Mama's Boy

by aishuu

Notes: So I'm sure some people who are used to my slower story posting pace are confused (and maybe annoyed) by my sudden Glee-thon. To which I reply: I have three Gleefics I want to get out before the season premiere, since I hate getting Jossed. The second half of this fic will be posted Friday or Saturday. And... this is my head canon for Kurt's mom.

The first time Kurt came home with a bloody nose, Kate Hummel shut her eyes and prayed for patience.

She'd always known this would happen – boys would be boys, after all. She'd also known, deep in her heart, that Kurt was going to be the focus of a lot of schoolyard abuse. Children could be cruel, and they would inevitably single out those who were different.

And you didn't get much more "different" than a nine-year-old future queen.

She knew all the words for what Kurt would become: homo, fag, queer, fairy, cocksucker... the list went on and on, all of the words offensive. She forced herself to use the words in her mind, because she was going to have to get used to hearing them. The maternal part of her – and she wasn't a terribly maternal woman, no matter how much she tried – wanted to protect her baby boy, but she was smart enough to know that there was no way to protect Kurt from the world.

Maybe it was good Burt hadn't lived to see this. Burt had wanted a manly son, a boy he could play sports with and teach auto mechanics to. She loved her late husband, but she knew he would have had problems accepting Kurt for who he was and would be. Kate didn't know if Burt would have any clue what to do with such an effeminate son.

Kurt, she had to admit to herself, was a bit of a wuss.

Then she heard him sobbing about the bloodstains on his third-favorite sweater.

No, he was a big wuss.

The school nurse had done a decent job of packing his nose, but Kate knelt down beside Kurt to make sure he wasn't still bleeding. She was a dermatologist, and didn't practice much first aid, but had enough general training to handle this kind of mess. Thankfully she didn't see any signs of fresh blood, so she was going to wait a bit for things to have a chance to properly clot before removing the bandages and getting a closer look. The nurse said Kurt's nose wasn't broken, but Kate needed to see it with her own eyes before she could relax.

Kurt's whimpers grew softer as she pulled him into a hug. He was at the age where he should have been starting to pull away from his mother, but Kurt was clinging like a leech. There were two ways to handle this: she could break out the Ben and Jerry's and offer him a Disney night (and God, she was fed up with The Little Mermaid), or she could could let him struggle to figure out how to handle this himself. He should be learning some independence, after all.

He whimpered again, and she thought "screw it." She wasn't about to make this a teachable moment when her boy was hurt.

Thirty minutes later they were snuggled up together watching The Wizard of Oz. While Kurt sang along with Somewhere Over the Rainbow, Kate mentally plotted ways to help her son survive growing up.

That evening after Kurt was in bed, Kate picked up the phone to call Gary, Burt's brother. When Burt died almost two years ago (twenty-three months and five days, but who's counting?), Gary had offered to do anything he could to help. Kate was going to take him up on the offer.

"Hi, Gary? It's Kate," she said as soon as he picked up his phone.

"Kate?" He paused for a long moment, and she was under the impression he was trying to place her name. "Katie! Is something wrong?"

No one had called her Katie since the funeral. All of her family members, friends and colleagues called her Kate or Cathryn. Katie had been something from Burt. Hearing it now, from a voice so similar to Burt's, stung, but not with the sharp-pain of having her heart torn out. The memory it evoked was more bittersweet, bringing forth nostalgia.

"Can you spend some time with Kurt this weekend?" she asked, before she could think better of it. "I think someone needs to teach him how to fight."

Gary Hummel lived sixty miles away, which was why they hadn't visited frequently. They had agreed that he would take Kurt for a weekend, which would give them time to do some "male bonding."

"Boy needs a father figure," Gary had pointed out.

Kate didn't say how much she hated the implication that it was impossible for a single mother to raise a son without a man in her life. Gary was doing her a favor, and she didn't want to rouse the infamous Hummel temper. For Kurt's sake, she bit her tongue and thanked him.

