If Words Were Stones
By: Mytay
Rating: T – mature themes, like homophobia, and some offensive language.
Summary: A twist on an old adage we all know is a lie – words can be stones thrown at you, and they can hurt. But sometimes you can lend some truth to the lie that they don't. And other times . . . you throw something back. Hard.
Disclaimer: I do not own, nor claim to own, anything Glee related.
Note: I started writing this before Theatricality, and therefore, while it's very similar in theme, there won't be any mention of that episode.
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Chapter 1
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The first time Kurt hears it, he's maybe five; he's in a corner of the living room, playing half-heartedly with his toy trucks, wishing his mother had taken him with her to run errands, or that his dad was working in the garage today. Toy trucks are nowhere near as fun as the real ones are – and he should know, since one of his favourite things is to watch his father take them apart – but he also knows, maybe subconsciously, that if he went upstairs to play dress up with his favourite of his mother's silk shirts, his father would not be happy. His dad is sitting on the couch with a few of his friends and they're watching something boring on the TV – he thinks it might be football, but his five year old self only knows that it puts him to sleep.
(This is one of those memories that the older Kurt remembers with an almost scary clarity, even though a lot of what happened went completely over his head at the time.)
His Uncle Larry (who isn't really his uncle, but he co-owns the tire store/garage with his dad and is over often enough that Kurt thinks of him as one) is laughing like a donkey at something on the screen. His dad and the two others are too: Sam, who works at his dad's shop, and lets him play hide and seek in and around the cars, and Leo, another mechanic who sneaks Kurt lollipops when he's being punished for touching his dad's tools or pushing the button that makes the cars go up and down.
His father keeps one eye on him, even as he disappears into the kitchen to get more drinks. He comes back with a few more beers, a book and a box of crayons. Kurt immediately perks up, grinning up at his dad. His father grins back, ruffling his hair and going back to sit on the couch.
Kurt opens the colouring book to somewhere in the middle – he's going carefully in order, page by page – and starts selecting his crayons. It's a plain book, with images of children playing or doing school stuff or sleeping or eating dinner with their families, and Kurt loves to colour in the clothes with all different shades. Sometimes though, when he finds what they're wearing a little boring, he'll take his favourite black crayon, and change them. He likes that best and the colouring book is already more of Kurt's own designs than the original plain ones.
He's concentrating really hard, tongue between his teeth, on one of the mommies in the pictures – drawing on her his own mother's favourite dress – when Uncle Larry breaks into loud laughter. "God, did that kid ever mess up that play. Why did they bother trading him, when he plays like a girl – what a total fag."
Kurt can practically feel his father's change of mood. The silence from him is louder than the roaring crowds on the TV. Kurt looks up, and sees this funny look on his dad's face. It's this weird expression that he's too little to really understand, (the older Kurt understood later that it was a combination of hurt and anger) but it makes him stop colouring and pay attention to what's happening.
His father puts his beer down on the table, slowly and deliberately, and turns to Uncle Larry. "I would appreciate it if you didn't use that word around me – or around my kid."
Larry shoots Kurt a confused look, who only stares back with wide eyes, then turns to his friend. "What word? . . . Oh – well, it ain't nothing he isn't going to be hearing in school, and really, what's the harm?"
"I'll say what the harm is, Larry. He's my boy and I don't need him learning those kinds of words."
His voice is calm and not really angry, but Kurt is really good at telling when his dad is starting to get angry, so he considers leaving the room or calling for his mother, but he remembers she's gone out. Kurt freezes in the corner. He's never actually seen grown ups fight before – when his parents disagree, they usually make sure Kurt's safe in his room before going to their own bedroom and closing the door. It makes Kurt nervous and he really wants his mommy.
But nothing happens – Uncle Larry just shrugs and goes back to enjoying himself. His dad gets up to walk over to him and kneels on the floor, looking at the colouring book. Kurt shows him his new picture. "It's mommy's pretty dress."
His dad nods, and swallows hard. "That's great, Kurt, it looks just as nice as the real one."
