"Karofsky." Rachel nodded towards him coolly as she gripped the edge of the open door, her other arm akimbo, a pose that looked deliberately contrived to his untrained eye.

"Rachel." It felt a little odd, calling her by her first name, but damn if he was going to return what she was giving him. He hadn't earned that right anyway.

"Rachel," Kurt repeated in exasperation as he emerged from the back rooms of the apartment. "You can call him by his name, you know."

"Karofsky is his name, isn't it?" she said mildly, returning to her chair and her magazine. "I didn't know he'd changed it." She scooted the chair so it was facing away from the door.

"You know exactly what I mean!" Kurt fumed.

"Hey... Kurt..." Dave began, "it's okay..."

"No, it's not! I have a right to be outraged on your behalf when my own friends won't even—"

Dave laid a gentle hand on Kurt's arm; the sputtering outrage stopped immediately. "Would you rather argue with her or go out?"

Kurt closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, then looked at Dave with a warm smile (the kind that melted him like goddamn Velveeta). "You're right. I would much rather be enjoying myself on my date. With you." He shot the last word with tooth-grinding intensity in Rachel's direction; Dave could see her flinch. "We'll discuss this when I get home," Kurt said to her before taking Dave's arm and strolling out of the apartment.

It wasn't until they were at street-level that the outrage started up again. "The nerve of that woman! She knows what she's doing! She knows what she's saying!"

Indeed she did, in Dave's opinion, and she wasn't the only one. Finn Hudson still did the same on his visits. Occasionally someone he knew from Thurston or McKinley would penetrate the obfuscations he'd thrown over his Facebook account and actually reach out to him. Generally, they'd be casual or at least a little friendly, but then they'd use his last name, and it's a reminder of how little they know him — actually know him. Then it becomes a question of whether this person is worth the time or effort to enlighten.

Usually the answer was "no."

Then, of course, there were the assholes: the ones who'd ask how his buttfuckery is going or include a link to an old online article referring to his suicide attempt. Those got 86'ed and blocked promptly, and if Kurt found out, a blistering complaint sent to Facebook admins for good measure. Fortunately, those were fewer and farther between these days, and none of them seemed to care about him enough to spread the word about his account, so they were easy enough to ignore... at least after a day or two of brooding (after that, Kurt gets involved, and goddamn if he can't find it in himself to brood once he gets involved).

Still, it all came from the same place, carried the same implication — sometimes conscious, sometimes not: seeing Dave as him. The asshole. The guy who terrorized McKinley. The one who threw his weight around like he was a big man and not a scared little boy. He knew it was kind of a defense mechanism, maybe a little cowardly, thinking of the person he was in high school as some other person. Yet as Kurt always told him, it seemed that the two versions of Dave did have nothing in common, so maybe they were different people. In a sense.

"She just worries about you," Dave said. "I mean, she has reason to." That was one big reason he willingly took it from Rachel and Finn: they were being awesomely protective of Kurt, which Dave entirely understood and supported. Then again...

"I am not a damsel in distress!" Kurt groused. "I don't need her fussing over me like some kind of Broadway-demented mother hen! I can take care of myself!"

"You certainly can."

"Thank you! Besides, she has absolutely no reason to worry! Take what happened back there: what would Karofsky have done to Rachel?"

That was a question Kurt often asked: what would Karofsky have done? He asked for many reasons, though Dave never liked getting back into that mindset; it was way too uncomfortable how easy it could be. Then again, the existence of that discomfort, as Kurt also often said, was part of the point.

Dave sucked in a breath. "He would've found a florist and the nearest Slushie machine, gone back up with a bouquet of flowers pretending to be a delivery guy sent by Finn, and nailed her the second she opened the door."

Kurt hooted with laughter. "I know it's horrible, but I would actually pay to see that! But..." His mirth died down. "You don't want to do that, do you?"

"No."

"But Karofsky would."

"Yeah."

"And so would I. That means you're a better person than both of us."

