you might need me (1a/2); glee
Title: You Might Need Me (1a/2)
Pairing: Kurt/Sam, most canon S2 pairings.
Rating: PG-13.
Word count: 23,000+ for part one.
Summary: Junior year doesn't go the way Kurt expects. S2 rewrite.
You Might Need Me
Junior year is a clean slate for Kurt.
“What, just for you?” Mercedes asks, looking down at him from his bed while he sits on the floor, surrounded by every pair of pants he owns - including purple tartan skinny jeans he holds up hopefully for her inspection that she makes a face at, saying, “Definitely the ‘no’ pile, since the ‘burn’ pile doesn’t exist.”
He hits her with the leg of them before sighing and concedingly setting them away, because they have been known to cause controversy. “Out of the two of us, I think the one who made it obvious they would bear the social stigma of incest for Finn Hudson needs a clean slate the most,” he mumbles distractedly.
They’ve gone through most of his clothes, which is a feat, but still nothing. Nothing that clearly states, ‘This year is going to be different,’ or even just, ‘I lost ten pounds and another gained three inches.’ It’s the night before school and Kurt has nothing.
“It wasn’t full incest,” Mercedes offers. She pats his shoulder, consolingly, then shrugs. “We didn’t think it was so weird in Clueless.”
Kurt sighs again, finally standing up from his clothes-carpeted floor and stretching. “I just want it to be different. The very opposite, actually.” Mercedes nods, looking down consideringly at another shirt that he tugs out of her hands then makes a face at. “We aren’t getting anywhere with this. It’s fine, I’ll figure something out. You should go home and worry about your own outfit for tomorrow.”
She rolls her eyes. “Please. Like I have to.” Sidestepping the mess of skinny jeans, she stands in front of him with her hard, everything-will-be-okay smile and then hugs him tightly, saying, "Night, babe,” before she leaves.
He sighs and starts all over again.
-
In the end, it doesn’t actually matter what he wears his first day back, because nothing has actually changed and it all gets stained with grape slushie when Azimio passes him yelling at Jacob Ben Israel outside the bathrooms with a one in hand.
And even if he hoped this year would be easier for him from start to finish, he still put an extra set of clothes in his locker just in case, because he knew better. He dresses quickly and heads to history, almost late, quickly taking the last empty seat at the back and hoping the teacher doesn’t notice him slipping in.
He touches his hair, making sure it’s still immaculate before turning to the person beside him to ask if he’s missed anything important.
It’s a boy he’s never seen before in a letterman that isn’t for Mckinley, with a face that really looks out of place in Lima and makes any words in Kurt’s throat die away. His bleached-yellow hair makes Kurt blink, and the boy blinks back, and then Mrs Hagberg is hollering out his name for attendance and Kurt jerks, head sharply turning to face the front, feeling like he’s been caught doing something inexcusable.
“Present,” he answers, and then he says nothing for the rest of the class and makes sure not to turn around again.
He just kind of glances periodically. Just a little bit.
It’s a dangerous thing - he looks like a regular jock, and his T-shirt tellingly stretches out across his chest and arms, and he’d probably try to beat the shit out of Kurt if he knew why he was looking at him at all. But he also has a hair colour that hasn’t been used by straight guys since ‘N Sync broke up that gives Kurt’s brain a flurry of stupid, wishful ideas.
When he catches Kurt in the act, he just blinks again, curiously, and then smiles at him.
-
Everyone seems to think the first few weeks are uneventful by New Directions standards. The bullying is worse this year, and Kurt has new bruises to prove it, but nobody mentions that.
He doesn’t tell his dad - he closes up again again instead, and Finn tells him over and over, “Your dad’s gonna hulk out at you soon, Kurt, you’re freaking him out,” and he knows it’s true but he can’t stop it. He hates his dad worrying, but more than that he hates that he has to worry constantly no matter where Kurt is or who he’s with just because of who he is.
All his frustration from being pushed around goes into the one part of his life that’s going well, and when his dad blows up at him in the garage for it he acts pissed and storms out and tells Mercedes he doesn’t get the big deal with family dinner even though he feels guilty all day for everything he said, because he and his dad are still fragile, and sometimes it still feels like he’s all Kurt has.
In third period Mr Schuester pulls him out of class and drives him to the hospital.
-
Now everyone starts making a fuss.
Kurt gets meatloafs from neighbours he’s never spoke to. Relatives call that he’s never met. Carole works, but Finn sleeps with him in the living room every night and cries with him when he needs it.
It feels like it drags on forever, going back and forth from school, the house, the hospital. As always his friends get over-involved, and it makes it more miserable that while everyone’s making grand declarations about how much they care, nobody will listen to him at all.
He sits in class and stares down at the green lines of his blank page for another minute longer and pictures one across a heart-monitor without being able to stop himself. Rubbing his eyes, he forces himself to stay calm, not to burst into tears in class. But he can’t do work, even if Mrs Hagberg’s class only consists silent reading. He can’t even pretend.
He stares at the clock on the wall and it drags and drags on - and then a sheet of paper slides in front of him with nothing on it but a big, pencil-drawn smiley face that takes up the whole page.
When he turns to his side, the blond boy next to him is giving him a small smile. Kurt stopped looking at him at all after he came to class in the Mckinley letterman - which Kurt’s been taught to never be too friendly with - but he never stopped smiling at Kurt every day.
He mouths, “Are you okay?”
Kurt does his best to smile back and shakes his head, then he tries not to look at him for the rest of class because it makes him feel worse.
-
Even when his dad gets better, people keep treating him more differently. Puck is the biggest shock; he sits next to Kurt in glee and in their few classes together and gives anyone in a letterman dirty, warning looks.
That is, until he gets sent to juvie and the boy who sits with him in history finally gets a name at glee practice this week when he comes in with Finn’s arm thrown around him, looking just as nineties-boyband-chic as ever. Him joining glee club is the last hint Kurt needs.
Sam is totally gay.
Or at least that’s what Kurt’s 98% sure on, until Finn gives him the ‘your gay scares people’ talk, and he does away with it and lets Sam sing with Quinn, like he wants. It’s what everybody wants for him, and out of all of them, Sam was the least concerned by Kurt being the alternative, because he’s a nice guy, and he keeps Kurt a seat in history class so he never needs to move further back and he doesn’t care that much when Kurt gives him an apologetic talk during his very naked shower.
Kurt gets to sing with Rachel instead which is surprisingly - nice, considering. She makes him run late afterwards by giving him a detailed list of their failings and successes as duet partners (“Mostly successes, though!” is how she finished her semi-offensive spiel).
On his way out he stops at his locker, trying to find a way to cram another three books into his already full satchel when someone walks out of the locker room and yanks it off of his shoulder altogether, holding it upside-down so everything spills out in a hard, knocking rush to the floor.
Kurt watches, numbly.
Karofsky throws his bag down next to the mess afterwards. He tips his head up, giving Kurt a mean smile as he backs away down the hallway. “Watch where you’re going.”
He walks off, shoes squeaking across the linoleum until he’s out the door, and Kurt stands completely still until he’s gone, then presses back against the lockers with his eyes shut and accepts that it’s a bad day all around - it’s a bad day, and his Gucci bag has been thrown onto the sticky, gross school floor and even Rachel felt bad about how socially pathetic he was. It doesn’t really get worse than today does.
Sighing, he reluctantly gets down on his knees and starts sorting his things away again, trying not to get angry or upset because it’s never any use on days like this. His eyes water anyway, and it’s been such a shitty month back already that he doesn’t even want to think about -
“Kurt?”
Oh, no.
He turns to see Sam hurrying over, eyebrows knitted in concern. He immediately drops down beside Kurt starts picking up his scattered things, straightening them, handing them over. Kurt doesn’t look at him when he takes his books and pens from Sam’s hands, feeling oddly ashamed for being found this way, for being bullied, even: it never stops feeling humiliating.
“It was Karofsky, wasn’t it?” Sam says, not really asking. He sounds sort of pissed off. He leans down and collects Kurt’s last few highlighters, and the small shield brooch Kurt keeps on his bag strap. His mouth twitches at it a little before he hands it over, then stands up and reaches for Kurt, helping him back onto his feet again, too.
Kurt tries to appear unfazed, holding the books that won’t squeeze into his bag tightly to his chest and tilting his head up, making sure to look Sam straight in the eyes even if he feels almost too embarrassed for it. “Thank you.”
Shaking his head, Sam huffs out a small sigh. “I’m really sorry this shit happens to you,” he says, lowly. He reaches his hand out to squeeze Kurt’s shoulder and Kurt instinctively has to look up into his face, at the small, genuine smile Sam is giving him.
His smile spreads wider, and hardens. “You’re really cool, Kurt.”
It takes Kurt a little aback to hear it from almost a complete stranger. His mouth twitches reflexively at hearing it, and he wants to tell Sam how sweet he is, or how good, or how nice a guy he seems, but he bites it all down because now he knows what everything he could say to Sam would sound to everyone else.
He just smiles, tentatively, still a little shocked and momentarily in love. “Thanks again.” He pulls his bag tighter around himself and then adds, hesitatingly, “I kind of... needed to hear something like that right now. So thanks for that, too.”
Sam grins at him lopsidedly, shrugs with both hands stuffed into his pockets and walks with him to the parking lot. The moment stretches on and on.
-
Glee club is better the next week, because Kurt loves Rocky Horror Picture Show and never thought that even Mr Schuester would let them fall to its level of inappropriateness, which is both fun and uncomfortable at the same time, which is the new theme of New Directions, really. Not that he’s complaining; although he would have appreciated getting in on some of the Britney action he fought for. This kind of makes up for it.
“You know that thing for glee club,” Sam whispers to him in history, during a long, droning Hagberg explanation on trench warfare. His face screws up in thought. “The Last Picture Show?”
Kurt side-eyes him a little then looks forward and pretends to be paying attention again. “You mean Rocky Horror?” he asks, glancing briefly down at Sam’s page where he finds a small but impressive doodle of a tank making a thumbs-up. His mouth twitches.
“Yeah, that. What, uh - what is that?”
The sort of movie Kurt really doesn’t know how to begin explaining. “Extremely long and complicated,” he answers, voice hushed. He hasn’t heard any of this lesson, which makes him panic slightly but more than that, feel strangely thrilled. “It’d be easier just to watch it - I should have it somewhere.”
Sam turns to him, and Kurt sees him blinking in the corner of his eye. “So, is it cool if I stop by to watch it or something? ‘Cause all the balding blond wigs and leather corsets in the choir room are really confusing me.”
Kurt stops himself before he can turn to Sam in surprise and makes his eyes look less noticeably wide. He just says, easily, “Sure,” and can’t help the giddy feeling in his stomach spreading when Sam answers with a big, crooked smile in thanks.
-
The reason Kurt chooses a night his dad’s out for Sam to come over and doesn’t tell any of his friends about it is really all down to the way he knows they’d react to it. They’d tell him to back off again, like it’s fundamentally wrong for Kurt to be friends with attractive straight guys - or even dangerous.
Even though he can’t help the awkward endearment he feels whenever Sam grins at him or painstakingly copies from his neat notes in class when it goes too fast for him, Sam is the kind of person Kurt wants to be friends with. Good-hearted, like Mercedes and Tina (and sometimes, admittedly, Rachel) - only with a penis. He wishes he could say he doesn’t get the big deal, but everyone’s made it so clear to him that it is one, and it makes him kind of anxious on Friday after school when he’s sitting around his house, waiting for Sam to knock on his door.
Don’t be stupid, he tells himself, but he feels uneasy anyway and can’t escape the image of Finn’s disapproving look no matter how hard he tries to distract himself with refluffing couch pillows and triple-checking the kitchen for more of his dad’s hidden candy-bars.
