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If no reviews ever are shown, no alerts, no favorites, and only one hit - yours - I will be happy, my muse. This is my love letter to you, after all, and everyone else may hang.

14 Reasons Why I Love You

4. But your first valentine deserves to be a real present, and it deserves to be terribly awkward. All first times are...unless there's someone guiding it. So all I can offer you from an ocean away is fourteen reasons and fourteen pairings, and my love, and maybe a greeting card. When I get back, by all hopes it will be your third valentine and...third time lucky, you know. So I...I'll buy you chocolates, then, and be all sappy. And stuff. Because hipsters disdain sappiness, but I disdain hipsters, and so it falls to me. I love you, sweet muse, and this love will not stop.

He watched Kurt from his vantage point, cursing himself all the while.

This...these feelings, they were unnatural. Wrong. His father said so. He wasn't supposed to feel this way. He was supposed to fall in love with a good-looking girl, go to work at the local factory, day in day out, just like his father.

So, what if he didn't want to b e like his father? But being attracted to a guy, that was wrong. Wrong wrong wrong wrong unnatural freakish...his father could, and did, go on at length about it, having worked with two very affectionate men, once upon a time. His father had told him to harrass that girl called Rachel, which wasn't too difficult since she was so annoying anyway.

Pick on her clothing until she only wore cashmere, pick on her voice until she talked faster, get everyone else to hate her. Dave knew exactly how to get everyone to like or dislike one another.

Liking him...that was a different story. He didn't care if anyone disliked him, really, which wasn't an issue since everyone was far too scared of him to hate his guts. He walked a very fine, balanced line, in getting everyone else to leave him alone, so that he could pursue his own goals.

So, Kurt. Walking through the halls, free and easy...just a few more months of having other jocks bully him, then he could sweep in and take him under his wing, and Kurt would love him then...

"Yo, Dave," Azimio called, walking up behind him.

Dave turned and sneered. "What do you want?"

"Easy, easy," Azimio said, waving his hands. "I was just wondering, which of the girls claimed you for their valentine's? We're in high school now, you know?"

"You don't subscribe to that stupid tradition, do you, Azimio?"

"Oh no, I...Dave, I really...I-"

Dave turned his back on Azimio, until he could hear the footsteps fall away.

At this time, he knew Kurt had Biology, which meant he'd take the long halls to the labs with the doors. It would be futile to walk past him then, since on sight of his letterman jacket Kurt would duck out and be lost, and Dave couldn't follow him without tipping his hand.

Tipping his hand...power plays. In this school, power was paramount. Sure, Noah Puckerman had the top of the chain for their year...for now, with Quinn Fabray, who'd just made Cheerio, backing his base. But in the middle ranks, Dave walked alone and untouched, with Kurt Hummel at the very bottom, among the outcasts, newly left behind with the news that he was out of his closet. He knew Kurt. He would jump at the thought of rising on the chain again. He knew people like that. And even though Hummel was a freak, he was still predictable.

So.

Doubting himself...

Tipping his hand...

Dave sighed, quietly, and made his way to the locker corridors.

He picked Kurt's lock and cleaned the locker of the pink slime one of the guys had sprayed inside, then slipped the valentine in.

Let the boy stew. Let him wonder. Dave would sit back, and watch, and wait.

Kurt ducked under a bright pink banner and looked away from the hearts in the halls. The other boys and girls, who'd once followed him as a leader, looked away from him, talking and gossiping to each other about who liked who, and what they should do about it.

He sighed, clutching his books to him. It had been difficult, adjusting to high school.

The heavy presence of a jock swept by, and Kurt pressed himself to his locker, praying that the jock wouldn't notice him. He didn't.

Coming out of the closet...he wouldn't regret that, for the world, but looking at the absence of friends he now had to suffer through, it wasn't fun or pretty at all. Without allies, the years of high school loomed ahead, torturous.

Valentine's Day, today. With fondness Kurt recalled previous years, where girls would fight for the chance to be his valentine, but he'd had to (gently) turn them down. Or not-so-gently. But now?

Perhaps...he should have accepted.

Today was Valentine's Day. It looked like he'd be alone, today.

Kurt opened the lock (reminding himself to change it soon, when he could afford to) and prepared himself for the 'surprises' that would wait inside.

Nothing.

What...

One little heart-shaped card.

His first valentine in high school.

He didn't...know...

He opened the card.

A picture of his face, smiling. XOXO's on the previous page. Words: 'Happy Valentine's Day.'

Kurt's heart beat a little faster, and a corner of his lips lifted. He closed the card.

On the back, in different handwriting - "You owe me. I'll collect it, someday."

His heart fell. Kurt sighed, closed his locker and slid down it. Of course. Nothing ever came without a price, did it? Not in high school.

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