the past five years: when he and Carole finally took their delayed Hawaiian honeymoon, and when he flew out to New York City with Kurt to help him move into his dorm freshman year. It should have been no surprise, then, that there was such a thick layer of dust on their luggage that it set Burt to coughing when he pulled them out of the downstairs storage closet. In fact, he was still coughing when he answered his cellphone.
“Dad! Are you okay? Oh god, hang on, I’m putting you on hold and calling an ambulance-”
“Whoa, whoa, Kurt, I’m fine. Just inhaled a dust bunny is all.”
“Oh, okay. Don’t scare me like that.” He heard Kurt take a few deep, shaky breaths on the other end of the line. “I just wanted to double-check everything with you before you and Carole and Finn head to the airport tomorrow.”
More like quadruple-check, Burt thought to himself, but he bit his tongue. He also thought it was best to avoid mentioning they weren’t packed yet. “The plane tickets are already in Carole’s purse, and we’re picking up Finn on the way to the airport. I think we’re good.”
Kurt huffed. “Getting to New York may be that simple, but visiting here isn’t. First, promise me you’ll either take a cab or a shuttle to Greenwich Village, even if it’s expensive. I don’t think I need to remind you of how things went the last time you tried to navigate a subway system.”
Burt winced. “Fair enough.”
“And if you take a shuttle that doesn’t drop you off right outside your hotel, you’ll call me, and Blaine or I will find you and walk you there.”
“That’s a little much-”
“It took you three hours to get us from Grand Central Station to my dorm, Dad. Two miles, three hours.”
“Fine.” Burt picked up one of the suitcases and headed upstairs to the bedroom. He might as well multi-task and pack while he talked.
“That should put you at your hotel around five, which gives you a little time to get settled in before we all go out to Lombardi’s-excellent pizza, you’ll love it. Then you and Carole head back to your hotel, and Finn can crash on the floor at our place-”
Burt cut in, “If your place is as small as you say it is, Finn can crash on the floor of our hotel room just as easily.”
“Yes, but it’d cost a hundred bucks a night for him to crash in your room. He can do it for free at our place.”
“I’m not afraid to spend a little money on this trip, son. It’s supposed to be a celebration.”
“Remember you said that when you see the restaurant tabs,” Kurt muttered. “Okay, the next day, we get up early and head to Baccalaureate. I could only get two guest tickets for that ceremony, and I know Finn won’t mind, but-do you think Carole would be offended if I invited you and Blaine?”
He supposed that shouldn’t have surprised him, Kurt wanting to invite the guy he was living with over his stepmom, but it did a little bit. What took Burt aback even more was when Kurt said, “Besides, I think it would be nice if you two spent some time together. Wouldn’t it?”
Burt didn’t know how to answer that last part, so he avoided it altogether. “Uh, I think Carole would be fine with that, but I can feel it out for you, if you want.”
“Thanks. After Baccalaureate, we meet back up again for late lunch. I promised Carole I’d take her shopping, and Blaine said one of his friends from law school has season tickets to…one of the baseball teams, I don’t remember which, so you and Finn can do that, and then we’ll all grab something quick to eat because we’ll have to get up early to get to the stadium for Commencement, and after that-”
“Wow, do you have any time for just being happy and together scheduled in there?” Burt laughed, though he was serious.
“I have reservations at a very nice and somewhat expensive restaurant for after Commencement,” Kurt answered equally seriously.
“I mean you don’t have to schedule every minute. This is supposed to be fun for you, not work.”
“But I like playing cruise director.”
Burt shook his head and sighed. “Promise me you won’t get so caught up in making things perfect that you forget to have fun, too. It’s your day. First in the family to get a four-year college degree-that’s something worth celebrating.”
“I’m only first because Finn has to take those extra summer school classes,” Kurt said, though Burt could tell he was proud and pleased at the recognition.
“How’d finals go, anyway?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll graduate,” Kurt laughed. “Advanced Spanish Conversation and Business French were a breeze, Natural Science will be ugly, but I’ll pass, and I just took Film Production for the fun of it. Honestly, the hardest thing about finals was the fact that Blaine’s exam period overlapped with mine. I understand that law school exams are harder than undergrad and that Cardozo is a competitive place, but finals turn him into an incredibly neurotic zombie for two weeks.”
“How is Blaine?” Burt asked. It still felt weird, asking after Blaine like a…partner, Burt supposed was the word. Maybe. Even though he and Kurt had only been living together in New York for a year, Blaine had been in Kurt’s orbit so long that he was feeling more and more like a permanent fixture.
“Better,” Kurt answered. “After his last exam, he slept for two days straight. I finally kicked him out of the apartment today. He’s out running now.” He heard Kurt snap his fingers in the background. “Oh! I have news! With all the planning, I almost forgot. I got accepted into the French-to-English Simultaneous Interpretation program. I still haven’t decided whether I want to go for the Master in Translation or just do a certificate program, but the summer interpretation program is good training to have either way.”
“Wow, a Masters degree. Wow.” Burt tugged the brim of his hat back, and it took him a while to form words. He’d listened to Kurt throw around a lot of post-graduation ideas over the past few months, but this was the first time he’d put it in terms that meant something concrete to Burt. “You know I couldn’t be prouder of you, but I really wish your mom were here for this. She only did a two-year degree, but she would’ve understood all these certificates and majors and minors and…and prerequisites or whatever. She would be so proud.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Kurt was uncharacteristically quiet for a long time. He broke the silence with a long, thoughtful sigh. “I was going to wait to ask you this in person, but since Blaine’s out…. How did you propose to Mom?”
The bottom dropped out of Burt’s stomach, and he couldn’t stop himself in time from saying, “Kurt, are you sure you’re really…”
It was clear from the prickliness of Kurt’s response that Burt hadn’t managed to hide any of his shock. “It’s ridiculous and downright offensive for you to project your heteronormative notions of propriety onto my relationships!”
Burt could feel a headache coming on already. He gave up all attempts at packing and sat down on the bed beside the open suitcase. “Hold up a sec. If we’re gonna argue, you need to argue with littler words, or I don’t stand a chance.”
“I’m not the girl. Neither of us is the girl,” Kurt ground out.
“That’s not what I meant at all,” Burt explained as fast as he could. “I was trying to say, are you sure you’re really ready? You’re twenty-three.”
The defensiveness left Kurt’s voice. “That’s right. I’m twenty-three, Dad.” It was amazing, how the same number could sound so young when Burt said it, and so old when Kurt did. “I’m not planning on proposing tomorrow, or this summer, or any particular time at all. I just want to have my idea for what I want to do so when the time is right, I’m ready.”
“But you are pretty sure it’s going to be to him, aren’t you?”
