Disclaimer: I don't own it and I'm not making any money from it, this is pure entertainment and not intended to offend.
Author Notes: Outtake in Burt's POV, to hopefully give youa new perspective on the story. Again, this is not the prelude to a sequel. However. If you have any ideas for oneshots, outtakes, or things you would like to see, please let me know. I am open to prompts based in the Sugar Daddy universe.
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The one thing that Burt Hummel regretted most was his relationship with his son. How he saw the gap as it formed between them and just kept hoping that one day his baby boy would come back to him, that the way Kurt had withdrawn inwards and downwards was only temporary teenage moodiness. He wished he'd sat his boy down in those first few months at the beginning of junior high and explained that it was all ok, that he was always there if Kurt wanted to talk and that he would always love his son no matter what. He thought that if maybe he'd explained that then none of this would have happened - the last four years would have been different and he would have two sons living under his roof.
Sixteen turning seventeen and happy, full of teenage concerns and fretting over teenage drama.
His biological son wouldn't be living in another house, their only methods of communication second-hand stories from Finn, his stepson.
Every time Burt looked at a credit card statement he was reminded of what his relationship with Kurt used to be, back when they actually had a relationship. He remembered the first time Kurt had come to him with a catalogue printed from the internet, a nervous expression on his face as he tried to explain himself and ask permission at the same time. Burt had thought he was doing his son a favour by not embarrassing him any further, by just smiling at him and handing over the card and telling him not to go over a certain amount.
He thought he'd been giving his son the freedom to express himself in more than jeans and corduroy.
The retrospective twenty-twenty was that he had pushed his son further away with that. By just handing over the credit card, by not talking about it, by not listening to his son's awkward explanations all the way through he had been sending the message 'I don't want to know' and 'buy something so you'll get out of my hair'. He had sent the complete opposite message to the one he had wanted to, and it had taken him a long time to really work that out.
He remembered how their conversations had dwindled in number as the numbers on the credit bills went up and Kurt's wardrobe started to contain as much flash and dazzle as a peacock's tail. Burt tried repeatedly to bridge the gap, but whenever he asked Kurt about his day he'd only a receive a blasé "it was fine", and asking about his friends or his class work or whatever froofy show was playing in Columbus only ever prompted Kurt to shut down and block him out. Or worse, to lie.
By the time Kurt was fifteen, Burt knew better. If he asked questions about Kurt's day - where he had been, what he had done - he would only be lied to or ignored. He concerned himself with providing for his boy and just being happy that Kurt was safe. He didn't think Kurt ever knew that at least once a week Burt would pull out the old photo albums, look at pictures of his son, his wife, and wish that things were different.
He wanted that smiling little boy back, but even in pictures it was obvious that Kurt's smile had started to fade. He went from grinning six year old to smiling ten year old to fake-smiling preteen so quickly. Grades never dropped, Kurt never looked depressed, he just got distant. And Burt hated how he'd let it happen.
Then one day his fifteen year old son came home late one evening loaded down with bags from designer stores and Burt privately sighed and waited for the sudden spike in his credit card bill. He waited days, even checked the balance online, but nothing happened to the account balance.
He didn't notice the new phone until he went downstairs to try and talk to Kurt about the mysteriously missing credit card bill. Kurt had been lying on his bed, shoes off, feet covered by warm woollen socks, a sleek, expensive phone held in his hands as he texted someone that doubtless Burt had never even heard of.
The second step from the bottom creaked and Kurt looked up guiltily, a sudden flush rising on his cheeks when he saw who had startled him. "Dad!" Kurt had exclaimed, "What are you doing down here?"
Burt had wondered whether he should be worried that Kurt sounded as if he were asking a stranger just what they were doing in his house. "I just wanted to talk to you about the credit bill."
"Oh." Kurt's face had fallen, the expression replaced almost instantly by a mask of cool indifference. "Well, you wont need to worry about bills anymore, dad."
"Ok," Burt said, and paused to gather his thoughts, to figure out how to ask what was going on without sounding like he was accusing his son of anything. Kurt beat him to it.
"I got a job," Kurt said abruptly. "So I can pay for my own wardrobe now."
