Don't own. Also don't know where all this Rachel/Finn & Puck/Quinn is coming from, lately, because seriously, I don't actually like either of those pairings. Anyways, Kurt/Rachel brohood, hints of preRachel/Finn. PS YAY KURT! He's my favorite dude. Right up there with Puck.

Kurt, he's a lot of things, but he's not stupid.

When Mercedes gives him the "411" (and seriously, he reminds her, it's not 1999. Psych.) all hush-hush, his mouth is saying "no way," but his brain is racing, and it kind of falls into place. His brain is saying duh.

"You know what this means, don't you?" she says, looking at him knowingly, with a smirk.

And all Kurt can think of is that this is the answer to his 11:11 wishes, (his phone alarm is set to go off on both of them; Kurt doesn't believe in wasting any opportunities) that he stopped at the baggage claim to pick up a suitcase full of bricks, and somehow, miraculously, finds out they don't belong to him.

Somehow, he doesn't think the answer to her question is "One less roadblock on the road to riding off in the sunset with Finn," even if she is a pretty good friend most of the time.

He looks at her blankly. He can feel the blood draining from his face, and he knows he probably looks like a dead fish. His hand reflexively curls around the pocket of his messenger bag that holds his makeup.

Mercedes isn't one to hold things in, and he can see she's ready to burst. "Rachel can't find out," she stresses and he nods.

"Of course," he says, retreating back into his half-smirk and posh voice. "Princess would … " he doesn't know what she would do, actually. "… throw her tiara."

Mercedes laughs, because making fun of Berry is one of her favorite sports, but he feels something like guilt twist in his stomach. Because he doesn't know what she's going to do, but honestly, he knows what she's going to think, because he just thought it.

"And throw the game," she emphasizes. "She'd be spilling the beans so fast they'd grow into a beanstalk before we have a chance to do damage control."

Damage control, he assumes, means warn them. "And then Finn won't sing," he says, because if Oprah has taught him anything, it's that communication is key. He doesn't mind leaving things unsaid, but not murky waters.

"Exactly! And then who'll be the twelfth member for sectionals? We're already down Mr. Shue. I'm not about to lose another member over Babygate."

"Exactly," he echoes, and even though he kind of wants to know, like, right now, how Finn would react, he wants Sectionals too much to risk it. When Mercedes blabs (four times!) half of him is furious. The other half … well, the other half has him looking less-than-subtly between Puck and Quinn just in case Rachel stops paying attention to her own running monologue long enough to notice.

Then, even though he'd decided not to, when they want to know who told him, and Finn is panting and struggling from behind Quinn and Mr. Shue like a rabid dog on a leash, he panics and sells her out.

For a few hours, he finds himself wishing that somehow it was August again, and the dread in his stomach is building up in anticipation of a run-in with the football team, because at least then he knew what was coming, for the most part, and then it was over.

With Finn gone-and-maybe-not-coming-back, it was just unresolved tension coiled up in his limbs. He didn't even have somewhere to vent; he was not in the mood to hear Mercedes scoff at her (because honestly, he knows he's one to talk, but they just had, like a Glinda-Elphaba moment and he just knows that's their conversation will come to. Making fun of Diva seems to be a habit she has.) and he'd pushed Rachel away, and he and Puck have never been friends, under any stretch of the imagination, and now that he thought about it, he was too ashamed for not telling Finn himself to talk to him coherently. (That was hard enough on a good day.)

He falls into step beside Artie's chair on the way to the bus, because he's the least likely to want to talk about it.

"Hey," he says, as they climb in, but he doesn't have anything else to say. Nobody seems to. Mr. Shue has to stay home, and Finn is nowhere to be found, probably breaking things or slipping down to the oasis or whatever it is guys do when their women cheat on them, and they're all just spilling into seats like overflowing sludge, lethargic and heavy. Even Rachel, who never experiences word-drought like regular human beings occasionally do leans out the window a bit, like she's going to say something, anything, to Mr. Shue, but then doesn't.

He sits next to Arties wheel chair and Jewfro sits next to Rachel, and for a second he wonders if she hasn't gone through enough. He considers offering to trade seats with her, but that would just put her next to Artie, who is more than a little blunt, and would probably end up dryly insulting her admittedly high maintenance self, and at least the creepy kid will call her pretty and ask her inappropriate questions that maybe later she'll, like, write down in her Self Esteem Notebook, where she writes down every time someone compliments her or honks when she walks down the sidewalk or makes a lewd hand gesture.

Sounds like her.

And even though Kurt's running inner monologue is sort of preformed with his tongue planted firmly in his cheek, he thinks that seating could be worse. Then, Jacob Israel actually makes use of his grabby hands (which weirdly, remind him of squirrel paws) and Kurt thinks, what would Finn do? He finds himself on his feet.

"Hey Jacob," he says, voice gone gruff like he usually avoids, "trade seats with me."

Behind him Artie makes a little yawp. He'll smooth things over with him later.

Jacob looks taken aback, but then he looks at Rachel's face, and Jewfro's surprise is just a drop in the ocean compared to hers. "A gentleman," he informs him, "never makes foreward use of his hands." And then Kurt wonders who he is. Seriously. When did he become a knight in shining armor?

Jacob looks surprised and intimidated enough that he pops up, and for a second Kurt feels kind of cool, but when he sits down and looks around, he notices Puck, who is keeping his eye on him from over his shoulder. He gives Puck a chin-nod, and he nods back, which is beyond weird, but so is his day.

"I'm sorry," he says, voice low and soft when he's sat back down, messenger bag perched in his lap, and she gives his hand a little squeeze.

"Thank you," she squeaks, and his first thought is one full of panic: Rachel's coming down with laryngitis Rachel can't sing we'll never win sectionals – and then he realizes that she's getting choked up. Over someone telling some manipulative creep that you do not touch, which, obviously, is like, an unalienable right, along with life, liberty and free wifi. He almost gets choked up in response, but instead, he salvages his dignity by pulling out his Wicked shuffle and offers her one of the earphones.

And then Finn shows up, at their most desperate moment with a plan, Kurt knows it's unprofessional and might hurt their chances, but he makes a decision, and when they're having one of those Rachel Berry Finn Hudson moments where they're both undressing each other with their eyes midsong, he gives Rachel Berry a thumbs up.

During the last song, she blows him a kiss back, and he's so amused that he forgets about the hurt in his chest.