A/N: Whilst without a computer for a little while (my family members were using it, since I'm too damn poor to manage investing in my own), I decided to write out a few vague events I would like to eventually write into this story, erasing and re-arranging in a random journal of mine each of the events. And as I grouped them together into a loose preconception of separate chapters, have come to the conclusion that this fanfic should be between seven and eight chapters long, and will have that nice, juicy sequel tacked on afterward. So yeah. ;D

(Golly gee, am I wordy sometimes! All I was just saying was that this will end up being about 7 or 8 chapters long, depending. Jeez. Me and my poetic/fancy brain. XD )

AS A SIDE NOTE: you guys really have no idea how much of myself I write into my fanfics. NO. IDEA. But if you spot something that sounds like it might be a reference to myself (I make it rather obvious, actually), then please, leave in your review which part you think is so me. ;0

Also: OMG THE SUPPORT YOU PEOPLE GIVE ME FOR THIS STORY IS OVERWHELMING. I have, up to this point, 93 alerts and 37 favorites and 54 reviews! YOWZA. Keep 'em coming, people! I LUFFLES ALL OF YOU.

...KK, I'll shaddup nao. It's just 3:50 in the a.m. and when I'm sleepy, I tend to ramble. 8'D

Four: Incidentally

I can't help it. Come Thursday, I'm a jittery, nervous wreck while at work. I shuffle aisle to aisle at the corner Walgreens nearest my apartment, stacking various candies and make-up items and toiletries onto the shelves. When it's my turn for register duty near the end of my shift, I'm sitting there trying to look at an Entertainment Weekly magazine when a customer suddenly shows up on the other side of the counter.

"Ahem," they grunt, clearing their throat, and the sound is distinctly male. I glance up, my entire body tensing when I look at their face. They smile. "Can I buy this pack of gum or what?"

I blink. "Uh… sure," I say, a smile growing on my own face. I scan it, ask cash or credit, and he hands me a five-dollar bill. Handing him the change, our fingers brush, one of my nails raking lightly over the skin of his palm.

"Thanks," he says, and then glances at his watch. "Is your shift over yet?"

I laugh. "In exactly three minutes it will be." I lean forward and place my elbow on the counter beside the register, my chin in my hand. "So. Are you going to lead the way?"

"I have to. It's not like I told you my address," he reminds, and I notice him idly rub his hand over his jaw. "This feels weird."

I shrug. "I like it. Your stubble was rugged and manly and all, but I'm not a big fan of face fuzz." I wrinkle my nose. "Although, your cleanly-shaven face does bring back memories."

He visibly cringes. "Yeah, I know. Ones we'd both rather forget. But still…" He touches his own face again, his eyes locking with mine as his hand falls. "Fresh start and all that, right?"

I smile. "Right." I glance at the clock on a nearby wall. "Aaannddd…" I sound out slowly, "There! My shift's over. Time to get the Hell out of this dreaded store." And I remove my employee's vest, motioning for my companion to follow me.

Dave follows without a word, not even flinching when he moves past the doors labeled "employees only." I always used to see these doors as potential forbidden territory, as if I would get arrested for moving beyond them as a customer and not an employee. But apparently Dave feels like he has an excuse, a "pass" of sorts, by being with me.

I hang up my vest, sign out on a sheet, and grab my coat. I turn back to my… friend? I suppose it's safe to call him that now. I smile again at him. "Let's go," I say, gesturing toward the doors, and we soon pass through the store and out into the brisk winter air.

The city smells of exhaust and snow, and I don't even pay attention to the fresh layer of white fluff covering the ground. It is December, after all. More snow comes as no surprise.

While we walk, I adorn my sleek black gloves, courtesy of Carole last Christmas. They're those expensive isotoner gloves, the ones with real leather (poor cows!) on the palms and fingers, but with sturdy nylon and taunt silk holding it all together and stretching across the back. They feel lovely, and have this nice fuzzy liner on the inside.

