A/N: Thank you everyone for the hits & reviews, though I of course would love to see more & hear what everyone thinks so far!
This chapter starts out with an onslaught of info, so I hope you can all manage through it, but there is light (romantic candlelight) at the end of the tunnel as your reward! ;) A bit of angsty Kurt at the beginning, and lots of tension building!
Also, I took a lot of liberties as to the layout of the Hudmel house. I decided that they have a basement, because though in their new house I picture their living room being right next to the front door, that just wasn't going to work for my purposes if that was where the surprise party was going to take place, so I gave them a basement. Also, though I think that Kurt's bathroom is a private one, the idea of a joint bathroom with Finn suddenly came to me and it was too good to pass up, so I went with it.
As for Carole's job, is it ever mentioned in the series what she does? For some reason I keep thinking that she is a nurse. In the Pilot episode she mentions trading shifts, which seems like a nurse-like thing to do. Anyways, I made her a nurse. I should probably also have insinuated that her work schedule was a bit more sporadic, accordingly, but I didn't really do that, but it's not that important do I probably shouldn't be drawing your attention to it. :P
Well, I've talked long enough. More notes at the end of the chapter. Enjoy!
Friday
"What do you mean 'no family dinner this week'?"
Kurt was standing in the kitchen, horrified by the words he was hearing coming out of his father's mouth.
"Kurt, I know what this week is supposed to be, but trust me when I say that we will be having lots of family dinners in the future, Carole and I just thought that it would be nice if tonight we had our own celebratory dinner." The hurt tone of Kurt's voice was tearing at Burt's heartstrings, and he looked across at his son with a pained expression.
"But dad, this is the first real family dinner we were going to have. I was really looking forward to this. How can you do this after what you told me before? After your heart attack, dad?"
Burt sighed and rubbed at his eye. Hearing Kurt being this upset about missing the dinner was making his question his motivations. Truth be told, when Finn had come to him and Carole with the plan that New Directions had come up with, he had at first been very reluctant to agree, for all the same reasons that Kurt was throwing at him now. Finn had managed to convince him, however, that Kurt needed his friends right now more than he needed his dad and new step-mom. Burt could see the logic. Kurt was a young man going through a rough time at school and feeling neglected by his friends. Burt was already thankful that a boy like Kurt could even have so many close friends that cared about him so much. He was touched that they wanted to do this for his son, so ultimately he had agreed. But, as sound as these reasons were, they were all reasons that he couldn't tell to Kurt lest he ruin the surprise, so trying to get Kurt to be okay with missing this dinner was proving to be a bit of an ordeal.
"Kurt, that's not fair," he countered. "Carole and I have just gotten married. I am not going back on my word about the importance of family, but you have to understand that this family now has a husband and a wife. And though we have now been married for a week, and we haven't had a proper honeymoon –"
Burt's explanation was cut off by the way Kurt's hand flew to his mouth at this statement, and he immediately realized how Kurt would have taken that.
"Kurt, no, that's not what I meant. We're not blaming you for the fact that we aren't having a honeymoon in Waikiki. You know that it was our idea to send you to Dalton. We wanted to." Burt caught his son's eye and looked hard at him to try and convey this message in a way that Kurt would actually understand. Convincing Kurt of anything when he thought otherwise was difficult on a good day, but the situation right now was anything but favourable. Kurt was still sensitive about the whole money issue; Burt shoulda remembered that before he'd spoken without thinking.
"We decided," he continued carefully, "that tonight it might be nice for us to have our own dinner out as a mini-honeymoon. We're just going to be going to some fancy restaurant, then we'll be staying at a hotel for the night. We'll be back sometime in the afternoon tomorrow."
Burt reached out to Kurt and clasped his shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. Kurt looked up at him, his eyes that almost-red they always got when he was on the verge of tears.
"Kurt, this isn't the end of a tradition," he said softly, leaning in. "It's the beginning. I promise that we will have family dinners every Friday night for the rest of the time you boys are living with us. But for now, just take the night off, relax. You guys can order some pizza and have a little brother bonding time, how does that sound?"
