Warm hands, with just a little bit of callous along the palm, sliding from his shoulders to his neck, to his jaw before fingers threaded into the hair at the nape of his neck. Just kissing, soft and warm and slow. Careful almost, like he might break. Which made sense, because he was shaking against the slim, undefined, white t-shirt clad chest pressing him carefully down into his pillows. A quiet voice made soothing noises over him, popping the top button of his letterman jacket, which crumbled to dust, button by button, before blowing off in the breeze, leaving him bare to patient kisses down his chest and a warm hand sliding into his jeans.

A shriek of beeping broke into Dave's dream and he pulled his hand out from under his pajamas and grabbed his phone, groaning as it glared "6:00 AM" down at him.

Right. He had decided to start jogging. Get in shape. Slim down a little bit.

Work out some stress.

But he was exhausted and half hard and not seeing any real reason to go out into the early morning June chill when he would burn just as many calories at 7:00 am. And, he thought to himself, at least this was the okay dream. This was the dream he could almost deal with if he didn't think about it too hard and never let himself picture a face while he…finished. He slipped his hand back under his underwear, wrapping his fingers around himself.

As long as he was quiet, it was okay like this. He could touch himself while he imagined soft careful kisses. He could imagine warm hands. He could imagine an undefined, nearly hairless, slightly pasty if he was honest, chest pressing into his own.

He just never let himself remember that in the dream it was always Finn. Because, at school, it was never Finn. Dave thought Finn was a geek, and an idiot, and that watching him try to chew gum and walk at the same time without Quinn or Rachel leading him was pathetic, but Dream Finn was… sweet. Careful. Patient. Warm.

Calming.

When it was Finn, Dave usually woke up fuzzy and aroused and able to do what he was doing now, just run his hands over himself, adjusting the grip, adjusting the speed, bringing himself over without a lot of fuss, picturing a faceless body rubbing against his own. It was less freaky like this.

The dream about Sam scared him. When it was Sam he woke up hard as hell, if not already spent and sticky and desperately hoping he didn't moan in his sleep. He had even bought a fan just in case he did.

He let Dream Sam throw him around the locker room and tear off his clothes. He let Dream Sam shove him against the lockers so hard the hinges cut seams down his skin. Dream Sam's fingers dug too hard into purple black bruises. He let Dream Sam force him down to the locker room floor and wrestle him down onto his stomach.

He let Dream Sam hurt him.

He didn't want to think about why that… got him going. He blamed it on the fact that he thought Sam was hot, combined with the fact that the only time he'd gotten his hands on Sam was the time that Sam had beat the crap out of him in the locker room, and, just to top off the whole fucked up cocktail, the fact that the only time he'd ever kissed a boy was when he had attacked Kurt in the locker room, overcome by fear, desperation and hormones, and Kurt had given him this look of… devastation and pushed him away like he was filthy and diseased.

Dave pulled his thoughts back, back to the dream, back to happy kisses and soothing hands. He forced himself to block out all the fleeting images of golden hair and or tear brimmed eyes, let the locker room fade out of his mind, brought it back to the weird space, half outside, half his room, where the Not-Finn fantasy took place.

It felt like forever before he finally spilled over his hand, wiped it off inside his boxers and grabbed his phone again.

6:20.

He sighed, dropped his head back onto his pillow, then reluctantly got up. He was going to jog. He was going to get in better shape. He was going to slim down.

He was going to work out some stress.

Blaine slowly pulled into a parking spot, turned the car off, yawned and stretched.

He really had planned to get more sleep before this audition. He had slept like a baby the night before his audition for the Warblers, and he had slept pretty well last night, but too many things had gotten in the way of him getting enough sleep.

He had gone over to Kurt's for practice and critiquing. Then Tina had called him, and Kurt had invited her over for practice and critiquing. Then they had needed to get rid of her as politely as possible in order to squeeze in a little bit of annoyingly chaste Open-Door-Policy "you're so getting this part" making out. Which had riled him up a little too much to follow through on his plan to go home and go directly to sleep.