A knock sounds almost right on time, and then Sam Evans is standing in his doorway with his hands thrust into the pockets of his hoodie and his lopsided smile directed up at Kurt.
“Hey,” Sam greets, slipping one hand from his pocket to give an awkward little wave.
Kurt smiles back, as casually as he can. “Hey, Sam.” He opens the door wider to let him inside and Sam pauses first to wipe his shoes off on the mat before stepping in, almost nervously.
He digs into one of his pockets. “I bought candy and everything, I swear, I just couldn’t not give it to my brother and sister when they asked, so...”
With a triumphant smile he pulls out a small bag of M&M’S, shaking it slightly so the insides rattle. “Thank God for peanut allergies. If you have a really tiny bowl or something we could share all like... ten of these M&M’S.”
Kurt laughs and leads him towards the kitchen, feeling himself relax - because Sam’s just a nice guy. Sam doesn’t care. “I do,” he replies, helpfully pulling a small enough bowl out of one of the bottom cupboards. He opens another one filled with healthy replacement snacks for his dad and sweeps his hand over it. “And look - there’s even bigger, serves-two-people food in here.”
Sam whistles, impressed. “Healthy, too.”
Not wanting to explain why there are bags of baby carrots where chocolate bars are in any other house, Kurt grabs the least bland looking snacks he sees and takes Sam down the staircase to the basement, hoping kind of desperately that he doesn’t notice the embarrassingly cliche family photos on the wall (which he’s still aware that he’s placed beautifully).
But he knows Sam sees when they get down to his room and he says, looking surprised, “Your dad looks kind of scary.”
Kurt smiles. Having Sam down in his room makes him nervous and weirdly, slightly worried again, but he ignores the feeling. “He kind of is.” He fidgets with the sleeve of his shirt for an moment, feeling awkward in the middle of his room with a practical stranger.
He gestures vaguely, says, “You should -”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees, nodding, and after a moment of hesitation he sets himself down on the fluffy rug in front of the television on Kurt’s dresser. “Wow,” he says, running his long hands across it. He looks up at Kurt. “This is crazy soft.”
It takes a minute or two to set everything up, including trouble over finding the right channel and plugging the right things into the TV that Sam unsuccessfully tries to help with, and then the movies on, and it’s quiet, and Kurt sits a little far away from him up on the bed, barely taking the movie in because the situation is so foreign - not like staying up late with Finn or movie marathons at Artie’s.
But Sam just passes the tiny bowl of M&M’s to him with a smile and whispers, “Tim Curry is awesome,” and then turns back to the television like it’s all completely okay.
-
On Monday afternoon, Sam drops next to Kurt at the New Directions lunch-table - which is pretty far from his usual seat with the football team.
“I have something to show you,” he tells Kurt, who continues to stare at him along with Artie, the only other person there. He’s grinning. “You should tell me if it’s a complete failure or something.”
He clears his throat and pauses. Then: “Give yourself over to absolute pleasure.”
Kurt stares. Artie stares.
Sam grins and looks back at him, waiting for his judgement.
“Frank-N-Furter,” Kurt realises aloud, eyes still too wide. He replays it in his head while trying to will his face not to burn anymore, then turns to Sam, knowing he must look a little surprised. “That was - actually pretty great.”
“Thanks.” Sam looks down at the sandwich in his hands when he talks - a cucumber sandwich, which Kurt blinks at mostly because he never knew it was a thing. “I like doing impressions and stuff. I can’t really do anything like that for my character in it, except, y’know...” He picks a tiny cube of cucumber off of his lunch. “Be shirtless.”
Kurt’s face becomes even warmer. He gets brain-freeze after a too long drink of slushie that he takes only to avoid looking at either of the other boys at the table. Artie keeps nudging at his side though, and Kurt knows if he turns around he’ll get that look Artie gives him every time a vaguely attractive guy passes them by - the one that just makes Kurt feel a little confused about Artie himself.
He straightens, giving Sam a quick smile and then accidentally thinking of Sam, half-hidden by the a shower stall but not so much that Kurt doesn’t see enough rippling pectoral and rock-hard ab to know Sam’s kind of annoyingly appealing shirtless. “You don’t have anything to worry about, anyway,” he says, mostly to himself.
He isn’t sure if Sam hears, but then he shoots he and Artie a grin and, after wiping his mouth on his hand, tells them, “You guys’ll be great, too.”
Even though Kurt already knows that and Sam’s just saying it to be friendly, it’s still nice to hear, and he picks at his lunch with a smile until Artie practically jams his elbow into his side just to point from him to Sam and give him a thumbs up.
-
Things are almost going well for a change, until the Karofsky situation escalates more than ever before. It’s near constant now, and the only time he isn’t worried about it is around Finn or Puck or Mike, or sometimes Sam on their way out of class. Even then, Karofsky gives him this look that follows him around all day, heavy and scary in the back of his mind, and he talks to Mr Schue about it, even Miss Pillsbury, but comes away with nothing as always, discounting some more misunderstandings and useless pamphlets.
He doesn’t tell his dad. For a few brief days he does consider it, but then he finds a strangely expensive shopping bag in his dad’s room with an engagement ring inside, and he decides against it, because his dad has too much on his plate as it is going back to work right now as well, and Kurt will not be what pushes him off the edge again.
Part of him wishes that someone else would notice without him having to spell it out. The skin of his back is starting to bruise badly: the colour of it makes him feel sick and angry and hopeless, so he layers himself up and tries to move past it.
“Hit back,” Puck hisses at him one day. “We could both take him. Or I could real-hit him and you could West Side Story hit him.”
They’ve just passed Karofsky in the corridor, and while Kurt responded to his glare by trying to look away from him, Puck responded by glaring back and asking with a deeper voice than he has, “Problem?” Kurt had to yank him forward by the strap of his bag and then listen to all his bitching about it.
Puck pulls him off to the side, beside the lockers and away from the crowd of people getting to their next class. “Look, you think the school is going to do anything about this? You think one day he’ll wake up and decide not to be an asshole?” He jolts Kurt by the arm, staring down at him hard with his jaw tensed. “Wake the fuck up, Kurt.”
Yanking his arm out of Puck’s grip, Kurt gives him a dirty look. “What do you want me to do about it? I’m not getting into trouble for trying to fight someone that equals three of me when I know it won’t solve anything. It would just make him worse.” Puck still looks too mad, holding his bag strap with white-knuckled hands and staring down at him darkly. Kurt shakes his head. “And you’re not getting into this, because you just got out of juvie, Puck, so leave it.”
He starts walking again, quicker this time, and here’s Puck angrily yelling after him, “So you’re gonna do nothing?”
-
School after that is a new kind of horrible, where Puck’s back to treating him like shit and everyone else still acts like he isn’t being thrown around the corridors like a ragdoll. When he offers to go to Dalton, it isn’t all for New Directions - it’s for him.
He meets Blaine, and forgets to take notes on the Warblers (except he’s aware that they’re good) or actually be a spy, and then after finally discussing being bullied with someone, Blaine drives him out to get coffee.
He looks at Kurt across the table with his warm smile and says, quietly, “I know what it’s like. There’s so much hate in towns like this.” He squeezes his coffee in his hand. “Don’t let it get to you, Kurt.”
“I normally don’t,” he replies, and he’s glad to know how honest that really is. He holds his full styrofoam cup with both hands and no intention of drinking it. The idea alone makes him feel sick - talking about this is so strange it’s sickly. “But this guy just won’t stop, and I don’t know how to make him.”
Blaine told him earlier, confront him. But that’s too risky, he thinks, and in comparison to what that might lead Karofsky to do the purple skin on his back seems like nothing at all.
It’s what Blaine thinks would solve it though. He smiles, reassuringly, then gives Kurt a hard look over his drink that he knows is asking him to think it over.
-
He does.
-
The kiss is by far the scariest thing to happen yet. He feels even more lost afterwards, has even less of an idea what to do. Telling his dad or Finn or Mercedes would end terribly - and maybe in everyone else knowing, too, and even with the things Karofsky’s done he doesn’t want to out him to the entire school.
“It’s a real mess,” Blaine tells him over the phone. He’s an outsider - telling him is fine, Kurt assures himself, mostly because he has to have someone to talk to. He even offers to come talk to Karofsky, but so far Karofsky hasn’t so much as looked Kurt in the eye again, so he says it’s best to drop it for a while, and before hanging up Blaine reminds him, lowly, “If things get worse, there’s always Dalton.”
It’s way out of his family’s price-range, but Kurt still has some pamphlets and brochures stashed in his bag that he glances at sometimes. He can’t imagine himself there, in uniform, without any of his friends or any bullying. If he had the option, he wouldn’t know what to choose anymore.
“What’s that?” Sam asks, peeking over his shoulder.
Kurt jumps, spreading his hands to cover the big, bold Dalton Boys’ Academy on what he’s reading and reaching for his bag to hide it away again. “It’s nothing,” he assures him, waving the pamphlet dismissively, but Sam is just staring at him.
He already knows.
“Are you...” He lowers his voice, looking around at where Tina sits in the back to make sure she isn’t listening. When he looks at Kurt there’s more concern in his face than anything else. “Is it that bad?”
Reflexively, Kurt goes to say no, it isn’t, because he’s used to saying that - he’s too proud to act like he can’t handle boys he knows he’s better than, especially to people he doesn’t know so well. But Sam keeps looking at him with his worried eyes, and Kurt is tired of not talking about it to his friends.
“It’s just too much,” he explains, trying to keep his voice steady. He pulls his books out off his bag and sets them down, keeping his head high and his gaze off of Sam as he adds, softer, “I don’t know how to deal with it anymore. I never really have.”
“God,” Sam exhales. He shakes his head, staring into space. “You shouldn’t have to leave because of him.”
Kurt nods, blankly looking down at whatever random page he’s turned to. It feels almost certain that he’ll eventually have to go. Karofsky’s calm now, maybe, but that just worries him more because he knows it can’t last. He knows something much worse could happen if he sticks around too long.
“What if you had, like,” Sam squints his face up, biting his lip, “Protection?” He turns to Kurt, earnest. “I could look out for you. I want to look out for you, really. He can’t start anything with me since I’m on the team with him, Coach Beiste has a rule against it.”
He nudges Kurt’s leg with his knee, watching him inquisitively with his lips pressed together.
“I couldn’t ask you to do that, Sam,” Kurt tells him, shaking his head. “It’s not your problem.”
Suddenly the weight of Sam’s hand is on his shoulder, and the class is quiet except for the teacher’s voice.
Sam’s jaw is tense. “Guys like that are my problem,” he replies, voice hushed but aggressive. “You haven’t done anything wrong; you’re not leaving because of him, okay?”
He smiles, squeezing Kurt’s shoulder again, and when Kurt looks at him he finds himself unable to say the word no.
-
Having Sam take him everywhere would have been much more helpful when Kurt was getting harassed every day, he can’t help but think. Not that he’s complaining or anything.
Part of him thinks Sam is still trying to work out where he stands in Mckinley's social ladder - he doesn't quite fit in with the jocks, and he doesn't know the glee club too well yet, either. He just sort of drifts in between, with enough popularity backing him up that nobody starts anything with him but not enough to save him from a slushie facial whenever Azimio is feeling bored.
Like today.
“Aw, man,” Sam says once they’ve reached the bathroom’s safety. He wipes some more red ice out of his eyes and gives Kurt a squinted once-over. “He totally ruined your Matrix coat.”
Kurt shrugs, acting much less heartbroken about it than he feels. “I’ll find a way to save it.” He hands Sam a few dozen paper towels and gets to work on drying his newly public-sink washed hair, making a face of disgust in the mirror. “I should have spare clothes in my locker.” He frowns at Sam from the corner of his eye. “Have you got anything else to wear?”