But I wish I hadn't forgotten my scarf. To make up for it, I zip my wooly coat up further and flip up the collar, my chin sinking down into the reflected warmth of my own body.

Dave glances over at me where he walks by my side. "Kurt? Are you too cold?"

"…J-just a little," I admit, my teeth chattering lightly. "It w-wasn't this c-cold when I st-started work, s-so I left my sc-scarf at home."

His eyes seem to soften, taking pity on me. He unwinds his own scarf and holds it out to me. "Want mine? I'm too hot with it on, anyhow."

I can't tell if he's lying to make me feel better or if he means it, but either way, I accept the offering. I coil the soft cloth around my neck and tuck it into my coat to leave out any cracks that could let the cold in. And I must say, it does the trick. (It also smells heavenly; I inhale deeply, the scarf smelling of spicy citrus and masculine musk and wood smoke.)

"Do you have a fireplace?" I ask out of the blue.

He frowns, puzzling over my question. "Yeah, a really tiny one in the living room of my apartment. How'd you know?"

I smile beneath the cover of the scarf. "It smells like wood smoke. Your scarf, I mean."

Dave laughs a bit, turning a corner, and I follow. We walk past the beginnings of the set up for the German Winterfest in the square of State and Washington streets, the giant pine tree already being set up in the near-center of where all of the little stands and booths and huts will soon be. When I saw Wicked, we stopped here on the way back to our hotel, and I bought a cute ornament for our tree back home of a Hansel and Gretel-inspires gingerbread house, complete with a small witch standing outside of it. It was made of clay and various sizes of flat glass marbles. I still have it.

"Hey," Dave points, "That looks like a blast. I never gone to it, but I heard it's awesome, especially the week of Christmas. I hear tell, too, that they have the best hot cocoa ever, made with real German chocolates."

I snort. "Psh, their hot cocoa doesn't compare to the recipe Carole and I found. The one we make uses milk and cocoa powder and sugar and chocolate chips and cinnamon and ground star anise and a dash of ginger," I say proudly. "It's extremely chocolaty and sweet and damn near impossible to finish one full glass of, but it's the best damn hot chocolate you will ever taste, I guarantee it."

"That so?" Dave inquires with a smirk. "Well, if that's any invitation for you to make it for me, then I gladly accept."

I flush a shade pinker than what the cold is already making me. Did I just get myself into another miniature date? Dammit. I got to stop doing that. "Er, okay."

He smiles, and as we cross a street, he murmurs, "You know, I met this girl at the art store I work at who is part of the setup for that Winterfest thing. She said that she used to go to it almost every year as a teenager with her family and aunt and uncle, and that back in 2010, this huge pine tree on an empty – but recently sold – lot was being hacked down in her hometown and carted off in a truck somewhere. She returned to the Winterfest that same year, and sure enough, there was that exact same tree. She could tell by its shape, where it was missing some branches and pine needles and how tall it was. She said it was a real honor. And I thought to myself, 'All that fuss over some tree?' But I guess it's idea of being a part of something bigger because of something you know that is what's important."

I gape at him once he finishes talking, a little awed yet again by his maturity level. If you were to tell me that David Karofsky, the big, bad bully of McKinley would act like this in about ten years from the time I knew him, I would have thought you were as insane as the women I used to watch and shake my head at on What Not To Wear. But here I am, and here he is, and I like it. I don't know if he's just trying to impress me, but it's working.

"That's… very intuitive of you, David," I remark with a miniature smile. "You read that much out of a simple conversation with someone."

He shrugs. "Yeah, well. She started it. She was buying supplies to decorate the square with, and she was super chatty. She was one of those artsy-fartsy girls who were probably outcasts in high school and blossomed during and after college. She looked like she might have been heavier at some point, too, like myself. I could tell by the way she walked."

"You can tell that by how someone walks?" I question, this new piece of information intriguing to me.