Suddenly, Kurt's being picked up, his book and crayons clutched in one large hand, while his father holds him close with his other arm. Kurt automatically wraps his arms around his dad, laying his head on his shoulder, feeling like maybe his dad needs a hug though he doesn't know exactly why.
His father tells his friends to enjoy the game, that he's going to sit with Kurt in the backyard for a bit, maybe toss a ball around or something. Kurt hides his face in father's neck – he doesn't actually like throwing the baseball around, but he'll do it, he always does, because he likes spending time with his dad.
But when they get out to the backyard, his father just sits him at the picnic table and lets him keep drawing and colouring, not saying anything, just drinking his beer next to him and watching the sun set.
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Kurt is seven the second time he hears it, and it's directed at Jack Carlson, a little boy with long blonde ringlets that Kurt had been trying to braid during recess, but failed at miserably. He settles for two pigtails and giggles when Jack flips them over his shoulder, imitating his 'dorky older sister'. He really likes Jack – he gets these butterflies in his tummy whenever the other boy laughs with him.
Two older boys walk over from the basketball court and stare down at them. Kurt blinks back, not sure why they're bothering – the older kids are suppose to stick to their side of the playground at recess and it's big trouble for them if they don't.
"Dude, you think you could act any more gay?" one of them jeers and Kurt bristles, because he knows he's just been insulted, even if he doesn't know how.
"Go away before I call a teacher over," he says haughtily. "I don't care about being a tattle-tale – I'll get you in trouble, just watch me!"
The other boy gives him a smirk. "Go ahead, wuss, you and the little fag here will get what's coming to you!"
They walk away now, snorting and pointing, and Jack, who Kurt had momentarily forgotten about, is frantically pulling the pigtails out of his hair. Kurt watches him do it, without saying anything, and they both walk as far away from the basketball court as possible.
Later that day, when he's home, he asks his mother what the words 'gay' and 'fag' mean. His mother freezes in the middle of making him a sandwich.
He waits patiently, comfortable and unconcerned about it now – just curious mostly. He kicks his legs as he sits at the table, sipping his orange juice.
"Kurt," she says finally, "Gay is just something someone is – and some people think it's a bad thing, but I promise you, it isn't. Just like believing in a different God or having different coloured skin aren't bad things – they just are. That other word . . ." She looks angry for half a second, barely long enough for Kurt to notice, before smiling softly, and reaching out to run her fingers through his hair. "I never want to hear you saying it, okay, baby? It's like all the other naughty words – there's no dessert and no TV, if I ever hear you using it. And if someone ever calls you or one of your friends that, I want to know about it, all right?"
Kurt nods and files away the information, and then promptly forgets all about it when his mother places his peanut butter and jelly with bananas in front of him. His father comes home a couple of hours later and they all sit down to dinner. Kurt rattles off his day (focusing on the part where his music teacher had said that Kurt had the best voice in the whole grade!) without even thinking to mention what happened with Jack – as far as he's concerned, it's the last he'll ever hear of it.
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The third time, he's ten and it's important, because it's the first time the word is directed at him.
It had been more than two years since his mother died and some days he still felt like crying in bed, never getting up and just laying there until the sun's gone back down again.
He was up at five in the morning – he'd been restless with nightmares most of the night, and they had been so intense and freaky that he almost screamed when his eyes finally snapped open. He was dizzy and still half asleep, not knowing where he was and whether the monsters were waiting in the shadows, and his first instinct had been to call out to his mother.
"Mommy," had just left his throat, a rough whisper, when he remembered that she wouldn't be coming to cuddle him and save him from the monsters in his head – and suddenly the idea of it choked him and it hurt all over again, just like on the day she . . . left.
He cried until the tears wouldn't come anymore and his head throbbed. By that point it was six in the morning, and he just didn't want to try and sleep – he didn't want anything but his mother, and it ached deep in his chest, like he'd been running forever, running for two years with no stop or break in-between.
Kurt slid off his bed and underneath it, where he kept a box with a few things he'd taken from his mother's room to keep close. He opened it, wishing he could capture the smell that lurked in the dresser in his parents' room. He had a silk shirt of hers – blue with dark green buttons – and all the birthday cards she'd made for him, and a few flowers he'd picked for her, which she had dried and pressed into books, and her favourite light bluish-green nail polish.