Sam glances down at the red explosion on his blue shirt. “What’s wrong with this?”
Smiling, Kurt layers some more paper towels against Sam’s chest, all of which stick there, soaking up the slushie. “I might have something that fits you. Possibly. But the top priority right now is cleaning your hair because it’s like... a neon massacre up there.”
Sam’s eyebrows raise, amused. “I think you called it that once without the slushie in it.”
Flashing a smile, Kurt turns the warm tap on again (it’s still freezing, of course) and gives Sam an indicative push on the back. Sam obligingly leans forward and washes his hair out by pushing his fingers through clumps. Most of the red dye blends into the water, swirls down the drain, and the rest gives Sam’s hair a ginger tinge when he straightens again and rubs at it with a handful of damp paper towels.
“Good enough?” He grins. “Does it still look glow in the dark or whatever?”
“Adequate,” Kurt tells him after a considering pause. He opens the bathroom door, digging into the pocket of his ruined jacket for his locker key. “And yes - but I mean that in the nicest way.”
Sam laughs and steps out after him. “Of course.”
-
By the time Mr Schue gets sick, Kurt has a constant bodyguard by his side. Puck catches on to what Sam’s doing, and insists he go away so Puck can do the job right whenever he finds them in the corridors, which is both kind of funny and kind of annoying. Mercedes gets a lot more confrontational with the jocks, so much so that they move out of her way in the halls while Kurt hangs onto her arm and Rachel and Finn take him around sometimes, but fail to be threatening in any way.
The best protection is Santana.
She talks to him while giving everyone in a ten metre perimeter her best bitch face. “Have you seen the new sub?”
Miss Holiday took he and Sam for history yesterday, and Kurt loved her both for being infinitely more interesting than Mrs Hagberg and dressing infinitely better than any other faculty member in any school in Lima. And teaching through song, which Kurt thought was limited to Disney movies alone. “What about her?”
“Other than the TILF factor and the fact she could get it any which way, I was thinking about asking her to take over glee club while Mr Schuester heals from - whatever sickness a lifetime of being a loser gives you. I physically can’t take any more of Berry’s crap, if this keeps going my fist will just plant itself into her face. So.” She puts a firm hand at the small of his back, guiding him towards Miss Holiday’s classroom door.
She raps on it, then quickly disappears from his side.
Before he can yell her into returning, Miss Holiday peeks out at him with a smile and asks, “Can I help you?”
-
“Who’s that?”
Rachel openly stares at the screen of his phone, briefly glancing at him with curiosity. Then she brightens at the name of the sender flashing on the screen again, leaning closer to Kurt and saying in a quiet, enthused whisper, “It’s a boy!”
Kurt rolls his eyes, shifting away from her. “I’m aware. I’m also mildly terrified of that smile you’re giving me right now so if you could you make this,” he waves a hand across her face, “Not look - like that? I’d appreciate it.”
“You’re defensive,” Rachel notices, even more delighted. Kurt sighs.
Another few people trail into the choir room, none of them being Puck, who’s intent on finding some way to prank Miss Holiday, but one of them being Sam, who drops next to Rachel and receives more of her annoyingly excited grinning and crazy-eyes. After a moment of looking at her he inches further away on his seat and looks at Kurt above her head to ask, “Why’s she doing that?”
The answer is a weird, embarrassing squeak Rachel lets out.
“Kurt has a secret boy,” she informs the room helpfully, her voice completely calm; but there’s way too much sparkling going on in her eyes for Kurt’s liking.
Santana fistpumps the air, which quickly turns into just lewdly pumping it with her hand. “Get it, Hummel.”
Artie moves his arms at his side to imitate thrusting. Mercedes gives him a smile over his shoulder because she’s seen Blaine’s picture when he called once and immediately came to Rachel’s conclusion. Finn is frowning in confusion, staring off into space and looking like he’s trying to remember if he knows the boy he doesn’t know.
Sam stares at him.
“The Dalton kid?” he asks after a moment, blankly.
At this, Rachel’s mood turns. She whips her head around to stare intently into his face, apparently trying to work out whether he’s given any of New Directions zero competition plans away.
Kurt ignores her and nods, looking resolutely down at his phone. “Blaine.”
“Blaine,” Rachel repeats with a hand over her heart. She exchanges an emotional smile with Mercedes, her mind already changed again.
Beside her, Sam looks away from him. Kurt can see him picking at his nicest pair of jeans. “So, you guys are still -”
“This must be the New Directions!” Miss Holiday’s voice pipes up, and Kurt looks up to find her in the choir room doorway, ushering Puck - who has his head down and is carrying a weirdly big box of butter - to his seat.
She walks into the middle of the class, smiling. “Let’s start with some introductions. My name is Holly Holiday. What’s yours?” She turns to Puck, clicking her fingers at him. “Go.”
-
Miss Holiday is nothing like Mr Schuester, which means Kurt finishes Forget You feeling slightly guilty for willing him to stay sick for the rest of the month, at least.
Sam waits for him while he tugs his coat on and slips his bag over his shoulder, patiently as always.
“It’s just the parking lot, Sam,” Kurt tells him, trying to sound less fond and disgustingly smitten than he knows he does. It’s just the parking lot, but Kurt still doesn’t mind walking with Sam there and listening to an eventful retelling of something scary that happened to him during a few hours of Amnesia last night. He doesn’t mind the idea that Sam’s willing to give up time for him.
“Parking lots are dangerous,” Sam insists, mock-serious. “Lots of cars. Lots of bad teenage driving.”
Kurt’s mouth twitches and he leads Sam down the rows of chairs. “I take offense to that.”
They pass Miss Holiday on the way out, who’s sitting at the piano with her legs crossed and arms resting on the wood covering the keys while she watches them with her bright, odd smile.
“Boy, you two are adorable,” she states, simply, and Kurt stops dead in his tracks to stare at her.
Flustered, he starts trying to protest. “We’re not -”
“So,” she interrupts, either not hearing him or not caring, and stands up, watching them with her Santana-esque smile. “What duets are on your list? I’m going to assume that this hormonal highschool glee club has a thing about serenading, and that most of it comes from the girl who was mad she wasn’t singing today.”
“This isn’t -” Kurt tries again.
This time Sam’s the one to cut him off. “We were going to sing together once but, uh.” He glances at Kurt. “It didn’t pan out.”
She shakes her head, putting herself between them with her arms slung over both their shoulders. “Don’t let all the heteros take the spotlight, kids.” She walks them to the classroom door, making a thoughtful face.
“Hey, new assignment.” She lets them go and points at them, instead. “I want that duet, alright? And hey, it’s not a Catholic school - go as gay as you want. Wave that rainbow flag.”
“Uh,” Kurt says, but she just walks past them, waving over her shoulder and saying, “Sayonara!”
He turns to Sam, still almost gaping and knowing his cheeks are stupidly flushed.
But Sam’s as unfussed as ever. “A duet sounds like fun.” He flashes Kurt a smile.
There’s a moment of staring, then Kurt just says, agreeably, “It could be.”
-
Unfortunately, Sam’s house turns out to be the worst place to try and get anything done ever because his brother and sister apparently never leave his side while he’s in the house and beg him to play the Super Mario theme song as fast as he can whenever they see him with his guitar.
“We should have done this at your place,” Sam says almost apologetically after his siblings have successfully infiltrated his room and pawed at both of them for the last half hour.
Stacey has made herself at home on Kurt’s lap and told him a dozen times with her crooked Evans smile that he sounds like a princess when he sings - which he takes as a compliment since she so obviously intends it as one - and Stevie strumming the guitar in clunky notes while Sam holds in the chords. They haven’t really done anything of value glee-wise yet, but Kurt isn’t fussed anyway, especially since the number of platonic duets he and Sam would sound good on is tiny and basically just a catalogue of songs Sam has never heard.
Kurt shrugs, letting Stacey tug the hat off his head after she asks. “It’s fine. We don’t have to do a duet, so.”
From across the bed, Sam looks up from his guitar, blond bangs flopping across his forehead. “I think we should,” he insists.
“I think you should,” Stevie agrees, looking mostly unaware of what they’re talking about.
Sam pats his little brother’s head. “If we do, you guys’ll need to leave us alone for a bit.”
“Oh.” Stevie blinks at him, then looks back down at the guitar again, continuing his strumming. “I think you shouldn’t, then.”
It takes Sam’s dad coming in to convince the kids to leave, reluctantly, although Stacey stops on her way to the door to make them pinky-promise they’ll play her their song later, then it’s just he and Sam alone in his room while Sam retunes his guitar and Kurt fidgets with his phone in his pocket.
“I have a song idea,” Sam tells him without looking up. His tongue peeks out of his mouth in his concentration.
Kurt looks away. “Oh?”
Sam yanks his guitar strap over his head, setting it down on the bed and pulling open the drawer beside it. “I was looking up other musicals and stuff - there was nothing else like Rocky Horror, but that’s okay since I’m pretty sure if the show had ever happened Mr Schue would have been sent to jail, probably.” He pulls some slightly crumpled sheets of paper out, staring down at it intently. “I found this song I like,” he half-mumbles.
There’s a pause before Sam hands it over to him, and he finds himself looking down at the shamelessly sappy lyrics of Falling Slowly and almost chokes.
“Not that I’m not impressed that you chose Once or that I don’t love this song,” he starts, keeping his voice steady, “but isn’t this... a little too romantic?” He looks at Sam with a raised eyebrow, questioning.
Sam tilts his head as if he’s thinking about it. “Well, I sang that song with Quinn and I knew her way less than I know you now. I don’t think I even found a duet that wasn’t kind of romantic.” He turns to Kurt. “Is that too weird for you?”
No, but it should be too weird for him. Kurt glances at him briefly then just shrugs, shakes his head, says, “Of course not,” even though just thinking of singing any of this to Sam is making him inwardly freak out. He wonders what the club would think if they ever had to sing this in front of them. He wonders whose idea they’re assume it was. He knows he has accurate guesses for both.
Sam starts playing the first few notes, testing them out. Kurt has this infuriating thing about instruments and big hands that makes something in his stomach heat up every time Sam’s fingertip so much as brushes a string.
“I know it’s really cheesy,” Sam admits, still playing (and still driving Kurt kind of crazy). “I think we can own it.”
He flashes Kurt a quick smile, and opens his mouth to sing.
-
The next time they see Miss Holiday, she’s by Mr Schuester’s side in the choir room, and they’re planning some mash-up hurrah before she leaves again. She waves at Kurt when he takes his seat and mouths at him, Good weekend? while pointing her thumb at Sam and making a face Kurt never wanted a teacher to direct at him.
He’s pretty sure she’s taken the Mckinley method with her student’s problems, where they’re all kind of forgotten under her own - which in this case is weird sexual tension with Mr Schue that Mercedes keeps pretending to retch at by his side.
Sam gives him a disappointed smile, and he forces it back. He doesn’t know why he’s so relieved.
-
The guarding dies down after Kurt insists it’s unnecessary, that the brunt of the bullying is over, and then right on time, it starts up again.
He’s setting the binder of plans for his dad and Carole’s wedding back into his locker when he finds Karofsky stares him down across the hallway, then making his way over, eyes dark, and Kurt backs up against his locker but resolutely stares back, telling himself there’s nothing to be afraid of. There’s nothing he can do to him here.
Karofsky is in front of him, too close for Kurt to feel comfortable at all.
“Question for you,” he says, voice low and dangerous, “You tell anyone else what happened? How you - you kissed me?”
Kurt takes a small step back but keeps staring him right in the eye, back straight, unafraid, he tells himself. “You kissed me, Karofsky,” he corrects, and even though he says it quietly Karofsky checks around them anyway, looking slightly panicked. “And I understand how hard this is for you to deal with, so no. I haven’t told anyone.”
