Work Text:
[Lima, Ohio - October 2013]
“Hey dad.”
“Hey kiddo. What’s up?”
Kurt shrugged and sighed, letting himself fall down on the couch next to his father. “Just tired, I guess,” he replied, and put his head on his dad’s shoulder.
“There’s a place for that, you know,” Burt remarked. “It’s all still there… your bed, your comforter…”
“Like you never sleep on the couch,” Kurt replied groggily. “And my comforter’s in New York, studying for midterms.” He sighed again. He really missed Adam, and knowing he was missing out on what would probably be an amazing Halloween party at Vogue with Isabelle’s ensemble didn’t do much to make him feel better either. Still, he had made a promise to his dad and to himself that he’d be at every single of his dad’s follow-up care visits to check the status of his remission, so Lima it was this Halloween.
“I’m just gonna pretend we’re talking about blankets, okay?” Burt replied, patting Kurt’s shoulder awkwardly as he kept his eyes on the tv.
“Dad, if you’re gonna take a stand in Congress about marriage equality you’ll need to accept the fact that I sleep with men.” He blinked. “Man,” he quickly corrected himself. “ A man. Singular form. I’m not-”
“Kurt, I get it. And it’s not about you being gay, okay? And it’s not about sex,” his dad hastily interrupted him. “It’s just that… you’re out there in New York with someone I’ve never met, sharing this life I’m not a part of any more and-”
“You are a part of my life, dad,” Kurt said. “You always will be.”
“Yeah but he’s your comforter, isn’t he?” Burt offered his son a melancholic smile. “It’s okay, don’t mind me. Just getting sentimental at my old age.”
“Adam really wanted to come with me,” Kurt assured his father again, “he even tried to defer his exams but they make no exceptions. I was really lucky mine were scheduled a week before your appointment.”
“I guess it means a lot that he tried to do that for you,” Burt admitted.
Kurt smiled. “He’s one of the good guys, dad.”
“Yeah well, you’re biased,” Burt mumbled.
“So’re you,” Kurt replied in the same, gruff voice as he snuggled further into the couch and his dad’s embrace.
They watched tv in silence for a while, and Kurt could feel his eyes drooping.
*
“Kurt, what’s going on? Is this part of a party prank?”
Kurt got up from the couch. He must have dozed off, because it hadn’t been dark earlier. His father was standing in front of the window, looking outside. An eerie orange glow lit up his features. Kurt joined him at the window.
“Oh my god,” he whispered.
At least forty carved pumpkins sat in the grass in front of his father’s house, candles flickering inside. To his horror, Kurt could see that several had been carved to resemble his face. At least as many looked like disfigured troll’s heads. Some of them, he realized, had words carved into them.
“Marry. Me. Kurt. Hummel,” he read out loud. “Who-?” Then he looked at the pumpkin faces again. The trolls had bowties. Maybe they weren’t supposed to be trolls after all. Suddenly, his eyes caught some movement by a tree. In the half-dark, he could see his ex-boyfriend and a taller person with blond hair sharing a pair of binoculars. They were wearing capes and looking straight at them.
“Should we call the police?” his father asked, sounding apprehensive.
Kurt shook his head. “Just close the blinds,” he told his dad. “I’m pretty sure they’ll go away on their own. But let’s call Carole to let her know just in case, so she doesn’t freak out when she comes home from her shift.”
Burt nodded. Then he seemed to hesitate. “Kurt?”
“Dad?”
“You know I’m sorry, right? For last Christmas, and taking Blaine to New York with me? If I had known…”
Kurt waved it off. “That wasn’t your fault. I should have told you why we had broken up.” He gestured at the window. “And no one could have anticipated he’d turn out like this…How did he even know I am here this weekend?” The more he thought about it, the more his initial surprise turned into righteous irritation. Who on earth proposes to someone they aren’t even in a relationship with?!
Kurt shook his head. “Ugh. Like it isn’t bad enough that he keeps leaving inappropriate messages on my facebook wall and my answering machine- now he’s actually decided to stalk me… and with Sam.”
“I thought Sam was one of the good guys too?”
“Maybe before he met Blaine. Now…I just don’t know. This whole ‘Blam’ thing is gotten a little out of hand.” He wondered if Sam had helped carve the pumpkins. Blaine had never been much of an artist. Kurt took a last look at them as the blind rolled closed. He wondered if anyone in New York would believe him if he told them about this.
“Do you mind if I call Adam?” he asked his dad, taking out his cellphone.
“Go ahead. I’ll call Carole.”
Kurt looked at Adam’s picture as he dialled, and already felt a little better.