Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or any of its characters; Ryan Murphy and Co. hold that honor. I'm simply writing this for fun, not profit.
"So."
"So . . . ?"
"You started a PFLAG."
Finn scuffed his fingertips together anxiously. "Yes."
"Without consulting me first," Kurt pointed out.
Finn nodded slightly, biting at the tip of his fingernail.
Kurt closed his eyes as though pained. "Please don't do that."
"Sorry." Finn dropped his hand back to the table, clasping them together so he wouldn't feel tempted to do it again. He was doing his best to win over Kurt at this point, not aggravate him further. And if normally he would have just rolled his eyes and said that him biting his nails didn't have any direct effect on Kurt, then this wasn't a normal occasion. He had bandaged the problem; he hadn't addressed the real issues. He hadn't been comfortable telling the rest of the glee club that he had been homophobic, in his own way. By deliberately avoiding someone who was gay and doing nothing to stop the slushying Blaine had already received, he had discriminated against him.
Truthfully, that made him feel a little sick to his stomach. If he could revert so easily to old ways where he didn't like to even meet Kurt's gaze because he was worried of finding an infatuated smile in return, he didn't want to know what his future looked like. Was it always like this? Would it always be hard to be around Kurt and Blaine in public because of the slurs, the taunts, the looks?
And I'm not even gay, Finn thought bitterly. Great.
"Why did you do it?" Kurt asked quietly, his voice neither accepting nor outright denying anything. Finn felt some of the buried tension in his spine diminish. He had half-expected this to be a shouting conversation where Kurt insisted that Finn hadn't done anything to correct the problem and Finn yelled back that of course he had, he had just given up every shred of his reputation by signing his name on that document. As soon as it became widespread, Finn was socially dead: he would be on the same level as everyone else in glee.
No more shields, he mused. No more football victories to cure everything. He would have to fight for his reputation now, and fight hard if he wanted to maintain it.
No wonder Kurt's so different. He wouldn't be noticed at all if he wasn't.
It was a mixed bargain: by being noticed, Kurt opened himself up for even more degradation and targetting than if he laid low. On the other hand, Kurt was bound to be taunted for being gay, whether he stayed above or below the radar.
"I did it because . . . I'm tired of screwing things up with us. I didn't protect you when Karofsky started harassing you." He noticed the way that Kurt paled a little as he said the name, though his mouth firmed stubbornly. "I didn't stand up for you when the other guys were bullying you before him, throwing you in dumpsters and stuff. And I haven't stood beside you and Blaine with the whole transfer thing, either."
"No, you haven't," Kurt said. His eyes were more gray than blue, Finn noted absently. More cold than forgiving.
"Look, I know I mess up a lot. I know I'm not good at these things. But I just . . . I feel like I really messed up this time."
"You did," Kurt interjected bluntly.
Finn suppressed a wince. "I want to make things better. Not just for you, but everyone. And this doesn't just benefit you and Blaine." Kurt's eyebrows arched dramatically, waiting. "It benefits all of us. Unity. Remember that? Schuester talking all about how we needed to be unified this year. Well, I think . . . I think a PFLAG could really unite us."
Kurt leveled a speculative look at him, fingers steepled. Finn waited until at last Kurt shook his head a tiny bit and leaned back in his chair. "You're serious," he murmured, sounding surprised.
"Of course I am," Finn said. "Didn't I make that clear already?"
"This isn't some sort of game, Finn. You don't just pull out the 'PFLAG card' to get back on my good side. You're committing to this. I want you to understand that if you break this, we're done. I'm not going to live with someone who can't even accept that not everyone's the same and we can't help it that we're different." The last words he practically spit out, biting his lower lip when he was done.
"I know, dude. Kurt. And I'm . . . I don't know, I guess I'm happy for you and Blaine and everything, and that's part of why I feel bad." Kurt's eyes were shadowed again, hard to read. "I don't want it to seem like I'm against who you are. I'm not. I accept that you're gay."
"Do you?" Kurt prompted, almost lightly. His gaze was so dark that Finn couldn't tell if his eyes were blue or gray or purple.
"I do," Finn said firmly. "Despite how I've acted, I do."
There was a pause, then a soft, chilling laugh. "It's how you act that decides who you are, Finn. And if you act like a homophobe, that makes you a homophobe, regardless of what you say."