"Maybe." Dave thought his reasons for not wanting to were entirely selfish, but he didn't say anything, just letting Kurt's arm entwine around his. Instead, he said, "Besides, Santana still calls me Karofsky all the time."

"Only when she's pissed off at you."

"Or when she's just kind of annoyed at me."

"But even if she does it for the same reason as Rachel and Finn, it's not the same motive, if that makes sense."

And it did. Santana's use of his last name was a warning: you're slipping back into asshole mode, or you don't appreciate me enough, or hey, are you listening to me, as you should be, or... Come to think of it, it was one of her most common jabs, good for a wide variety of situations and purposes. But with her, it always came with an undercurrent, always unspoken, but clear nonetheless: you're better than that. Better than him.

And that's why he always defended her from Kurt, no matter how bitchy they got.

"I just..." Kurt rubbed his forehead. "It's so frustrating. They use that name to tell you, to your face, that they still think you're some kind of monster who'll never change."

"Not necessarily." He had no idea why he still defended those two. Maybe it was because, as leaders of the McKinley High glee club, they'd gotten more than their share of shit from him and his buddies, and this was payback. Maybe because he knew how much they mattered to Kurt. Or maybe because...

"They're wrong." Dave looked over at Kurt, and stopped short, realizing that they were no longer side by side. He turned; Kurt was standing stock still half a foot behind him, his arms crossed and staring straight into Dave's eyes. "You know that, right? That they're wrong about you not being able to change? Because you already have."

But enough? He knew better than to give voice to the question, though. "Yeah."

"Because I wouldn't be giving you a chance if I weren't absolutely confident of that fact."

"I know." But you've always been kind of a softie at heart. Way too forgiving.

"And I know you, David. I'm sure you've got some kind of internal monologue going on contradicting me. Well, stop it!" They both chuckled. "And let me counter with a monologue of my own: 'What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'"

Dave grinned; ever since Kurt had starred in that Shakespeare in the Park production of Romeo and Julian ("No, Dave, that's not a typo"), he'd been tossing out quotes left and right. "Okay, fine. You prefer BearCub93?"

Kurt shook his head with a smile as he retook Dave's arm. "I love that handle. So shy in meatspace, yet so out there in cyberspace."

Dave shrugged. "I can afford to be. If some jerk pisses me off, at least I can't give in to my urge to punch them in the face." He sobered. "I've had enough of that."

"Good. Because I like you as a free man." He paused. "I like you. The real you. Karofsky... I could take or leave."

"Leave. Please," Dave laughed.

"If you will."

Dave started. He pondered this point for a moment. "I'm trying," he said. "Really, I am."

"Good. Which brings me back to Rachel. Her insistence on dredging up your past only hinders your efforts to do the same, and I won't have it."

"Anything I can do?"

"Besides just keep being you? No, I think we just have to wear her down. She and Finn are stubborn, but they won't hold out forever. My dad didn't."

Dave shuddered. "Not for lack of trying, though."

"Rachel and Finn aren't the only stubborn ones. It runs in the family." They paused by a crosswalk, actually waiting for the light to change, unlike many of their brethren. "I'll just have to keep using your best name."

Dave raised an eyebrow. "Which is?"

"David, of course." Dave shuddered at the way Kurt's voice dropped low on the word. "'Dave' is friendly... So friendly, it's impersonal for someone like you. Like that's what any of your random teammates or coworkers would call you. Now, David..." Dave was starting to think Kurt was doing that on purpose. "That's formal... intimate. Your parents call you that. Your superiors call you that. I call you that." Kurt grinned toothily. "And being close enough to you to call you that is..."

"Totally hot?" Dave breathed.

Kurt nodded vigorously. The light had changed to "walk" and back to "don't walk" in the time this exchange took, but neither noticed. "Before we continue with today's plans, David... I think we need to make a stopover."

"My place?" Dave wheezed, pecking Kurt on the lips.

"You read my mind. David."

They practically ran to the nearest subway station.