The instructions looked clear enough on the box: 3 eggs, some oil, some water, plus mix. Throw everything together and bung it all in the oven. How hard could that be?

Finn was slowly realizing that the number of practical skills he had could probably be counted on one hand. Or one finger.

Now if he could only figure out how to disable the damn smoke alarm-

"Finn, what's going on over there?" Kurt yelled as he came through the front door. "The smoke alarm is going off the handle-"

"It's nothing!" Finn yelled hurriedly. "Nothing to see over here, I have it all under control-"

Kurt wrenched the kitchen door open, coughed, and squinted: the kitchen was filled with thin gray smoke. Finn stood there looking at Kurt guiltily, a bent aluminum tray containing something blackly charred in his hands, flour and egg yolk splattered all down the front of his shirt. Kurt sighed.

"I don't even want to know," he said, just as Finn opened his mouth. "But you're cleaning up this mess." With that he pulled up a kitchen stool and climbed up to disable the smoke alarm.

"Uh, I made this for you." He placed the tray of cake in Kurt's hands, smiling hopefully.

Kurt peered down at the cake as though he were trying to decipher a particularly difficult textbook excerpt. "This is... what, exactly?"

"It's a, uh," What was the word Artie used? Ah, yes. "A gesture." He beamed.

After turning the tray and staring at the cake from various angles, Kurt sighed. "Really, Finn? Boob-shaped cakes are only amusing to people like Noah Puckerman and his pack of Neanderthals." He put the tray down on the table. "Thanks for the thought though, I think? But you're still cleaning the kitchen." Then he left.

Finn let his gaze fall over the eggshells, flour, sugar, aluminum foil and heart-shaped cake tin on the kitchen table while he debated with himself whether kissing or killing Kurt would make him happier.

He decided on kissing, but it was a close call.

"Finn Hudson."

Principal Figgins wasn't intimidating no matter how hard he tried, but Finn did his best to humor him by cowering in his chair a little more.

"Do you know why you've been called into my office today, Finn?"

"No," he said, knowing full well why.

"You've been found guilty of stealing, damaging and defiling school property, and you owe the art department fifty-four dollars and thirty-nine cents to replace the lock you broke and the art supplies you stole."

Innocent blink of the eyes. He'd learned that violent denial just made him look more guilty. "I really don't know -"

"Don't play innocent with me," Figgins snapped. "Jacob Israel saw you spray-painting "KURT HUMMEL IS THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE" onto the second-floor hallway walls early this morning."

"Oh." Fucking narc. Finn made a mental note to have him tossed into the dumpster later today, nice-guy image be damned.

"As punishment, on top of the fees you must pay to our art department, you will single-handedly wash the spray paint off our walls, and you will serve two hours' detention every day for the next week."

Finn slumped back in his chair. Figgins grinned, all teeth.

Later that afternoon Finn was standing on a stool, scrubbing viciously and thinking about how

1) he was going to sue the company for false advertising, because the spray paint can said that the paint was "easily washable with soap and water", and
2) Kurt was not worth all this undue stress, and he should really go back to looking up cheerleaders' skirts instead,

when Kurt came into view, rubber gloves on and a wet dishrag in hand.

"Hey, I thought I'd come lend a hand," Kurt said, giving him the adorable smile that reminded Finn that he'd still rather look at that smile than the polka-dotted underwear of Cheerios girls, even if it meant him serving ten hours of detention.

"Pssst. Kurt."

"What?" Kurt looked up distractedly. They were in Math class and had been instructed to finish a worksheet on polynomials; naturally Finn had given up and spent the last twenty minutes drawing small explosions in the margins of his paper.

"This is for you." He slid the envelope over to Kurt's desk.

He was quite proud of his handiwork; he'd spent a decent amount of time and energy making it, even if it was just a card. He'd even gotten Artie to help him with the technical details (although he'd had to bribe him with a prized videogame and the promise that he wouldn't continue stealing from Artie's lunches). He looked on eagerly as Kurt slid the card out of the envelope and opened it -

"AND I GUESS IT WOULD BE NICEEE"

Wow. His voice sounded a lot louder than he'd expected on a recording. He winced a little as two dozen heads swiveled over to face them and their teacher looked up from the ninety-nine cent paperback erotica she was inexpertly trying to hide behind a volume of "Remembrance of Things Past".