"I'm not a homophobe," Finn said, barely stopping himself from snapping it. He couldn't get angry with Kurt right now. Frankly, he couldn't let Kurt get angry with him, either, but he really couldn't get angry at Kurt, or he would lose it and they would be right back to square one. Worse, since he wasn't even sure they had any connection to each other any more.
Kurt merely folded his arms across his chest and tilted his head to one side. "Really?" he said, his voice thin. "So the fact that you were perfectly fine ostracizing Blaine because he might ruin your reputation as a straight guy wasn't homophobia?"
"Look," Finn said. Kurt's eyebrows lifted another notch. "Can we please not get hung up over one thing? I'm sorry, okay. I get that it was wrong that I made Blaine feel unwelcome or something, but . . . can I be honest?" Kurt inclined his head a tiny bit, though his expression was wary. "Nothing much has happened now, either. Yeah, Blaine's been ignored. We've all experienced moments when we feel left out. Yeah, Blaine was slushied. We've all been slushied. I might not have been acting right, but it doesn't make me some sort of homophobe."
"Do you even know how many times he was slushied?" Kurt demanded softly.
Finn's brow furrowed. "What do you mean?"
Kurt shook his head, lips pursed. "Guess."
With a wince, knowing that there was no way to win in this situation, Finn shrugged and hedged, "Twice?"
"Four times."
"Dude, what the hell? When did that happen?"
"Oh, just when you and Puck were talking about how the prep boy had set a piano on fire in the courtyard," Kurt said in a light voice. "Or maybe when you were discussing how much you wished you didn't need a prep boy ruining your pretty reputation. It's hard eating your own words, isn't it?" he asked in a mock sympathetic tone.
Finn couldn't help it; he covered his forehead with a hand, feeling like someone had slammed a sledgehammer against it. Yes, he'd said those things but . . . but nothing.
His excuses dried up. He had said those to preserve his reputation, to show that he didn't have any interest in befriending the new 'homo in town.'
No, he hadn't used the slurs, but what he had been saying was almost as bad.
"Blaine doesn't even know you said those things," Kurt said quietly, in that intense voice he used when announcing something very serious, like the possibility that Burt was never going to wake up from his coma. "Or if he does, he hasn't said anything about it. And do you want to know something, Finn? It was hard for him to transfer. And I really think that it would have been nice if someone other than his boyfriend or a girl had been nice to him. He's not an alien. He does have feelings."
Kurt pushed his chair back slightly, no where near as violently as he had done when he first stormed out. "I haven't forgiven you," he said matter-of-factly, "but if you actually try hard to make this work, then I might take it into consideration."
"I'm sorry," Finn blurted. "I'm really sorry, Kurt."
Kurt just shook his head. "Prove it."
And then he disappeared around the threshold, his footsteps retreating softly upstairs.
Finn was still sitting at the kitchen table when his mom finally got back from work, setting down some groceries on the counter and looking at him curiously. "Something wrong, hun?" she asked, noticing that he wasn't leaping up for the opportunity to peruse new food.
Finn lifted and dropped one shoulder. "No," he said simply, getting up and walking out with her to pick up the rest of the groceries.
They didn't speak much while she prepared dinner. Finn intermittently asked her about her day and picked off Doritos, doing his best to distract himself even though it was impossible.
I actually said that. I really screwed up this time.
Kurt hadn't emerged from upstairs since he'd left, even though Finn had heard the showering running at one point. He winced slightly at the thought of confronting him again, especially since he still didn't have his thoughts in any order.
Four times. How the hell was he slushied that many times in less than a week?
Then, hunching his shoulders slightly: Why didn't they say anything?
Idiot, he mentally berated himself. They shouldn't have had to tell him anything. He should have figured it out on his own. Blaine wearing Kurt's shirts. Blaine with that almost sickly sweet smell of too much corn syrup whenever he stepped past Finn. Blaine with damp hair, food dye tinted cheeks.
How did I not notice that? Finn thought, amazed, as he silently revisited some of his memories of the past few days.
It was so obvious, but since neither of them had said anything, he had been happy to ignore it. Happy, in fact, that he didn't have to intervene, since it increased the likelihood that he would be allowed to salvage his reputation in private without their 'gay influence' affecting his own reputation.
Finn felt slightly sick. He was a homophobe.
Kurt was right.
And he was very, very wrong.
"Finn, hun? You don't look so well. Are you sick?"