He nods. "Of course. Think about it: when you weigh more, you walk different. Heavier, with louder steps. You also sway your hips and shoulders a bit more because of the shift in weight, like… like a pendulum, all that weight near the bottom making it move farther to each side. She walked like that, even though she was pretty much perfectly proportional." He makes an amused expression. "Well, except for her boobs. She had fuckin' huge breasts, like, unnaturally so. Since I used to pretend to be straight, I got used to looking, and I still notice sometimes. She was a definitely a D-cup."

This makes me laugh. I giggle into a gloved hand, and watch as Dave approaches the entrance of a building.

"Well, here we are." He plows in through the doors, making his way over to an elevator. Since I'm only on the sixth story and don't mind the exercise, I usually take the stairs. I veer over from the staircase to the elevator with a questioning look on my face. Dave shrugs. "I live on the twelfth floor. I doubt you want to climb twice as many stairs as we did at your place," he informs me.

My mouth tightens into a frown. "Um, yeah. No thanks." And I join him in the elevator.

I hate elevators, though. It's not that I'm afraid of their lines suddenly snapping and the entire box falling down the shaft like they do in movies or anything. No, instead, I just hate the awkward air between whoever is inside the damned box, because while the dumb elevator music plays (why can't it evener be a radio or CD instead of the bizarre classical-like music they use?), all you can think of is if you should talk to the other person. The ride is too short for a full conversation, so you always wonder if it's worth it at all. That least, this is how I feel.

There is a pinging sound, and the movement stops. That heady, unbalanced equilibrium feeling overtakes me as the doors part, letting us out. I stumble forward, and somehow manage to trip on the lip of the elevator where it meets the floor of the destination level.

Dave catches my elbow. "Ooh, watch it. There's a bit of a step there. Sorry for not warning you," he mutters apologetically.

I remove my arm form his hold and straighten myself. "You didn't tell me on purpose, hoping I would trip and fall into your arms," I tease, a playful grin on my face.

He mocks shock. "You caught me!" he says, hands raised. Then he simply laughs, shaking his head. "I swear, Kurt, you over-analyze things."

"And it's saved me life over a dozen times, I'll have you know!" I retort pompously, jabbing a finger in the air in front of him. But my features soon soften again. "Anyway, which one is yours?"

"Number eight-hundred thirteen," he says, gesturing to the apartment with brass numbers in the top center of the dark wood.

My eyes widen. "Whoa. Are there really that many apartments in this building?"

"Probably not," Dave replies with a shrug as he gets out his keys and inserts one into the lock. "There's another building next door to this one with more apartments, so who knows where this one's numbers begin?"

I let the topic drop as he steps aside, the door opening up for me. He reaches around and flicks on the light.

"Make yourself at home. It isn't much, and not as nicely decorated or as clean as yours, but it's home to me," he remarks, and do I detect a hint of embarrassment in his tone?

I step inside, my eyes taking in the atmosphere around me. The place smells like Dave's scarf, only stronger, and vaguely of food (Mexican? Chinese?). I take a few steps further, looking around. Most of the furniture is mix-matched, according to what I see just under the skirt of his caramel-colored suede fabric covers. The rest is plain wood, stained red to match the red throw pillows on the couch and loveseat. There are one or two photographs on a few surfaces, the pictures containing people I don't recognize save for Paul Karofsky, a man I met only once. There aren't any trinkets, like my own home; no vases, no artworks, no little statues or potted plants.

It's a humble abode, but a cute one. Dave has some sense of interior decorating, at least; his colors coordinate and he doesn't make things as cluttered as I used to. I half-turn, peering over my shoulder at him as I give him a thumbs-up. "I like it."

He seems pleased with this response, and automatically turns to his kitchenette. "Would you like something to drink? Eat?"

I swallow, suddenly realizing that I'm parched. "Yes, please; some water would be nice."

He retrieves me a bottle and for himself, pops a piece of the gum he bought from me into his mouth. "So," Dave starts, mindful to lock his front door before we proceed, "How would you like to start?"