Kurt took a shaky breath and nodded slowly. "I know, dad," he reluctantly conceded. "I know it's important for you and Carole to have alone time, it's just that I've really missed you since I've been at Dalton. And maybe that's stupid since I'm not even boarding there, but I feel like I'm missing out on time with you, and everything else has felt so hectic lately. I just wanted to have a nice dinner with all of us to try and get it all together." Burt opened his mouth to speak, but Kurt cut him off. "No, dad. I understand. You and Carole need some space." He gave a small laugh to try and lighten the mood. "I get that, you should have a good time with Carole tonight."
Kurt smiled and backed slowly out of the kitchen, leaving Burt standing by the counter, the very picture of concern and conflict.
Kurt walked up the stairs to his new room and closed the door behind him. He moved over to his new vanity and slowly sat down in front of the mirror to try and collect himself properly. He sat there in silence for a moment, but avoided looking at himself in the mirror because he knew that if he saw his reflection right now he would see for himself his own frustration and would just break down completely.
Feeling the need for some comfort, Kurt pulled out his iPhone and texted Mercedes, letting her know he was free this evening, and asking if she wanted to grab dinner at the mall with him (before Blaine would be coming over, of course).
He would have texted Blaine to see if he could come over earlier, instead of at 8:00 like they'd agreed when he'd thought he'd had his family dinner, but Blaine had rushed out of school as soon as the final bell had rung again today, so Kurt figured he had other plans and wouldn't be able to make it to Kurt's until 8:00 anyway.
Kurt waited impatiently for Mercedes' usually prompt response to his texts. When he didn't get one right away he huffed, and tossed his phone onto the wooden countertop.
He got up suddenly and strode into the joint bathroom that he shared with Finn. Seeing that it was empty, though not being surprised, since Finn rarely spent much time in a bathroom anyways, Kurt locked his door behind him and walked to the other end of the room to lock the door leading to Finn's room as well. Then he turned on the shower head, making sure the dial was set to near scalding, stripped, and stepped into the shower.
When Kurt was upset, there were few things that could really calm him down, but hot showers were at the to of that short list. Everything about them, the hot water, the steam, the heavy sound of the droplets hitting the base of the tub, was therapeutic. It gave him time to think.
Kurt reached past Finn's L'Oreal for Kids 'No Tears' shampoo, to grab his own bottle and massaged a dollop into his wet hair.
If Kurt was truthful with himself, he would know that it wasn't just not having a real family dinner for the first time in nine years that was making him upset. What was really bothering him was the fact that no one had thought to tell him beforehand.
How many chances had they had? Kurt mentally recounted his time at home over the past week.
He got home from Dalton at 6:00 every day because of Warbler rehearsal, except for Fridays when he got home at 5:00, since the Warblers never had rehearsals on Fridays. He would usually be getting home around the same time that Finn would come back from school from either Glee or football practice (though today Kurt had yet to see or head Finn around the house and had no idea where he was).
Kurt would go to his room and change, and Finn would be having a shower. Then they would both go downstairs and Finn would waste time playing video games in the living room while Kurt started on dinner. Sometimes they would talk about their days, unless Finn was completing a particularly difficult level of Halo, or if he was outright ignoring Kurt as he seemed to have been doing since Monday this week.
Burt and Carole would come in at 6:30, and after cleaning up from their day of work, Carole would join Kurt in the kitchen while Finn saved his game and watched sports with Burt until dinner was ready for 7:00. They would all sit around the dining room table for dinner and talk about their days, Kurt forcing all the healthy food to his dad's end of the table while Finn told them all about something ridiculous Rachel had said in Glee club that day. After dinner Kurt was excused from dishes since he had helped with the meal, and Finn and Burt would clear the table while Carole started on the dishes, Finn helping her. Kurt would go upstairs to get a start on his dense Dalton homework assignments. He'd stop at 10:00 to do his skincare routine before finally turning in.
Kurt sighed as he rinsed the shampoo from his hair. Just going over the process of his daily activities was making him tired. But the routine of it all was helping to calm him down. He pushed some conditioner into his hair. While it set, he lathered up his loufa and carefully soaped himself up.