"I . . . I need to talk to Kurt."
"He's upstairs," his mom said, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Is something wrong?"
"No," Finn said. Then: "Yes." He dropped the bag of Doritos and quickly doused the cheesy residue off under the sink, patting his hands down with a paper towel before darting out of the kitchen. He didn't want to be stopped now for extra questions; he just had to make it clear to Kurt that he didn't mean to, he didn't mean it—
But he had. He had, because he had meant to preserve his reputation, and that was all that mattered.
With a groan, Finn sat hard on the edge of the couch, gazing at the black TV screen blankly. How did he even begin to fix this?
Almost instantly, the answer came to him: Blaine. Of course.
The one who deserved the real apology. The one who could get through to Kurt. The only one keeping them in any form of contact.
"Finn? What's wrong?" his mom asked, reappearing.
Finn shook his head. "I need to talk with Blaine."
"Okay," his mom said, clearly confused but at least willing to listen. "Do you know his number?"
Finn paused. No, he didn't, but . . . "I know his address." He had dropped Kurt off, once, during the summer, and so long as Blaine hadn't moved without letting them know, then Finn knew where he was.
"You want to drive all the way out to Westerville?" his mom said, surprised. "Hun, couldn't this wait until tomorrow . . . ?"
Before she could finish, Finn was already on his feet, shaking his head. "Can I borrow your car?" he asked, rather hesitantly.
His mom pursed her lips before walking back in the kitchen and emerging with the keys. "Just . . . don't do anything stupid, okay, Finn? You're a smart boy, and I trust you, but this . . . I feel like something's wrong."
"That's why I'm going to try and make it right," Finn said, hugging her quickly in gratitude before walking out of the front door towards his mom's car.
Hopefully, he thought silently to himself. And though he hadn't really prayed since the Grilled Cheesus fiasco back in junior year, he decided that now was a pretty good time for some divine intervention.
Please let this work out, he pleaded silently.
"Blaine, there's someone at the door for you."
Blaine frowned, snapping his history book shut and rolling over so that he could scoot off his bed. It was almost seven o'clock, and he knew for a fact that Kurt wasn't coming over that night. His dad was home, for one, and his mom was busy filing work away for the animal shelter. Not exactly the most pleasant time of day to be around the Anderson household; most people avoided it like the plague when Brian Anderson was around, despite his congenial disposition towards charities.
Understandably, Blaine thought, as he hurried down the stairs and gave his dad a quick questioning look—who is it?—before his dad wordlessly pushed the door open a little further.
Blaine's eyebrows disappeared into his hairline. "Finn?" he asked, stunned. What the hell was Finn doing there?
He hadn't heard from Kurt at all, despite several casual texts he'd sent inquiring about how things were going with Finn. Badly, Blaine thought, wincing, as he gestured Finn inside. If it's bad enough that Finn feels like he has to come here. . . .
Brian stared Finn down skeptically, slightly dwarfed by the quarterback. He retreated wordlessly towards the living room where Emily was still working on her laptop, casting Blaine a brief look that said No funny business so loudly Blaine nearly rolled his eyes.
"Can we talk in private?" Finn asked quietly.
Brian cleared his throat loudly from the living room. Blaine sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Um. Sort of. Do you mind taking a drive? It's getting kind of dark, so I don't think a walk would be good, but. . . ."
"Uh, sure," Finn muttered.
"Be back before ten," Brian said promptly from the living room.
Blaine gestured Finn back towards the door, grabbing a hoodie off the edge of the stairwell as he did so. "Just ignore him," he whispered.
Finn shut the door behind them, leading the way towards his car and climbing into the driver's seat without comment. Blaine did the same on the passenger side, motioning for Finn to start. "Trust me, just drive a ways," he said, waving his hand. "He'll think we're doing something . . . scandalous otherwise."
Finn blushed scarlet and the car nearly jumped as he pressed down on the gas pedal. "Sorry," Blaine said apologetically. "He's just a little . . . undecided about the issue."
"Apparently," Finn muttered, still red. "You'll tell him we weren't . . . ?"
Blaine shrugged slightly. "It won't change his mind. If we were sitting on a couch in front of him he would still think we were having sex somehow. Because that's all gay guys do," he added in a disgusted sort of tone. "Honestly. I think he's just pissed because he lost a case."
"Lost a case?"