Kurt sighed. “I spent a year studying in Paris. The semester that Blaine spent studying abroad there, too, was the happiest five months of my life. The semester he went back to UConn was awful. I’ve wanted to live in Paris since I learned what avant garde meant. If I couldn’t be happy in Paris without him…”
That pretty much said it all. Burt relented. “You’re not going to think much of it, ‘cause I’ve never been any good at flashy stuff or flowery words.” Burt closed his eyes. “We played Hangman.”
“You-what?”
“Yep. Hangman. I’d bought the ring a couple days before, but I hadn’t summed up the courage to actually ask her yet. I invited her over to my place for dinner. I was going to really impress her by cooking myself, and then we were going to watch the Olympics on TV. I had some godawful pun about Olympic rings and engagement rings all worked out.
“When your mom came over, the TV went on the fritz, and I was so busy trying to fix it that in the meantime, the food burned.” Kurt giggled at that, and Burt couldn’t help but smile himself. “I felt like such a moron, not to mention I was broke after spending all that money on a ring, so I couldn’t afford to fix the evening by taking her out someplace nice. But your mom was so cool about everything. We ended up ordering pizza and sitting together on the couch playing Hangman since there was nothing else to do. I decided I had to ask her that night, but I didn’t trust my mouth to work right. So, I wrote out the blanks for ‘will you marry me.’ She figured it out and said ‘yes’ before the hanged man even had legs.”
“Simple, but unique. I don’t think I want to break our TV, but…I like that idea a lot,” Kurt said warmly.
“It’s not your style, though. No pizazz.”
Kurt answered, “A proposal isn’t a production the way a wedding is-and trust me, mine will be a production. A proposal should be a conversation between two people. It doesn’t need all the bells and tulle and glitter-shitting doves to go with it.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” Burt said. At Kurt’s laugh, he asked, “What?”
“It’s just funny that, of all things, this would be the one we’d be on the same page.”
“Hey, I think we do pretty good,” Burt said. Kurt made a noise that sounded like grudging agreement. “No, really. We may totally talk past each other when it comes to music and sports and all that stuff you learned in school, but when it comes to family, we have a pretty solid track record, don’t we?”
“And this is about family?” Kurt said, his voice all the sudden wavering and emotional.
Burt wasn’t bothered at all by that question. Though the words alone may have sounded like maybe they hadn’t been on the same page when it came to family after all, Burt understood about wanting that extra little bit of out-loud reassurance, especially with something as important as what Kurt was planning to do. “Well, yeah, definitely. I’ll be honest, it’s happening a little earlier than I’d hoped, but proposals, getting…married or partnered or whatever you want me to call it. That’s starting your own family, and adding to ours.”
Kurt sniffed a few times before he spoke again, and there was still a tremor in his voice. “I have to go. Blaine’s going to be home soon, and he’s going to wonder what’s up if he sees me like-uh, yeah. I love you, Dad.”
“Love you, too, kiddo. And I’m happy for you. See you tomorrow.”
There were still very few things in life of which Burt Hummel was certain. He knew American-made automobiles inside and out. He loved his family fiercely. Those two things, he had known since he was Kurt’s age, maybe even younger. Not much else in his life had turned out the way he’d envisioned it would at twenty-three. His family looked a whole lot different than he’d imagined, but they had worked to make it good-better than good, better than Burt had had any right to hope for.
If he could have the gift of eloquence for just one conversation, he’d use it to tell Kurt about how his life wasn’t going to turn out the way he envisioned, no matter how much planning he did. With a little humor and flexibility, and a lot of work and faith, it would be a very good life, though. But Burt didn’t have much of a way with words, especially when he was trying to say something important, so he’d just have to hope that the life he’d lived was proof enough.
~~**~~**~~
Additional Author’s Note, References:
Judy Garland and Margaret O’Brien perform Under the Bamboo Tree
Audra McDonald and Patti LuPone perform Get Happy-Happy Days
Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand perform Get Happy-Happy Days
Why Burt wanted to pull the shotgun on Cabaret’s costume designer (with bonus John Stamos, i.e. Dr. Carl!): Wilkommen
Return to Part B
Burt had always wondered if the twenty-four-hour Wal-Mart Supercenter on the highway was really open all night or if that was just an advertising ploy. Turned out, it was open. It was also pretty much the only thing open in Lima at two thirty in the morning, so it was the only place Burt could go when he finally gave up trying to go to sleep, slipped out of bed without waking Carole, and went for a ride.
He didn’t work as hard at being quiet when he returned an hour later with two bags of groceries. Carole was a heavy sleeper, the kitchen was all the way on the other side of the house from their bedroom, and if he was being completely honest with himself, he was half-way hoping she might wake up and keep him company. He put the bags down and unpacked: milk, eggs, shredded cheese, peppers, onions, ham, turkey sausage, Bisquick, buttermilk (either Kurt or Carole would kill him for ignoring his diet that badly, but oh well), flour, baking powder, blueberries, chocolate chips, and maple syrup. He had enough food to feed a small, hungry teenage army. As he looked around the silent kitchen, he hoped one was arriving soon.
Burt was good at breakfasts. Though he was now most definitely only the third best cook in the house (and beating Finn didn’t count for much-he was a nice kid, but he was still struggling with mac ‘n cheese from the box), Carole and Kurt were both more than willing to let Burt take over when it came to omelets and baking powder biscuits. The only problem was, none of them were morning people. Breakfasts on normal days were coffee or orange juice with a piece of fruit or yogurt or a whole wheat bagel (the post-heart attack doughnut replacement-God, how Burt missed doughnuts) grabbed on the way out the door. The only times Burt got to show off his cooking prowess, even if he did have to do it with low-fat turkey sausage instead of the real stuff now, were Sunday brunches and the rare occasions when breakfast-for-dinner was appropriate.
Pancakes were both Kurt’s and Finn’s comfort food. That meant that breakfast-for-dinner tended to be appropriate on really bad days, like when Kurt got in that bad car wreck (Kurt walked away with only a nosebleed from the airbag, thank God, but the Lincoln was totaled) and pretty much every time Finn and Rachel broke up (Burt had lost count sometime in March of the kids’ junior year). As happy as they’d been since they moved into the new house, there had been a lot of midnight-breakfast crises in the past two years. And here Burt was, armed and ready at three thirty in the morning on the night of Kurt’s and Finn’s senior prom, not sure whether he was bracing himself or almost wishing for one last disaster.
After waiting a few minutes-just in case-Burt sighed and put the refrigerator items away so they wouldn’t spoil. Maybe it was silly, expecting the kids like this, but after what happened with junior prom…well, he wasn’t going to get caught short on ingredients. There weren’t enough scrambled eggs and chocolate chip pancakes in the universe to have fixed that mess last year, though.