In hindsight, he should've waited until after class to give Kurt the card.

"IF I COULD TOUCH YOUR B-"

Kurt slammed the card closed, cheeks turning a color that Finn wasn't aware existed in nature, and turned toward Finn. The class erupted into laughter. Suddenly the math worksheet seemed a lot more interesting.

"Kurt Hummel, move to the front, I'm confiscating that. Finn Hudson, see me after class." The two of them looked up into their teacher's face; to Finn's dismay her shoulders were shaking a little, too.

The glare Kurt directed at Finn as he got up and left his seat could've turned a horde of strong men into a pool of jelly. Finn did his best to look contrite.

After class was over Finn walked up to the teacher's desk and said hurriedly, just as she opened her mouth, "I just served an entire week's worth of detention so please, please don't slot me in for any more."

She handed back the card and said simply, "If you're going to make loud, public declarations of love, I suggest you don't cut into class time to do it."

"Yeah, I figured that much out already," Finn muttered. He shoved the card back into his pocket.

"I must say, you're very forward," the teacher continued, "depicting yourself manually stimulating him on the cover of the card."

"What!" Finn cried, scandalized. "T-that's a heart! I drew myself giving him my heart!" How was he able to mess up even a stick figure?

"Oh." She sounded vaguely disappointed. "Well, judging by the school's rumor mill you've only dated girls so far, so if you like I have some pamphlets and, ah, items of interest I could - "

"Believe me, I have plenty of those already," Finn interjected unthinkingly. She raised an eyebrow at him, but said nothing.

He only realized what he'd said once he was halfway home.

This was not shaping up to be a good day. All Finn wanted at this point was to take a hot shower, dig into a bag of Reese's cups, maybe try to defeat the Rocket Dog level on Katamari-

"Finn. Come over here for a second."

Finn sighed, but threw his backpack onto the floor and headed into the living room. "Burt. What's up?"

This was not going to be a fun conversation, Finn realised; Burt Hummel was humming a little, twirling a pen in his fingers, looking everywhere but at Finn, and generally looking distinctly uncomfortable.

"So. Uh. Kurt told me that you guys have made up after that... fiasco," Burt said, twiddling his fingers. "But, um, your mom and I have heard from... various people that since then, you've been acting kind of strangely. Is there anything going on that you'd like to talk about?"

"What? No, no, nothing at all! Who told you that?" Finn forced a brittle, high-pitched laugh. It was probably Mercedes, that gossipmonger, he thought darkly. Or Artie, who was the one to land him in all these messes in the first place-

"Well, not important." Burt coughed delicately, or as delicately as a man like Burt Hummel could. "And then there's the stuff at home, our kitchen still smells like charcoal... I'm just saying. Is there anything you'd like to discuss?"

Finn briefly toyed with the idea of saying, Well, there's the fact that I would like to do things to your son that couldn't be talked about in polite society, but his mom had already sold their old house and he didn't look forward to the idea of spending a night of the streets. So instead, he said "No. Everything's fine."

Burt mulled over this for a moment and then said, "Okay."

Finn breathed a sigh of relief as he stood up to leave. As he was about to head down to the basement though, Burt said, "One more thing, Finn." He held up a familiar white box – Finn's eyes widened in horror – and waved it lightly. "Your friends – Artie and Tina, I believe? - dropped by this afternoon. Artie said you'd left it in the boy's room."

"Oh, yes?" He really, desperately needed some new friends. Or for a hole to open up in the ground, whichever was easier. Please please please God if you exist please tell me Burt didn't already open the-

"That's quite a collection of scented oils you have there."

Finn buried his face in his hands.

Kurt came home really late the next night – he had a science fair project to work on with Rachel that kept him at her house some nights – and their parents were on a short vacation in Chicago, so the house was extremely quiet. Finn was lounging on the sofa, reading a Batman graphic novel. He looked up as Kurt came in, but his "hello" died in his throat when he saw the expression on Kurt's face.