Karofsky’s expression hardens again, and he leans close enough for Kurt to instinctively move back, flinching. “Good.” A muscle in his jaw twitches. “You keep it that way. ‘Cause if you do,” he looks around again, then right at Kurt, and tells him, “I’m gonna kill you.”
He stares at Kurt for another minute, then stalks away with his head down, and Kurt presses back as closely to the lockers as he can because he feels like he might fall over if he doesn’t.
-
Sam isn’t in history. Kurt shouldn’t have told him, but he was tired of telling nobody.
He tries not to listen to the other students in class, because he knows what’s happening. He refuses to hear about it, and sits all of class feeling sick and not doing any work and imagining what could be happening to Sam, what he’ll tell the teachers if he gets caught, how his dad will react.
They call him out of class, right in time to catch his father still dressed in his overalls shoving Karofsky against the noticeboard with an arm across his throat.
“Dad,” he calls out, and pulls on his father’s arms when he’s reached him, scared of the look in his eye. He’s never been scared of his dad before. “Dad, let him go, just -”
“He really say that to you, Kurt?” Burt asks without looking away from Karofsky’s face.
Kurt tugs his arms again and looks at the teachers over his dad’s shoulder, all looking variations of shocked and concerned. “Let him go.”
His dad glances at him and softens at the look on his face, eventually relenting and pulling away. “You’d better not so much as look my kid in the eye again,” he warns, giving him a look. He puts a hand on Kurt’s arm and leads him into the principals office, where Finn, Carole, and Sam are already waiting.
Sam’s face is bruised in purple and yellow, but when he sees Kurt staring at him, wide-eyed, he quickly shoves his ice-pack back against it and gives Kurt a look at his scarring knuckles.
“Mr Hummel,” Figgins says, closing the door of his office. Karofsky is visible through the glass outside, sitting waiting on his father, and his dad won’t stop staring at him. “I think we need to talk.”
-
Sam and Karofsky both get suspended. Kurt gets an offer from his dad to go to Dalton, and talks to Blaine about it, then Rachel, because she calls him that night sounding tearful and worried for his safety and for some reason, can’t hang up on her.
“I don’t want to leave, but -”
“It’s Mckinley’s fault,” Rachel interrupts, sounding completely outraged. She lets out a frustrated sigh he can picture perfectly in his mind. “Something needs to be done about the bullying, it’s ridiculous - I was talking to my dads about it earlier and they agree. They’re setting up a meeting with Figgins as we speak.”
Kurt absorbs this, and doesn’t even mind being cut off because he likes how passionate Rachel talks about this, and how she’s the kind of person that gets these things done when she wants to. “What do you think they can do?”
On the other line, there’s the sound of Rachel taking a deep breath, and the rustle of paper. “Bully prevention club, less solutions to personal problems via pamphlet, a GSA, stricter rule enforcement, less teachers who look like probable bigots, more teaching about inclusiveness - maybe even workshops, I’m sure that’s a thing...”
She talks all night, and her voice starts to grate but it’s the best distraction from all the things Kurt really can’t face yet.
-
Like Sam. He shows up at Kurt’s house on Saturday with the skin around his eye a deep blue, and stays on the doorstep for a while, even when Kurt opens the door as wide as it can go and nods him inside.
“I want to apologise for - you know.” He clears his throat, frowning, and underneath him his feet shift and shuffle anxiously. “I really want to, but I’m not sorry, so... I guess I’m sorry for not being sorry, kind of.” He looks down. “I know it wasn’t my place.”
Instead of trying to convince Sam to come inside again, Kurt slips on the closest pair of shoes by the door and steps outside with him, clutching himself a little against the slight chill. He looks up at Sam, and Sam’s eyes are sad and bruised and every time Kurt sees his black eye he feels his heart twist in his chest.
“You don’t have to, anyway.” He holds himself tighter and thinks of more words he doesn’t know if he should tell Sam, or any straight guy. Then he decides just to be honest, because Sam deserves that much from him.
“It was nice,” he says, softly, only hesitating a little, “Having someone care that much. So thank you.”
He reaches out and gives Sam’s arm a light squeeze, smiling. Sam smiles back.
It lasts a little too long, so Kurt drops his arm again, almost hastily, and steps back towards the front door, gesturing inside again. “Want to give me a hand picking between flowers for the wedding?”
Sam’s smile stretches, and he shrugs one shoulder. “Sure. I mean, I didn’t know there were more wedding flower options than roses, but this can be like Wedding Planning 101 for me.”
“It’ll come in handy,” Kurt assures him, and he leads Sam inside.
-
Kurt ensures that his dad’s wedding is perfect in every way, and even though it has to be hastily planned in under two weeks notice and even though the stress of choosing between two colour samples for the napkins which both Finn and Mercedes insist there are no differences between almost makes his brain explode, it works out, in the end.
On the car-ride to the reception, Finn cries next to him which is totally okay because Kurt’s been crying since an hour before the ceremony.
“This is dumb,” Finn mumbles to himself with an unsteady voice, rubbing at his red eyes with the cuff of his suit jacket. He looks at the driver worriedly, scared he’s been caught, then gives Kurt his anxious smile. “It feels like more of a big deal than I thought it’d be. Having a brother and a dad and a bedroom I can stand up in.”
Kurt doesn’t even try to stop crying, because he knows there’s no use. He dabs his eyes with the the tissues Rachel pressed into his hand after the ceremony, but once he starts it’s always hard to stop. “It’s kind of huge,” he agrees, handing the packet over to Finn, who takes one with a low, “Thanks,” and proceeds to blow his nose as obnoxiously loud as humanly possible.
They sit in silence for another moment, and Kurt thinks of all the blips in their friendship and all the embarrassing, pre-teen fantasies of what it could become - and he realises that everything has changed, now, because Kurt can’t not automatically forgive his family, and everything that happened with them before feels neatly swept away or at least easier, now.
Finn shifts beside him, then his arm sets down heavily across Kurt’s shoulders and they sit that way for the rest of the ride, Kurt only having to dab at his eyes once more during all of it.
-
The reception is fun, for the most part. Kurt dances with all the girls, watches his parents dance together, has a song dedicated in his honour, clinks a lot of fizzy champagne glasses with Mercedes and Tina, and it’s all going relatively well for a New Directions get-together until his eyes finally find Sam, who’s been missing most of the night, sitting in a warmly lit, mostly empty corner of the room with one of Finn’s dark haired, pretty cousins next to him, pulling at his hand.
He looks away and takes a long sip. Even though he knows it shouldn’t make him feel like shit, it still does.
He just sits on the sidelines with Santana on the opposite side of his table, who pulls a tiny flask out from her cleavage to pour into her drink and looks up once at the dancing couples to say, “Ugh.” He tries not to turn to his right, where Sam is leading some nice girl into a unsteady, bumbling attempt at a dance, and thinks about his new family and friends and definitely not the purpling bruise on the side of Sam’s face that Kurt sees like a tattoo saying ‘this was your idiot fault’ every time.
Someone takes the seat beside him, heavily dropping down onto it. It’s Puck, who sits facing the dance-floor, holding his glass in one hand while he undoes the first button of his shirt with the other. He takes a drink and then pauses thoughtfully before saying around the rim, “If it makes you feel better, she’s only like a seven, at best.”
Kurt narrows his eyes at him, then goes back to resolutely staring at the wall.
Puck’s knee nudges at him inquisitively. He gives Kurt a completely, weirdly sincere look. “I’ll dance with you, if you want. Let’s be honest - Sam’s dancing is on par with Finn’s, so at least with me your partner will be able to tell the difference between his feet.” He flashes a quick, suggestive smile. “And look how handsome, too.”
Despite fully intending to stay in a horrible mood, Kurt’s smiles, involuntarily. “As persuasive as you are, I think I’ll have to pass.” He lets his smile spread a little. “But thank you.”
Puck shrugs. “Something to think about. And Christ, Kurt, don’t look so depressed. We just sang the sappiest song in the world to tell you how much we love you and all that gay shit. Here,” he pulls Kurt’s glass over to him, grabbing Santana’s flask from across the table and pouring in more than Kurt’s willing to put his throat through. “It’ll help,” Puck tells him, smiling and squeezing his shoulder.
Hopefully this isn’t Puck’s long-term solution to sadness, Kurt thinks, then he just sighs and takes a big enough drink for Puck to demand a high-five for after.
“Cover for me,” he tells Puck, standing. He takes his glass and steps out of the noisy room, wandering the building a little until he finds the exit and an inviting looking stone set of stairs to perch on outside, cautiously placing his last tissue underneath him before sitting down.
For a while, he just sits there in the quiet, taking timely sips of his poisoned soda and feeling sleepier and sleepier the brighter the moon gets above him. He won’t let Sam being straight ruin his father’s wedding day, because that’s stupid and too boy-crazy, even by Kurt’s standards. He just needs a moment out here, away from his coupled friends and distant relatives and Sam.
Sam, who calls out to him a moment later and appears standing above him with his hands in his pockets, a little out of breath when he tells him, “I was looking for you.”
Kurt moves to stand up again, a little dizzy from alcohol, and almost stumbles right into Sam’s chest, but Sam steadies him just in time, big hands warm and comforting around his arms. “Found me,” he murmurs, looking up to give Sam a small smile.
After a pause, Sam smiles back, but his eyebrows are drawn slightly in concern - and that big, discoloured scar around his eye is making Kurt sort of ache. He lets go of Kurt, hands sliding down his arms then falling back to his sides. He raises one to scratch at his head, looking away, drops it again and gives Kurt a nervous grin.
“I was wondering if you...” he starts, slowly, dragging out the last word before biting his lip, briefly shutting his eyes, and finishing with a less lively, “If you could teach me to dance, maybe.”
Kurt stares up at him, an eyebrow slowly raising. “It seemed like you were doing fine,” he answers coolly, even though he made sure not to look at Sam dancing at all and even though he really, really wants to do this.
“It’d be cool to not be guessing what to do the entire time, though.”
With a wry smile, Kurt sets his glass down somewhere safe from his giddy feet and tries to ignore the annoying, distracting feeling in his chest. He takes a step closer to Sam - but not too close, because this situation has a very real, very worrying possibility of getting too weird - and doesn’t object when Sam’s hand settles on his shoulder instead of his waist, because he’s kind of pleasantly surprised by it, even if it’s just because Sam has no idea how to lead.
He holds onto Sam’s waist and slips their hands together, raising them high and feeling alcohol-sick and love-sick which he finds is a pretty unpleasant combination at this moment in time.
“If Finn can Waltz adequately enough you should be able to master it,” he mumbles to Sam, who snorts.
They repeat the same three steps over and over again in silence, and as Kurt gradually leans further into Sam’s body and Sam tips his head up to an uncomfortable angle so his chin constantly brushes Kurt’s hair he realises Sam hasn’t made any mistakes, hasn’t done anything wrong. He seems to know what he’s doing.
Kurt hums amusedly. “Looks like you’re already pretty good.”
Under his hands, Sam tenses slightly but doesn’t let him go or stop his feet. “Maybe you’re just a crazy good teacher,” he counters, voice soft.
Kurt smiles, and keeps on leaning his body closer to Sam’s until they’re half an inch from pressing together, and he can feel Sam’s breath making a tickling path through his hair and Sam’s hand starting to stick to his. It feels like it lasts longer than Kurt knows it could, and he pulls away quickly after the realisation.
“I think you’re good to go,” he says, suddenly breathless and red in the face. He makes himself smile and gestures his head to the entrance. “We should get back before they start looking for us.”
Sam just looks at him for a while, then he nods and follows him back inside. Kurt deals with the phantom touch of Sam’s hand in his for the rest of the night.
