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enemies, they take your will, but they won't last forever – sword and shield, sister hazel
Burt sometimes didn’t know what to think of this Blaine kid.
He has no doubt he cares about Kurt. He saw that when he came into the garage to talk to him, and he probably knew the kid had feelings for Kurt before he did. Which is good. Because from some of the stories Kurt has told, Blaine tends to rush into things, and from what Burt’s seen, there’s been no rushing with Kurt.
When Carole and Burt watch the boys sing their duet at Regionals, Burt’s not blind. He doesn’t need Kurt to tell him what they are. He sees the way they look at each other. Sure, he still doesn’t know quite what to make of Blaine, but he knows at least he seems to have Kurt’s best interest at heart in all of his craziness.
Burt catches them in the hall afterwards, Carole rushing off to find Finn and congratulate the McKinley kids. He can see the disappointment in his son’s face, Blaine quietly trying to cheer him up. Maybe that’s why he’s so good at reading people now, Burt thinks. He’s spent so many years trying to decipher Kurt. Burt hugs and praises Kurt, before turning to Blaine and patting him on the shoulder and adding, “You too, kid, you were both amazing up there.”
Burt can see the sincerity in Blaine’s face when he thanks him and calls him Mr. Hummel. “Burt,” he corrects, and Blaine just smiles and gives the slightest nod, repeating it back to him before another blazer-clad boy pulls him away with an apology.
“Where are we going for dinner? There must be a Breadstix in this town, right?” Kurt’s speaking to Burt, but his gaze is following Blaine, watching his every move.
Burt turns to watch as well. Blaine looks like trying to apologize to three boys, who aren’t having any of it. “Probably. Hey, are Blaine’s parents here?”
That snaps Kurt’s attention back to him, and he eyes his father curiously. “No, they never come to these things. They probably aren’t even in Ohio right now.”
Burt makes a mental note to ask more about that later, but it’s not the time or the place. “Do you think he’d want to come to dinner with us?”
Kurt looks surprised, as if that’s not what he expected at all. “I can ask him, but Dad, you should know – Blaine and I –“ and then Kurt stalls as if he can’t get the words out, and Burt knows it has to mean something, because oh god, he wants Burt’s approval, and Kurt only wants his approval on things that are important.
“I know. Good for you kid, Blaine seems like a nice guy.” Kurt’s mouth drops open to speak, but no words come out. “What? You think I don’t notice things? You think I didn’t mean what I said, that I want all of these things for you? I always did, Kurt, I just didn’t know how possible it would be.”
Kurt throws himself around Burt then, hugging him for all it’s worth, and whispered, “Thanks, Dad, I shouldn’t have expected anything less.”
Burt just grinned, figuring he should lighten the mood by saying, “Hey, aren’t you glad we talked about –“
Kurt just pulled back, mortified, and hey, sometimes it was fun being a parent. “Oh my god, Dad, we are never going to speak of that again, and I’m going to go find Blaine and you find Finn and Carole.”
Burt hadn’t told Kurt of Blaine’s visit, he figured it was Blaine’s story to tell, so he went with the change of subject, dropping it. “I should probably tell Finn he can bring Quinn or Rachel, whoever he’s with now, to be fair.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s with Quinn since Rachel seemed to be singing to him,” Kurt said halfheartedly as he scanned the crowd for Blaine’s head.
“Yeah, but that was an hour ago. Who knows what happened since.”
---
Kurt tells Burt about Blaine's parents a few Fridays later, as they're washing dishes after Carole cooks. Burt and Finn are usually the ones on dish duty, but Finn had gotten a frantic call from Quinn, something about some Nationals fundraiser, and Kurt had shooed him away to fix it. Blaine's dad sells medical equipment of some kind and Blaine's mom is a professor at OSU. Sociology, or psychology - something with an ology - anthropology?
