"So Finn, how was football practice today?" Burt asked, very deliberately changing the previous subject of conversation.
Kurt was grateful to his father, even if the change of topic had not been executed with a great deal of subtlety or grace. His first day at Dalton had been a bit of a shock in multiple ways and Kurt was not yet in the mood to go into great detail about it over the dinner table.
"It was alright, I guess," Finn replied, his tone thoroughly unconvincing.
"What's wrong? Little off your game?" Burt asked, casually.
"No it wasn't me," Finn replied, a bit cryptically.
Kurt strongly sensed that Finn was deliberately withholding information, that he had something he wanted to say but was keeping quiet for some as yet undetermined reason.
"Then what was it, sweetie?" Carol asked.
Finn paused, looking uncomfortable, as three curious faced stared him down. After a moment, his resolve clearly cracked.
"I just kept getting sacked today, is all. The guy who normally plays right guard was totally blowing it and Coach Beiste had to bring in the sub, who also wasn't particularly good."
Kurt's stomach did a violent summersault. Although he was not sure, as he had never paid any particular attention to football positions, he had the strong suspicion that Finn was talking about Karofsky. It would certainly explain Finn's hesitance about the topic and the reason he did not seem to want to name names.
"Do you think he'll be fit to play again by your next game?" Burt asked, still seeming wholly oblivious to Finn's hesitance.
"I dunno. I guess so…" Finn let his thought trail away and descend into silence. He seemed lost in his own contemplations as he continued, "I mean the guy is usually really on top of it. I've never seen him like this before. It was weird."
Kurt was absolutely dying to know if Finn was talking about Karofsky, but he refused to actually ask the question out loud. He did not want his father getting worked up over this ordeal again, now that it had been dealt with. So he ate his mashed potatoes in silence and waited, hoping he would have a chance to ask Finn about it later, without it being too weird. Kurt definitely did not want to seem overly interested in Karofsky, especially now that their lives had become so thoroughly divorced from one another's. But he was still undeniably curious as to how the other boy was taking the separation.
"Well, is he a friend of yours? Maybe you guys could run some drills together," Burt suggested, earnestly.
"No, he's not really my friend. He and I don't get along very well, at all, actually."
"Why is that?" Carol asked quickly, clearly distressed by Finn's admission.
Finn was looking really uncomfortable by this point and Kurt genuinely wished he had something to say that would put a stop to this conversation, for Finn's sake as well as his father's. At this juncture, he had all the information he need to conclude that his step-brother was, in fact, talking about his ex-stalker and now Kurt simply wanted the conversation to cease as soon as possible so that Finn would not have to keep edging around the issue and so his father would not have to get all riled up about it again. Unfortunately, before Kurt could concoct a suitable sequiter, his father's face suddenly darkened and a look of grim understanding settled into place.
"It's that kid Karofsky, isn't it?" Burt asked Finn, gravely.
Finn's eyes widened momentarily and he then glanced ostentatiously at Kurt. Kurt kept his head bent over his plate, feeling his face go red at the sudden deflection of attention from Finn unto himself.
Finn then said, "Yeah, he's the one who normally plays right guard."
Kurt glanced surreptitiously at his father, whose face looked murderous. The meal continued in a silence so tense it could have been cut with a knife. Eventually Carol started talking about her day at work and the tension dissipated somewhat but Kurt remained on the fringes of the conversation, only interjecting when absolutely necessary. His thoughts were elsewhere.
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Later that evening Kurt sat at his vanity table, completing his evening moisturizing routine, still lost in thought about Finn, Karofsky and his fantasy coming to fruition (sort of) when Finn walked into their room in his pajama bottoms and no top on. Kurt could only appreciate the other boy's muscular form for the briefest of moments before he realized Finn was covered in bruises.
"My god, what happened to you?" Kurt asked, turning around to face Finn full on.
Finn looked confused for a minute but then realized where Kurt was staring. Looking down at himself to examine the damage he responded, "Oh, yeah, like I said. I kept getting sacked at practice."
Kurt rushed over to him, feeling genuinely concerned. The other boy's pale white skin had big blue and purple splotches all over his arms, his shoulders, his back and his sides. It was painful just for Kurt to look at. Without thinking, he reached up and touched one of the bruises on Finn's chest while exclaiming, "You really look awful. Are you sure you're all right?"
Finn looked down at him a bit awkwardly and backed up from his touch, seeming a bit embarrassed by it. Kurt realized belatedly that he was making Finn uncomfortable and stepped back as well, saying, "Oh, sorry."
"No, don't worry about it," Finn replied. Kurt sensed the genuineness in Finn's voice and was grateful that the two of them could handle this kind of intimacy maturely, if a bit awkwardly.
"I just feel really bad," Kurt then expounded earnestly, "I mean if it hadn't been for – "
He abruptly halted his sentence. He had been about to say "If it hadn't been for me, none of this would have happened." But he realized just in time that if he said that, Finn would not understand the connection and would require further explanation. As it was Finn was looking very confused and suspicious.
"If it hadn't been for…what?" he asked Kurt.
Kurt found himself staring up at his step-brother, a guilty expression on his face. He tried to think up a lie, but somehow his mind had just gone completely blank.
"Nothing," he eventually sputtered, shaking his head dismissively. "Never mind."
Kurt quickly turned around, then, and seated himself back on his settee, in front of his large ornate make-up mirror. He instantly busied himself applying his second coat of moisturizer, glancing intermittently at Finn's reflection over his right shoulder. Finn continued to stare at him and look confused for a moment, but he eventually seemed to decide the topic was not worth pursuing and let it be.
Kurt let out a huge sigh of relief when, a moment later, Finn put on a T-shirt and proceeded out into the living room to watch something with his father. He had almost slipped up again! He really needed to learn to tread even more carefully where the subject of Dave Karofsky was concerned. Kurt had initially hoped that after he left WMHS it would no longer be a problem. But if Finn was going to continue getting put through a meat grinder at practice, Kurt's guilt was going to start throwing up red flags.
After all, in all likelihood it was because of him that the other boy had bruises all over his body. And if Karofsky continued on like this, Finn was going to end up looking like a walking map of the world, with huge blue and green splotches all over his body. I mean, what if Karofsky didn't snap out it? What if Kurt being gone really messed him up? What if…
Kurt then paused, reflecting back on his last train of thought. He had been so genuinely worried about Finn he had not stopped to consider what all of this actually meant: Dave Karofsky was genuinely pinning over him! How…delightful.
Kurt still found Dave's affections for him more distressing than they were appealing. But he could not deny that objectively, the situation was amusing. Out there in the world somewhere, quite close by, was a football player who acted big and tough, who pretended to hate "fags," but deep down inside was actually thoroughly distraught over Kurt, who was either heart-broken or inculcated with guilt, or both! And knowing that fact put Kurt into a very particular state of satisfied glee.