1b/2
Pairing: Kurt/Sam, most canon S2 pairings.
Rating: PG-13.
Word count: 23,000+ for part one.
Summary: Junior year doesn't go the way Kurt expects. S2 rewrite.
You Might Need Me
Junior year is a clean slate for Kurt.
“What, just for you?” Mercedes asks, looking down at him from his bed while he sits on the floor, surrounded by every pair of pants he owns - including purple tartan skinny jeans he holds up hopefully for her inspection that she makes a face at, saying, “Definitely the ‘no’ pile, since the ‘burn’ pile doesn’t exist.”
He hits her with the leg of them before sighing and concedingly setting them away, because they have been known to cause controversy. “Out of the two of us, I think the one who made it obvious they would bear the social stigma of incest for Finn Hudson needs a clean slate the most,” he mumbles distractedly.
They’ve gone through most of his clothes, which is a feat, but still nothing. Nothing that clearly states, ‘This year is going to be different,’ or even just, ‘I lost ten pounds and another gained three inches.’ It’s the night before school and Kurt has nothing.
“It wasn’t full incest,” Mercedes offers. She pats his shoulder, consolingly, then shrugs. “We didn’t think it was so weird in Clueless.”
Kurt sighs again, finally standing up from his clothes-carpeted floor and stretching. “I just want it to be different. The very opposite, actually.” Mercedes nods, looking down consideringly at another shirt that he tugs out of her hands then makes a face at. “We aren’t getting anywhere with this. It’s fine, I’ll figure something out. You should go home and worry about your own outfit for tomorrow.”
She rolls her eyes. “Please. Like I have to.” Sidestepping the mess of skinny jeans, she stands in front of him with her hard, everything-will-be-okay smile and then hugs him tightly, saying, "Night, babe,” before she leaves.
He sighs and starts all over again.
-
In the end, it doesn’t actually matter what he wears his first day back, because nothing has actually changed and it all gets stained with grape slushie when Azimio passes him yelling at Jacob Ben Israel outside the bathrooms with a one in hand.
And even if he hoped this year would be easier for him from start to finish, he still put an extra set of clothes in his locker just in case, because he knew better. He dresses quickly and heads to history, almost late, quickly taking the last empty seat at the back and hoping the teacher doesn’t notice him slipping in.
He touches his hair, making sure it’s still immaculate before turning to the person beside him to ask if he’s missed anything important.
It’s a boy he’s never seen before in a letterman that isn’t for Mckinley, with a face that really looks out of place in Lima and makes any words in Kurt’s throat die away. His bleached-yellow hair makes Kurt blink, and the boy blinks back, and then Mrs Hagberg is hollering out his name for attendance and Kurt jerks, head sharply turning to face the front, feeling like he’s been caught doing something inexcusable.
“Present,” he answers, and then he says nothing for the rest of the class and makes sure not to turn around again.
He just kind of glances periodically. Just a little bit.
It’s a dangerous thing - he looks like a regular jock, and his T-shirt tellingly stretches out across his chest and arms, and he’d probably try to beat the shit out of Kurt if he knew why he was looking at him at all. But he also has a hair colour that hasn’t been used by straight guys since ‘N Sync broke up that gives Kurt’s brain a flurry of stupid, wishful ideas.
When he catches Kurt in the act, he just blinks again, curiously, and then smiles at him.
-
Everyone seems to think the first few weeks are uneventful by New Directions standards. The bullying is worse this year, and Kurt has new bruises to prove it, but nobody mentions that.
He doesn’t tell his dad - he closes up again again instead, and Finn tells him over and over, “Your dad’s gonna hulk out at you soon, Kurt, you’re freaking him out,” and he knows it’s true but he can’t stop it. He hates his dad worrying, but more than that he hates that he has to worry constantly no matter where Kurt is or who he’s with just because of who he is.
All his frustration from being pushed around goes into the one part of his life that’s going well, and when his dad blows up at him in the garage for it he acts pissed and storms out and tells Mercedes he doesn’t get the big deal with family dinner even though he feels guilty all day for everything he said, because he and his dad are still fragile, and sometimes it still feels like he’s all Kurt has.
In third period Mr Schuester pulls him out of class and drives him to the hospital.
-
Now everyone starts making a fuss.
Kurt gets meatloafs from neighbours he’s never spoke to. Relatives call that he’s never met. Carole works, but Finn sleeps with him in the living room every night and cries with him when he needs it.
It feels like it drags on forever, going back and forth from school, the house, the hospital. As always his friends get over-involved, and it makes it more miserable that while everyone’s making grand declarations about how much they care, nobody will listen to him at all.
He sits in class and stares down at the green lines of his blank page for another minute longer and pictures one across a heart-monitor without being able to stop himself. Rubbing his eyes, he forces himself to stay calm, not to burst into tears in class. But he can’t do work, even if Mrs Hagberg’s class only consists silent reading. He can’t even pretend.
He stares at the clock on the wall and it drags and drags on - and then a sheet of paper slides in front of him with nothing on it but a big, pencil-drawn smiley face that takes up the whole page.
When he turns to his side, the blond boy next to him is giving him a small smile. Kurt stopped looking at him at all after he came to class in the Mckinley letterman - which Kurt’s been taught to never be too friendly with - but he never stopped smiling at Kurt every day.
He mouths, “Are you okay?”
Kurt does his best to smile back and shakes his head, then he tries not to look at him for the rest of class because it makes him feel worse.
-
Even when his dad gets better, people keep treating him more differently. Puck is the biggest shock; he sits next to Kurt in glee and in their few classes together and gives anyone in a letterman dirty, warning looks.
That is, until he gets sent to juvie and the boy who sits with him in history finally gets a name at glee practice this week when he comes in with Finn’s arm thrown around him, looking just as nineties-boyband-chic as ever. Him joining glee club is the last hint Kurt needs.
Sam is totally gay.
Or at least that’s what Kurt’s 98% sure on, until Finn gives him the ‘your gay scares people’ talk, and he does away with it and lets Sam sing with Quinn, like he wants. It’s what everybody wants for him, and out of all of them, Sam was the least concerned by Kurt being the alternative, because he’s a nice guy, and he keeps Kurt a seat in history class so he never needs to move further back and he doesn’t care that much when Kurt gives him an apologetic talk during his very naked shower.
Kurt gets to sing with Rachel instead which is surprisingly - nice, considering. She makes him run late afterwards by giving him a detailed list of their failings and successes as duet partners (“Mostly successes, though!” is how she finished her semi-offensive spiel).
On his way out he stops at his locker, trying to find a way to cram another three books into his already full satchel when someone walks out of the locker room and yanks it off of his shoulder altogether, holding it upside-down so everything spills out in a hard, knocking rush to the floor.
Kurt watches, numbly.
Karofsky throws his bag down next to the mess afterwards. He tips his head up, giving Kurt a mean smile as he backs away down the hallway. “Watch where you’re going.”
He walks off, shoes squeaking across the linoleum until he’s out the door, and Kurt stands completely still until he’s gone, then presses back against the lockers with his eyes shut and accepts that it’s a bad day all around - it’s a bad day, and his Gucci bag has been thrown onto the sticky, gross school floor and even Rachel felt bad about how socially pathetic he was. It doesn’t really get worse than today does.
Sighing, he reluctantly gets down on his knees and starts sorting his things away again, trying not to get angry or upset because it’s never any use on days like this. His eyes water anyway, and it’s been such a shitty month back already that he doesn’t even want to think about -
“Kurt?”
Oh, no.
He turns to see Sam hurrying over, eyebrows knitted in concern. He immediately drops down beside Kurt starts picking up his scattered things, straightening them, handing them over. Kurt doesn’t look at him when he takes his books and pens from Sam’s hands, feeling oddly ashamed for being found this way, for being bullied, even: it never stops feeling humiliating.
“It was Karofsky, wasn’t it?” Sam says, not really asking. He sounds sort of pissed off. He leans down and collects Kurt’s last few highlighters, and the small shield brooch Kurt keeps on his bag strap. His mouth twitches at it a little before he hands it over, then stands up and reaches for Kurt, helping him back onto his feet again, too.
Kurt tries to appear unfazed, holding the books that won’t squeeze into his bag tightly to his chest and tilting his head up, making sure to look Sam straight in the eyes even if he feels almost too embarrassed for it. “Thank you.”
Shaking his head, Sam huffs out a small sigh. “I’m really sorry this shit happens to you,” he says, lowly. He reaches his hand out to squeeze Kurt’s shoulder and Kurt instinctively has to look up into his face, at the small, genuine smile Sam is giving him.
His smile spreads wider, and hardens. “You’re really cool, Kurt.”
It takes Kurt a little aback to hear it from almost a complete stranger. His mouth twitches reflexively at hearing it, and he wants to tell Sam how sweet he is, or how good, or how nice a guy he seems, but he bites it all down because now he knows what everything he could say to Sam would sound to everyone else.
He just smiles, tentatively, still a little shocked and momentarily in love. “Thanks again.” He pulls his bag tighter around himself and then adds, hesitatingly, “I kind of... needed to hear something like that right now. So thanks for that, too.”
Sam grins at him lopsidedly, shrugs with both hands stuffed into his pockets and walks with him to the parking lot. The moment stretches on and on.
-
Glee club is better the next week, because Kurt loves Rocky Horror Picture Show and never thought that even Mr Schuester would let them fall to its level of inappropriateness, which is both fun and uncomfortable at the same time, which is the new theme of New Directions, really. Not that he’s complaining; although he would have appreciated getting in on some of the Britney action he fought for. This kind of makes up for it.
“You know that thing for glee club,” Sam whispers to him in history, during a long, droning Hagberg explanation on trench warfare. His face screws up in thought. “The Last Picture Show?”
Kurt side-eyes him a little then looks forward and pretends to be paying attention again. “You mean Rocky Horror?” he asks, glancing briefly down at Sam’s page where he finds a small but impressive doodle of a tank making a thumbs-up. His mouth twitches.
“Yeah, that. What, uh - what is that?”
The sort of movie Kurt really doesn’t know how to begin explaining. “Extremely long and complicated,” he answers, voice hushed. He hasn’t heard any of this lesson, which makes him panic slightly but more than that, feel strangely thrilled. “It’d be easier just to watch it - I should have it somewhere.”
Sam turns to him, and Kurt sees him blinking in the corner of his eye. “So, is it cool if I stop by to watch it or something? ‘Cause all the balding blond wigs and leather corsets in the choir room are really confusing me.”
Kurt stops himself before he can turn to Sam in surprise and makes his eyes look less noticeably wide. He just says, easily, “Sure,” and can’t help the giddy feeling in his stomach spreading when Sam answers with a big, crooked smile in thanks.
-
The reason Kurt chooses a night his dad’s out for Sam to come over and doesn’t tell any of his friends about it is really all down to the way he knows they’d react to it. They’d tell him to back off again, like it’s fundamentally wrong for Kurt to be friends with attractive straight guys - or even dangerous.
Even though he can’t help the awkward endearment he feels whenever Sam grins at him or painstakingly copies from his neat notes in class when it goes too fast for him, Sam is the kind of person Kurt wants to be friends with. Good-hearted, like Mercedes and Tina (and sometimes, admittedly, Rachel) - only with a penis. He wishes he could say he doesn’t get the big deal, but everyone’s made it so clear to him that it is one, and it makes him kind of anxious on Friday after school when he’s sitting around his house, waiting for Sam to knock on his door.
Don’t be stupid, he tells himself, but he feels uneasy anyway and can’t escape the image of Finn’s disapproving look no matter how hard he tries to distract himself with refluffing couch pillows and triple-checking the kitchen for more of his dad’s hidden candy-bars.