I produce my copy of the script from my inner coat pocket. "Ummm, let's see here…" I page through the scenes and lists of dialogue. "Why not with where each of us enters the story?"

"Alright," he agrees, and from here, everything turns into a sort of blur.

We run through the script, marking things with highlighters and pens about what scenes includes our characters (which is many of them), and where we sing (which is often). And then we come to the part I dread each time I watch the film, and each time I read through my lines.

Tears prickle in the back of my eyes. I blink them away. "Oh… I hate this part," I say, feeling a crushing weight over my heart. I dab at my eyes to stop them from trying to generate any tears.

Dave nods woefully. "I know. I hate that Angel dies. He was such a cool character."

I smile ruefully. "And now I'm the one who has to pretend to die. It hurts a little, and I don't know why."

"How do you think I feel?" Dave whispers. "I mean, Angel is Collins's lover. I have to do a funeral scene over y– Angel. And I actually can't cry on cue, but luckily, no one can see me from the stage, so I can just fake it for the most part." He shakes his head sadly. "But still…"

I can cry on cue. I can act just as well as I can sing, come to think of it. I've had practice at my college's Theatre class and club, and I helped do many productions, having been cast in each of them for my singing and dancing talents. But Dave… it looks like he struggles with this, and he seems surprised every time he does something for this play, as if he can't believe that this is real, he's an actor now, and he's good at it.

I smile and place a hand on his shoulder, causing him to gaze at me oddly. "What?" he poses.

I shrug loosely, dropping my hand. "Nothing," I say. "Let's get back to rehearsing."

And then the blur returns, and it's a rush of emotions and scripted actions and brief touches and lots and lots of reading and scrambling around, trying to decipher how to go about speaking a certain line or carrying out a certain action.

In the end, we make up a few improv acts that wind up being just right. They work well for the two of us, anyhow, and feel more natural than what was done in the film.

"I think we're going to blow everyone else out of the water tomorrow with our mad rehearsal skills," Dave grins cockily.

I lightly punch his arm. "Don't get an ego complex, Dave. It isn't healthy, and you will get reamed for it, no questions asked."

He chuckles airily. "I guess you're right." He glances back at the digital clock on his stove. His eyes bulge. "Whoa, is it that time already?"

I follow his gaze and also become alert. "Shit!" I curse under my breath. A groan escapes me as I hang my head. "I'm late. I promised Mercedes that I'd be online to vid-chat with her tonight. She said she had something big to tell me." I jokingly smack my palm against my forehead.

"Don't bash yourself over something that trivial," Dave says with a roll of his eyes. He softly grasps my hand and lowers it from my face, following shortly afterward with his hand lifting my chin. I blink, puzzled, my lips parting as he looks directly into my eyes. His hand falls, and for some reason, I don't want it to leave my face, but I don't make a move to say anything to bring it back. "Mercedes will understand. Tell her you got caught up at work or something, or overdid a solo rehearsal for your play."

My brows come together above my eyes. "You don't want me to mention that you're the one who kept me?"

His face unreadable but his voice understanding, he replies: "I didn't think you'd want her to know about me. She was there, back then; she knows all the horrible things I did to you, I'm sure. Why wouldn't she flip out if she knew you knew me now? That we were…" He struggles to find an appropriate adjective to describe our new relationship, and I don't blame him. I myself couldn't figure out if I should refer to us as friends or not. He settles for, "In a musical production together as pretend-lovers?"

Slowly, I nod. "I guess you're right, but… I already mentioned it to her. She knows about you being Collins and me being Angel. She was shocked, and a little disturbed, but relatively okay with it."

He quirks an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Really-for-truly-tuna," I answer cheerfully. It's a silly old phrase I came up with as a child. Oddly enough, my dad eventually picked it up. He still uses it to this day, and I can't help but giggle every time it sprouts from his mouth.

Dave also seems to find the phrase amusing. "'Really-for-truly-tuna?'" he parrots.

I giggle breathlessly. "Don't ask."

"I won't."

