Chapter Text
Dinner with David and their fathers was… very, very, very awkward. Kurt knew that he could be a bit of a drama queen, but calling it the most awkward dinner that he’d ever had the displeasure of sitting through wasn’t even an exaggeration. His dad kept trying to keep things lively by engaging him in conversation, and Kurt was doing his best to keep things going. Then, one of them would try to pull in David or Paul, and they’d get a short, clipped answer.
It probably didn’t help that David and Paul hadn’t had a chance to talk before they’d all sat down. When they’d first walked in, David had all but glomped himself onto Kurt’s side and refused to let go. Kurt had humoured him, and he’d kept close to David as they worked to get dinner plated.
Once everything was on the table, they just started eating. Which had likely been a mistake, but David had been avoiding his father’s gaze and Paul Karofsky didn’t seem to have any idea what to say.
This brought them to the end of dinner, and the most awkward silence of the night as they didn’t even have the clatter of utensils against dishes to fill it.
“Paul,” his dad said eventually, his voice heavy and leading. “Why don’t you tell Dave here what you told me, huh?”
“Uh, right, I can—I can do that,” Paul muttered under his breath. He and his dad shared a look of understanding.
“Whenever you’re ready,” his dad murmured, clapping a strong hand on Paul’s shoulder and giving it a manly squeeze.
Kurt kept his eye roll to himself.
“David… look, you’re my son,” Paul said. His voice was deep and gruff, sounding a lot like his dad’s got when he was emotional. “Nothing is going to change that. Not all the acting out you’ve been doing, not the slipping grades, and sure as hell not something like this, got it?”
David nodded. Kurt totally ignored that his eyes were glassy, since his own may have been feeling a little wet.
“I brought you a bag of clothes so you can spend the night. Your laptop is in there, too. I… I need time to talk to your mother about how we’re going to handle this.”
“I understand,” David whispered, but he sounded broken.
Kurt reached out and curled his fingers around David’s wrist, and felt like he could feel his pulse racing against his fingertips.
His heart was racing too.
“David, I brought you a bag of clothes so you can stay somewhere safe in case your mother reacts badly when I tell her that she’ll either accept you as you are, or find a new place to live.” There was a steady reassurance in Paul’s eyes that Kurt admired. He could see an older version of David sitting before him, and despite the emotionally charged conversation, he found himself a little distracted by the light in Paul’s eyes and the way his beard shaped his jaw.
And it wasn’t that Kurt was checking out David’s dad! He wasn’t! That would be weird. No, Kurt was just… imagining what David would look like one day when they were both men of their own, and… well, he certainly didn’t hate it.
Then fantasy adult-David expanded to include fantasy adult-Kurt with him, and Kurt focused back on his kitchen.
“R-Really?” David asked, and he sounded so surprised that Kurt had to press his free hand against his mouth so he wouldn’t make an embarrassingly pathetic noise at the way his heart twisted.
“Of course, David. I love your mother, but you are my son,” Paul said the word with so much meaning that even Kurt felt the love in his tone, and David quickly pushed himself up to round the table.
Kurt shared a smile with his dad as David and his own father held each other tightly. It reminded him of his own coming out from the year before, but unlike the heartfelt conversation he’d shared with his dad, he knew that it wasn’t going to be as straightforward for David as it had been for them.
Even still, something heavy eased from Kurt’s chest. He may not have been entirely aware of it until it was gone, but he’d been worried for David. He knew that his own father would be a grounding source of support—which was why Kurt had asked David to go to him in the first place—but whatever magic he’d worked on Paul Karofsky was really paying off.
As he looked between his dad and Paul, he could tell that they really were one in the same. Lima born and raised, they both looked like men who’d spent their life in a small town. And, it seemed that Paul was rising above the Lima bigotry just like his own father had.
It gave him a lot to think about, a lot more to think about than he had the time for now. Still, as he watched David hug his father tightly, he wondered if maybe there was more good to be found in Lima than he’d ever considered before.
After another few moments, David and Paul stepped apart, and Kurt ignored their red eyes as a brief lull fell over the room.
“Why don’t you two boys go get David set up downstairs?” his dad said into the silence.
“Dad?” Kurt asked, shocked. There was something sombre in his dad’s gaze, though, and he knew that this was for David more than anything else.
“We got you a pullout couch for a reason, huh? Might as well put it to use one of these days,” Dad relented with a small grin that had Kurt barking out a laugh.
“Okay. Thank you,” he told him seriously, and he knew that his dad would understand all that he was saying.
“I, uh, Mr. Hummel, sir, I—” “What did I say about calling me Burt, son?” “—uh, right, yes, uhm, Burt… are you sure?”
Kurt understood why David was asking. After all, David had told his dad exactly how he felt about Kurt and while his dad would still claim that he wasn’t ready for boy talk, well, he seemed a lot more comfortable with this than Kurt would have expected.
It made a little more sense, though, when Dad’s voice was soft as he explained, “I am. The way I see it, I figure the two of you could use some comfort tonight, yeah?”
“Yes, sir,” David said immediately. “T-Thank you, Burt.”
“Ain’t no problem, son,” his dad said kindly, and Kurt realized all over again how lucky he was to have Burt Hummel as his dad.
But as he looked over to where Paul Karofsky was grinning at his son with a sly, teasing sort of smile that was making David’s ears turn pink, he wondered if maybe they were both lucky in the father department.
“Alright,” Paul said, after another moment. “I better bring your stuff in and get going. Burt, thank you for having us, and Kurt, that was a damn fine piece of meat.”
“Thank you,” Kurt said politely. Before any of them could linger, he stood and turned to David. “Come on. We should start getting the basement ready.”