Maybe I'm just on edge because of the transfer, he thought to himself as he closed his eyes and leaned his head out of the spray of the showerhead. Steam was accumulating quickly in the shower since Kurt hadn't bothered to turn on the fan.
Going over his weekday schedule again, it struck him with how little 'me-time' he had between his homework and household duties. The two-hour commute was the worst bit. Is it worth it? He wondered.
Dalton was definitely an amazing school. True the classes were harder, but hadn't he just been complaining to Mr. Schuester a few weeks ago about how un-challenging he found things at McKinley?
At the time he hadn't just been talking about the Glee club assignments. Kurt wasn't one to brag, ok, only if it had to do with his singing, but he was a smart guy, and at McKinley the curriculum was sub-standard at best. The sad fact of the matter was that he lived in small-town Ohio where not everyone expected, or was expected, to go very far with their lives academically, and the curriculum reflected this disinterested attitude.
Dalton was like a completely different world. First of all, it was a prep school, so the curriculum was specifically designed to prepare students for the academic challenges they would face in college or university. Also, the majority of the students who went there were the sons of well-off families. These boys had parents that were probably lawyers or doctors or politicians, or anything else that paid well. There, the expectation of academic success existed because the parents expected their sons to get similar professional jobs as them, which obviously required good schooling and good grades in order to get into the appropriate colleges. Of course, this went hand-in-hand with the steep tuition.
Kurt would also be lying to himself if he said he wasn't enjoying Dalton's student life. As different as the Warblers were from New Directions, they were an interesting group of boys. As much as Kurt missed having girls around, he was enjoying the dynamic of an all-boys choir, especially since this group of boys could be much more mature than the ones at McKinley. And Wes was right. They all treated him with such respect and equality, it was almost surreal. No one was shoving him into lockers (there weren't even any lockers to be shoved in to) for being different. It was like no one noticed that he was different at all, or if they did, no one seemed to care.
But it seemed that at home he wasn't being treated with that same equality. He had a right to know what the rest of his family was doing, didn't he? Especially when those plans affected him. If he'd known beforehand that his dad and Carole had decided to make tonight a night out then he could have told Blaine to come over earlier. Instead, now Kurt would have to wait around until 8:00 to see the other boy, with nothing but homework and a practically invisible brother to distract himself with.
Frustrated with real life as he was at the moment, Kurt allowed himself to indulge in a bit of a fantasy. He leaned back against the perspiring tiles and tilted the showerhead so the water would still hit him, rinsing the conditioner from his hair as his mind wandered.
If he had known that his parents would be out, Kurt could have kicked Finn out of the house too. He could have prepared an elaborate and romantic candle-lit dinner for him and Blaine. They would play Frank Sinatra while they ate, and Kurt would slowly seduce Blaine over a desert of warm crème brulee. They would feed it to each other, leaning tantalizingly close over the table, as they had at lunch yesterday. They would stare into one another's eyes, the love suspended there gleaming in the soft glow of the flickering candlelight, lost to the world, while hot wax dribbled down the candlesticks, unnoticed.
The shower water running suddenly cold jarred Kurt from the vivid romantic imagery. He gasped and wrenched the tap to 'off' to stop the ironic freezing onslaught, and stepped quickly out of the shower. He was blushing furiously.
Who was he kidding? He asked himself as he reached for his fluffy white towel that hung on the towel rod closest to him. Blaine was a good friend. He was being sympathetic and compassionate to Kurt because he understood what he was going though, and had been through it himself before. He was helping Kurt out because he was selfless like that. Shame on Kurt for reading more into the situation than there was! Hadn't he learned from previous experience not to make that mistake? How could he just go falling in love with the first gay guy he met?
Kurt froze midway through drying his back.
Whoa.
Falling in love?
Maybe he needed to get back into the shower and cool his brain down.
Kurt dried himself more thoroughly than was probably necessary.
Despite the nearly 40 minutes he had spent in the shower and, apparently, using up the houses' supply of hot water, he was not feeling much better than he had been getting in. Kurt grabbed his housecoat from the hook on the back of his door and pulled it on, hanging his towel back on its rod.