I blow air out my mouth, and once again, there's the uncomfortable feeling between us of our impending parting. I don't want to say goodbye, but I can't let Mercedes down, and I might even have to take a cab to get there in time before she gives up on me and leaves an angry, hurt voicemail, and –

"I'll see you tomorrow, Kurt," Dave interrupts my thoughts with an unfittingly gentle tone. He holds out his hand to shake.

I swallow. I don't shake his hand. Instead, I lower it. He looks momentarily rejected before I move forward and give him the briefest of hugs instead. Stunned, he doesn't return it, but as I pull away, there's a bright light in his eyes that hadn't been there before.

"Bye," I answer, and decide now is the best time to take my leave. He sees me out to the elevator (he didn't have to, but it's very gentleman-like of him to bother), and just as the metal doors close, I spy him winking at me.

And my stomach flutters subtly in my abdomen, and I imagine it's because I skipped dinner.

.o0o.

When I get home, I hop onto my computer and hardly wait for it to load before I turn on my webcam and open up my instant messenger. I catch Mercedes just as she's about to log off; I can tell by her status, which reads, 'Kurt, I swear to God, if you don't get on in the next ten minutes, I'm leaving. It's 8:40 now. So hurry the fuck up!'

As soon as we can see each other's faces, the first thing Mercedes does is burst out laughing. "Boy, did you roll around in the show before you got on?"

I chuckle without humor. "No, nothing like that. I just had to catch a cab and race through the sudden snowfall, running up the stairs to my computer to catch you online."

"Oh?" she asks, raising a brow. "And why, may I ask, were you so late?"

I make a face. "Rehearsing with Karofsky took longer than I thought."

She snickers. "Why, were you two making out?"

I undeniably blush a brilliant red, my head jerking back, my face flabbergasted. "Wh-what? No! No. I couldn't – we wouldn't – I mean –"

She laughs wholeheartedly. "Calm down, hun, I was only teasing. You know, poking fun of that forceful first kiss you finally told me about a couple years back." She shakes her head from the hilarity of it all. I couldn't agree more, but I don't show it. "But no, I trust you had your reasons. Just don't stand me up like that ever again, got it?" she says, squinting one eye like Popeye and pointing an accusatory finger at me. "Anyway," she says at last, brushing the rest aside, "My big news. Or have you forgotten?"

"I haven't," I answer. "Do share, mon cher."

She giggles at my French accent before declaring loudly, her chest puffing out a bit, "That bastard ex-bo of mine who cheated on me? Yeah. Some juicy information: he did it a few times behind my back, with his ex-girlfriend, who he apparently never stopped loving but she only went to him for some free sex without commitment, and guess what? SHE GOT PREGNANT," she says, roaring with laughter. "And now that poor man has to take care of a kid, since his girlfriend is against abortion – probably the only positive aspect of her personality – and he's begging me for help. Can you believe it? Some gall he has."

I raise both eyebrows, a smile quirking my lips. "Woooow," I say slowly. "That's quite the load, deary. And what, may I ask, do you plan to do?"

"Nothing, of course," she says flippantly, tossing back some of her hair. She bends down out of the camera's view to retrieve a cherry Coke can, taking a lengthy sip. "Mm," she says around a gulp, "It's not my problem, right? He cheated on me. He didn't want me, he always wanted her. And now, because of his mistake, he has her, albeit unwillingly, but still. He's with her. Why should I do a thing? I feel for the poor unborn child, sure, but it's not my baby. So why should I care?"

I hesitate, debating this. "I think you do anyway. I think you care because the baby was made from his cheat. I think, even if you don't mean or want to, you feel truly betrayed by him, and a part of you wishes it was you baby, that he hadn't cheated on you."

The strangest expression crosses her mocha features, and after a moment of her mouth opening and closing like a gaping fish to say something, she finally admits softly, "I… really hate it when you know more about me that I do, Kurt."