Kurt had been especially clingy when she dropped him off at his uncle's. Gary had five children, three of them boys, and the family was loud and rambunctious. Kurt watched her leave with distrustful eyes, but Kate didn't let herself feel guilty for abandoning him for the weekend. This was for his own good.

The house was awfully quiet the next couple of days. She plowed through her back paperwork (her secretary was going to hate her on Monday), and didn't let herself give into the temptation to call Gary's to see how her little boy was doing. This was the first evening Kurt had spent away from home, so it was natural she worry, right?

When Kurt arrived back on Sunday afternoon, it was all she could do not to run out to the car. Kate forced herself to remain composed, waiting in the living room. She sat with her book in her lap, not hinting that she'd been looking out the window for the past three hours.

Kurt didn't even bother to hug her. She felt hurt as he raced right by her, grabbing the door to his room and slamming it shut behind him. She didn't know what to make of it.

Gary came to stand across from her, shifting on his feet as he waited for her to meet his eyes. "The boy's a fag," Gary said. "I bet Burt's spinning over in his grave."

"That is a horrible thing to say!" she said, forcing herself not to yell since Kurt might overhear. She rose to her feet without thinking about it, lashing a hand out at Gary's face. How dare he, Kurt's own uncle... oh my god, I left my baby with this man for two days, what did he do to my son?

He wisely stepped out of reach, holding his hands up in front of his body. "Cool down, Katie-girl! It's not like I'm telling you something you don't know!"

She took a deep breath, struggling to regain control. "What did you say to my son?"

Gary sighed, shaking his head. "Do you think I'm such a jackass I'd call a little kid names?"

"If you did, they're never going to find all the pieces when I'm done with you. If you hurt my son..." She was still shaking from her rage, although she managed to keep her voice level.

"He's my flesh and blood, too." He pulled off his Browns cap, running a hand over his thinning hair. "Look, you think we can talk like adults about this?"

"I'll give you five minutes before I break out my good kitchen knives." She wasn't joking.

Gary swallowed conspicuously. "Did Burt ever tell you about our cousin John?"

She shook her head. "Not that I remember," she said, wondering where Gary was taking this.

"Not surprised. John..." he trailed off. "He was like Kurt. Queer as a three dollar bill, and unable to pretend otherwise."

She thought of her husband, a man who radiated the aura of good ol' boy, and felt lead settle into her stomach. She didn't want confirmation to her inner fears that Burt wouldn't have been able to accept his own son. "Burt hated him, didn't he?"

"Hate's too strong a word. Hummels are family, and we all love each other. It's just..." For a second, his eyes seemed distant. "Boys will be boys. One of our favorite family reunion games was trying to beat the gay out of him. And his parents and our grandparents kept sending him to those gay fixing camps, trying to make a man out of him."

This couldn't have ended well. Despite all the family reunion picnics she'd attended with Burt, she'd never met John and hadn't heard his name. Considering the family still griped loudly and bitterly about the time Aunt Louisa had skipped the gathering in favor of having gallbladder surgery, it had to be bad.

"What happened?" she asked.

"He killed himself," Gary said. "He was seventeen."

Kate shut her eyes. She'd been reading up on homosexuality ever since Kurt's third birthday, when he'd spent the entire evening sulking because he hadn't been given a pair of girl's shoes. She knew that homosexual teens were much more likely to kill themselves, and secretly feared that her son would become one of the statistics.

She heard the sound of shifting fabric, and suddenly there's a pair of strong arms wrapped around her. The arms weren't quite right (they were not Burt's), but no one had held her in a long time, and she allowed herself to cry.

She had been so scared for so long. She wasn't cut out for being a single parent. It hurt so much to watch her son suffer, because she knew there was nothing she could do to save him.

Gary was a good guy, rubbing her back until she settled down. "Do you need a glass of water?" he offered as she pulled away.

"No," she said, wiping at her eyes and feeling embarrassed. She was Cathryn Sawyer Hummel, for god's sake. She wasn't supposed to be weak. "I want to know why my son was so upset when he came storming in."