The phone in Kurt's hands beeped and Burt watched his son's face change as he looked down at whatever message had come up on the screen. He looked happier, his lips curved into a tiny smile. "Ok," Burt said, backing up the stairs. He didn't think that pressing the issue would get him a different answer. Experience told him that pressing Kurt was a good way to get him to clam up and say nothing at all.
Like Kurt had said, the credit account stayed steady, with no new additions after Kurt's infrequent shopping trips.
Without the drain on his bank account Burt found himself able to afford an upgrade to some of his shop's equipment even before the recommended warranty ran out. The upgrade was no consolation, and he watched from afar as his son seemed to become the same smiling boy that he remembered. With one very big exception.
This boy didn't want to talk to him, and never ran up to him with shouts of "Dad! Dad! Look what I can do!". This boy never asked for hugs. Never asked for anything.
Burt felt like a failure.
He felt like even more of one on Kurt's sixteenth birthday. He wrapped the present he'd bought his son in a plain box topped with a store-bought bow and left it on the kitchen table. It was still there when he got back from work, and a shiny brand new tank of a car was parked in the driveway. When Burt went downstairs to ask Kurt whether it belonged to a friend he saw the keys on his son's bedside table. He thought of saying something, saw the stubborn tilt of Kurt's chin, and thought better of it.
If he asked he'd only get lies in return.
He employed the same reasoning when Kurt started going out some nights and not coming back until morning. It was almost as if his son wasn't living at home anymore, they saw that little of each other. The routine lasted for months, then all of a sudden Kurt's stays extended to weekdays. And then one day, out of the blue, he just didn't come home.
Burt tried calling Kurt's phone but it just rang out to voicemail. He hung up. He didn't think Kurt would call him even if he asked him to. Instead Burt waited until the next day, a Wednesday, and called McKinley High. When he found out that Kurt had indeed shown up to school that day he let out a small sigh and told the receptionist that no, he didn't want to leave a message.
Kurt was fine, he thought to himself. And Kurt wanted nothing to do with him.
He was in the middle of mulling over that very depressing thought when he met Carole Hudson for the first time over the hood of her second hand Toyota. Carole was sweet, and funny, and bold. Kate would have liked her, he thought. He liked her. And over the next couple of weeks they decided that life was too short not to pursue a mutual liking. A month later she and her son had moved in with him, into the big, empty house that held so many memories and only one Hummel.
"Kurt doesn't live here?" Carole's boy asked, the first time he came over to look at the house.
"You know Kurt?" Burt asked hopefully.
"Yeah... he's in the Glee club, same as me," Finn replied, frowning. "He's your son, right? I mean... I hope I didn't get that wrong. I just figured that you've got the same name and you kind of look alike, so..."
"He's my son," Burt confirmed. "He doesn't live here anymore."
"Oh." Finn's frown deepened but he didn't ask any more questions. Burt was glad. He'd already gone over that conversation with Carole, and he didn't have any more answers now than he had then. All he knew was that Kurt was alive and well, living away from home, and never contacted him.
A few days later he was helping Finn box up the last of what Kurt had left behind. He closed the lid to a box with a sparkly feather boa sitting on top of several scarfs and a mix of CDs and looked across the room to where Finn was stacking books into another box, looking at each one and reading the title as he went.
"Think you could let Kurt know," Burt asked, "that he can come and pick these up any time he wants to?"
Finn nodded. He understood the unspoken implication by now, that Kurt wouldn't want to hear from his father. It was better that the message come from someone he didn't have any problems with. Someone he actually spoke to willingly.
Finn came back with the message that Kurt lived in Cedar Crest, and that he'd be by to pick up his stuff tomorrow.
Burt was nervous when he opened the door, but Kurt just looked as cool as ever in green and black, a politely blank expression on his face. Burt thought that he'd never felt more depressed in his life, but found himself revising that opinion when Finn came back after helping Kurt with the boxes only to report that Burt's son had a boyfriend called Noah. Who, from the look of the house, he was probably living with.
Kurt had never even officially told his father that he liked boys. He had just moved out with one.
Burt threw himself into his work and spent all of his time at home occupied with Carole and Finn. He tried to forget about his nonexistent relationship with Kurt, forged new happy memories and asked Carole to marry him. He went to all of Finn's school games, gave him a job at the shop, and taught him about cars the way he'd always wanted to teach Kurt.
Once upon a time cars had been the only thing they had really had in common. Now they had nothing, and it hurt to look at the old photo albums.