Kurt POV
The air between Finn and I crackled with tension. One spark, one wrong word, and an explosion could occur. I took another step forward, and he mimicked me. At this rate, we would meet near the stairs.
Crazily, my mind spun back to the first time I had touched Finn, right here in this same room. We were just as charged as before, but there's a very thin line between sexual arousal and anger, and we were currently on the wrong side of things.
When we finally met, I could see that Finn's pupils were so dilated that the brown and gold was gone. All I was staring at were inky black pools. But the anger was easy to read.
I barely recognized my own voice when I finally spoke. It was low and gravelly, almost a growl. "Like a Saudi Arabian whorehouse? Saudi Arabian, not Saudi Arabia. If you're going to act like an asshole, at least get it right."
"Fine. Then your room looks like a Saudi Arabian whorehouse. It's ugly." His arms were crossed over his chest, and why had I never realized just how big Finn was? I had to crane my neck upwards to look at him.
My stomach was already churning, telling me what a bad idea all of this was, but I held my ground. "That's hurtful, Finn. How would you feel if I said something about how you decorated your room?"
"I don't have a room. I don't even have a couch any more. I have an air mattress that leaks and collapses in the middle of the night. But, fuck, let's put some stupid stickers on that. Let's redecorate the entire house to make you happy."
"What do you want me to do about that? You don't care what the house looks like. For God's sake, Finn, you've lived with cowboy wallpaper for 16 years. Excuse me for saying it, but you don't exactly get an opinion on decorating matters."
"But, Kurt, that's hurtful." His voice was openly mocking me. "You're saying mean things about my decorating skills." Just as quickly, he turned vicious. "I might have cowboys on the wall, but at least I'm normal!" He wasn't screaming at all. In fact, his voice remained low and soft, which made it even more disturbing.
"Oh, la-dee-dah, you're normal. And what does that make me?" I had to force myself to stand strong, and neither scream nor cry. I wasn't going fall apart in front of Finn Hudson.
But it was harder then I thought it would be. All of my worst nightmares were coming true. Finn did think that there was something abnormal about our relationship. Or maybe it wasn't the relationship at all. Maybe it was just me that was a freak.
"Whatever you want to be. It's not my fucking job to tell you what to be."
Finn doesn't really swear that often, so to hear him drop the F-bomb this many times in a short period told me that he was unsure of himself, and was trying to make up for it by seeming tougher then he was. For some reason, that spurred me on to further aggression. "Let's see, what do I want to be? How about superlative, chic, the epitome of modishness?"
I had chosen my words very carefully, knowing that chances were good that he wouldn't understand any of them. Sure enough, I was getting the classic blank look from him.
Normally, that would have made me feel pity for him, and want to help, but today it didn't. The stresses of the past two weeks boiled up and over, and I had to push my advantage. "Do you even know what any of those mean? Do you want to look them up in the dictionary?" I stalked over to the strategically placed bookshelf and held it out. "Here. I'll even spell them for you really slow so you get it right."
Finn's hand flashed out and knocked the book out of my hand so quickly that I barely managed to bite back a scream. It crashed to the floor, but neither one of us looked at it. "How about conceited, arrogant, stubborn and a fucking wimp? Or do you need me to explain those?"
"Conceited and arrogant are the same thing, Finn. If you're going to be insulting, at least get it right."
"I did. I said it twice on purpose because you're being twice as much of a dick."
That did it. I stepped forward again, but only a half step this time. If I went the full way, we would be touching. And if Finn thought I was ever touching him again, he was sorely mistaken. There was going to have to be some serious groveling before that was going to happen. "At least I know my left from my right."
That was a low blow, and something Finn had improved a lot with. But it was something that I could do with no thought, and something I was clearly better at then he was.
"I do, too." He held up his hands. "Left. Right."
Except he had them backwards yet again. "Wrong. But I don't know why I bother trying to correct you. You're never going to get it. "
"Maybe not. But I can avoid the inside of a dumpster and people actually like me, and that's going to get me a lot further then getting my lefts and rights right."
He may not be the brightest crayon in the box, but Finn has an uncanny ability to know what makes you tick, and how to be as hurtful as possible. I had never had any friends until I joined Glee, and I was still sometimes pushed out and marginalized within the club, just like I had been this past week. "That's wonderful, Finn. I hope you remember then when you're spending the rest of your life bagging groceries."