Burt remembered it all too clearly. The Hummel-Hudson home had been the pre-dance meet-up and photo-op location for all the New Directions kids, and everything had seemed fine and happy, if a little strange. About three weeks before junior prom, the kids started switching partners so much it was like they were square dancing. Of course, Kurt and Blaine didn’t have anyone to swap with, and Mercedes stuck with James, her boyfriend of a couple months, but the rest of the prom couples were really, really weird. Finn and Brittany, Sam and Santana, Puck and Tina, Mike and the champion wrestler Lauren, Artie and Rachel, and Quinn, of all people, going stag. Though there must have been some pretty spectacular fights for them to have paired off the way they did, they all smiled and laughed for the photos, then piled into a rented limo together.
Not long after the kids left, Carole got called to cover a night shift at the hospital, so Burt made himself some popcorn and settled in on the couch with Rush Hour 2. They’d pushed back the kids’ curfew until one thirty that night, so Burt was surprised when he heard the door slam at a quarter to eleven.
“Fucking Roberto Cavalli!” he heard Kurt yell. Burt wracked his brain, but he couldn’t remember anybody named “Roberto” in Kurt’s and Finn’s class. “They’re ruined! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find size eleven Robert Cavalli black leather buckle-closure pointed-toe dress shoes on eBay? Idiot!”
“Hey, you liked the idea of us all sharing a limo when I came up with it,” Finn said, almost as mad as Kurt. “Besides, it’s not my fault if you buy shoes that you can’t actually walk outside in.”
“I can walk outside in them. Just not through Mike’s brilliant shortcuts,” Kurt spat.
“I’ve said it a million times. I’m so, so sorry about the Fitzpatricks’ timed sprinkler system. And the Warners’ new Rottweiler,” Mike said.
“Uh-oh,” Burt muttered under his breath, pausing the movie and getting up.
He met a very sad and bedraggled one-third of the New Directions prom party in the kitchen. Kurt was stocking-footed, soaked, and scowling, and Burt wasn’t even going to ask what had happened to his suit jacket. Finn was also wet and had a black eye. Brittany was carrying her shoes, but she was covered in mud from her toes to half-way up her calves, and somehow she’d managed to get a grass stain on the bust of her dress. Large, muddy paw prints ran from the crotch of Mike’s pants up to the collar of his shirt. Only Quinn looked anything close to the way she did when she’d left that evening, though her unspoiled white dress was wrinkled from where she’d apparently bunched up the skirt to her knees in order to keep it clean.
“I don’t even want to know what happened, do I?” Burt finally said.
“We wanted to come home early, but some of the others didn’t, and they took the limo,” Finn said.
“We left early?” Brittany asked. “I thought the dance was over. I want to go back and finish. Finn?”
“No way.” He collapsed onto a stool by the kitchen island.
“Fine, I’ll find another date. Mike? Quinn? Kurt?” When all three shook their heads, Brittany slumped onto the stool next Finn, head hanging. Then she stuck out her dirty foot in Kurt’s direction. “It’s like I’m wearing Ugg Boots, only made out of mud. Mugg Boots. They’re even more comfortable.”
Kurt sighed and took a seat at the island as well. “They’re more fashionable than Uggs, too. Not that that’s saying much.” He laughed ruefully. “Hell, Blaine probably would’ve preferred I wear Uggs or Muggs over the Roberto Cavallis, because they don’t have heels, and ‘why would you work so hard to emphasize our height difference even more, Kurt?’ There is no way I’m playing the Nicole Kidman to his Tom Cruise and only wearing the flattest of flats because he has a Napoleon complex.”
Quinn took the last stool beside Kurt. “It’s better than being the Katie Holmes to his Tom Cruise,” she said.
With no more seats left, Mike boosted himself up to sit on a nearby countertop. It wasn’t exactly polite, but it wasn’t hurting anything, either, so Burt didn’t comment. Since it was clear the kids were settling in for a while, Burt got five glasses and poured them all orange juice.
He was pretty sure he’d end up regretting it, but Burt asked, “Okay, so why did you leave early, and what happened to Blaine and Lauren and the other couples?”
Kurt buried his head in one folded arm and waved the other. “You guys go first.”
Quinn, Mike, and Finn all exchanged glances. Brittany examined the bottom of her orange juice glass.
Finally, Finn said, “Okay, so the whole crazy prom date combinations thing…we never really expected to go home with the dates we came with.”
“We didn’t?” Brittany asked, sad.
“No. You were in on this, too, remember?” Finn said. “Anyway, it all started last month when Quinn broke up with Sam again.”
Quinn cut in, “No, this all started when Brittany said she wanted to dance with Santana at prom. Everyone knew that Santana did, too, but there was no way she was going to go to prom with another girl. Finn came up with the oh so brilliant scheme to have Kurt take Brittany and Blaine take Santana, get through the public promenade and photos that way, and then they could rearrange once they got to the dance and do their own thing.”
“Santana said the only girls that went to prom with other girls were Mathletes and faux-tortured-artist-Katy Perry-wannabes,” Mike added.
Quinn continued, “Then Blaine felt the need to point out that lesbians go to prom with girls, too, and ‘Santana, are you feeling a little confused? That’s totally normal. This is a very hard thing to come to terms with, and you should just know that you’re not alone.’”
Kurt’s head popped up. “Seriously? He’s still using that same line? God, he should at least get new material.” His head flopped back down.
Finn said, “Yeah, well, he should learn how to not push Santana’s buttons, because after that, she felt the need to prove to everyone that she could land any guy she wanted as a prom date. She went after Mike hard enough that Tina got insecure and jealous and broke up with him, but then because Quinn had broken up with Sam, Santana ended up with him.”
“I repeat, I had nothing to do with this mess,” Quinn said. “I broke up with Sam for completely separate, personal, and reasonable reasons, and I have been the only one perfectly fine with being single this whole time. And might I add that I’m the only one besides Mercedes, James, Kurt, and Blaine who didn’t poach someone else’s crush or significant other just so I could have a prom date.”
“Fine,” Finn said. “At that point, everybody was single except for Kurt, Blaine, Mercedes, James, me, and Rachel, right? So then, Tina figured she had Artie as a fall-back, but Puck convinced Artie to pull the whole treat girls like crap to get them to like you routine that he did at first with Brittany, which Artie stupidly did when he and Tina were doubling with Puck and Brittany.”
“You dated Puck?” Mike asked Brittany. “I missed that part.”
“Me, too,” Brittany said. “Breadstix’s spaghetti was especially good that night.”
“Anyway,” Finn sighed, “Puck was there to pick up the pieces of Tina’s broken heart when Artie screwed it up.”
“That was about the time Rachel and Finn had a very loud and public fight over Finn allegedly making eyes at Santana, and then they broke up, again,” Quinn said, sipping her juice calmly. “Artie knew Puck still had a thing for Rachel, God knows why, so he asked her to prom in the hope that she could distract Puck, leaving him open to swoop in and pick up the pieces of Tina’s heart after Puck broke it. Then Finn asked Brittany because he knows Rachel has always been insecure when it comes to competing for his affections with Cheerios-”
“I did not!” Finn protested.