He opened the door to his room and went straight to his iPod. Scrolling through his playlists, he finally selected the one with the loudest, most mindless music available, clicked it into the iPod player on his night table, hit play, and kept raising the volume until he could no longer hear himself think.
Ke$ha's TiK ToK echoed around him and inside his head as he re-entered the washroom to dry his hair and get it perfect for when Blaine would be coming over. He wasn't looking at his iPod screen when it flashed the time before the backlight regressed to the lower-power level:
6:20.
Burt and Carole had gotten home an hour early that day in order to have extra time to get ready for their dinner out. While Carole was in the shower, Burt had been downstairs explaining to a surprised Kurt as to why they were back at 5:30 instead of their usual 6:30.
Kurt stormed upstairs shortly after their argument/conversation/heart-to-heart, just as Carole was getting out of the shower. Burt had wanted to stay and make sure that Kurt was really okay, but then he'd heard the shower start and knew that if they waited for his son to finish, they would miss their 7:00 dinner reservation at the restaurant, which was already a bit of a drive away.
So the newlywed couple finished getting dressed, separately, as the occasion called for, and prepared to leave the house for a night that they had not altogether planned on having, but were now anticipating with all the jitters and excitement that a real honeymoon called for. They were at the front door when Carole turned to Burt to tell him to wait a moment, before she hurried down the hall and knocked on the door to the basement. A few seconds later the door swung opened and Finn stepped out to meet them.
"Did I hear the shower start?" he asked, looking from parent to parent.
"You did," his mom said, "Kurt just got in. He's a bit upset at us, so I suspect this will be one of his long showers."
Burt sighed in regret and fiddled distractedly with the sleeve of his suit jacket, but he nodded his agreement. "Now," he said, turning away from the front door to face Finn fully, "I don't want things to get out of hand while we're gone. You promised this party was for Kurt and that there's to be no alcohol involved, and I'm holding you to that, you got that?" he asked, eyeing his large step-son warily.
"Don't you worry, Burt," Finn assured him. "We just wanna show Kurt a good time and that we care about him. Nothing too crazy, I promise." He smiled quickly and added, "and if Puck tries to spike the drinks I'll be the first to kick his butt out of here." He grinned at his step-dad, happy that so far, things were working out.
"That's good, Finn." Burt said, deciding to ignore the comment. "Listen, Kurt's pretty upset about us not having dinner, so I think this party will be good for him. I'm proud of you kids doing this."
"You got it," Finn replied.
"Finn," said Carole, and Finn turned to face his mom, "good luck with the surprise party honey."
Finn smiled down at his mom, and for the first time took in her appearance. She looked beautiful tonight, in a plum dress that complemented he frame nicely. It had been a long time since he'd seen his mom so dressed up, and Finn found himself thanking whoever was up there that it had been Kurt he'd gotten as a step brother if it meant his mom feeling so good about herself again.
"Thanks mom. You look great," he added. He gave his mom a hug and then stood at the door to wave his parents off as they pulled out of the driveway.
Finally, he closed the door and pulled out his phone. The time on the screen read 5:47.
Okay.
Time to work.
Finn glanced up the stairs and listened to make sure the shower was still running (he would never understand why Kurt liked to take long showers, but right now he was banking on that fact), before sending out the mass text:
Parents gone. Kurt occupied. Come now. Operation Surprise Kurt is a Go.
And that's all for now! I wanted to keep going, but it felt like a good spot to end it, so I did. Also, even though this chapter is shorter than the first one, it is a lot more dense, but I hope everyone is a psyched for the party as I am! I have the next little bit planned out, so next update shouldn't be too long.
I think it's adorable that Kurt loves romance over sexy things, so I poked a bit of fun at that with his little shower fantasy. Him getting turned on by a romantic dinner would TOTALLY HAPPEN, you can't deny it. ;)
Also, just want to say that I hope I haven't offended anyone from a small town or Ohio with what I said above about the schooling system. Honestly that is based solely on my own impression of small towns, the tone that Glee gives it, and what Kurt says in 'Never been Kissed.'
Questions? Comments? Let me know how I'm doing! That little button down their isn't going to push itself!