"Junior and Caleb are a bit too much like their old man, before he learned better," he said. "They tried a bit of roughhousing, and I didn't catch them in time."

She wanted to be furious at him, but she knew how hard it was to chase children around all the time. "Boys will be boys?"

"Most will. Kurt... there's no way he's going to be able to hold his own in a fight," Gary told her. He scratched his stubbly chin, looking thoughtful. "He's built like you, all fragile like."

She huffed, knowing he had a point. She was all of five feet tall, which was one of the reasons she never left the house wearing flats.

"So should I put him in karate or something?"

"That's not gonna help, Katie-girl," Gary said. "If a bigger guys gets hold of him, he'd have a hard time breaking loose. The boy's gonna need to know how to run, more than anything." Then his forehead crinkled, and his eyes flashed as an idea occurred to him. "Maybe kickboxing would be a good idea. It'll force the other guy to stay back out of his range."

She turned the idea around in her head a couple of times, finding it acceptable despite Kurt's inevitable pouting about doing something that would get him messy. "He's going to hate it."

"My boys hate piano, but Ruthie still makes them go," Gary said. "Sometimes parents have to know what's best. Though I could go the rest of my life without hearing Heart and Soul again."

She laughed, and thanked him for his help.

Gary rose to leave. "No need for thanks, Katie. The boy's family. I heard the gay thing runs in families, so I don't think it's anyone fault he's a twinkie. I just want to do things right this time. I'm sure Burt would've wanted that."

"I'm sure," she agreed, though her words lacked Gary's conviction.

Kurt started the kickboxing lessons the next week. He hadn't wanted to, but she promised he could take dance classes for as long as he did kickboxing after he'd said he'd much rather take ballet than some stupid fighting class. He'd given her that bright grin of his, and she realized he'd picked up her skill at negotiation.

Kurt had kickboxing and dancing lessons twice a week each, and the last free afternoon was filled by his piano and vocal instructor. It kept him busy while she worked her ten hour days, and kept him from being home alone or stuck at sitter's vegetating in front of the television. Thankfully her salary was enough that she could afford to hire Brenna, a neighborhood high schooler, to be in charge of shuffling him to lessons and making sure he ate dinner. How single mothers who weren't pulling in half a mill a year did it, she couldn't figure out.

The one good thing about her long workdays was that she had the entire weekend free to spend with her son. She hadn't noticed it until months later, but the invitations for play dates had mysteriously dried up, and Kurt didn't never asked to have friends over anymore. He was content to play on his own, but she knew it wasn't healthy.

So they'd spend Saturdays out doing something, like going to Columbus to watch a performance or visiting museums or shopping. If Kate hadn't already known Kurt wasn't a normal little boy, the way he loved to trot through the malls and pick out outfits for himself and for her would have alarmed her. Kate was very fond of fashion, but she could see that Kurt already had a more instinctive eye for trends. A couple of his picks made her wince, but they were always striking and never forgettable.

It was the inadvertent source of their first real fights. Kurt had always been a loving child, and mature for his age. So Kate was blindsided when he threw a tantrum one Monday morning when he was in fifth grade.

Kate made sure she and Kurt sat down and had breakfast together every morning. It was their bonding time, and she and Kurt would talk about what was going on in their lives. It was important to keep the lines of communication open and let Kurt know she was always there for him.

When he came upstairs that morning, she blinked for a second. "What are you wearing?"

He preened, spinning around. "Do you like it?"

"It's... something else," Kate replied, unable to think of anything else to say. He was wearing his black dress pants and dress shoes, a multicolor shirt she didn't recognize, a black newsboy cap and a silver scarf he'd taken from her closet. "Go change into your normal clothes."

"What?" he screeched, and mentally she spared a wish that his voice would break sooner rather than later.