Quinn ignored him, “-and because I would have nothing to do with any of this. How did you end up with Lauren, Mike?”
“She told me we were going together,” Mike said. “I was too intimidated to question it.”
Finn continued, “So then we all got to prom-”
“We weren’t even to prom yet?” Burt asked, overwhelmed. “I…think I’m going to make scrambled eggs and sausage.”
Finn kept talking even as Burt collected ingredients and cookware and moved over to the stove. “So then we all got to prom, and all hell broke loose. Everyone went thinking that they were going to convince someone else’s date that they were really in love with them, but nobody likes being ditched by their date, or having somebody else horn in on your own date, either. By ten o’clock, everyone was screaming at everyone else, and Sam may or may not have hooked up with Lauren, and I did something that I don’t know what it was that pissed off Rachel in yet another new way. Somehow we got divided up into factions, and when most all of us decided to leave, the Puck, Santana, and Rachel faction made it to the limo first and took it. Then they felt sorry for Artie having to roll his way home so they let him in, too. Mike, Brittany, and I decided we could walk home-”
“I joined them because all the guys who’d promised they’d make going stag fun for me because they’d dance with me were gone or leaving or sulking,” Quinn interjected, glaring at everyone.
“-Lauren and Sam were making out under the bleachers or something, Tina was doing slam poetry with half the boys’ basketball team for some reason, and then we found Kurt outside when we were leaving, and…now we’re here.”
Burt handed the kids plates and forks, then set out the first round of scrambled eggs with cheese and turkey sausages. Everyone but Kurt shoveled food onto their plates. Kurt didn’t even raise his head. Burt took that as a cue not to ask about his part of the story yet. “What happened to Mercedes in all this?”
“Actually, last I saw, she and James were having a really happy, typical prom,” Quinn said. “She made him dance with me once, but they were having too much fun together for me to butt in more than that.”
“Good for her,” Burt said, still at a loss. Quinn nodded and smiled in genuine agreement.
With nothing else left to talk about, everyone turned to Kurt. Finn asked tentatively, “You never said what happened with you and Blaine. Where’d he go?”
Kurt growled.
“I’m gonna start on the second course,” Burt said, retreating to the stove.
“We had a fight, again,” Kurt muttered. He picked his head up and set his chin on his arms. “More accurately, we had the fight again.”
“What fight?” Mike asked.
Burt, Finn, and Quinn all sighed and answered in sync with Kurt, “NYU versus UCLA.”
Kurt glared at them, then focused his attention on Brittany and Mike, his more receptive audience. “Blaine applied to a bunch of colleges, and he got accepted at most of them, including both NYU and UCLA. In a mere sixteen months and thirteen days, I will be a freshman at NYU. It’s always been New York or bust for me. Blaine knows that.”
“And Blaine’s leaning UCLA,” Burt furnished. He’d pretended not to overhear that argument for three months. For the past few weeks, they’d gotten so loud it was impossible to fake ignorance.
“He’s no longer leaning. He told me tonight that he sent UCLA his deposit last week.”
Even Finn winced. “Man, for as smart as Blaine is, that was really dumb timing.”
“Yeah,” Kurt scoffed. “Even more idiotic, he thought he had a ‘solution.’ Long-distance for one year, because we’d have to do that no matter where he went, and then when I graduate, he’ll transfer to any University of California campus I want to be at. Because apparently Berkeley is interchangeable with Greenwich Village in his mind, except not, because if it was, what would be the problem with NYU?”
Finn shook his head. “I don’t know, dude. They’re both big, arty cities a hell of a long ways from Ohio.”
Kurt went livid. “You’re not allowed to take Blaine’s side! You’re my step-brother!”
“I’m not taking his side,” Finn said, shrugging. “I just always thought getting the fuck out of Lima was all you ever cared about.” Finn sounded oddly wounded, Burt noticed.
Burt admitted silently that he’d thought the same way as Finn-not that Kurt was wrong for what he wanted, but that Burt really didn’t understand the difference between New York and L.A., other than the weather. Then again, Burt had lived in Lima all his life. His big childhood dream had been escaping to Columbus someday, and even that hadn’t happened.
Kurt barreled on. “There’s a difference. Trust me. Even if there wasn’t, just on principle- It’s like this. Blaine likes football. He has a nice, masculine speaking voice. He reeks old money strongly enough that most people would chalk up his knowledge of the arts to snobbery rather than gayness. Me? My natural walk is a sashay, my voice is perfect for Minnie Mouse impressions, and everybody’s gaydar pings madly as soon as I walk into a room, even if I’m dressed like a trucker. The world is going to cast me as the girl in this relationship, even though that’s stupid. I should not be expected to be the tag-along housewife in Blaine Anderson’s California Dream Life on top of that.”
Quinn’s mouth hung open. “As a woman, I am offended by that on so many levels, I don’t know where to start.”
“If you do go California, you should say hi to Mr. Schuester’s son who dated Rachel and then egged her. He goes to college there.” Brittany chewed thoughtfully on a forkful of egg. “Is Blaine Mr. Schuester’s other secret son? He must have had an affair with a female jockey. Why are you all looking at me funny?”
Kurt cleared the Brittany-induced confusion from his head first. “I told Blaine where he could shove his ‘plan,’ and he stormed out of the gym. I wandered around for I don’t know how long, then finally I went outside for some air. That’s when you guys found me, and we proceeded to top off what was already a catastrophic evening by bumbling through a dog shit and automatic sprinkler obstacle course in formal wear.” He dropped his head to the table one last time, covering it with his arms.
“Wow, that sucks, Kurt,” Quinn said sympathetically. “Breaking up on prom night…”
Kurt nearly jumped off his stool. “Broke up? We didn’t break up!” He looked around the room at all of them. “Did we?”
“That sounds like a pretty nasty fight,” Finn said.
“His car wasn’t parked out front anymore when we got back,” Mike added.
Kurt blinked in shock. He started forming words a few times but never got any out.
Burt hated to do it, but it needed to be said. “You haven’t been happy for a while now, son.”
Quinn got up, caught Kurt by the shoulders, and sat him back down on the stool beside hers. “It’s okay. You cry or scream or whatever you feel like tonight. Tomorrow, you can call Blaine and work on getting some closure. Trust me, closure is important. Give it a little time, and I think you two could even go back to being good friends.”
“Call tomorrow? No, I have to call and fix this, now,” Kurt said, snapping out of his daze and fumbling for his phone.
“And say what, Kurt?”
Everyone in the room, even Brittany, reeled when Quinn’s tone changed from sensitive to cold and almost angry.
“What are you going to say, Kurt?” she repeated. “How are you going to fix this? Are you going to give up on ‘NYU or bust,’ on your dream that you’ve been working your whole life for?”