"Oh, he's a lawyer. Works for a 'big fancy firm.'" Blaine shrugged. "You can just go a little further, there's a park up ahead. I don't want you wasting gas over this."
"It's fine. Why's he so . . . biased?"
Blaine shrugged again. "Various reasons. Here, park up there," he added, gesturing towards a semi-filled lot. It was dark enough that there weren't too many people out, but there were still a few minglers hanging around the edges. "One," Blaine said, ticking it off his fingers, "I'm his only son. If I'm gay, I can't exactly carry on the family line, can I?"
"No," Finn muttered, tapping his fingers silently against the steering wheel.
"Two: His father's very . . . conservative. Takes a lot of very old-fashioned stances on marriage and thinks that gays are just rebels trying to stir the pot. So he does his best to appease his father, which means that he starts seeing my homosexuality as a choice. I'm like the family rebel," he added conspiratorially. "Drives my cousins crazy. They think I've just got some sort of grudge against my dad or something and that's why I won't just settle for a girl." He smiled humorlessly.
"And three: Why would you support a son who's gay? It's kind of uncomfortable, and extremely awkward at parties. 'Oh, by the way, my son likes other boys.'" Blaine wrinkled his nose and spread his hands. "Need I go on?"
Finn sat in silence, staring out the windshield. "But . . . you're so nice to Kurt."
Blaine bowed his head slightly in recognition. "Because you're generally nice to the people you like, yes," he added helpfully, when Finn didn't seem inclined to speak.
Finn shook his head, forcibly breaking himself out of his reverie. "I mean . . . if your dad's that anti-gay, why are you so nice?"
"He's not really 'anti-gay.' He's more 'pro-straight.' And my parents are great people, for all their faults. And if we keep sexuality off the table, it's civil." He shrugged a third time, unconcerned. "It's not like they're evil people or something."
For a moment, he saw a flicker of pain cross Finn's face before he subdued it. "I . . . see."
"We don't have to talk about this," Blaine suggested lightly. "In fact, I would say there's something you want to talk about more, since I don't think you drove out here for the scenery?"
"No," Finn said quietly, gripping the steering wheel. "I didn't."
The silence stretched between them, Finn's fingers alternately gripping and releasing the steering wheel. At last, he said, "I'm . . . I'm so sorry, dude," and it was then that Blaine realized his voice was hoarse. Not crying, just . . . well, a lot of things. Frustrated, sad, disappointed, angry, resentful, bitter.
Blaine didn't respond.
"Kurt's right," he went on. "I haven't been treating either of you right. I've . . . I've been a real jerk about this whole thing. And I don't know how to make this better." He thumped a fist in frustration against the steering wheel, nearly honking the horn.
"Well," Blaine said slowly. "The PFLAG is a good start."
Finn snorted a little bitterly. "Tell that to Kurt."
"This hits really close to home for him," Blaine said. "It's like . . . well, I wouldn't say Karofsky all over again—" Finn flinched "—but definitely upsetting for him. He thought you were on his side."
"I am," Finn said at once. Then: "Both of yours."
Blaine paused, silently considering it. "Show him that, and he'll believe you," he said simply.
Instead of looking relieved, Finn just looked more frustrated, rubbing the back of his neck. "How?" he asked bluntly.
Blaine shrugged a little. "You could start by actually speaking to him more than once a day in school," he suggested.
Finn grimaced. "Has it really gotten that bad?"
"It's only the second week of school, but unless you want this to worsen, then I definitely think you need to get on top of this," Blaine said seriously. "Kurt will hold a grudge."
For some reason, Finn smiled a little, ironic and sour. "And you won't?"
Blaine shrugged. "Holding grudges against your friends doesn't do anything in the long run," he said.
Finn barked a laugh. "I can't believe you can still refer to me as a friend after everything I've done to you."
"You haven't done anything to me," Blaine pointed out.
"Dude, I didn't step in—"
"No, you didn't step in. But you weren't the initiator, either." Blaine's expression darkened a little, and he dropped an arm reflexively to cradle his left side, out of Finn's listless line of sight. "That makes a difference. Trust me."
"But Kurt—"
"Thinks they're the same, I know. But the first one's a lot easier to forgive. He can and will forgive you if you play your cards right, Finn. If you stepped over the line between 'not doing anything' to being the perpetrator, then you would have a serious problem."
Finn shifted his gaze morosely to Blaine. "And this isn't already a serious problem?"