That was actually starting to cut into his sleep a lot. Calming down enough to get to sleep. Waking up from dreams of he and Kurt doing things that he and Kurt hadn't even talked about. Part of that was due to the very clear memory of Kurt getting upset with him and throwing him out of the house for even talking about sex, but a larger part of it was due to the fact that between the Open-Door Policy, and curfews and the fact that this was still Ohio and it wasn't safe for the two of them to go up to Lover's Lane like Tina had suggested, it seemed torturous to bring up doing things they might not have the privacy to do until college anyway.

Then, just to top everything off, this morning, in a sweet, but somewhat misguided effort, his mother had woken him up an hour and half earlier than he had planned on getting up, for a "Good Luck at Your Audition" breakfast, and he'd had to eat blueberry waffles in his robe and dirty underwear.

Blaine rubbed his hands into his eyes, then nearly poked them both out when someone knocked on his window.

It took Blaine a moment to recognize Tina, grinning broadly and waving at him. He opened the door and stepped out of his car.

"Wow," Blaine managed. "You look different. I mean-good, just really different. Did you dye your hair… like last night?"

"No. The blue streaks are extensions." Tina shrugged. "I figured my regular look was a little bit too much for six flags. Plus I simplify in the summer anyway. My normal clothes are way too hot." Tina spun for him a little bit, showing off her sneakers, red tunic with a little bit of a frill at the bottom and plain skinny jeans.

"You look nice too," she offered, but the way she raked her eyes over him as she said it made Blaine doubt her sincerity. "Does Kurt know you own cargo shorts?"

"Kurt doesn't care what I-" Blaine stopped himself, realizing that he was mid-lie. "It's an audition for a summer show and it said dress to move. I think Kurt will forgive my apparently horrific taste in summer casual. Fashion is his hobby not mine."

"And your favorite Vogue cover was…" Tina started.

"Fashion is my interest. Kurt's hobby," Blaine clarified.

Tina laughed.

"Besides, I also own a ton of T-shirts. Some of them even have holes," he told her conspiratorially as they started toward the park gate.

Tina laughed way too loud and shivered in embarrassment, "Sorry, I'm a little nervous."

Blaine grabbed her shoulder and squeezed, "Don't worry. We'll be fine. We'll be awesome, actually."

Tina grinned and tapped her palm lightly to his stomach, in a gesture that made Blaine's stomach clench just a little. Kurt accused him of being a touchy feely person pretty much daily, but something about that was uncomfortably familiar about Tina touching his stomach. Blaine wrote it off as a girl thing. He really was absolutely no good around girls. He found them just as confusing as all the other Warblers did, but, as interaction with girls was unlikely to ever be his most valued skill, he had never worried about it.

"Oh crap!" Tina said suddenly, setting her hand back against his stomach. Blaine gulped, but Tina continued, "Jesse St. James," she finished, dropping the name like a curse.

"What?" Blaine asked, following her horrified gaze to an older boy, standing by the registration table wearing a skinny scar and an insufferably smug expression.

"Over there," Tina said.

"That's Jesse St. James?" Blaine asked her dumbly, not expecting the boy in front of them. Based on Kurt's description he'd had been vaguely expecting horns, or possibly a tail or pitchfork.

Jesse looked up at them, smirked and strode over.

"You're the soloist from the Toe Touchers right?"

"The Warblers," Tina spat, huffing up beside Blaine in an unexpectedly protective way.

"Whatever. You're good."

"Than-"

"I'm better," Jesse cut him of immediately. "You have power and clarity, don't get me wrong, but you lack my emotional depth and vocal personality, and confuse showmanship for acting like a drunken cartoon character." He turned his gaze to Tina. "And you brought your girlfriend along for moral support. Cute."

"I'm not his girlfriend," Tina huffed again, "I'm dating Mike?"

"Mike?"

"From New Directions? The club you were in? And just badgered to Nationals? I'm Tina?"

"Oh. Apologies. I thought it might be rude to assume you were Tina. You know, in case I'd confused you with some other Asian girl."