She doesn't actually teach much anymore, though, she writes books and travels giving lectures or conducting research and Blaine's dad travels as well, leaving Blaine alone most of the time. Burt can't wrap his mind around that, who would leave their sixteen year old kid alone so much? Kurt mentions that when Blaine was younger, they planned their schedules so someone was always at home with him, but once he hit high school and transferred to Dalton, that sort of stopped, and two nights a week home alone soon turned into five or six by this year.
Though Burt has to give Blaine's parents some credit - he wasn't getting into too much trouble (Rachel Berry's party aside) or throwing his own wild parties while they were gone. Burt had wondered why his parents hadn't cared when their son didn't come home that night - they probably weren't even there.
He isn't always alone, Kurt assures him, and Blaine's mom is usually home most of the summer as long as she's not knee deep in research.
Still, none of it sits right with Burt. Kids should have their parents around, or someone at least.
"He must get lonely," Burt says as he tries to arrange all of the dishes on the drying rack.
Kurt just nods and doesn't say anything more.
"You know he's always welcome here, right? I know we got off on the wrong foot with the party thing, but I just don't like being caught off guard." Burt sighs and turns to face Kurt. "In fact, I would really prefer it if you guys hung out here instead of his place - wait, let me finish," he says as Kurt opens his mouth.
"It's not that I don't trust you, Kurt, I do. I trust you and I trust Blaine at this point, and before you say anything, let's just say I'm aware of the fact that you and Blaine were up in your room with the door shut when Carole and I got home the other night, and I haven't brought it up because I do trust you to be making the right decisions at this point." Kurt opens and shuts his mouth again, blushing ferociously and Burt guesses they weren't just watching a movie like they said they were.
Burt sighs before continuing. "It just doesn't seem like a good idea to me. His parents leaving him home alone like that. You said he's lonely. A sixteen year old kid shouldn't feel lonely. I would just feel better if both of you were around here more." Burt wipes his hands on the towel by the stove and stares at Kurt.
"That's ... actually really thoughtful, Dad," Kurt says before giving Burt a quick hug. He wishes he could snap a picture of Kurt's face right now to pull out when he's feeling like a shitty father, because it's making him feel like he just won an award for father of the year.
---
Once Kurt’s finally back at McKinley, Blaine starts to become more of a fixture at the Hudson-Hummel house. Burt usually comes in from the garage to the boys sitting at the dining room table doing homework – or more accurately, Blaine doing homework and Kurt keeping him company, since the McKinley course load is a bit lighter than Dalton’s (Burt remembers how many hours Kurt would be up past a reasonable bedtime trying to finish this paper or that project). Sometimes Carole is in the kitchen starting dinner, since Burt can’t cook to save his life, or sometimes she hasn’t gotten home yet.
One particular day, Burt walks in and Finn, Blaine, and Kurt sitting around the dining room table playing a board game. Burt feels an urge to check the power, but he sees the lights on so he knows a fuse can’t be blown.
“Okay, wait, you can’t make up rules in the middle of the game,” Blaine says to Finn, laughing.
Finn throws his hands up in the air, but smiles. “I’m telling you, that’s how my mom and I played Monopoly when I was a kid! Kurt, find the rulebook.”
Kurt is just watching them, amused. “You’re lucky most of the pieces are still in here; I’m pretty sure there’s no rulebook. I could probably look them up on my phone though …” Kurt trails off and pulls his phone from his pocket, typing furiously.
“You kids didn’t break the TV, did you?” Burt asks, walking into the dining room.
Kurt waves but doesn’t look up from his phone and Burt just leans against the doorjamb and watches them. “No, we were just talking about childhood memories in glee club, and we were telling Blaine about it. Finn mentioned he always played Monopoly with his mom on Sunday nights, to which I replied that I saved our old Monopoly game from the Goodwill pile when we moved and Blaine told us he hadn’t played Monopoly in like, ten years. So here we are.”
“Yeah, and I was telling Blaine we totally put our money in the middle and if you land on this space here you get it all,” Finn said, pointing to a corner.