A knock sounds almost right on time, and then Sam Evans is standing in his doorway with his hands thrust into the pockets of his hoodie and his lopsided smile directed up at Kurt.
“Hey,” Sam greets, slipping one hand from his pocket to give an awkward little wave.
Kurt smiles back, as casually as he can. “Hey, Sam.” He opens the door wider to let him inside and Sam pauses first to wipe his shoes off on the mat before stepping in, almost nervously.
He digs into one of his pockets. “I bought candy and everything, I swear, I just couldn’t not give it to my brother and sister when they asked, so...”
With a triumphant smile he pulls out a small bag of M&M’S, shaking it slightly so the insides rattle. “Thank God for peanut allergies. If you have a really tiny bowl or something we could share all like... ten of these M&M’S.”
Kurt laughs and leads him towards the kitchen, feeling himself relax - because Sam’s just a nice guy. Sam doesn’t care. “I do,” he replies, helpfully pulling a small enough bowl out of one of the bottom cupboards. He opens another one filled with healthy replacement snacks for his dad and sweeps his hand over it. “And look - there’s even bigger, serves-two-people food in here.”
Sam whistles, impressed. “Healthy, too.”
Not wanting to explain why there are bags of baby carrots where chocolate bars are in any other house, Kurt grabs the least bland looking snacks he sees and takes Sam down the staircase to the basement, hoping kind of desperately that he doesn’t notice the embarrassingly cliche family photos on the wall (which he’s still aware that he’s placed beautifully).
But he knows Sam sees when they get down to his room and he says, looking surprised, “Your dad looks kind of scary.”
Kurt smiles. Having Sam down in his room makes him nervous and weirdly, slightly worried again, but he ignores the feeling. “He kind of is.” He fidgets with the sleeve of his shirt for an moment, feeling awkward in the middle of his room with a practical stranger.
He gestures vaguely, says, “You should -”
“Yeah,” Sam agrees, nodding, and after a moment of hesitation he sets himself down on the fluffy rug in front of the television on Kurt’s dresser. “Wow,” he says, running his long hands across it. He looks up at Kurt. “This is crazy soft.”
It takes a minute or two to set everything up, including trouble over finding the right channel and plugging the right things into the TV that Sam unsuccessfully tries to help with, and then the movies on, and it’s quiet, and Kurt sits a little far away from him up on the bed, barely taking the movie in because the situation is so foreign - not like staying up late with Finn or movie marathons at Artie’s.
But Sam just passes the tiny bowl of M&M’s to him with a smile and whispers, “Tim Curry is awesome,” and then turns back to the television like it’s all completely okay.
-
On Monday afternoon, Sam drops next to Kurt at the New Directions lunch-table - which is pretty far from his usual seat with the football team.
“I have something to show you,” he tells Kurt, who continues to stare at him along with Artie, the only other person there. He’s grinning. “You should tell me if it’s a complete failure or something.”
He clears his throat and pauses. Then: “Give yourself over to absolute pleasure.”
Kurt stares. Artie stares.
Sam grins and looks back at him, waiting for his judgement.
“Frank-N-Furter,” Kurt realises aloud, eyes still too wide. He replays it in his head while trying to will his face not to burn anymore, then turns to Sam, knowing he must look a little surprised. “That was - actually pretty great.”
“Thanks.” Sam looks down at the sandwich in his hands when he talks - a cucumber sandwich, which Kurt blinks at mostly because he never knew it was a thing. “I like doing impressions and stuff. I can’t really do anything like that for my character in it, except, y’know...” He picks a tiny cube of cucumber off of his lunch. “Be shirtless.”
Kurt’s face becomes even warmer. He gets brain-freeze after a too long drink of slushie that he takes only to avoid looking at either of the other boys at the table. Artie keeps nudging at his side though, and Kurt knows if he turns around he’ll get that look Artie gives him every time a vaguely attractive guy passes them by - the one that just makes Kurt feel a little confused about Artie himself.
He straightens, giving Sam a quick smile and then accidentally thinking of Sam, half-hidden by the a shower stall but not so much that Kurt doesn’t see enough rippling pectoral and rock-hard ab to know Sam’s kind of annoyingly appealing shirtless. “You don’t have anything to worry about, anyway,” he says, mostly to himself.
He isn’t sure if Sam hears, but then he shoots he and Artie a grin and, after wiping his mouth on his hand, tells them, “You guys’ll be great, too.”
Even though Kurt already knows that and Sam’s just saying it to be friendly, it’s still nice to hear, and he picks at his lunch with a smile until Artie practically jams his elbow into his side just to point from him to Sam and give him a thumbs up.
-
Things are almost going well for a change, until the Karofsky situation escalates more than ever before. It’s near constant now, and the only time he isn’t worried about it is around Finn or Puck or Mike, or sometimes Sam on their way out of class. Even then, Karofsky gives him this look that follows him around all day, heavy and scary in the back of his mind, and he talks to Mr Schue about it, even Miss Pillsbury, but comes away with nothing as always, discounting some more misunderstandings and useless pamphlets.
He doesn’t tell his dad. For a few brief days he does consider it, but then he finds a strangely expensive shopping bag in his dad’s room with an engagement ring inside, and he decides against it, because his dad has too much on his plate as it is going back to work right now as well, and Kurt will not be what pushes him off the edge again.
Part of him wishes that someone else would notice without him having to spell it out. The skin of his back is starting to bruise badly: the colour of it makes him feel sick and angry and hopeless, so he layers himself up and tries to move past it.
“Hit back,” Puck hisses at him one day. “We could both take him. Or I could real-hit him and you could West Side Story hit him.”
They’ve just passed Karofsky in the corridor, and while Kurt responded to his glare by trying to look away from him, Puck responded by glaring back and asking with a deeper voice than he has, “Problem?” Kurt had to yank him forward by the strap of his bag and then listen to all his bitching about it.
Puck pulls him off to the side, beside the lockers and away from the crowd of people getting to their next class. “Look, you think the school is going to do anything about this? You think one day he’ll wake up and decide not to be an asshole?” He jolts Kurt by the arm, staring down at him hard with his jaw tensed. “Wake the fuck up, Kurt.”
Yanking his arm out of Puck’s grip, Kurt gives him a dirty look. “What do you want me to do about it? I’m not getting into trouble for trying to fight someone that equals three of me when I know it won’t solve anything. It would just make him worse.” Puck still looks too mad, holding his bag strap with white-knuckled hands and staring down at him darkly. Kurt shakes his head. “And you’re not getting into this, because you just got out of juvie, Puck, so leave it.”
He starts walking again, quicker this time, and here’s Puck angrily yelling after him, “So you’re gonna do nothing?”
-
School after that is a new kind of horrible, where Puck’s back to treating him like shit and everyone else still acts like he isn’t being thrown around the corridors like a ragdoll. When he offers to go to Dalton, it isn’t all for New Directions - it’s for him.
He meets Blaine, and forgets to take notes on the Warblers (except he’s aware that they’re good) or actually be a spy, and then after finally discussing being bullied with someone, Blaine drives him out to get coffee.
He looks at Kurt across the table with his warm smile and says, quietly, “I know what it’s like. There’s so much hate in towns like this.” He squeezes his coffee in his hand. “Don’t let it get to you, Kurt.”
“I normally don’t,” he replies, and he’s glad to know how honest that really is. He holds his full styrofoam cup with both hands and no intention of drinking it. The idea alone makes him feel sick - talking about this is so strange it’s sickly. “But this guy just won’t stop, and I don’t know how to make him.”
Blaine told him earlier, confront him. But that’s too risky, he thinks, and in comparison to what that might lead Karofsky to do the purple skin on his back seems like nothing at all.
It’s what Blaine thinks would solve it though. He smiles, reassuringly, then gives Kurt a hard look over his drink that he knows is asking him to think it over.
-
He does.
-
The kiss is by far the scariest thing to happen yet. He feels even more lost afterwards, has even less of an idea what to do. Telling his dad or Finn or Mercedes would end terribly - and maybe in everyone else knowing, too, and even with the things Karofsky’s done he doesn’t want to out him to the entire school.
“It’s a real mess,” Blaine tells him over the phone. He’s an outsider - telling him is fine, Kurt assures himself, mostly because he has to have someone to talk to. He even offers to come talk to Karofsky, but so far Karofsky hasn’t so much as looked Kurt in the eye again, so he says it’s best to drop it for a while, and before hanging up Blaine reminds him, lowly, “If things get worse, there’s always Dalton.”
It’s way out of his family’s price-range, but Kurt still has some pamphlets and brochures stashed in his bag that he glances at sometimes. He can’t imagine himself there, in uniform, without any of his friends or any bullying. If he had the option, he wouldn’t know what to choose anymore.
“What’s that?” Sam asks, peeking over his shoulder.
Kurt jumps, spreading his hands to cover the big, bold Dalton Boys’ Academy on what he’s reading and reaching for his bag to hide it away again. “It’s nothing,” he assures him, waving the pamphlet dismissively, but Sam is just staring at him.
He already knows.
“Are you...” He lowers his voice, looking around at where Tina sits in the back to make sure she isn’t listening. When he looks at Kurt there’s more concern in his face than anything else. “Is it that bad?”
Reflexively, Kurt goes to say no, it isn’t, because he’s used to saying that - he’s too proud to act like he can’t handle boys he knows he’s better than, especially to people he doesn’t know so well. But Sam keeps looking at him with his worried eyes, and Kurt is tired of not talking about it to his friends.
“It’s just too much,” he explains, trying to keep his voice steady. He pulls his books out off his bag and sets them down, keeping his head high and his gaze off of Sam as he adds, softer, “I don’t know how to deal with it anymore. I never really have.”
“God,” Sam exhales. He shakes his head, staring into space. “You shouldn’t have to leave because of him.”
Kurt nods, blankly looking down at whatever random page he’s turned to. It feels almost certain that he’ll eventually have to go. Karofsky’s calm now, maybe, but that just worries him more because he knows it can’t last. He knows something much worse could happen if he sticks around too long.
“What if you had, like,” Sam squints his face up, biting his lip, “Protection?” He turns to Kurt, earnest. “I could look out for you. I want to look out for you, really. He can’t start anything with me since I’m on the team with him, Coach Beiste has a rule against it.”
He nudges Kurt’s leg with his knee, watching him inquisitively with his lips pressed together.
“I couldn’t ask you to do that, Sam,” Kurt tells him, shaking his head. “It’s not your problem.”
Suddenly the weight of Sam’s hand is on his shoulder, and the class is quiet except for the teacher’s voice.
Sam’s jaw is tense. “Guys like that are my problem,” he replies, voice hushed but aggressive. “You haven’t done anything wrong; you’re not leaving because of him, okay?”
He smiles, squeezing Kurt’s shoulder again, and when Kurt looks at him he finds himself unable to say the word no.
-
Having Sam take him everywhere would have been much more helpful when Kurt was getting harassed every day, he can’t help but think. Not that he’s complaining or anything.
Part of him thinks Sam is still trying to work out where he stands in Mckinley's social ladder - he doesn't quite fit in with the jocks, and he doesn't know the glee club too well yet, either. He just sort of drifts in between, with enough popularity backing him up that nobody starts anything with him but not enough to save him from a slushie facial whenever Azimio is feeling bored.
Like today.
“Aw, man,” Sam says once they’ve reached the bathroom’s safety. He wipes some more red ice out of his eyes and gives Kurt a squinted once-over. “He totally ruined your Matrix coat.”
Kurt shrugs, acting much less heartbroken about it than he feels. “I’ll find a way to save it.” He hands Sam a few dozen paper towels and gets to work on drying his newly public-sink washed hair, making a face of disgust in the mirror. “I should have spare clothes in my locker.” He frowns at Sam from the corner of his eye. “Have you got anything else to wear?”
