"I think Kurt's still mad at me."
"What on earth gave you that idea?" asked Artie with an air of long-suffering patience. After the whole Puck-Quinn-baby debacle he'd somehow been appointed "Finn Hummel's temporary best friend", a.k.a. "the one to bear the brunt of Finn's rants, complaints and late-night impromptu videogame sessions". Naturally he'd been trying to get himself fired at every opportunity, but so far he had not been successful.
Finn, to whom irony meant "something to do with metals, and also what blood smells like," silently handed him a crumpled piece of paper. Artie unfolded it and read (with some difficulty):
THINGS KURT SAID THAT MAKES IT SOUND LIKE HE'S STILL MAD AT ME
1. "I'm so sorry I can't attend the sleepover, Tina. My dad is making me drive someone to a 24-hour pizza joint. I know, he ruins all my plans."
2. "Mrs. Campbell, may I request a partner switch? I refuse to work on a physics project with a person who takes out his calculator when asked to divide 14 by 2."
3. "Dad, could you tell the person sitting to the left of you to pass me the remote control?"
4. "Finn, I'm still mad at you."
"Well, I suppose I can see how you derived that conclusion," Artie said. He paused. Finn was looking at him expectantly. "And you want me to do what, exactly...?"
"I don't want him to be mad at me!" Finn wailed, hurling himself onto Artie's bed and tripping over the bedside table in the process, knocking all of Artie's Star Trek memorabilia onto the floor. Artie winced. "It's seriously super awkward at home, and like, Kurt's a cool guy. I don't want him to be pissed at me forever."
"Have you tried talking to him yet?"
"Dude, seriously, I've tried." Finn's voice was muffled by the pillow. "The first time I said 'cmon, I wore a red shower curtain for you, doesn't that cut me some slack?' and then he said from now on he would employ a paradigm in which he would assume I were either deceased or invisible and I have no idea what those words mean but judging from the fact that he's ignored me every other time I've tried to talk to him, I think that means I'm getting the silent treatment." He paused for breath.
"Your powers of deduction amaze me," Artie said dryly. "Well, you could always try to win him over with material possessions. Gifts," he added, seeing Finn's blank expression. "I'm sure Kurt would appreciate it if you, for example, bought him an iced coffee, or a DVD, or a scarf or something. You know, ease up to him gradually. I'm sure he'll soften eventually."
"Hmmm." Finn looked dubious. "I guess... but Kurt's like, super fancy. He'll only want like organic stuff, and really expensive clothes, and..."
"Well, you'll need to figure out your priorities. What's more important, your friendship with Kurt or a copy of Fatal Frame 4?"
Finn sighed. "You're right, of course. Thanks, dude."
"No problem," Artie said, smiling serenely. "Oh. And Finn?"
"Yes?"
"Get out of my house."
-
On Saturday morning Kurt stormed into the kitchen. Finn, who'd been searching inside his cereal box (the front of the box advertised a free toy! Those bastards), looked up.
"Did you put this on my bedside table?" Kurt said, holding out the offending object gingerly by the tips of his fingers, as far from his body as possible. Kurt's mousy brown hair was mussed and his eyes were dark with sleep and his nose was wrinkled in disgust and Finn thought he looked kind of like a chipmunk, and chipmunks were sorta cute so that was good, but Kurt definitely didn't look happy, and making Kurt happy was the whole point of this whole gift-giving business, so. But on the other other hand this was the first time Kurt had spoken to him in weeks, so he supposed he still came out ahead.
"Um. Yes?" Finn blinked. "You don't like it?"
"Just because I am gay," Kurt said, enunciating every word very carefully, "does not mean I would find a hot-pink sweater covered with glittery metallic hearts the pinnacle of fashion. This atrocity belongs in your girlfriend's closet, not mine." He dropped the sweater into Finn's lap. "Or a 'What Not To Wear' blog post." At that he turned on his heels and strode out the door.
Finn stared into his lap and fingered the wooly material. It was kind of itchy, too. In retrospect, maybe it wasn't the best thing he could've bought.
"Dammit. I don't think the store has a return policy."
-
On Wednesday afternoon Finn waited outside Kurt's locker, gift in hand; he'd made sure to check Kurt's class schedule earlier that morning, and sure enough Kurt and Mercedes came walking down the hall, arms linked. They stopped at the sight of Finn and Kurt raised one carefully-plucked eyebrow.
"Your locker's the one over there."
"I know," he said nervously, and held out the box of chocolates. "Here, I got these for you."
Kurt glanced at the cover of the box and grimaced. "No thanks, Finn, you can keep them."