“Yes, but you neglected to mention it until you landed on it halfway through the game,” Blaine points out and Kurt just shakes his head.
“It’s a valid, yet optional, way to play,” Kurt says slowly, still reading his phone before giving up and setting it on the table, “but Blaine’s right, you can’t decide that’s how it works halfway. I’ve landed there four times already.”
“Whatever, dude, Burt’s right, why are we playing this when we could be watching TV or something?” Finn replies.
“You’re just saying that because you’re losing,” Blaine says, laughing again. Burt just shakes his head at them and walks past the table to the kitchen to preheat the oven.
“Yeah, well, video games are more my speed, let’s go play some Mortal Kombat and we’ll see who’s winning then,” Finn counters and Burt can see Kurt rolling his eyes at him.
“Don’t sound so confident,” Blaine replies. “I could give you some competition there too, but I should be going.”
Even though Burt had his talk with Kurt about Blaine coming over more, Blaine never stays for dinner, which probably boils down to Blaine not wanting to eat them out of house and home or something, but now that Kurt’s back at McKinley, they can afford to feed another mouth a few times a week – it’s a whole lot cheaper than Dalton tuition.
“Blaine, do you want to stay for dinner?” Burt asks, walking back into the dining room and meeting his eye. “Carole’s going to be home late, so she put together lasagna last night for me to heat up. It’ll be ready when she gets home and I swear she thinks we eat like an army or something, because this thing is huge.”
Blaine opens his mouth, probably to object, but Kurt butts in at that point. “It’s true; we’ll be eating lasagna through the weekend.”
Blaine eyes Kurt, and Kurt seems to be making some sort of face at Blaine, but Burt can’t really see since he’s turned. “Alright, alright,” Blaine says to Kurt before turning to Burt. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Burt replies, and Kurt’s giving him that face again, so he just gives him a wink and returns to the kitchen.
In the end, Finn beats Blaine at Mortal Kombat (twice) and Carole sends Blaine home with a stack of tupperware containing leftovers.
---
Burt sees Blaine come down the stairs, after he rushed up the stairs to follow Kurt after the blowup about the stupid kilt. He’s just standing there at the bottom, like he doesn’t know what to do. Burt’s fiddling in the kitchen, Carole unexpectedly working late, trying to decide if it’s worth it to just call for a pizza. “Everything okay?” Burt calls out, and Blaine jumps at the noise, before walking into the kitchen.
Burt pulls two sodas from the fridge and hands one to Blaine, sitting down in the breakfast nook and motioning for Blaine to join him. He hadn’t expected Blaine to side with him on the issue, and he hadn’t expected Blaine to react the way he did when he talked about them being safe – he’d looked like wanted to disappear into the cushions of the couch. Kurt was too angry to see it, but Burt had noticed.
“He wouldn’t even let me explain,” Blaine says quietly. He’s holding the soda can in his hands tightly, staring at it as if to give him something else to concentrate on.
“He’ll come around,” Burt replies, because if anyone knows Kurt, it’s him. Kurt’s probably fought more with Burt than everyone else in the world combined, especially the last few years. He’s sure this will just blow over – and if it doesn’t, well, Burt doesn’t know his son as well as he thought he did.
“I just – I don’t have the best luck with school dances,” Blaine says, finally looking over at Burt.
“Yeah. I figured.”
Burt didn’t want to pry, but he can see the fear in Blaine’s face– different from the fear he sees in his son’s face, not better or worse, just different, since their experiences have been different. Burt’s breath always catches in his chest every time he sees something on the news about kids in the hospital as a result of bullies, or worse off, had been killed – Kurt’s experience hadn’t been a walk in the park, by any means, but it could have been so, so much worse. It still had the possibly to be worse. Kurt couldn’t fault Burt for trying to keep that from happening any more than he could fault Blaine for it.