"Seriously, Finn, what the hell is going on?" His voice sounded strained. "I've been thinking about it, and I mean, what with landing me in the nurse's office, then nearly committing arson and defacing public school property-"

"Those were accidents, well, kind of-"

"-and giving me a boob-shaped cake and the whole spray-paint fiasco and the card with the lewd song and drawing-"

"It wasn't supposed to be boob-shaped-"

"-and you keep giving me these weird looks when you think I don't notice-" - oh shit, he'd noticed - "and touching my hair creepily and, and. I don't know, what's going on with you?"

Then Kurt's eyes suddenly widened. "Is this what I think it is?"

"Um, I hope so? I mean out of the two of us, you're supposed to be the smart one, so..."

Finn trailed off, because Kurt looked like he was either going to

a) beat Finn into a fleshy pulp, or

b) cry,

and Finn was quite certain he didn't like the sound of either option.

"I thought you wanted to make amends," Kurt said, voice low. "But you've just been fucking around with me this whole time?"

"Wait. What? How did you even get that idea?"

"Oh, come off it. Who put you up to this? Karofsky? Just because I've crushed on you for ages doesn't mean you can tease me like that. Because I'm fully aware that you're staunchly heterosexual, and-"

At this point Finn realized that he wasn't going to be able to get a word in edgewise, because Kurt was ranting with that slightly deranged note in his voice, and his eyes were shining and strands of his hair were pasted to his forehead and he smelled like, well, something better than the best burger Finn ever had (which was saying something). So he grabbed Kurt by the arm and kissed him instead.

In retrospect, it wasn't the Greatest Kiss Ever; Kurt hadn't been prepared for it at all and his mouth was still open when Finn pressed their lips together, so there was too much teeth and their noses bumped together awkwardly and there was kind of too much spit too, but Finn thought it was still Pretty Damn Awesome.

When they broke apart, they looked at each other while Finn silently counted the time it took for the silence to become significant – nine seconds – and then Kurt smiled, face flushed and shirt rumpled.

"Hey."

"Hi," Finn replied.

"So."

"So."

"Maybe we should try out some of the things in that box, huh?" Kurt gestured toward their bedroom.

Finn spluttered. "You saw that and you still didn't guess-?"

"Well, maybe you had a secret girl we all didn't know about!" Kurt said huffily. "Besides, after being called a fag – twice – you usually don't assume the person hurling the insults has the hots for you."

He had a point there. "I didn't really realize it until Mercedes and Rachel said stuff that made me think of you that way."

"Oh god, so they were the ones spurring you on to greater heights of idiocy?"

"No, that was Artie."

"I don't know if I should thank him or punch him."

"That's how I feel about him too, sometimes," Finn said, then swallowed. "Um. Bedroom?"

"Yeah." Kurt got up and gave Finn a look from beneath his eyelashes that made Finn's stomach do some impressive acrobatics. "Make sure you bring that hideous sweater." He headed toward their bedroom.

"Kinky," Finn said, following suit.

"You know, it occurs to me," Kurt said lazily, stomach down, legs crossed in the air, "you could've just, you know, told me you liked me."

"Well, I was afraid you'd still be mad at me," Finn said defensively. "And besides, it's kinda hard to just like... say that to a dude."

"Oh yes. I can see how composing a detailed list of things I might like, causing me to break out in rashes, nearly burning our house down, creating a customized singing card, breaking into and stealing supplies from a school classroom, landing yourself in hours of detention, and spending hours scrubbing paint off our school walls would be a lot easier than just saying 'I like you.'"

Finn turned over, ostensibly to glare at Kurt, but found himself ogling the curve of Kurt's collarbone instead. "Are you making fun of me?"

"No, it was merely a comment on your charming ways," Kurt said dryly, but the corner of his mouth quirked a little. Finn leaned in and kissed it.

"Wait, you mean it actually worked?" Artie's voice was heavily dosed with disbelief. "Goddamnit. I owe Mercedes twenty bucks now. Maybe I can borrow off Tina-"

"Wait, what?" Then Finn realized the implications of what Artie just said. "Why you – I am coming over to your house right now and-"

"Finn."

Finn paused for a moment in his tirade, cellphone still pressed to his ear, and turned over to glance at Kurt, who was leaning against the door of their shared bathroom.

Clad in only a smirk and a towel.

Finn decided that tearing Artie apart limb by limb could wait; at the moment he could find much better ways to occupy his time.