"B-but, wait. You don't want them? They're dark chocolate, which means they're fancy, and they're organic, I know that's important to you, and-"
"Coconut is the most vile filling, and if you've noticed my eating habits at home, I'm on a very strict diet regimen." Kurt sounded mildly apologetic. "I know you like them, though, so you should eat them. Mercedes, let's go, Tina's waiting for us."
As they left Mercedes looked over her shoulder at Finn and mouthed, Try harder next time. Finn very pointedly ignored her. After they'd been gone for a few minutes he shrugged and, removing the plastic wrapping, popped a chocolate in his mouth. At least he could put this gift to personal use.
-
On Friday morning Finn woke up far too late, so he missed first period and had to walk to school. He didn't mind too much though; he'd listened in on his mother and Kurt talking over breakfast the previous morning and got the perfect idea for a gift ("Some red flowers would really spruce up our living room a bit," Kurt said, eyes dreamy). The florist had given him kind of a weird look when he'd asked to have the name "Kurt" written on the tag, but his subconscious squashed down that memory fairly well.
He went through second, third, and fourth period without seeing a single sign of Kurt, though, and at lunchtime he sped over to the Glee Club cafeteria table. Artie, Tina, and Mercedes were sitting there, and he spotted Rachel and Mike heading toward their table too, but there was a noticeable lack of Kurt Hummel in the vicinity.
"Have you guys seen Kurt?" he asked.
"You didn't hear?" Mercedes said, looking up from her plate of... heated food product. "Kurt's in the nurse's office."
"What?" Finn clenched his hands into fists. "Did Karofsky and his fellow douches get to him? I swear I'll tear 'em a new one-"
"No, no, nothing like that," Tina said, waving a fork airily. "Apparently someone left a bouquet of red tulips in Kurt's locker, and he's like super allergic to tulips, so he started coughing and got these rashes on his arm and he didn't bring his foundation and concealer to school today, so- Finn? If you bang your head against the table any more you're going to lose brain cells."
"Not that it'd make a difference," Artie quipped, grinning, and Finn groaned.
"Why don't I have any decent friends?"
-
"You want what?"
"It won't take you too long, I promise," Finn said, his mouth dry. Mercedes was pretty intimidating even in her good moods, and the look she was currently giving him was... unpleasant. "Look, you just need to fill in the blank spaces here, see-"
"Kurt's favorite candy bar? Health snack bar? His favorite colors to wear (Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall)? His favorite songs to listen to when driving to school? I don't think even he knows that."
"You can just guess for some of these-"
Mercedes sighed and put a hand on her hip. "Why don't you just tell him you like him? Kurt likes people who are straightforward, you know."
"Straightforward, huh?" Finn repeated, jotting it down. Then his ears had a small chat with his brain. "I'm sorry?"
"Oh, come on. The flowers? The chocolate? The sweater that I sadly did not get to see but Kurt reassures me was horrific?"
"T-those were gifts of apology!" Finn spluttered. "For calling him a fag, and stuff! Don't be-"
"You don't give red roses to someone as a gift of apology," Mercedes said, rolling her eyes. "You give them to someone who you're going to take to movies and a dinner afterward."
She smirked as she looked at Finn, who seemed to be incapable of coherent speech. "Deny it all you want, white boy, but you've got the hots for Kurt Hummel. He can be oblivious too, though, so you'd better just tell him straight up. Fuck this up again, though, and I'll use your intestines as skipping rope."
"It was tulips, not roses!" he yelled at her retreating back. Then as an afterthought, "Remember to fill out the paper and put it in my locker!"
-
The next day after school, he found Rachel at her locker. After giving her a quick peck on the cheek he said, "Hey, so I need to tell you-"
"It's okay, Finn." Rachel gave him a small smile. "I know already. Don't worry, I'm taking it perfectly fine, and I wish the two of you every happiness."
"Um. What?" He squinted at her. "I just wanted to tell you that I need to miss Glee practice today, basketball overlaps. What are you talking about?"
"Your illicit romance with Kurt, of course," she huffed. Finn paled. "Mercedes told me all about it. I admit that initially I was outraged that you neglected to tell me about this, but-"
"There is nothing going on between us!" he yelled, then flushed as people at the surrounding lockers stared at him. He continued, more quietly, "I don't know what Mercedes told you, but I'm giving Kurt gifts because I don't want him to stay mad at me forever, and-"
"Excuses, excuses," Rachel said, waving a hand dismissively. "When my dads first met each other they also masked their love under a facade of friendship. Don't worry; in fact I was fearing that our relationship would get in my way of achieving my career goals. Oh! I almost forgot." She fished through her bag and handed Finn a large white box. "After I told my dads about your predicament they very graciously prepared some small gifts for you."