"At least I'll have enough to eat. But don't worry; I'll think of you while you're starving to death in New York because there are a million people doing what you want to do. You're special here, but you're just going to be another gay guy who likes fashion there."
"Jerk!" I was seeing red, and that made me rather inelegant with my words. My voice rose until it was almost a scream.
"Dick!" His voice had become a roar. For the first time, I was a little afraid of Finn.
I was ashamed even as the next word was coming out of my mouth, but I couldn't stop it. Finn wanted to be hurtful? Fine, I could do that too. "Retard."
Finn froze, the hurt dawning in his eyes. Never once had I ever suggested to him that he was anything less then fully capable and it shocked him that I had now.
But before I could even begin to stammer out an apology, the hurt gave way to cold fury. I had just pushed Finn too far. "Fag." His voice was calm and in control.
My hand rose of its own accord, just itching to slap him across the face. Finn dropped his chin and stared me directly in the eyes. "If you hit me, you better pray you kill me with the first one. Don't think that I won't hit you back."
I dropped my hand. Not only because I was afraid Finn would hit me, (though the thought was certainly unsettling), but because I wasn't a violent person. If I hit Finn, I was no better then the jocks.
"Hey!" There was a third voice in the room, one that made us both jump. Dad had come to save me. Wait, had he heard what I had said?
Apparently not. He had, however, heard what Finn called me, and he was furious. "What did you just call him?"
Finn has two basic reactions around Dad, especially since he and Carole moved in. Overly happy and fake, or shy and reserved. This time, I saw something new. Fear. Finn was flat out terrified of Dad and his anger, and I had no idea why. He had to know that Dad would never hurt him, no matter how angry he was.
And how do you think that Finn should know that? Your father is basically a stranger to him, and he's raging. A person with power and authority over Finn is coming at him aggressively, and you wonder why he's afraid.
When I got a closer look at Dad, I suddenly understood why Finn had startled so badly. Finn and I might be raging, but Dad was way beyond that. Finn scrambled back, but Dad wasn't going to let him go. "What did I just hear come out of your mouth, Finn?"
It wasn't a question, and Finn didn't even try to respond. He just stared with that blank panicky look. Dad pressed forward again, an almost perfect mirror image of Finn and I just a few minutes ago. Why did everything have to start and end in my basement? "Come on, Finn, repeat yourself. You were fine with saying it when it was just Kurt, why don't you say it again for me."
"But he called me…." Finn trailed off and shook his head. "Forget it, you don't believe me."
He was right. I'm sure it would never occur to Dad that I was anything less then perfect, or that I could call Finn the name I had. I could have told him, but I didn't. The smug part of me was delighted to see Finn getting punished.
"Say it." Dad wasn't going to let it go.
"No." Finn squared his shoulders and glared back. "I won't."
"You did before. Say it!" His voice rose until it was a shout, which I could have told him was a mistake. Yelling at Finn doesn't make him any more responsive to you. It just makes him shut down.
Sure enough, Finn dropped his head and studied the floor. He needed that few seconds to reorient himself, and he couldn't do that while looking directly at Dad. I knew that he wasn't doing it to be stubborn or disrespectful, but Dad didn't, which only served to make him angrier. "Finn! I'm speaking to you and you aren't listening!" He got even louder, which only made Finn more nervous and less able to respond appropriately. "I want you to repeat. What. You. Said." Every word was clearly enunciated. "I'm not going to live in this house with a bigot."
"Burt Hummel!" For a second, I thought that the voice was Finn finally fighting back and screaming himself, but he was looking around as well. Feet pounded down the stairs, and I realized that Carole was home and drawn by the sound of our fight. "Do not say another word to my son." She reached for Finn, but he shied back from even her.
All it took was seeing her child in distress to put Carole in a rage herself. Shock had taken my anger, but even I could tell that having two furious adults and two terrified teenagers in the same room wasn't going to end well. She whirled on Dad. "Why do you think that it's alright to terrorize a child?"
Dad drew back in the face of her anger. "He called Kurt a fag."