Tina stared, dumbfounded at Jesse, and Blaine was overcome with secondhand embarrassment. No wonder Kurt hated Jesse so much. Blaine had actually kind of thought it was just about solos.

"Well. Tina. Mike. I hope you enjoy watching me beat you. I hope you'll come see me in the show sometime this summer."

With that, Jesse whipped around and stormed off.

"Wow," Blaine finally said. "What a douche!"

Tina burst out laughing.

"What?"

"Oh… nothing. I just… I think I like you more out of that blazer. Come on. Let's go show Jesse St. Sucks a thing or two."

"Okay, Finn," Burt clapped his hands together and tugged at the shoulders of the coveralls that he had found somewhere. They had the name "Carlos" stitched on them, "I'm actually going to have you start out with some cleaning today, okay? We're a little backed up today and I'm not going to be able to spare a tech to show you anything actually on a car. So, we've already got all this hosed down right now, if you want to get this all squeegeed toward the center drain and then help Alan sweep up his stall that'll be great."

"Where's the squeegee?" Finn asked.

"Oh, right," Burt said, shaking his head. He kept doing that. Forgetting that Finn had never actually helped out in the shop before, used to Kurt, who had been running around the shop forever (well… probably not running. Considering. Yeah. Kurt.) Finn actually liked that. It made him feel like Burt really did think of him as a son. Burt hustled over to a closet near the shop entrance, retrieved the squeegee and returned, handing it to Finn.

"Don't worry, we'll get you on a car by tomorrow. And if we're still this busy I'll haul Kurt in to show you how to change a tire. We'll have you turning wrenches before the end of the summer."

"Thanks, Burt," Finn said. Burt clapped him on the shoulder and returned to his work station, where he was doing something grungy and complicated under the hood of a car. Finn watched him for a moment, trying and failing to imagine Kurt handing his father parts, or even under the hood himself, before he turned his attention to the floor.

It was a silly repetitive thing to do, but Burt was paying him to be there, like a lot of money, way more than Puck's pool cleaning business, and it gave him time to think.

"Graduation's not for another year. You got any plans 'til then?"

Finn remembered thinking that it had been a good line. It had been the kind of romantic thing that Rachel liked. She had given him that super-happy smile she got on her face when he did something really right.

But it had still felt like goodbye.

Rachel didn't get scary when she focused on something the way that Quinn got scary, Rachel didn't get mean about it, the way that Quinn did, but Rachel did not let it go. She focused on it and she got it. And she was going to New York.

Finn wasn't entirely sure why no one seemed to think he could go with her. Why everyone could assume that Rachel, Kurt and Blaine would just run off to the city and have it fit like a second skin, but obviously Finn was destined to be a Lima loser for the rest of his life. He knew he wasn't as driven as Rachel, or as talented as Kurt, or as rich as Blaine, or as smart as any of them, but he didn't have to go to New York to be a star. There were other things he could do there. Burt was going to teach him car stuff, and they had cars in New York. And just because he wouldn't be a star didn't mean he would have to be a stumbling block to the other three.

He knew that there was no talking Rachel out of her dream to go to New York, and a few months of living with Kurt had only given him a better understanding of how unbreakable that stubborn, driven want for something like that could be. Kurt and Rachel were more alike than they thought they were. Maybe that's why Kurt pretended not to like her. Too much competition.

Finn's goal for the summer needed to be trying to convince Rachel that she could bring him with her. Finn had been doing the wishy washy thing too long. He'd gone back and forth between Rachel and Quinn too many times and Rachel had explained to him what he was doing. "You'll forgive your first love anything". Quinn was his first love, and when Miss Sylvester had been talking about that connection she felt to her sister, how important that love had to be, Finn had realized that he forgave Quinn more than he loved her. And he couldn't do that for the rest of the year, and he couldn't do it for the rest of their lives.

