Work Text:
Summer never seemed to have the same feel to it for Kurt Hummel as it did for the other kids around him...even before his mom died the first week of June when he was 8.
It wasn't that he really really liked school, either, not like the one of two other kids he knew who didn't like summer all that much. He would be one of those kids if school wasn't torture in disguise from the very start, because he liked the learning aspect of school and having something to do...but school had too many bullies and too many mean kids who didn't bully necessarily but didn't do anything nice either.
Summer was just...hot and boring.
He hated and feared swimming lessons at first, and didn't enjoy them even after they changed to Linda at the gated community pool. And not just because since they were given at that pool, and Kurt and his mom were NOT members of the community, they couldn't stay and swim afterwards. Linda was good, but she treated Kurt and his mom like they were beneath her the whole time.
Time spent at the city pool or the YMCA pool was spent trying to avoid kids who wanted to drown him. It was stressful, not fun.
He hated the park. Or rather, he liked the park past 6pm, when most the other kids had gone home and he could play on what ever he wanted without being pushed or shoved or getting his face shoved in the sand. Parks usually meant ER visits or Doctor visits, eye patches, stitches, braces and a few times casts.
Dance classes stopped after competition in May or June, depending how well they did, and didn't' start up for the company he danced with until September...although sometimes they got together to learn a dance for a parade or break during a rodeo.
He liked Fair Time...and talent shows. He liked that he almost always won for his age division...mostly because the girls in his dance class thought that the fair talent show was beneath them.
When he was way little twice a month, on the weekends his dad went fishing with the boys, he and his mom went to pageants, and he liked those. He liked the crowns and prizes...and he always came home with them...most the time the top ones. At least until the year he was 5...then they stopped competing. Which was fine. The other kids had gotten more and more horrid as he got older, and more and more stupid. And that was before school and kids noticed summer much anyway. And they did that all year round.
But day to day, he just did not get the thrill of summer other kids did. He just didn't see it.
It was just the same as the rest of the year, except going to the school building for classes.
He still did education work. He still did chores. He still did work at the garage. He still did library days. He didn't get it.
And then after his mom died, well summer was pretty much spent at work. At first he didn't work much, but he was still at the garage for most of the time. And he didn't NOT work. He did all the little chores and then sat and learned. After proving he could take directions and learn and then comply, the next summer he had pay.
He was working on things by himself under constant direct supervision by the summer he was 12. He was working under passive supervision when he was 14 and 15, to get the hours and experience he needed for getting his certifications,. (ie next to someone who looked over him while he worked but also did their own stuff at the same time and who he called to with a problem or questions.)
After his mom died Summer was about work. His dad took fishing weekends and hunting weekends with the guys, but Kurt was with one of his dad's coworkers when his dad went off with the guys, so he tended to still end up at the garage. Once in a while Kurt would be taken along, but the hunting week Kurt went on was with his Uncle Lou and cousins and always happened in fall. And fishing was always just one weekend, because Kurt made it so his dad couldn't relax and relaxing was what fishing was supposed to be about. So one weekend a summer which was hit or miss.
Seriously, Kurt just didn't get what others felt about summer.
It created problems after his dad started dating Carole. Finn was one of those kids for whom summer was this huge thrill. And Kurt just didn't get it. Finn looked forward to summer. Finn counted the days until summer. Finn waxed on and on about summer when summer was there even if he did nothing much other wax on and on about summer. Kurt honestly didn't see how summer was much different for Finn than the school year in a way that made sense to Kurt.
However he did get that things were not fair. Finn had to do nothing other than make messes and cause problems – not even chores- and Kurt spent 40 hours a week working for his dad and hours over that babysitting and working other places. But seriously that wasn't a great deal of difference than the school year, just Kurt's hours were shorter and Finn had to go to school and made messed and caused problems in more places.
And yet Finn wanted for nothing, still.
It took all summer the summer after his dad married Carole for Kurt to make his dad see that summer needed to be a bit more fair.
Kurt lost hours at the garage and didn't babysit as much the next year. Finn did not have to get a job. He had to mow the lawn, until he left for basic training.
Kurt wasn't surprised Finn didn't handle the military well. He went to basic training during his summer vacation...you know, when he was supposed to be free and not think or learn.
And at the end of the summer, Kurt realized how much he missed the end of summer and the excitement of something...some sort of change...and how summer was something he noticed after all, at least that year.