"Just wait a second, Rachel-"
"Can't speak any more for now, it's time for rehearsal!" she said cheerfully as she ran down the hall. Finn, defeated, watched her leave.
Later he went to the bathroom to rifle through the contents of the box. He had to admit Rachel's dads were very thorough: they even included an instructional pamphlet.
-
That night when he arrived home (late, due to basketball practice) he found Kurt Hummel leaning against the doorway, a grim expression on his face.
"Finn. I think we should talk."
Finn nodded wordlessly and followed Kurt into the house, where they sat on opposite ends of the sofa, very careful not to bump kneecaps or elbows.
"Look, Finn." Kurt took a deep breath. "If you want, I can just tell Dad that you've completely made up for all the things you said, that I forgive you, that everything's back to normal. I don't mind."
"What?"
"That's what this whole gift-giving fiasco is about, right? So that you and your Mom can stay at our house? So that we can all be one big happy family?"
Usually, Finn would consider Kurt's self-assured, slightly caustic attitude to be one of his strong points. Right now it was making him want to throttle Kurt.
"Kurt, it's not like that." A bead of sweat threatened to roll down his forehead. He willed it to stay there. "You're a great guy; you're really funny, you wear expensive clothes to school even though you know you're going to get dumpstered later, you read all these books with big words in them for fun, you're good at school and football and singing and dancing and choosing skincare products, and I really don't want to lose you as a friend."
"Eloquent," Kurt said sardonically, but he smirked. "Well, I can't guarantee that things will return to the way they were. But-" - and he prodded Finn gently with his toe - "I do forgive you."
Kurt's smile was genuine and Finn suddenly felt an overwhelming rush of gratitude that he had a friend like Kurt: smart and fashionable and funny and just catty enough to not be boring and he had really nice eyes that changed colors in different lights and really full lips that looked like they'd be perfect to -
"Oh, goddamnit."
-
Finn was feeling really confused and depressed.
"I'm feeling really confused and depressed," he told Artie, who was looking down at him with a mixture of exasperation and amusement and, to Finn's chagrin, a complete lack of pity. Finn attempted to insert a note of tragedy into his voice as he continued, "I told this- girl that I didn't like her, that I'd never like her, but now I think I kind of do, which is fucked up because-" and there he stopped, because he didn't think he could continue the sentence without giving away the gender (and therefore the identity) of the person in question.
"I thought you were dating Rachel?"
"She broke up with me." Finn bit his lip. "Because she knew about this other, ah, girl-"
"Do you plan to tell Kurt-ina at any point?" Finn could now hear Artie's smirk in his voice. He glared up at Artie. "Did Mercedes tell you too? Because it's not like that-"
"Mercedes told us about her suspicions, but it's really not that hard to figure out," Artie said levelly. "I mean, you gave him all those gifts -"
"Because you told me to!" Finn spluttered, face tomato-red.
"Well yeah, but flowers and heart-shaped chocolate? A sweater with hearts on it? C'mon," Artie said. "Platonic gifts are like, books without any romance in them-" ("Those don't exist," Finn interjected) "-and coffee and maybe an offer to wash his car and giftcards."
"I just tried to give him stuff he might like," Finn grumbled. He was seriously reconsidering his choice of Artie as Best Friend. "But anyway, that's not the point. I think I know I like him, but does he think I think I know I like him? I think he thinks I think I know I do, but-"
"Oh, my god. Please stop." Artie looked as if he might burst into tears. "No, I don't think Kurt knows since you very loudly declared your heterosexuality to him that time and he's probably still operating under that assumption."
"Okay. So... what should I do?"
"I don't know, man." Artie threw his hands up and groaned. "Why are you asking me? Don't you have anyone else you can harass?"
"Well, you're the only person I know who's in a relationship that's actually working," Finn pointed out. "So I thought you would be the best to give advice."
"If you don't want to be obvious about it - and I wouldn't recommend that you should, anyway, since he's probably still a little pissed at you - you could start with some Thoughtful Gestures. Write him a poem, paint him a picture, sing him a song, make him something. Girls always melt into puddles for that kind of sentimental drivel. I think Kurt would cave too."
Finn continued to lie there on the floor, staring at the ceiling. Artie thoughtfully ran his wheelchair over Finn's big toe, which produced the desired effect: Finn jumped up, yelping, and glared at Artie as he exited the doorway. "I was just leaving."
"Always a pleasure," Artie called after him.
-