Sam glances down at the red explosion on his blue shirt. “What’s wrong with this?”
Smiling, Kurt layers some more paper towels against Sam’s chest, all of which stick there, soaking up the slushie. “I might have something that fits you. Possibly. But the top priority right now is cleaning your hair because it’s like... a neon massacre up there.”
Sam’s eyebrows raise, amused. “I think you called it that once without the slushie in it.”
Flashing a smile, Kurt turns the warm tap on again (it’s still freezing, of course) and gives Sam an indicative push on the back. Sam obligingly leans forward and washes his hair out by pushing his fingers through clumps. Most of the red dye blends into the water, swirls down the drain, and the rest gives Sam’s hair a ginger tinge when he straightens again and rubs at it with a handful of damp paper towels.
“Good enough?” He grins. “Does it still look glow in the dark or whatever?”
“Adequate,” Kurt tells him after a considering pause. He opens the bathroom door, digging into the pocket of his ruined jacket for his locker key. “And yes - but I mean that in the nicest way.”
Sam laughs and steps out after him. “Of course.”
-
By the time Mr Schue gets sick, Kurt has a constant bodyguard by his side. Puck catches on to what Sam’s doing, and insists he go away so Puck can do the job right whenever he finds them in the corridors, which is both kind of funny and kind of annoying. Mercedes gets a lot more confrontational with the jocks, so much so that they move out of her way in the halls while Kurt hangs onto her arm and Rachel and Finn take him around sometimes, but fail to be threatening in any way.
The best protection is Santana.
She talks to him while giving everyone in a ten metre perimeter her best bitch face. “Have you seen the new sub?”
Miss Holiday took he and Sam for history yesterday, and Kurt loved her both for being infinitely more interesting than Mrs Hagberg and dressing infinitely better than any other faculty member in any school in Lima. And teaching through song, which Kurt thought was limited to Disney movies alone. “What about her?”
“Other than the TILF factor and the fact she could get it any which way, I was thinking about asking her to take over glee club while Mr Schuester heals from - whatever sickness a lifetime of being a loser gives you. I physically can’t take any more of Berry’s crap, if this keeps going my fist will just plant itself into her face. So.” She puts a firm hand at the small of his back, guiding him towards Miss Holiday’s classroom door.
She raps on it, then quickly disappears from his side.
Before he can yell her into returning, Miss Holiday peeks out at him with a smile and asks, “Can I help you?”
-
“Who’s that?”
Rachel openly stares at the screen of his phone, briefly glancing at him with curiosity. Then she brightens at the name of the sender flashing on the screen again, leaning closer to Kurt and saying in a quiet, enthused whisper, “It’s a boy!”
Kurt rolls his eyes, shifting away from her. “I’m aware. I’m also mildly terrified of that smile you’re giving me right now so if you could you make this,” he waves a hand across her face, “Not look - like that? I’d appreciate it.”
“You’re defensive,” Rachel notices, even more delighted. Kurt sighs.
Another few people trail into the choir room, none of them being Puck, who’s intent on finding some way to prank Miss Holiday, but one of them being Sam, who drops next to Rachel and receives more of her annoyingly excited grinning and crazy-eyes. After a moment of looking at her he inches further away on his seat and looks at Kurt above her head to ask, “Why’s she doing that?”
The answer is a weird, embarrassing squeak Rachel lets out.
“Kurt has a secret boy,” she informs the room helpfully, her voice completely calm; but there’s way too much sparkling going on in her eyes for Kurt’s liking.
Santana fistpumps the air, which quickly turns into just lewdly pumping it with her hand. “Get it, Hummel.”
Artie moves his arms at his side to imitate thrusting. Mercedes gives him a smile over his shoulder because she’s seen Blaine’s picture when he called once and immediately came to Rachel’s conclusion. Finn is frowning in confusion, staring off into space and looking like he’s trying to remember if he knows the boy he doesn’t know.
Sam stares at him.
“The Dalton kid?” he asks after a moment, blankly.
At this, Rachel’s mood turns. She whips her head around to stare intently into his face, apparently trying to work out whether he’s given any of New Directions zero competition plans away.
Kurt ignores her and nods, looking resolutely down at his phone. “Blaine.”
“Blaine,” Rachel repeats with a hand over her heart. She exchanges an emotional smile with Mercedes, her mind already changed again.
Beside her, Sam looks away from him. Kurt can see him picking at his nicest pair of jeans. “So, you guys are still -”
“This must be the New Directions!” Miss Holiday’s voice pipes up, and Kurt looks up to find her in the choir room doorway, ushering Puck - who has his head down and is carrying a weirdly big box of butter - to his seat.
She walks into the middle of the class, smiling. “Let’s start with some introductions. My name is Holly Holiday. What’s yours?” She turns to Puck, clicking her fingers at him. “Go.”
-
Miss Holiday is nothing like Mr Schuester, which means Kurt finishes Forget You feeling slightly guilty for willing him to stay sick for the rest of the month, at least.
Sam waits for him while he tugs his coat on and slips his bag over his shoulder, patiently as always.
“It’s just the parking lot, Sam,” Kurt tells him, trying to sound less fond and disgustingly smitten than he knows he does. It’s just the parking lot, but Kurt still doesn’t mind walking with Sam there and listening to an eventful retelling of something scary that happened to him during a few hours of Amnesia last night. He doesn’t mind the idea that Sam’s willing to give up time for him.
“Parking lots are dangerous,” Sam insists, mock-serious. “Lots of cars. Lots of bad teenage driving.”
Kurt’s mouth twitches and he leads Sam down the rows of chairs. “I take offense to that.”
They pass Miss Holiday on the way out, who’s sitting at the piano with her legs crossed and arms resting on the wood covering the keys while she watches them with her bright, odd smile.
“Boy, you two are adorable,” she states, simply, and Kurt stops dead in his tracks to stare at her.
Flustered, he starts trying to protest. “We’re not -”
“So,” she interrupts, either not hearing him or not caring, and stands up, watching them with her Santana-esque smile. “What duets are on your list? I’m going to assume that this hormonal highschool glee club has a thing about serenading, and that most of it comes from the girl who was mad she wasn’t singing today.”
“This isn’t -” Kurt tries again.
This time Sam’s the one to cut him off. “We were going to sing together once but, uh.” He glances at Kurt. “It didn’t pan out.”
She shakes her head, putting herself between them with her arms slung over both their shoulders. “Don’t let all the heteros take the spotlight, kids.” She walks them to the classroom door, making a thoughtful face.
“Hey, new assignment.” She lets them go and points at them, instead. “I want that duet, alright? And hey, it’s not a Catholic school - go as gay as you want. Wave that rainbow flag.”
“Uh,” Kurt says, but she just walks past them, waving over her shoulder and saying, “Sayonara!”
He turns to Sam, still almost gaping and knowing his cheeks are stupidly flushed.
But Sam’s as unfussed as ever. “A duet sounds like fun.” He flashes Kurt a smile.
There’s a moment of staring, then Kurt just says, agreeably, “It could be.”
-
Unfortunately, Sam’s house turns out to be the worst place to try and get anything done ever because his brother and sister apparently never leave his side while he’s in the house and beg him to play the Super Mario theme song as fast as he can whenever they see him with his guitar.
“We should have done this at your place,” Sam says almost apologetically after his siblings have successfully infiltrated his room and pawed at both of them for the last half hour.
Stacey has made herself at home on Kurt’s lap and told him a dozen times with her crooked Evans smile that he sounds like a princess when he sings - which he takes as a compliment since she so obviously intends it as one - and Stevie strumming the guitar in clunky notes while Sam holds in the chords. They haven’t really done anything of value glee-wise yet, but Kurt isn’t fussed anyway, especially since the number of platonic duets he and Sam would sound good on is tiny and basically just a catalogue of songs Sam has never heard.
Kurt shrugs, letting Stacey tug the hat off his head after she asks. “It’s fine. We don’t have to do a duet, so.”
From across the bed, Sam looks up from his guitar, blond bangs flopping across his forehead. “I think we should,” he insists.
“I think you should,” Stevie agrees, looking mostly unaware of what they’re talking about.
Sam pats his little brother’s head. “If we do, you guys’ll need to leave us alone for a bit.”
“Oh.” Stevie blinks at him, then looks back down at the guitar again, continuing his strumming. “I think you shouldn’t, then.”
It takes Sam’s dad coming in to convince the kids to leave, reluctantly, although Stacey stops on her way to the door to make them pinky-promise they’ll play her their song later, then it’s just he and Sam alone in his room while Sam retunes his guitar and Kurt fidgets with his phone in his pocket.
“I have a song idea,” Sam tells him without looking up. His tongue peeks out of his mouth in his concentration.
Kurt looks away. “Oh?”
Sam yanks his guitar strap over his head, setting it down on the bed and pulling open the drawer beside it. “I was looking up other musicals and stuff - there was nothing else like Rocky Horror, but that’s okay since I’m pretty sure if the show had ever happened Mr Schue would have been sent to jail, probably.” He pulls some slightly crumpled sheets of paper out, staring down at it intently. “I found this song I like,” he half-mumbles.
There’s a pause before Sam hands it over to him, and he finds himself looking down at the shamelessly sappy lyrics of Falling Slowly and almost chokes.
“Not that I’m not impressed that you chose Once or that I don’t love this song,” he starts, keeping his voice steady, “but isn’t this... a little too romantic?” He looks at Sam with a raised eyebrow, questioning.
Sam tilts his head as if he’s thinking about it. “Well, I sang that song with Quinn and I knew her way less than I know you now. I don’t think I even found a duet that wasn’t kind of romantic.” He turns to Kurt. “Is that too weird for you?”
No, but it should be too weird for him. Kurt glances at him briefly then just shrugs, shakes his head, says, “Of course not,” even though just thinking of singing any of this to Sam is making him inwardly freak out. He wonders what the club would think if they ever had to sing this in front of them. He wonders whose idea they’re assume it was. He knows he has accurate guesses for both.
Sam starts playing the first few notes, testing them out. Kurt has this infuriating thing about instruments and big hands that makes something in his stomach heat up every time Sam’s fingertip so much as brushes a string.
“I know it’s really cheesy,” Sam admits, still playing (and still driving Kurt kind of crazy). “I think we can own it.”
He flashes Kurt a quick smile, and opens his mouth to sing.
-
The next time they see Miss Holiday, she’s by Mr Schuester’s side in the choir room, and they’re planning some mash-up hurrah before she leaves again. She waves at Kurt when he takes his seat and mouths at him, Good weekend? while pointing her thumb at Sam and making a face Kurt never wanted a teacher to direct at him.
He’s pretty sure she’s taken the Mckinley method with her student’s problems, where they’re all kind of forgotten under her own - which in this case is weird sexual tension with Mr Schue that Mercedes keeps pretending to retch at by his side.
Sam gives him a disappointed smile, and he forces it back. He doesn’t know why he’s so relieved.
-
The guarding dies down after Kurt insists it’s unnecessary, that the brunt of the bullying is over, and then right on time, it starts up again.
He’s setting the binder of plans for his dad and Carole’s wedding back into his locker when he finds Karofsky stares him down across the hallway, then making his way over, eyes dark, and Kurt backs up against his locker but resolutely stares back, telling himself there’s nothing to be afraid of. There’s nothing he can do to him here.
Karofsky is in front of him, too close for Kurt to feel comfortable at all.
“Question for you,” he says, voice low and dangerous, “You tell anyone else what happened? How you - you kissed me?”
Kurt takes a small step back but keeps staring him right in the eye, back straight, unafraid, he tells himself. “You kissed me, Karofsky,” he corrects, and even though he says it quietly Karofsky checks around them anyway, looking slightly panicked. “And I understand how hard this is for you to deal with, so no. I haven’t told anyone.”