All four of us jolted at the word. Carole's eyes narrowed. "I don't care what he did. You don't have the right to scream at him. For the love of God, Burt, you're an adult and he's a kid! My kid, not yours, and I don't believe in screaming at him. If there's a problem, you need to come to me so it can be addressed. I will handle Finn's language and decide on the appropriate punishment myself. You leave him alone." Fire burned in her eyes so brightly that I had to draw back. Finn was all she had left, and she wasn't going to let any harm come to him.
Unfortunately for her, I was all Dad had left, and he was just as determined to protect me. "I won't have Kurt bullied in his own house."
"But you're fine with bullying Finn? This house belongs to all of us now, or have you forgotten that? You can't just blame Finn every time the boys have a fight." Her voice softened as she turned to me. "What happened, Kurt? Tell me what started the fight."
Dad held up a hand to silence me before I could even begin to answer. "So what you're saying is that I have no authority in our house? That Finn can run around doing and saying whatever he pleases because you don't believe in yelling at him. That's not the way it works around here. Around here, the adults are in charge. My parenting certainly hasn't hurt Kurt any."
"We both have authority in this house, but not all of it. You would be furious if I ever threatened Kurt in the manner you just did Finn. You do whatever you want with your own kid, but leave mine alone."
"This isn't how this works, Carole. I'm the adult here, and this is my home, and I'm not going to let a teenager run all over me. If you can't keep him under control, then I will."
As the fight progressed, Finn and I had inched towards each other until we were side by side. I hated him and what he had just said to me, but I was honestly less afraid of him then I was of either one of our parents. He was breathing hard, eyes darting back and forth between them as if he was watching some sort of screwed-up tennis match. Never once did he glance over at me.
"Well congratulations, Burt. This house is all yours again, and you can spend your time keeping Kurt under control. I'm out of here, and I'm taking Finn with me. Come on, Finn."
Two things happened simultaneously. The first was that Dad reached out and put his hand on Carole's arm, probably to tell her to stop, and that he didn't want her to leave us. Because if she did, it was the end of both of our relationships.
The second thing was that Finn absolutely freaked out. He lunged in between them, breaking Dad's grip. "Don't hurt my Mom!"
"Finn!" I think Carole wanted to yell at him, but it came out choked. "Honey, it's ok."
Finn didn't get outright aggressive with Dad, but he was using all of his football skills to body block him away from Carole. He wasn't going to let them anywhere near each other.
Dad held his hands up in a placating gesture. "Son, I'm not going to do anything to your mother."
Too little, too late. Finn was panicked, and there was nothing Dad could say or do right now to calm him. How had things gone so badly, so fast? "I'm not your son. You're not even my stepdad, so leave me alone."
He was brave now that he had Carole to back him up. He knew that she wouldn't let anything happen to him.
Sure enough, her arms wound around him in a protective manner that made my stomach clench. "Finn, grab what you need and go wait in the car."
Finn and I exchanged looks. We were both at fault here, and if neither one of us spoke up, we were going to destroy our parents relationship as well as ours.
But neither one of us made a sound. Fear and shame closed my throat, and I suspected that Finn was having the same problem. Neither one of us wanted to hear the ugly words that had been thrown around repeated.
"Now, Finn. Just get what you need for tonight." Carole's voice booked no argument, and he jumped up and into action. As soon as the door at the top of the stairs shut behind him, she pointed at Dad, her voice a deadly hiss. "I will talk to you tomorrow, but I want you to keep away from my son. Period."
"I want an apology from him before I even consider letting him back in this house." Dad glared and crossed his arms over his chest.
I guess we know where you get your moronic inability to back down from, no matter how smart it would be.
"Then I guess I don't need to call you after all. Our things will be out of here by tomorrow." Her arm jerked, like she wanted to reach out for me, but she didn't. The battle lines were drawn, and I was on the opposite side. Still, she must have had some lingering feelings for me, because she gave me a sad smile. "Hang in there, Kurt. You're going to be alright."
She was willing to extend a grace to me that Dad wasn't to Finn. Maybe it was because she was a woman, or maybe it was just that Finn's cruelty had been brought out in the open while mine was kept between him and I.
The upstairs door slammed, telling us that Finn had obeyed Carole and gone out to the car. She nodded once, and followed him out. I wanted to scream for her to stop, but I still didn't. Dad didn't either. We both just stood there like a pair of dolts and watched the best things that had ever happened to either one of us walk out the door.