He knew what would happen if they did that to themselves. Finn would turn into Quinn's father. Fake and dominating and angry and expecting everyone to live up to standards that he set for everyone but himself. Quinn would turn into Mr. Shuester's crazy ex-wife. Faking pregnancies to trap him again and having breakdowns over nothing and crushing the things that he loved to make her feel better about herself. Finn didn't want that. Finn wanted to be Burt, with just enough of Mr. Shue thrown in so that Kurt wouldn't feel bad. Finn wanted to be a good man, who cared about people and loved and defended his family. He wanted to show Rachel how much he cared about her, about her dream, and how he could be part of it if she would let him.

"Finn?" Burt's voice cut into his thoughts and Finn jolted back to reality. Burt was giving him an appraising sort of look. "Alan's stall?" he asked.

"What?"

"Sweep it?" Burt continued.

"Right. Sorry."

"You get breakfast? You seem a little out of it."

"Uh…" Finn replied.

"There's donut's in the break room. Why don't you go grab yourself one and then we'll get you cleaning after that."

"Yeah, okay."

"Oh, and grab me a donut hole?"

"Sure," Finn nodded, heading toward where he knows the break room is.

"And don't tell Kurt!" Burt called after him.

Puck was at Lauren's house, which he was very, very aware was empty, with his head in Lauren's lap while she ran her hands through his mohawk.

"Lauren Zizes- you and I are going to have the most bad ass summer of all summers. I've got the lineup. First we break into the water treatment plant-"

"Why the water treatment plant?" she asked in her 'you're being a dumbass' voice, but with her 'but I like you anyway' smile.

"Because it's hard to get into," Puck answered, "Baby- you know the challenge is the point- and that's just the warm up- we're going to break into places, trespass, make out, busk. I've got lists. I've got diagrams, I've got-"

"Puckerman- I've got a week before I go to wrestling camp."

Puck grabbed Lauren's wrist, pulling it away from his hair, "What?"

"I'm a camp counselor. Actually assistant director this year. I told you about this."

"Were we making out at the time? Cause you know that your boobs make it hard for me to retain information."

"I think we might have been," Lauren replied. "So here's the recap- I work at a wrestling camp during the summer. One of my job offers is contingent on my completing this year of wrestling camp. I might even be able to be a scout in the future because of this job. None of this stuck? Cause sometimes you get kinky-weird-excited about the whole wrestling thing."

"Okay… Wrestling Camp." Puck said, grasping at the relevant information. "Well that's… that's what like a couple weeks?"

"Two and a half months," Lauren corrected. "I leave on Wednesday. I come back the second of September."

"September!" Puck bolts up out of Lauren's lap, "That's practically school!"

"We've got the next week," Lauren says.

"Well… you've got to have weekends off. I'll drive up to visit you! No one hires a kid with a juvie record, I could come see you like every weekend"

"It's in Oregon."

"Oregon."

"And there's a very strict no boyfriends/girlfriends on camp premises rule."

"That's bullshit!"

"Apparently there were complaints about some sort of shenanigans at one of the affiliated camps."

"Illicit wrestling nookie?"

"No, this wasn't wrestling camp, this was one of the science ones. We weren't supposed to see it, but somebody got a hold of one of the camper's pictures. I don't know the details, but the picture shows some serious face sucking between two counselors, and the guy is shirtless. You can see other kids in the picture. It's bad. It's not usually an issue at wrestling camp, but they enforce the rules pretty strictly anyway."

"Well…can't you get a pass or something?"

"Maybe, but not for long enough to drive from Oregon to Ohio."

Puck leapt off the couch and started to pace back and forth across the living room, "I can't believe you're only just telling me that you're going to be gone all summer! This is the last summer of our lives!"

"What about next summer?" Lauren pointed out.

"That's not the same. Next summer… you might be off training for the WWE, and I might be in a motorcycle gang. I might go to automotive school, or refrigerator college. We have to make memories while we have a chance, while we're young and stupid and-"

"Alone in my house?" Lauren cut in.

"Yeah."

"Come here." She held out her hand, which Puck grabbed. He allowed himself to be tugged down next to her on the couch, and he set his hands at her shoulders.

"Oregon huh?"

"Oregon," she confirmed.

"When does your mom get home?"

"Not for hours."

"Okay," Puck said, leaning forward to kiss her, "But I'm still mad about this."

"Noted."