Karofsky’s expression hardens again, and he leans close enough for Kurt to instinctively move back, flinching. “Good.” A muscle in his jaw twitches. “You keep it that way. ‘Cause if you do,” he looks around again, then right at Kurt, and tells him, “I’m gonna kill you.”
He stares at Kurt for another minute, then stalks away with his head down, and Kurt presses back as closely to the lockers as he can because he feels like he might fall over if he doesn’t.
-
Sam isn’t in history. Kurt shouldn’t have told him, but he was tired of telling nobody.
He tries not to listen to the other students in class, because he knows what’s happening. He refuses to hear about it, and sits all of class feeling sick and not doing any work and imagining what could be happening to Sam, what he’ll tell the teachers if he gets caught, how his dad will react.
They call him out of class, right in time to catch his father still dressed in his overalls shoving Karofsky against the noticeboard with an arm across his throat.
“Dad,” he calls out, and pulls on his father’s arms when he’s reached him, scared of the look in his eye. He’s never been scared of his dad before. “Dad, let him go, just -”
“He really say that to you, Kurt?” Burt asks without looking away from Karofsky’s face.
Kurt tugs his arms again and looks at the teachers over his dad’s shoulder, all looking variations of shocked and concerned. “Let him go.”
His dad glances at him and softens at the look on his face, eventually relenting and pulling away. “You’d better not so much as look my kid in the eye again,” he warns, giving him a look. He puts a hand on Kurt’s arm and leads him into the principals office, where Finn, Carole, and Sam are already waiting.
Sam’s face is bruised in purple and yellow, but when he sees Kurt staring at him, wide-eyed, he quickly shoves his ice-pack back against it and gives Kurt a look at his scarring knuckles.
“Mr Hummel,” Figgins says, closing the door of his office. Karofsky is visible through the glass outside, sitting waiting on his father, and his dad won’t stop staring at him. “I think we need to talk.”
-
Sam and Karofsky both get suspended. Kurt gets an offer from his dad to go to Dalton, and talks to Blaine about it, then Rachel, because she calls him that night sounding tearful and worried for his safety and for some reason, can’t hang up on her.
“I don’t want to leave, but -”
“It’s Mckinley’s fault,” Rachel interrupts, sounding completely outraged. She lets out a frustrated sigh he can picture perfectly in his mind. “Something needs to be done about the bullying, it’s ridiculous - I was talking to my dads about it earlier and they agree. They’re setting up a meeting with Figgins as we speak.”
Kurt absorbs this, and doesn’t even mind being cut off because he likes how passionate Rachel talks about this, and how she’s the kind of person that gets these things done when she wants to. “What do you think they can do?”
On the other line, there’s the sound of Rachel taking a deep breath, and the rustle of paper. “Bully prevention club, less solutions to personal problems via pamphlet, a GSA, stricter rule enforcement, less teachers who look like probable bigots, more teaching about inclusiveness - maybe even workshops, I’m sure that’s a thing...”
She talks all night, and her voice starts to grate but it’s the best distraction from all the things Kurt really can’t face yet.
-
Like Sam. He shows up at Kurt’s house on Saturday with the skin around his eye a deep blue, and stays on the doorstep for a while, even when Kurt opens the door as wide as it can go and nods him inside.
“I want to apologise for - you know.” He clears his throat, frowning, and underneath him his feet shift and shuffle anxiously. “I really want to, but I’m not sorry, so... I guess I’m sorry for not being sorry, kind of.” He looks down. “I know it wasn’t my place.”
Instead of trying to convince Sam to come inside again, Kurt slips on the closest pair of shoes by the door and steps outside with him, clutching himself a little against the slight chill. He looks up at Sam, and Sam’s eyes are sad and bruised and every time Kurt sees his black eye he feels his heart twist in his chest.
“You don’t have to, anyway.” He holds himself tighter and thinks of more words he doesn’t know if he should tell Sam, or any straight guy. Then he decides just to be honest, because Sam deserves that much from him.
“It was nice,” he says, softly, only hesitating a little, “Having someone care that much. So thank you.”
He reaches out and gives Sam’s arm a light squeeze, smiling. Sam smiles back.
It lasts a little too long, so Kurt drops his arm again, almost hastily, and steps back towards the front door, gesturing inside again. “Want to give me a hand picking between flowers for the wedding?”
Sam’s smile stretches, and he shrugs one shoulder. “Sure. I mean, I didn’t know there were more wedding flower options than roses, but this can be like Wedding Planning 101 for me.”
“It’ll come in handy,” Kurt assures him, and he leads Sam inside.
-
Kurt ensures that his dad’s wedding is perfect in every way, and even though it has to be hastily planned in under two weeks notice and even though the stress of choosing between two colour samples for the napkins which both Finn and Mercedes insist there are no differences between almost makes his brain explode, it works out, in the end.
On the car-ride to the reception, Finn cries next to him which is totally okay because Kurt’s been crying since an hour before the ceremony.
“This is dumb,” Finn mumbles to himself with an unsteady voice, rubbing at his red eyes with the cuff of his suit jacket. He looks at the driver worriedly, scared he’s been caught, then gives Kurt his anxious smile. “It feels like more of a big deal than I thought it’d be. Having a brother and a dad and a bedroom I can stand up in.”
Kurt doesn’t even try to stop crying, because he knows there’s no use. He dabs his eyes with the the tissues Rachel pressed into his hand after the ceremony, but once he starts it’s always hard to stop. “It’s kind of huge,” he agrees, handing the packet over to Finn, who takes one with a low, “Thanks,” and proceeds to blow his nose as obnoxiously loud as humanly possible.
They sit in silence for another moment, and Kurt thinks of all the blips in their friendship and all the embarrassing, pre-teen fantasies of what it could become - and he realises that everything has changed, now, because Kurt can’t not automatically forgive his family, and everything that happened with them before feels neatly swept away or at least easier, now.
Finn shifts beside him, then his arm sets down heavily across Kurt’s shoulders and they sit that way for the rest of the ride, Kurt only having to dab at his eyes once more during all of it.
-
The reception is fun, for the most part. Kurt dances with all the girls, watches his parents dance together, has a song dedicated in his honour, clinks a lot of fizzy champagne glasses with Mercedes and Tina, and it’s all going relatively well for a New Directions get-together until his eyes finally find Sam, who’s been missing most of the night, sitting in a warmly lit, mostly empty corner of the room with one of Finn’s dark haired, pretty cousins next to him, pulling at his hand.
He looks away and takes a long sip. Even though he knows it shouldn’t make him feel like shit, it still does.
He just sits on the sidelines with Santana on the opposite side of his table, who pulls a tiny flask out from her cleavage to pour into her drink and looks up once at the dancing couples to say, “Ugh.” He tries not to turn to his right, where Sam is leading some nice girl into a unsteady, bumbling attempt at a dance, and thinks about his new family and friends and definitely not the purpling bruise on the side of Sam’s face that Kurt sees like a tattoo saying ‘this was your idiot fault’ every time.
Someone takes the seat beside him, heavily dropping down onto it. It’s Puck, who sits facing the dance-floor, holding his glass in one hand while he undoes the first button of his shirt with the other. He takes a drink and then pauses thoughtfully before saying around the rim, “If it makes you feel better, she’s only like a seven, at best.”
Kurt narrows his eyes at him, then goes back to resolutely staring at the wall.
Puck’s knee nudges at him inquisitively. He gives Kurt a completely, weirdly sincere look. “I’ll dance with you, if you want. Let’s be honest - Sam’s dancing is on par with Finn’s, so at least with me your partner will be able to tell the difference between his feet.” He flashes a quick, suggestive smile. “And look how handsome, too.”
Despite fully intending to stay in a horrible mood, Kurt’s smiles, involuntarily. “As persuasive as you are, I think I’ll have to pass.” He lets his smile spread a little. “But thank you.”
Puck shrugs. “Something to think about. And Christ, Kurt, don’t look so depressed. We just sang the sappiest song in the world to tell you how much we love you and all that gay shit. Here,” he pulls Kurt’s glass over to him, grabbing Santana’s flask from across the table and pouring in more than Kurt’s willing to put his throat through. “It’ll help,” Puck tells him, smiling and squeezing his shoulder.
Hopefully this isn’t Puck’s long-term solution to sadness, Kurt thinks, then he just sighs and takes a big enough drink for Puck to demand a high-five for after.
“Cover for me,” he tells Puck, standing. He takes his glass and steps out of the noisy room, wandering the building a little until he finds the exit and an inviting looking stone set of stairs to perch on outside, cautiously placing his last tissue underneath him before sitting down.
For a while, he just sits there in the quiet, taking timely sips of his poisoned soda and feeling sleepier and sleepier the brighter the moon gets above him. He won’t let Sam being straight ruin his father’s wedding day, because that’s stupid and too boy-crazy, even by Kurt’s standards. He just needs a moment out here, away from his coupled friends and distant relatives and Sam.
Sam, who calls out to him a moment later and appears standing above him with his hands in his pockets, a little out of breath when he tells him, “I was looking for you.”
Kurt moves to stand up again, a little dizzy from alcohol, and almost stumbles right into Sam’s chest, but Sam steadies him just in time, big hands warm and comforting around his arms. “Found me,” he murmurs, looking up to give Sam a small smile.
After a pause, Sam smiles back, but his eyebrows are drawn slightly in concern - and that big, discoloured scar around his eye is making Kurt sort of ache. He lets go of Kurt, hands sliding down his arms then falling back to his sides. He raises one to scratch at his head, looking away, drops it again and gives Kurt a nervous grin.
“I was wondering if you...” he starts, slowly, dragging out the last word before biting his lip, briefly shutting his eyes, and finishing with a less lively, “If you could teach me to dance, maybe.”
Kurt stares up at him, an eyebrow slowly raising. “It seemed like you were doing fine,” he answers coolly, even though he made sure not to look at Sam dancing at all and even though he really, really wants to do this.
“It’d be cool to not be guessing what to do the entire time, though.”
With a wry smile, Kurt sets his glass down somewhere safe from his giddy feet and tries to ignore the annoying, distracting feeling in his chest. He takes a step closer to Sam - but not too close, because this situation has a very real, very worrying possibility of getting too weird - and doesn’t object when Sam’s hand settles on his shoulder instead of his waist, because he’s kind of pleasantly surprised by it, even if it’s just because Sam has no idea how to lead.
He holds onto Sam’s waist and slips their hands together, raising them high and feeling alcohol-sick and love-sick which he finds is a pretty unpleasant combination at this moment in time.
“If Finn can Waltz adequately enough you should be able to master it,” he mumbles to Sam, who snorts.
They repeat the same three steps over and over again in silence, and as Kurt gradually leans further into Sam’s body and Sam tips his head up to an uncomfortable angle so his chin constantly brushes Kurt’s hair he realises Sam hasn’t made any mistakes, hasn’t done anything wrong. He seems to know what he’s doing.
Kurt hums amusedly. “Looks like you’re already pretty good.”
Under his hands, Sam tenses slightly but doesn’t let him go or stop his feet. “Maybe you’re just a crazy good teacher,” he counters, voice soft.
Kurt smiles, and keeps on leaning his body closer to Sam’s until they’re half an inch from pressing together, and he can feel Sam’s breath making a tickling path through his hair and Sam’s hand starting to stick to his. It feels like it lasts longer than Kurt knows it could, and he pulls away quickly after the realisation.
“I think you’re good to go,” he says, suddenly breathless and red in the face. He makes himself smile and gestures his head to the entrance. “We should get back before they start looking for us.”
Sam just looks at him for a while, then he nods and follows him back inside. Kurt deals with the phantom touch of Sam’s hand in his for the rest of the night.
1b/2