The slam of our front door (and it was definitely a slam. Apparently Finn comes by that trait honestly as well), broke the spell we were under. Suddenly we could move again, and Dad rushed over to me. "Did he hurt you?" His hands brushed over my body and tipped my face back, looking for injuries. "Kurt, where did he hit you?"
"He didn't." My numb emotions came back to life, swirling around me. "He didn't hurt me."
Unless you counted what he had done to my heart. The tears started. "He called me…" I couldn't even finish the thought.
"I know, I know. You don't need to repeat it. If I ever see that kid again..." He shook his head and crushed the bill of his cap between his hands. "There are some words that…." He ended up just shaking his head and pulling me into a hug. "It's going to be alright."
Of course it wouldn't. It's not that the word itself was so terrible. I mean, I've heard it at least weekly for the past five years. But never from Finn. Even at the worst of things, when he was helping the rest of the jocks tease and harass me, he had never stooped so low.
"Please leave me alone." My voice was barely there. "I just….can I have a little time to myself, please?"
"Are you sure?" Dad sounded concerned, but I saw the relief in the back of his eyes. He didn't know what to do right now, and he was afraid of making things worse. It was just easier to let me work it out on my own.
Resentment bubbled up in my chest. "Just go. I'm fine." It would just be easier to lick my wounds in private rather then try to lick them and comfort him at the same time. "Please."
He nodded. "If that's what you want. But come get me if you need me, alright?"
"Yeah. I'm just going to go to bed early." I turned my back and pretended to be straightening up the bed, just so I wouldn't have to watch him walk away. When I heard the door at the top of the stairs close, I sat down on the bed, the air leaving my lungs in a quick rush. How had my world fallen apart in just a few minutes?
Can you really tell me you didn't see this coming?
Of course I hadn't seen it coming! I mean, just because Finn was miserable, and the family wasn't fitting together the way we thought it would, and he and I had been tense and fighting, that didn't mean that-oh.
Yeah.
Well that didn't excuse what he had said! Finn could get mad all he wanted, but there were some lines you just shouldn't cross.
Agreed. However I don't think that he's the only one who crossed a few lines. Face it, Sugar; you're as much at fault here as Finn is.
My breath caught, and I wasn't sure if what had closed my throat was anger, shame, or some combination of both. Was this all my fault? Was it all Finns?
I reached out and groped for my phone. I needed someone else to tell me that Finn was wrong, and that this hadn't been my fault. My fingers trembled as I dialed Mercedes.
She picked up on the phone on the second ring. "How are you and Gene Simmons doing? I have to say, seeing that tongue was making me rethink Finn entirely."
I wanted to answer, but all that came out was a chocked sob. "Finn's gone."
Her voice was instantly serious. "What do you mean, he's gone? Gone as he didn't come home from being the guys? Gone as in he's in the hospital? Gone as in you two broke up? What kind of gone to do mean?"
"The last one. He and Carole moved back out, and it's over. Done. I never want to see him again." Telling the story to someone else, especially someone that I knew was going to be on my side no matter what, helped me get my equilibrium back.
"Slow down. Both he and Carole moved out? So your parents are broken up, too? I thought they were planning on getting married. What happened?" She was understandably confused.
"Maybe because Finn decided it was ok to call me a fag whenever he felt like it. He wouldn't apologize, so Dad kicked him out of the house. Then Carole got upset and said she was taking him home. I assume they went back to their house."
Rather an edited version of what happened, don't you think?
Probably, but there was no time to fix it, even if I had wanted to. Mercedes was already screaming. "Frankenteen said what! Oh, hell no! He is a dead man! Do you hear me! Dead! And a hypocrite besides. He better never show his face at McKinley again."
Just like Dad, it never occurred to Mercedes that this was anything but completely Finn's fault. And just like with Dad, I did absolutely nothing to dissuade her of that notion. In fact, her anger whipped mine into an even greater frenzy. "I know! And he made fun of how I decorated my room. I thought he loved me, but he's just an asshole! I hate him."
"I'm going to talk to Mr. Shuester, and get Finn kicked out of Glee. We didn't need him when we started, and we don't need him now. You and your safety are more important then him."