Burt wishes he could find the right thing to say to Blaine, but words were never his strong suit, so they sit in silence for a while. He gets up to throw his empty soda can away and pauses, placing a hand on Blaine’s shoulder. Blaine looks up at him expectantly. “You always say Kurt’s the brave one, but you’re pretty darn brave yourself, just in a different way.” Burt squeezes Blaine’s shoulder before walking over to the trash can, and if on cue, Kurt comes rushing down the stairs, already changed back into the clothes he wore to school. He slows when he sees Blaine sitting at the table, and Burt can see the relief in his son’s face.
He grabs the cordless phone and walks past Kurt, patting him on the shoulder as well. Burt just barely hears Kurt’s “I’m sorry” as he walks into the living room. Luckily he knows the pizza place’s number by heart, and he should probably order an extra pie.
---
Summer’s here, and Finn is out to dinner with Rachel and Carole has a girls’ night out with her friends. Kurt is going to the movies with Blaine and Burt’s highlight of the evening is watching the Reds play the Cardinals in the AC of the house with a few cold beers. When the doorbell rings, Kurt is still up in his room, so Burt lets Blaine in and they sit on the couch together.
“You watch baseball?” Burt asks Blaine, and he shakes his head.
“Not really, I know enough to follow along, but I don’t know it like I know football.” Burt glances over at Blaine, and he’s watching the TV intensely. “Like what happened there? Why are they booing?”
“That was a bad throw and would’ve been ruled a ball, but he swung so it counts as a strike instead,” Burt explains. “It was outside his strike zone.”
He’s not sure if Blaine knows what the terminology means, but he furrows his brow and nods, still engrossed. Kurt comes down the stairs and Blaine doesn’t tear away from the game right away, apologizing when he realizes it.
“Hey,” Burt calls out when they’re almost out the door. “You guys want to stay and watch the game with me? I could explain what’s going on and it sure would be cheaper than a movie.”
The boys exchange glances and whispers before walking back over and settling in on the couch.
---
The game is long and will probably run into extra innings. Burt can tell Kurt’s patience with the game is waning. He gets up to use the restroom and watches them just for a moment. Kurt slumped into Blaine’s shoulder with Blaine’s arm around him, whispering again. If someone had told him last summer what this summer would look like, Burt wouldn’t have believed them.
“So really, you don’t care that we missed the movie?” he hears Blaine ask quietly, and Burt thinks about not spying, he probably shouldn’t – but the boys are having a sweet moment, and they must have added some sort of sappy concoction to his heart when they fixed it, because he thinks it’s sweet too.
“No, I think it’s endearing the way he likes to spend time with us and have you around. It was just me and him for so long, and now there’s so much more, Carole and Finn and you. Change is good sometimes you know?”
Burt’s not a crier, but his son’s words tear at his heartstrings all the same.
“This game, however, I’ve about had it with it. I don’t know how much more I can watch.” The boys laugh and Burt sees Kurt shift closer to Blaine, so they’re facing each other.
“Maybe we could go out and get dessert. We could try that new yogurt place that’s supposedly healthy.”
Kurt whispers something back that Burt can’t really make out, but he’s pretty sure the words oral fixation were used, and that’s his cue to stop listening. He walks over to the fridge to get another beer and when he returns to the living room, the boys are off the couch.
“This was great, Dad, but I can’t take anymore of this game,” Kurt says. “We’re going to go get some frozen yogurt; we’ll be back in a bit.”
“Yeah, thanks Burt,” Blaine adds, “I think I’ve got the whole baseball thing down now.”
Burt just eyes them a moment too long to make them feel a little uncomfortable and replies, “Sure, you guys have fun and be safe. Curfew’s still twelve, Kurt.”
“Of course, Dad,” Kurt replies, and he grabs Blaine’s hand and smiles at him, truly happy, and it’s been a while since Burt’s seen Kurt truly happy. Blaine returns the look, and maybe Burt still can’t quite figure Blaine out, but he can see the change in Kurt, and that’s all that matters.