“Of course not.”
“Then how else does this end other than the way it did at the dance? Because I don’t think Blaine is a total doormat, and that’s the only way I see him giving in to your equally stupid ‘But there are so many colleges in New York City, Blaine!’ plan.” Quinn folded her arms across her chest, knowing she’d made her point.
Brittany patted Kurt’s arm. “Maybe he wants to be with his brother, Kurt.”
Kurt, in typical Kurt fashion, started arguing something else completely when he realized he was beat. “God, why are you all taking his side?”
Quinn wasn’t having any of it. Burt was so glad Quinn was doing this so he didn’t have to, and doing it much better than he would’ve to boot. He flipped the last chocolate chip pancake from the pan to the tall stack he’d made.
“How can you possibly construe what I said as me taking anyone’s side?” she said. “I think you’re both way out of line, not to mention crazy.”
“Screw this,” Kurt muttered, almost snarling. He took out his phone again.
“What are you going to say to him?” Quinn asked, still angry.
“I’m not calling him. I’m calling Mercedes.”
“No, you’re not.” Quinn snatched the phone out of his hand.
“What the hell-Quinn, you bitch-”
“Hey!” Burt yelled at Kurt. He even made Brittany jump. “No names like that in this house. Never in this house.” Kurt did look chastened at least. Burt was still glowering when he said, “Also, pancakes.” He set the plate down with an insistent clatter.
Burt was surprised at what Quinn said next, though. “Yes, Kurt, I am being a bitch, because you’re being ridiculously self-centered, and ‘bitch’ is the only thing that gets through to you when you’re like this,” she said evenly. “Mercedes is having the time of her life at the prom with James. If you call her, because she is a much better friend than I am, she will ruin her own evening to deal with your dysfunction. That’s not fair, Kurt. If you were at your normal level of self-absorption right now, you’d realize you can’t do that to her.”
He could see the moment the fire died in Kurt, leaving a brokenhearted boy in a ruined suit poking at the chocolate chips in his pancake. “I’m breaking up with Blaine. Oh my god. I’m breaking up with him,” he murmured.
“You don’t have to do it now,” Mike offered quietly. “You could spend the summer together, and then when he goes to California, let it peter out naturally. Relationships don’t have to last forever to still be good.”
The kid looked like he was speaking from experience. Quinn patted Mike’s knee consolingly, and Burt plopped another pancake on his plate.
“No. I need a clean break,” Kurt said. His bangs flopped down on his forehead as he shook his head, making him look very young.
Brittany spoke up. “You got to dance with him before you fought, right? You always said you wanted to dance with a boy you liked at prom, and you got your wish. Not everybody got their prom wish.” She frowned and stared at her hands in her lap.
Kurt smiled understandingly and pulled her into a hug.
“For example, I didn’t get to arrive riding a camel and holding a snake on my shoulders. It’s okay, though. The snake and the camel would’ve scared each other.” Kurt pulled back when Brittany said that, the same befuddlement on his face as everyone else’s.
It wasn’t her smile that made Burt realize, whoa, Brittany was making an honest-to-God, conscious attempt at a joke there. No, it was when she tried to chuckle and it came out a half-sob. Matching choked giggles bubbled up out of Kurt uncontrollably. Both laughs had changed to sobs by the time they’d wrapped their arms around each other again.
“What did I do wrong? Why doesn’t she like me anymore?” Brittany asked.
No one could answer her. Burt wanted to do something, even if it was just put a hand on his son’s shoulder, but he sensed that that wasn’t what Kurt wanted right now. All he could do was wash the dishes as his boy cried his heart out.
Burt sighed at the memory as he stared at the now-empty stools in the kitchen. No, he wasn’t hoping for a repeat of last year’s prom drama. He looked at the college acceptance letters hanging side-by-side on the fridge: Finn’s from Cleveland State University, Kurt’s from NYU, both fought for equally hard and displayed equally proudly. The boys only had a few months left living at home. Burt wanted those months to be good ones, and certainly less…crazy than the previous year had been.
After prom, Kurt and Finn spent most of the remainder of the month of May prowling around the house moodily and playing Zombie Apocalypse. Burt was heartened when Finn and Rachel made amends before school let out for the summer. Besides it being good to see Finn happy, when both Finn and Kurt were depressed, they kind of scarily fed off each other’s mopeyness. He was even happier when Rachel, of all people, pulled Kurt out of his funk, too. She simply walked in on one of Kurt’s now-solo Zombie Apocalypse sessions, plopped a stack of sheet music in his lap, and informed him that the two of them were auditioning for a musical at the local community theatre.
It didn’t strike Burt as strange at all that Kurt’s spirits picked up so much once he and Rachel were cast as Colin and Mary in The Secret Garden. He’d always loved to sing and act, and getting out of the house was good for him. It wasn’t until Kurt brought home the boy playing Dickon and Rachel winked theatrically at Burt as the three of them and Finn left for a double date that Burt suspected Rachel may have had more than cheering Kurt up with show tunes in mind all along.
Of course, even though Burt had rather liked Dickon, he hadn’t lasted, not even long enough for Burt to remember his real name now. He knew a rebound date when he saw one. Kurt’s affair with community theatre, on the other hand, was much more lasting. Even once school started in the fall, Kurt and Rachel remained the darlings of the area community theatres, flitting from company to company in search of productions that best fit their voices.
Though Rachel seemed more than satisfied to have only one ardent admirer-so long as Finn remembered to bring flowers to give to her onstage every opening night-every new production meant Kurt got a new boyfriend (or two). During The Wizard of Oz, there was the Tin Man to Kurt’s Scarecrow (whom Burt had sort of liked but whom Kurt eventually dismissed as “musically incompatible”). There was Hans (who had made Burt itch to get out his shotgun) and then Herman (whom Burt actually did threaten to pull out the shotgun on) when Kurt was the Emcee in Cabaret. (When Burt and Carole went to opening night, they decided they should count themselves lucky they’d only had to deal with Hans and Herman. Also, Carole had to talk him down from threatening the costume designer with the shotgun.) And then there was Way Too Old For You, the director of the talent show where Kurt and Rachel performed their “Get Happy”-“Happy Days” duet. (Okay, so Way Too Old For You was still in college, but he was a junior in college.)
The only one of Kurt’s revolving-door boyfriends Burt actually got to know was Jaime: a junior at Central Catholic High, a stage hand for the Lima community theatre group, and so painfully shy that Burt couldn’t put him through his normal ‘you hurt him and I’ll kill you’ dad routine. They’d appeared pretty happy together for a few months that winter, and Kurt seemed to enjoy being the experienced, self-assured one in a relationship for a change. But by Valentine’s Day, Kurt and Finn were both back to moping, eating late-night breakfasts, and shooting zombies, Kurt muttering darkly about gay boys falling for the first other gay boy they meet.