None of that was true. Like it or not, there was no Glee club without Finn. He had managed to pull a group of five losers into a cohesive group without even a teacher, and not only maintained us, but drew in new people until we had 12. Without Finn, we wouldn't have had anyone else, and would have lacked the necessary members to compete. Even now, if we lost Finn, we only had 11 people and were out of competition. There was also the small matter of battle lines. If we dropped Finn, Puck would go with him. Without the two of them, we would probably lose Mike and Matt. Quinn would follow Puck. Without anywhere near the numbers we needed, Coach Sylvester would pull Santana and Brittney. There was no point in spying on a club that was going to fail without them.
And there was something else. I was honestly a little afraid of how quickly Mercedes had jumped on Finn just for saying one word. What would she do to me if she knew that I had said something just as bad? Probably not as much, since I was her close friend and Finn wasn't, but she would be upset. If she was willing to turn on Finn so quickly, would Finn's friends turn on me just as fast?
With that in mind, I shook my head. "No, don't drag Mr. Shue into this. It's between me and Finn. We're less then two months from Regionals, and we need Finn if we want a group. I'm just going to pretend he doesn't exist."
"That doesn't seem fair. Finn should be punished." She sounded exactly like my father.
"He's kicked out of my house, he broke up our parents, and he has at least half of the Glee club against him. Besides, he lost me. I think he's being punished enough."
"Are you sure?" She sounded doubtful.
No. I wanted to see Finn burn for what he had said and done, but I didn't need anyone to do it for me. "Yes. I'll take care of this myself. I don't want you to tell anyone what happened. You can tell them that we broke up if someone asks, but don't give them any details. Please, give me this."
I wasn't being anywhere near as noble as I sounded. This had nothing to do with protecting Finn, and everything to do with protecting myself. Finn hadn't ratted me out to Dad, but if he was being pushed by the rest of the club, I was sure that he would have no problem telling everyone.
"I think you're being stupid, but if you insist. But…what exactly happened? The two of you seemed so happy this afternoon."
Retelling the story was something I could do. Stick to the facts. "I…he went out with the guys instead of coming home. I don't know what they were really doing." I gave a humorless laugh. "Probably I don't want to know. Since I had nothing better to do, I thought that I would redecorate my room. It looks fantastic." Ok, that was a bit of a lie. Now that I was looking over it again, with Finn's words still echoing in my ears, I could kind of see where he was coming from. But I could have fixed this room as some sort of hybrid man cave/sports bar, and it wouldn't have made any difference. Finn was itching to fight with someone, and I just happened to land in his line of fire.
"I didn't even know he was home. I just turned around and there he was, in the doorway glaring at me. He was acting like a dick, and I hadn't even said anything to him yet."
"So he started the fight?" She didn't sound disbelieving, just worried that she wasn't getting the facts.
"Yes." No matter what else happened, I could remember that Finn was the one who started the entire thing. "He said that my room looked like a Saudi Arabian whorehouse! And then it kind of spiraled out of control from there, and he called me a fag."
I had to skip a few parts, since they were the ones that made me look like a jerk. I didn't need Mercedes to provide me any actual answers. I just wanted her sympathy.
"Then Dad came down and started yelling at Finn, and Finn kind of froze, then Carole heard it and she started yelling at Dad, and Finn flipped out and started screaming at Dad not to hurt Carole, and she told him to get his stuff and go get in the car. She told Dad she wasn't coming back and that was it. Now they're gone and I don't think they're coming back."
"Do you want them back?"
"I want Carole back. I kind of like having her around." I didn't want to tell Mercedes, but I wanted Finn back, too. You can't stop loving someone in a few minutes, which was really all it had been. How was that possible that so much had happened so quickly? Not even a half hour had passed since I turned around and saw Finn on the steps.
The way he had smiled at me, and the way he would let me snuggle up against him or steal his French fries, that had to have meant something to him. And in the bedroom? The way he let me be the first one to top, trusting me entirely not to hurt him. If that wasn't love, nothing was.
"I wonder why he thought your father would hurt his Mom. That's kind of weird."
With everything else that had happened, I hadn't even thought about that, but it was strange. Had Finn seen another man be violent with her? It made his reaction seem a little less over the top. "I don't now."
"What are you going to tell people?" Mercedes drew me back to the present.
"That Finn and I broke up, period. There's no need to go into further details." And I would just have to avoid Finn at Glee club and school for the next two years and two months. I could do that, right? Maybe I could quit.