He held the small bottle for a moment before twisting it open incredibly slowly and cautiously, the strong, unpleasant smell hitting his nostrils. But it made him smile, because he remembered watching his mother paint her nails and how he would beg to have his painted too. She would laugh, shake her head, but once she was done, she would let him pick one toenail on each of his little feet, and paint those for him. He would always pick his two big toes.
This time, he painted all his toenails, and all his fingernails, blowing carefully on them as he did, and something in the action of brushing the colour on with smooth and steady precision soothed him. By the time he was finished, he was calm again.
His father took one look at his nails at the breakfast table a couple of hours later, and raised both his eyebrows, eyes widening a bit. But he didn't say anything other than, "Pass me the orange juice, kiddo."
Kurt loved his dad.
He went to school, in a perfectly matching pair of jeans and t-shirt from a designer that his mother had loved, and everything was okay, because his father was the coolest dad ever, and he was wrapped in his mother's favourite everything and looking really good. It made him feel . . . awesome. He looked down at his nails, smiling as the colour glinted in the morning light.
But later in the schoolyard, he wished his father had said something. The junior high was right next to the elementary school, and so the older kids were always hanging around before class started. No sooner did he arrive at the school yard, but Craig Tanner – the same boy who'd been teasing him since he was seven – pointed at him, and said in a booming voice, "Check out the fag, guys – he's actually wearing nail polish!"
There was loud laughter from the ranks, and more use of the word his mother had so long ago explained was something horrible that should never be said. He tried to shrug it off and give them nothing, no reaction . . . but the thought of his mother . . . of his mother not being at home to get angry over this insult . . . it made his eyes water and the boys laugh even harder.
No one spoke to Kurt all day, even people who were sort of his friends. Jack had moved away when he was nine – something that had barely registered on Kurt's radar since he was still living in a nightmare world without his mom, and nothing else seemed to matter. He didn't have any real friends like the other kids did – he'd started being very quiet after his mother died – but he did have a few who didn't mind his long silences, or his sparkly running shoes that he'd poured silver glitter all over to make more interesting. (He couldn't wear his pretty and sensible heels to school – he hadn't found the right clothes to match.) Everyone avoided looking at him, sitting near him or talking to him, as if he was diseased. Even Mrs. Simmons, the music teacher, treated him differently – she didn't even try to get him to sing during their music class, even though she'd been trying every single day for the past two years.
Kurt went straight to his father after school, and cried his eyes out in his lap – he was a mess of confusion, and hurt, and anger, and he wanted his mommy.
His father just kept whispering into his hair that Kurt was the greatest kid in the whole world – that he was the best son a father could ask for – and nothing that anybody said would ever change that. He told Kurt that his mother had loved him so much, that he still missed her too, but Kurt just had to keep being strong, being himself, because that's what she would have wanted.
Later that night, after some chocolate ice cream and a promise made for a weekend to be spent watching The Music Man and Guys and Dolls, his dad came into the room to tuck him in and kiss him. When he pulled back from pressing that kiss to Kurt's forehead, Kurt saw, sitting on his nightstand, a brand new bottle of clear nail polish.
A part of him wanted to cry again, because it was his mother's nail polish that was the best medicine he'd found for that ache deep in his chest . . . but a bigger part of him felt so much love for his father that he promised to be an even better son, right then and there, because his father deserved it.
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Author's Note: Right, so this was originally intended to be a lengthy one-shot, but it got a little too lengthy, so I've spilt it into three parts. It makes it easier for me to proofread a section at a time, and then post. This type of fic has been done before, I know, and I apologize if this specific topic, in this particular style, has already been done in this fandom, it was not my intention to imitate - I got inspired, I wrote, and this is what came out. The next part I'll have up sometime within the next day or two, the last part I'll probably post a couple of days after that.
Thanks again to everyone who's made it to the bottom of this page.
And for those who may not know to which old adage I refer: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me."