Then, something changed. Kurt and Rachel still went to auditions together, even when she and Finn were in the “off” phases of their continuously on-again, off-again relationship. This time, though, there were no new boyfriends. Just when Burt was wondering if Kurt had managed to exhaust the pool of eligible gay theatre geek bachelors in western Ohio, he started noticing Kurt was on the phone more than usual. Then Blaine’s name, verboten for so many months, started cropping up in dinner table conversations. Finally, one night, Kurt announced that Blaine was driving from L.A. back home the weekend of prom to go to his cousin’s wedding. They’d agreed that since Kurt didn’t have a date, and since they’d returned to being such good friends in the past few months, Kurt was going to take Blaine to prom.
This prom night had started off so differently than the last one, with so much less fuss. Carole took the boys out to lunch when they picked up their boutonniere and corsage. Rachel called Finn constantly throughout the afternoon to make sure everything was running smoothly, then called Kurt to confirm that Finn really wasn’t screwing anything up.
Blaine arrived around four in jeans and a t-shirt, carrying his suit in a dry cleaning bag. He was maybe a little heavier than Burt had remembered, and his hair was no longer gelled into a helmet, but otherwise he looked about the same. He showered and dressed in their bathroom and was ready about a half-hour before Rachel, Mercedes, and Mercedes’s boyfriend Aaron arrived. Burt and Carole took pictures, tried not to laugh at Finn’s intense expression as he pinned on Rachel’s corsage, and waved good-bye from the front porch as the kids piled into Mercedes’s boyfriend’s Toyota 4Runner. He and Carole had snuggled on the couch and watched The Wedding Singer, then gone to bed, knowing full well that Finn and Kurt were going to blow off their curfews.
And yet here he was, sitting in the kitchen in the middle of the night, waiting and wondering and staring at the college acceptance letters. He thought Finn would be okay. Finn was taking Rachel going out East for college better than he’d expected. They'd said they’d make long distance work, which in all likelihood meant they’d drift apart naturally.
Kurt, on the other hand, was way too hopeless of a romantic. He’d said he and Blaine were going to prom as friends, but no one really believed that. Burt was afraid that Blaine might break Kurt’s heart yet again, yes, but he was more afraid of Kurt deciding he hadn’t made the right choice last year.
Dreams changed. Burt understood that. He wasn’t a hypocrite, either-Jennifer was so smart and could’ve done so many big, beautiful things, but she’d never regretted staying in Lima. But this was different, even if he couldn’t articulate how. This was Kurt.
Burt jumped at the sound of the front door opening and keys jangling in the lock. He suddenly regretted sitting here looking like he was waiting up, but it was too late to do anything about it.
Kurt entered alone. His grin was not the look of a broken heart. Burt took a bracing breath.
“Oh no, I completely blew curfew, didn’t I?” Kurt said as if it were just now dawning on him.
Burt waved it off. “Eh, it’s senior prom. The fact that you don’t smell like a liquor cabinet helps, too.”
“Yeah, Blaine had to get on the road right away to get back to L.A. in time for an exam, so we didn’t…” Kurt wisely stopped himself before actually implying there were other times they did drink. He quickly changed the subject. “Are you waiting up for Finn? I think that might be a while.”
“Actually, I was, uh, hungry,” he replied, gesturing at the vast quantities of breakfast food still sitting out.
He could see the realization dawn on Kurt’s face. “It’s just me, but…you want to handle the eggs while I do the pancakes?”
“Sounds good.”
Kurt shucked off his tux jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves. They worked together in the kitchen in easy, comfortable silence, beating eggs and mixing batter and finding the right pans.
“Finn’s going to be out a while yet, huh?” Burt asked casually.
Kurt rolled his eyes and shook his head. “I heard so much more about the vicissitudes of heterosexual continence and deflowering tonight than I ever wanted. I was tempted to turn in my honorary girl membership.”
Though Burt was pretty sure none of that was actually French, it might as well have been, for as much as he understood.
Kurt saw his confusion. “To put it crudely, Finn’s busy with Rachel probably giving up her V-card.”
“Oh.” Burt focused on the eggs, throwing a little more cheese in. “You looked pretty happy when you walked in.”
“Well, yes, but, uh, the virginity ship sailed a long time ago for me. It’s probably circling Tahiti by now.”
On the one hand, it was good that Kurt had grown more comfortable talking with Burt about this sort of thing. On the other hand, it wasn’t so great for Burt, because he’d only improved at faking composure.
“I guessed that, but I was actually trying to change the subject,” Burt said.
Kurt blushed, but not nearly as much as he would have a year ago. “Sorry. Yes, I had a wonderful time.” He expertly flipped a pancake onto the small stack. “It was everything that last year wasn’t.”
“Good to see Blaine again?”
Kurt’s smile was sweet and full of love. “Very. We had a very good, very long talk.”
Burt winced. Screw what he’d thought before. He’d rather be feeding an army of pissy, wet, lovelorn teenagers than be trying to convince Kurt not to throw away everything for a boy, especially because he was pretty sure he was going to fail. He picked up both his pan and Kurt’s and put them in the sink. Kurt followed his lead, putting the bowl of eggs and plate of pancakes on the island before setting plates and silverware out for them and sitting down.
Burt sat across from him, but before he could speak, Kurt blurted, “Blaine hates California.”
Burt leaned back on his stool. He put his hand up to tip back his hat like he usually did when he was surprised, realizing he wasn’t actually wearing a hat too late.
Kurt rambled on, looking way too happy about his friend being unhappy. “I knew he was having a rough time at UCLA from our phone calls and Skype chats and everything, but tonight, we talked about all these things that were going on in his life last year that he hadn’t told me before. How his parents were pressuring him to pick an Ivy League school, and were still playing their old game of using money and tuition to mess with his head, and how California but not Stanford was kind of the best way he could think of to flip them the bird but still get a good education-so many things. It explained so much.”
“And now he hates it there?” Burt asked cautiously.
Kurt nodded. “He was miserable all year. So miserable, he’s transferring.”
Burt knew he should be happy that his fears about Kurt giving up NYU weren’t panning out, but this turn of events still wasn’t sitting very well with him. “Let me guess, to NYU?”
Kurt’s smile didn’t falter. “No, UConn. His brother Miles just got hired as a lecturer there, so Blaine’s going to live with him and his family. He says it’s so he can afford his loans without having to take money from his parents anymore, but I think he misses his family. Things are probably never going to be normal or healthy with his parents, but he and his brothers had been really close.” Kurt chuckled to himself. “Brittany did say Blaine wanted to be with his brother. How is it that she’s right so often, even when she’s absolutely bizarre?”
Burt chewed on a bite of pancake. “How far is UConn from NYU?”