Oh, please. Why should you have to quit anything? The way I see it, the two of you are both a pair of morons, and thus equally at fault for what happened. You had Glee way before he did, and you should get to be the one who keeps it. Or maybe you'll just get lucky and he'll drop it without a fight.
"If you're sure…." She obviously thought I was an idiot, though she was doing her best to hide it. "I don't know why you're protecting him. Wait, did he threaten you? I'll fucking kill him!"
"No, he didn't threaten me. It's just….I don't want this to be a huge deal, ok? It's humiliating enough that it happened at all, and I don't want to relive it. He and I are just going to have to put our difference aside for the sake of the club."
"You're taking this very well." She sounded a little nervous.
She only thought that because she couldn't see me methodically shredding my favorite handkerchief. I had to force myself to be calm right now, because if I gave in to the anger that was flaring inside of me, Finn Hudson was a dead man. One of us had to be the bigger man here, and it was going to be me. I didn't need Finn. I didn't need anyone.
"I am not going to turn into a crying little girl over Finn. Screw him. There are plenty of men out there, and if I have to wait a few years to find them, that's alright." My voice cracked a little, which didn't do much to make me sound believable. "I'll get over him."
"Are you really going to be ok? Because I can come over if you need me to."
"That's not necessary. It's late and a school night, and I'm going to go to bed soon. In my fantastic bedroom that looks nothing like a Saudi Arabian whorehouse, thank you very much. Thanks for the offer, though. See you tomorrow?"
"Of course. If you change your mind and decide you need me, all you have to do is call, ok?"
"Ok. Love you, girlfriend." I gathered up the shredded handkerchief and hung up the phone.
The more I looked around the room, though, the more I found fault with what I had created. Too busy, too bright, too needlessly complicated, too much sparkle, too…..everything. Suddenly, I saw everything through Finn's eyes, and the look wasn't flattering.
I was moving before my thoughts were complete, tearing things off of the walls and dumping fabrics into wrinkled heaps. It didn't matter now. None of this mattered. I could fix it, though. I could make this room just like it had been before. No, I could make it better.
Except things kept expanding and contracting, getting blurry as I blinked back tears. Every time I turned, I heard the ugly word echoing in my ears. Fag. Fag. Fag. Fag. I could stand hearing it, but from Finn? Finn, who told me he loved me, and sang me silly songs, and gave me blow jobs with those same lips. I couldn't take it from my Finn.
He's not your Finn any more. I thin he made that abundantly clear.
Glass broke when I accidentally knocked over the picture on the nightstand. Tina had taken it after Sectionals, at the party at Rachel's house. It was the first time that we had been able to be together in front of the group, and we were both sparkling. Granted, some of the sparkle was coming from the glitter that Rachel had thrown everywhere, but still. Nobody does joy quite like Finn Hudson, and this picture may have been the happiest I had ever seen him.
It crumpled as I slammed the frame against my nightstand over and over, ruining both it and the picture inside. I didn't care. Screw Finn, and screw the fact that he was making me so miserable right now. I had held it together for Mercedes, and would have to hold it together at school tomorrow, but now there was no one to see me freak out.
Other pictures were thrown, kicked, or stomped until there was nothing left but glass and fragments. The t-shirts that I had borrowed were torn until I wouldn't even use them for rags. Files on the computer, full of suggestions and techniques to help Finn with his learning problems were deleted without a second thought. Love notes? Trashed. I was going to wipe Finn Hudson out of this room as if he had never been here.
It wasn't until I had the nightstand drawer open in my frantic search for more things to destroy that I came across the two tiny slips of paper that had somehow fallen into the bottom. One was barely bigger then a scrap, the fortune out of the cookie from the sushi restaurant. The other was a folded piece of notebook paper with Finn's dreams for the future scrawled across it. I wanted to burn them both, but something stayed my hand. These trinkets were irreplaceable, and I couldn't bring myself to destroy them. Someday, I would look back on my first relationship, and want something to show for it. These things were small, easily transported and hidden, but they were important. Maybe I would be able to show them to my kids one day, and tell them that I, too, had managed to get over the heartbreak of losing my first boyfriend and still managed to find their other father.
Whatever you have to tell yourself.
With far more tenderness then I would have shown Finn himself, I moved the papers to my hope chest, pushing them down to the bottom where I wouldn't have to see them again until I was ready.
Now? It was time for a bonfire.