David nodded, and with one final look at his dad, moved to follow Kurt downstairs. It made him smile, a little, at how easily David followed after him. It was certainly something he’d never expected from Karofsky, but every single second in David’s presence did more to prove that Karofsky was never who David really was.
Once they were downstairs, Kurt turned and pushed David down onto his bed. The boy let out a noise of surprise, but Kurt quickly sat beside him, his knees pressing into David’s thighs, and took one of his hands into his own.
“How are you doing?” he asked immediately, finally letting some of his ever-present worry bleed out. “Are you okay?”
Upstairs, he had put on a brave face for David, but seeing the heartbreak in the other boy’s eyes when talking about his mother had hit him harder than he’d expected, and he was more than a little worried about how David was handling everything.
“Huh?” David asked, looking a little shocked.
Kurt figured that was fair, since he had sort of accosted him. He gave David a moment to orient himself, smiling as David laced their fingers together. Then, he asked, “Are you okay?”
David shrugged. His eyebrows pulled together and created a worried crease in the middle of his forehead. Kurt smoothed it out with his free hand, and then wrapped it around their interlaced fingers.
“I… didn’t think that was going to go like that,” David whispered. “I know it’s not gonna be that easy with my mom. I… a couple of years ago I heard her talking about some woman from her church. She was all upset ‘cause the lady had a fa—uh, had a gay son. And she—the things she said, I. Fuck, Kurt, she’s gonna hate me, but…”
Kurt didn’t fill the silence. Instead, he ran his thumb over David’s knuckles and waited the bigger boy out. It didn’t take long.
“I—thank you so much, Kurt,” David murmured heavily. He looked up at Kurt from under his lashes, and his heart did something ridiculous. “I can’t even… what you did? What you’re still doing? I can’t even tell you how much this all fuckin’ means to me, Kurt. You—I feel like you’ve saved my life.”
“I wasn’t the one who did anything, David. This was all you,” Kurt said, his cheeks heating up.
“Fuck that!” David protested. “You forgave me. I’ve done nothing to deserve it, but you showed me kindness. You let me talk to your Dad. You—”
Kurt kissed him. He wasn’t sure what David was going to say next, but his face was burning and his heart was racing and Kurt couldn’t handle the intensity in David’s eyes.
Crazily enough, kissing felt safer than looking at David. David’s lips were warm and inviting, and Kurt angled himself into David as the kiss went on. David’s hands were so very warm, and as their lips moved together, David slipped a hand under his shirt and slid his bare palm up in back. Shivering, Kurt sucked in a sharp breath of air before he started to trail kisses down David’s jaw.
They definitely had more talking to do, but it was a Friday, and it was looking like they had a whole weekend stretching out in front of them.
So instead of thinking about all the things that were still unsaid, Kurt shifted around until he was up on his knees and tangled his fingers into David’s short hair. He’d never kissed another boy before, and making out with Brittany had not prepared him for the way it would feel to kiss a boy he liked.
Heat pooled in his belly and made him feel weightless and breathless all at once, and Kurt slowly, hesitantly, flicked his tongue out to feel the warmth of David’s lips. The bigger boy moaned, a low, dark-sounding noise that seemed to come from somewhere deep in his chest, and Kurt answered it with a quiet groan of his own.
“Kurt! I’ll leave David’s bag at the top of the stairs,” Dad called out, and for the second time that afternoon, it shocked the two of them apart.
Kurt snickered into David’s shoulder as the other boy called out a horse, “Thank you, Mr. Hummel—Burt—Sir!!” that Dad didn’t reply to, which was probably for the best with how Kurt felt like he was going to melt away into a puddle of embarrassment.
They took a few minutes to breathe together. Kurt was definitely enjoying the kissing. Enjoying it enough that it was easier and easier to convince himself that friends could definitely kiss, especially when that friendship was specifically a prelude to more. Still, this was just as nice, and as David’s arm settled low around his waist to keep him close, Kurt hummed happily.
“You should go grab your stuff. I need to shower before we can even think about sleeping. I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely willing to call it an early night?” Kurt asked quietly as he gently scratched his fingers across the back of David’s neck.
The other boy’s eyes fluttered shut, a move that made Kurt’s blood feel warm even as his chest went all gooey, and slowly nodded his head.
“Y-Yeah, Kurt, an early night sounds good. Do you need help to get the couch set up?” David asked in a distracting murmur.
Biting into his bottom lip, Kurt sat back on his heels but didn’t go too far. He reminded himself again that David had bared his soul to him in one of the bravest moments of vulnerability he’d ever seen, and, maybe, the bigger boy deserved the same.
So instead of holding himself back, Kurt said, “I don’t think I will, no.”
“Hmm?” David asked, but it was clear he wasn't really paying attention as Kurt kept running his nails along the back of his neck.
So Kurt gently tugged on the hair at his nape, and when he had David’s full attention, he said, “I don’t think we’ll be needing the couch tonight. My bed is definitely big enough for two, don’t you think, David?”
“I-I, uhm, well, do you—”
“I think we could both use the comfort tonight?” Kurt asked shyly. “It would be nice to have someone to cuddle with after all the big emotions.”
Something eased in David’s face, and he was glad to see that the promise of cuddling calmed David down. He didn’t want the other boy to think that he was propositioning him this early on in things, but he’d also rather not have to explicitly say that. Even just thinking about being that direct about sex made him feel a little awkward.
Thankfully, David seemed to feel the same, and the blinding smile he got in return took his breath away.
“That sounds absolutely perfect, Fancy,” David murmured, and for the first time since David had bared his soul, he pulled Kurt in for a kiss.
It tasted like the truth, and Kurt couldn’t do anything but smile into it.