"It's not appropriate for going to school," she said, struggling to keep hold of her temper. He was going to get the snot kicked out of him if she let him get away with it. Kurt didn't need to do anything more than breathe to encourage bullies, but wearing flamboyant clothes would be like waving a red flag in front of an angry bull.

"I don't care! This is what I want to wear!"

"Go. Change," she said, rising to her feet and pointing to his room.

"Why should I?" he retorted, crossing his arms over his chest and a stubborn pout settling onto his face.

"Because I'm your mother, that's why!" Was that really her? She sounded exactly like her mother. Oh, god, I'm turning into my mother, she thought with horror.

"I hate you!" Kurt yelled back, before stomping off down to his room and slamming the door behind him.

She winced at the words she'd never wanted to hear. She'd always sworn to herself that she would never give her son cause to hate her, that she would be ten times the mother her own had been. She remembered the throwdowns she'd get into with her mother as a teenager, fights that would last days with neither giving ground. She'd thought she'd be able to avoid that with Kurt, since he was such a sweet child, at least until he was older.

Leave it to Kurt to prove precocious.

Half an hour later, she drove her sulking child to school. Kurt was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, but she couldn't feel any triumph. All she felt was fatigue, since she knew instinctively that this was the start of a long, very trying adolescence.

She hoped they both survived.

Kurt didn't speak to her for a whole week, flouncing around the house like a huffy, pissed off kitten. After the first day of the silent treatment, Kate got her own stubborn on, deciding she wasn't going to bend on this.

Her online parenting support groups weren't much help. This wasn't supposed to be a problem she was supposed to have with a son, and she didn't think the solution was treating him like a girl ("let her make her own fashion mistakes"), either. The online support groups tended to be very liberal and child-empowerment driven, but she didn't think most of the participants were raising their children in conservative communities.

She's had enough by Saturday morning. They had tickets to see a college production of Little Shop of Horrors, and she wasn't in the mood to spend the entire day with a bratty son. So when Kurt came into the kitchen still looking like a little storm cloud, she decided it was time for a heart to heart.

He looked suspicious when she gestured for him to take a seat. "It's time we had a talk," she said.

"I'm still mad at you," he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I'm mad at you, too." Being honest was important. "But I didn't tell you to change just because I wanted to be mean."

"Why?"

She wanted to believe he was that innocent still, but she was smarter than that. "You know why, Kurt. Your classmates won't approve."

"You want me to look like everyone else?"

There was a sensitive answer that her parenting groups would recommend, and there was the answer Kate wanted to give. "I'm not telling you they're right, Kurt. But what do you think would happen if you dress like that?"

"I'll look fabulous?"

She couldn't help but grin at his reply. "Aside from that. What do you think the other kids would do to you?"

"I don't care what they think," Kurt told her. "What they think doesn't matter to me."

Her heart squeezed in her chest. She wasn't sure if it was a good thing or not that he didn't place value in the other kids' opinion of him. It was good that he was secure enough in his own ego to not worry about what others thought, but Kurt was starting to develop a condescending attitude. Everyone had value, even people you didn't like.

"But it does worry me. I can't be there to protect you all the time, and neither can your teachers."

He thought on it for a long moment. "I know kickboxing and can take care of myself if they try to beat me up?" he suggested.

She shook her head. "Part of the battle is knowing which battles to fight. Do you really want to get in fights all the time?"

He shuddered. "Not really."

"Maybe we can work out a compromise," she said, thinking. "On weekends, you can wear whatever you want when we go out. Weekdays, I think you should stick to jeans and sneakers."

He made a face. "That's boring."

"It's appropriate for where you'll be going. Fashion isn't just about wearing fabulous clothes, it's about knowing how to select an ensemble that matches what you'll be doing."

Kurt tapped his hand against the armrest of his chair. "Designer jeans and name brand sneakers? The idiots might not know Levis from Armani Exchange, but I do."

"I think we can arrange that."

Kurt smiled and bounced to his feet, coming over to throw his arms around her neck. Kate let herself enjoy the feeling of holding him, but couldn't escape the thought that this wasn't over yet.