“One hundred forty-three miles, drive time three hours to three hours and forty minutes, depending on traffic,” Kurt said without missing a beat. Burt felt like he needed to say something about priorities, but before he could come up with a subtler way of saying it than ‘college before boys,’ Kurt added, “It’s a manageable distance for weekend visits every now and then.”
“‘Every now and then’?” Burt’s brow furrowed. “Aren’t you two-”
“What, dating again?” Kurt finished. “No. At least, not yet. I don’t know if we will again or not.” Burt did wonder if maybe Kurt’s acting skills had improved with all the community theatre gigs, but based on his expression, Burt believed him. “I think we both need time to settle into new schools-new lives, really-before deciding if we truly want to go there again.”
While Kurt was focused on mopping the last bit of maple syrup off his plate with what was left of his pancake, Burt took a good, long look at his son. He’d grown up a lot over the past year: not in any way as noticeable as the huge growth spurt between freshman and sophomore years, but his features were a little sharper and more mature in a way Burt couldn’t quite describe. It was more than that, though. He still loved nothing more than getting double- and triple-takes for wearing sweaters that looked to Burt more like a cross between an afghan and a toga, but Kurt seemed comfortable in his own skin in a different way now. Like he didn’t need to use the clothes or the snobbery or any of those things as armor anymore, because he was both tough and happy enough underneath it all to take it.
“Do I have something on my face?” Kurt asked, wiping at the corners of his mouth. Burt snapped out of his reverie and shook his head. “What this all boils down to is, Blaine isn’t changing schools for me. I’m glad-I’d feel guilty if he did.” Kurt smiled and bit his lip, like he had a wonderful secret. “But there was no wedding.”
“What-?” Burt stopped himself from saying, “What was he doing out here, then?” when he saw the light in Kurt’s eyes.
“He’s not changing his life for me, but he did drive two thousand miles just to take me to prom.”
Burt returned his son’s smile. He was happy for Kurt, to have someone love him like that. That was love, no matter what they labeled it. Still, that kind of intensity scared Burt a little, too. It was a lot for a nineteen-year-old to handle. As they sat together in the kitchen, finishing off their breakfasts as the red, hazy light of early dawn crept over the horizon, Burt couldn’t help but think how unfair it was that so much of parenting came down to hoping you’d done your job earlier in your kid’s life, because it was too late to do much now.
“Thanks, Dad,” Kurt said, breaking the silence.
Burt shrugged. “Like I said, I was hungry.”
“I wasn’t really talking about breakfast.” Kurt looked at him steadily. “I know it’s been a crazy year, but thank you.”
To be perfectly honest, Burt still wasn’t quite sure what Kurt was thanking him for. It was nice to know he’d done something right, though.
“Any time, kiddo,” Burt said.
~~**~~**~~
Burt and Carole didn’t travel much. When you lived in the same town all your life, family that had gone out into the wide world tended to come back to visit you rather than the other way around. In fact, Burt had only used his suitcase twice in the past five years: when he and Carole finally took their delayed Hawaiian honeymoon, and when he flew out to New York City with Kurt to help him move into his dorm freshman year. It should have been no surprise, then, that there was such a thick layer of dust on their luggage that it set Burt to coughing when he pulled them out of the downstairs storage closet. In fact, he was still coughing when he answered his cellphone.
“Dad! Are you okay? Oh god, hang on, I’m putting you on hold and calling an ambulance-”
“Whoa, whoa, Kurt, I’m fine. Just inhaled a dust bunny is all.”
“Oh, okay. Don’t scare me like that.” He heard Kurt take a few deep, shaky breaths on the other end of the line. “I just wanted to double-check everything with you before you and Carole and Finn head to the airport tomorrow.”
More like quadruple-check, Burt thought to himself, but he bit his tongue. He also thought it was best to avoid mentioning they weren’t packed yet. “The plane tickets are already in Carole’s purse, and we’re picking up Finn on the way to the airport. I think we’re good.”
Kurt huffed. “Getting to New York may be that simple, but visiting here isn’t. First, promise me you’ll either take a cab or a shuttle to Greenwich Village, even if it’s expensive. I don’t think I need to remind you of how things went the last time you tried to navigate a subway system.”
Burt winced. “Fair enough.”
“And if you take a shuttle that doesn’t drop you off right outside your hotel, you’ll call me, and Blaine or I will find you and walk you there.”
“That’s a little much-”
“It took you three hours to get us from Grand Central Station to my dorm, Dad. Two miles, three hours.”
“Fine.” Burt picked up one of the suitcases and headed upstairs to the bedroom. He might as well multi-task and pack while he talked.
“That should put you at your hotel around five, which gives you a little time to get settled in before we all go out to Lombardi’s-excellent pizza, you’ll love it. Then you and Carole head back to your hotel, and Finn can crash on the floor at our place-”
Burt cut in, “If your place is as small as you say it is, Finn can crash on the floor of our hotel room just as easily.”
“Yes, but it’d cost a hundred bucks a night for him to crash in your room. He can do it for free at our place.”
“I’m not afraid to spend a little money on this trip, son. It’s supposed to be a celebration.”
“Remember you said that when you see the restaurant tabs,” Kurt muttered. “Okay, the next day, we get up early and head to Baccalaureate. I could only get two guest tickets for that ceremony, and I know Finn won’t mind, but-do you think Carole would be offended if I invited you and Blaine?”
He supposed that shouldn’t have surprised him, Kurt wanting to invite the guy he was living with over his stepmom, but it did a little bit. What took Burt aback even more was when Kurt said, “Besides, I think it would be nice if you two spent some time together. Wouldn’t it?”
Burt didn’t know how to answer that last part, so he avoided it altogether. “Uh, I think Carole would be fine with that, but I can feel it out for you, if you want.”
“Thanks. After Baccalaureate, we meet back up again for late lunch. I promised Carole I’d take her shopping, and Blaine said one of his friends from law school has season tickets to…one of the baseball teams, I don’t remember which, so you and Finn can do that, and then we’ll all grab something quick to eat because we’ll have to get up early to get to the stadium for Commencement, and after that-”
“Wow, do you have any time for just being happy and together scheduled in there?” Burt laughed, though he was serious.
“I have reservations at a very nice and somewhat expensive restaurant for after Commencement,” Kurt answered equally seriously.
“I mean you don’t have to schedule every minute. This is supposed to be fun for you, not work.”
“But I like playing cruise director.”
Burt shook his head and sighed. “Promise me you won’t get so caught up in making things perfect that you forget to have fun, too. It’s your day. First in the family to get a four-year college degree-that’s something worth celebrating.”
“I’m only first because Finn has to take those extra summer school classes,” Kurt said, though Burt could tell he was proud and pleased at the recognition.
“How’d finals go, anyway?”