"I like to think of this as only the beginning of a potentially serious problem," Blaine said lightly.
Finn sighed.
"I know it's hard. I know what it's like to 'play straight,'" he added, voice low enough Finn had to lean visibly towards him to hear it. His gaze flickered over, noticed the way he was holding his ribs and frowned.
"They didn't . . . ?"
"No," Blaine said at once, pulling his hand away. That was an old wound, more of a phantom pain than anything.
"You just need to keep trying," Blaine went on, doing his best to sound encouraging. If he helped Finn, that meant Finn might be able to finally get on good terms with Kurt again, which meant that Kurt would be happier and Blaine would be happier because he was happier. Until then, it was an endless loop of misery, one that Blaine had no intention of allowing. "Don't give up so soon because it seems like he won't forgive you. He's hurting. He's angry. Of course it's going to take some time for him to consider your apology seriously."
"And until then?"
"Keep up with the PFLAG," Blaine urged. "And don't lose sight of why this matters."
Silence. At last, Finn put the car back in drive and slowly made his way back toward the Anderson residence. As he stepped out of the car and Blaine did the same on the other side, he waited until Blaine was standing on the same side of the car as he was before clearing his throat slightly. "Would it . . . would it be weird to hug you right now?"
Blaine shrugged a tiny bit. "No," he said with such a gravity to his voice that Finn suspected this dredged up memories from a time long before he had known Blaine. Probably before Kurt had known Blaine, too.
Wordlessly, not caring if it looked gay or straight in the eyes of potentially onlookers, Finn stepped forward and hugged him.
It was amazing, he realized, even as he stepped back and muttered a general 'Thank you,' to realize just how little Kurt's boyfriend was. Finn knew that from a purely clinical stance Blaine was considered short for a guy. He was compact, but that didn't make him seem any less fragile in his own way. He was more vulnerable, too, up close: he didn't have anyone standing beside him like Finn supposedly was for Kurt.
I will fix this, Finn thought fiercely, watching Blaine step back inside before turning on the ignition once more. I will.
He drove back to Lima musing on thoughts of how he could win over Kurt's true forgiveness, and possibly show Blaine that he had his back, too. Maybe both at once, he thought, checking the clock absently.
And when he finally rolled in at ten fifty-four back at the Hudson-Hummel residence, stomach growling and mind somewhat calmed, he knew that visiting Blaine had been the right thing.
Blaine didn't know what to make of it.
Is it weird to accept a hug from your boyfriend's straight stepbrother?
Yes, Blaine's practical side put in smartly.
No, a different side protested.
He didn't realize he'd said it aloud until lanky arms wrapped around him briefly, giving him one hard squeeze before backing off. Blaine blinked, dazed. For one heart beat, it had been . . . well, protected. Kind of like Kurt, but different: with Kurt, it was a partnership, a sharing of the weight.
With Finn, he let a tiny, vulnerable part of him admit, it was like being hugged by a friend. A casual embrace that should have meant nothing but instead dizzied him. He couldn't remember the last time someone who didn't attend Dalton and wasn't an adult had actually hugged him (besides Kurt, of course). The real world avoided 'gay' like the plague, and Finn hadn't struck him as a likely candidate to break the habit, despite the fact that he was fine with them being gay. He just didn't want to have any part of their 'difference.'
Walking stiff-legged back towards his house, knowing that his dad would have that look on his face and his mom would just be staring at her laptop screen, Blaine wondered what it would be like if other the other guys actually did accept him.
He smiled a little at the thought.
"So?" Burt asked, impeccably reminding Finn of his son.
Finn brushed his hands off on the napkin and leaned back in his chair, shrugging a little. "It's not perfect yet," he said, "but I think I'm finally making things right."
Burt stared at him, calculating, for several moments, before finally nodding. "I'm glad to hear it. And Finn? They'll appreciate it. I'm proud of you for what you're trying to do, and if you follow through with it, I think you'll be happy with the results too."
Finn glanced upwards briefly, knowing that Kurt was probably mulling over the situation upstairs. Then he said simply, "I hope so," and stood up. "Thank you, Burt."
"You're welcome, kid."
He disappeared up the stairs, retreating to his own room.
The next morning, courtesy of a little technical advice from Rachel and the free use of Coach Beiste's photo copier in the football office, roughly three dozen fliers were printed off and stamped around the school.
PFLAG was officially a-go.