“Don’t worry, I’ll graduate,” Kurt laughed. “Advanced Spanish Conversation and Business French were a breeze, Natural Science will be ugly, but I’ll pass, and I just took Film Production for the fun of it. Honestly, the hardest thing about finals was the fact that Blaine’s exam period overlapped with mine. I understand that law school exams are harder than undergrad and that Cardozo is a competitive place, but finals turn him into an incredibly neurotic zombie for two weeks.”
“How is Blaine?” Burt asked. It still felt weird, asking after Blaine like a…partner, Burt supposed was the word. Maybe. Even though he and Kurt had only been living together in New York for a year, Blaine had been in Kurt’s orbit so long that he was feeling more and more like a permanent fixture.
“Better,” Kurt answered. “After his last exam, he slept for two days straight. I finally kicked him out of the apartment today. He’s out running now.” He heard Kurt snap his fingers in the background. “Oh! I have news! With all the planning, I almost forgot. I got accepted into the French-to-English Simultaneous Interpretation program. I still haven’t decided whether I want to go for the Master in Translation or just do a certificate program, but the summer interpretation program is good training to have either way.”
“Wow, a Masters degree. Wow.” Burt tugged the brim of his hat back, and it took him a while to form words. He’d listened to Kurt throw around a lot of post-graduation ideas over the past few months, but this was the first time he’d put it in terms that meant something concrete to Burt. “You know I couldn’t be prouder of you, but I really wish your mom were here for this. She only did a two-year degree, but she would’ve understood all these certificates and majors and minors and…and prerequisites or whatever. She would be so proud.”
“Thanks, Dad.” Kurt was uncharacteristically quiet for a long time. He broke the silence with a long, thoughtful sigh. “I was going to wait to ask you this in person, but since Blaine’s out…. How did you propose to Mom?”
The bottom dropped out of Burt’s stomach, and he couldn’t stop himself in time from saying, “Kurt, are you sure you’re really…”
It was clear from the prickliness of Kurt’s response that Burt hadn’t managed to hide any of his shock. “It’s ridiculous and downright offensive for you to project your heteronormative notions of propriety onto my relationships!”
Burt could feel a headache coming on already. He gave up all attempts at packing and sat down on the bed beside the open suitcase. “Hold up a sec. If we’re gonna argue, you need to argue with littler words, or I don’t stand a chance.”
“I’m not the girl. Neither of us is the girl,” Kurt ground out.
“That’s not what I meant at all,” Burt explained as fast as he could. “I was trying to say, are you sure you’re really ready? You’re twenty-three.”
The defensiveness left Kurt’s voice. “That’s right. I’m twenty-three, Dad.” It was amazing, how the same number could sound so young when Burt said it, and so old when Kurt did. “I’m not planning on proposing tomorrow, or this summer, or any particular time at all. I just want to have my idea for what I want to do so when the time is right, I’m ready.”
“But you are pretty sure it’s going to be to him, aren’t you?”
Kurt sighed. “I spent a year studying in Paris. The semester that Blaine spent studying abroad there, too, was the happiest five months of my life. The semester he went back to UConn was awful. I’ve wanted to live in Paris since I learned what avant garde meant. If I couldn’t be happy in Paris without him…”
That pretty much said it all. Burt relented. “You’re not going to think much of it, ‘cause I’ve never been any good at flashy stuff or flowery words.” Burt closed his eyes. “We played Hangman.”
“You-what?”
“Yep. Hangman. I’d bought the ring a couple days before, but I hadn’t summed up the courage to actually ask her yet. I invited her over to my place for dinner. I was going to really impress her by cooking myself, and then we were going to watch the Olympics on TV. I had some godawful pun about Olympic rings and engagement rings all worked out.
“When your mom came over, the TV went on the fritz, and I was so busy trying to fix it that in the meantime, the food burned.” Kurt giggled at that, and Burt couldn’t help but smile himself. “I felt like such a moron, not to mention I was broke after spending all that money on a ring, so I couldn’t afford to fix the evening by taking her out someplace nice. But your mom was so cool about everything. We ended up ordering pizza and sitting together on the couch playing Hangman since there was nothing else to do. I decided I had to ask her that night, but I didn’t trust my mouth to work right. So, I wrote out the blanks for ‘will you marry me.’ She figured it out and said ‘yes’ before the hanged man even had legs.”
“Simple, but unique. I don’t think I want to break our TV, but…I like that idea a lot,” Kurt said warmly.
“It’s not your style, though. No pizazz.”
Kurt answered, “A proposal isn’t a production the way a wedding is-and trust me, mine will be a production. A proposal should be a conversation between two people. It doesn’t need all the bells and tulle and glitter-shitting doves to go with it.”
“That makes a lot of sense,” Burt said. At Kurt’s laugh, he asked, “What?”
“It’s just funny that, of all things, this would be the one we’d be on the same page.”
“Hey, I think we do pretty good,” Burt said. Kurt made a noise that sounded like grudging agreement. “No, really. We may totally talk past each other when it comes to music and sports and all that stuff you learned in school, but when it comes to family, we have a pretty solid track record, don’t we?”
“And this is about family?” Kurt said, his voice all the sudden wavering and emotional.
Burt wasn’t bothered at all by that question. Though the words alone may have sounded like maybe they hadn’t been on the same page when it came to family after all, Burt understood about wanting that extra little bit of out-loud reassurance, especially with something as important as what Kurt was planning to do. “Well, yeah, definitely. I’ll be honest, it’s happening a little earlier than I’d hoped, but proposals, getting…married or partnered or whatever you want me to call it. That’s starting your own family, and adding to ours.”
Kurt sniffed a few times before he spoke again, and there was still a tremor in his voice. “I have to go. Blaine’s going to be home soon, and he’s going to wonder what’s up if he sees me like-uh, yeah. I love you, Dad.”
“Love you, too, kiddo. And I’m happy for you. See you tomorrow.”
There were still very few things in life of which Burt Hummel was certain. He knew American-made automobiles inside and out. He loved his family fiercely. Those two things, he had known since he was Kurt’s age, maybe even younger. Not much else in his life had turned out the way he’d envisioned it would at twenty-three. His family looked a whole lot different than he’d imagined, but they had worked to make it good-better than good, better than Burt had had any right to hope for.
If he could have the gift of eloquence for just one conversation, he’d use it to tell Kurt about how his life wasn’t going to turn out the way he envisioned, no matter how much planning he did. With a little humor and flexibility, and a lot of work and faith, it would be a very good life, though. But Burt didn’t have much of a way with words, especially when he was trying to say something important, so he’d just have to hope that the life he’d lived was proof enough.
~~**~~**~~
Additional Author’s Note, References:
Judy Garland and Margaret O’Brien perform Under the Bamboo Tree
Audra McDonald and Patti LuPone perform Get Happy-Happy Days
Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand perform Get Happy-Happy Days
Why Burt wanted to pull the shotgun on Cabaret’s costume designer (with bonus John Stamos, i.e. Dr. Carl!): Wilkommen