I smirk knowingly. "That's what sassy gay best friends are for, sweetie. I hate to break it to you, but we're here to be brutally honest, telling you when your butt looks too bulbous in a pair of jeans or when you secretly want to be the mommy of your cheating ex-BF's new kid."

She sighs. "Life is a bitch."

"Indeed."

After a while, she twirls some of her straightened hair around one finger, her glossy lips pursing in thought. She looks at me on the screen of her computer, eyes downcast from the camera's view. "Kurt, does that little raw truth make me sound… pathetic?"

Because Heaven and all God's angels forbid that Mercedes sounds pathetic. I roll my eyes at her. "No, Merce. That only makes you human to be so hurt. I know that half the time when you gossip like this, you're just being insecure. And honey, I'm here for you, remember?" I stretch out my arms, my hands going out of frame. "Air huggles?"

She giggles and grips what I assume are the sides of her laptop screen. She air-nuzzles the webcam. "Huggles." She blows me a kiss. "Thanks, Kurt. You always make me feel better." Mercedes sighs and sits backward in her chair. "But… I wish I could see you for real. I haven't met up with you in person for ages! Ohio is so boring. I wish I could have left, like you did. I wish I were living in Chicago with you; now that's my kind of city!"

I smile at that. "It does seem like a good place for you," I concur with a flick of my wrist. "But let me tell you, it's full of more drama llamas than all of McKinley combined. You remember how that was."

"Uhg, don't remind me!" she says with a frustrated groan and a roll of her eyes. "It was like a soap opera happening right before my eyes. I'm just glad that when I got to college, everybody was so mellow and less… well, melodramatic. Their hormones were all settled or something, and it made for a much more pleasant life experience." She grins, her teeth always appearing in such great contrast to her skin to me. "Anyhey, I gotta go. I waited too long for you and now I have to shove off and hit the hay before I get a bout of insomnia and wind up being a zombie at work tomorrow." She waves goodbye. "Just, when you come to Lima to see your family for Christmas… stop by my place, okay?"

"Mercedes, you don't even need to make that request," I grin, "Because I already planned on filling it."

And with that, we laugh and say our goodbyes, and I immediately head into the bathroom to clean up my hair and get ready for bed myself. As it happens, I have my first rehearsal at the Oriental tomorrow.

.o0o.

Rehearsal on Friday is a disaster.

Mimi drops out and indirectly gives up her part to her understudy, who is nice and all, but I caught the end of the original Mimi's audition because it was scheduled before my own, and let me just say that the other Mimi had been a phenomenal singer, and this one is borderline mediocre.

It gets worse than that, however.

Dave makes a passing comment about how attractive the Roger in this play is, and for some mysterious reason beyond my level of comprehension, this comment ticks me off. Yes, I agree, this Roger's actor is hot, and if he weren't as straight as a ruler (and if Dave had never been here – wait, what?) I would have definitely tried to tap that. But… I don't know… hearing someone else say it (and it doesn't matter that it's Dave, I swear) puts me off. Just a little.

To top it all off, one of the directors is a total bitch. I mean, so much so that I would like nothing more than to take her head and plunge it in the Lake Michigan, let it freeze in a block of ice like a cartoon, and proceed to carve out the words in the ice, "Chill out, Womanzilla!"

Yeah. And it doesn't help that half of the people here didn't glance at their scripts before the first rehearsal like Dave and I had done.

It

Makes

Me

Want

To

Scream.

I start getting pissier than usual near the end of the whole debacle, and when it's finally over, I suppress the urge to throw my arms up into the air and shout, "Hallelujah!" despite being completely non-religious.

Huffily, I shove my things into my bag and violently zip up my coat. Ammeters. I'm working with at least five ammeters, and it annoys the frick out of me.

Dave taps me on the shoulder. "What?" I snap, but once I see it's him, I relax again. "Sorry. Thought you were Maureen's actress come to bother me again about being a lesbian for pretty much the entire play, despite the fact that clearly it's stated Maureen is bisexual and used to go out with Mark."

"…You're talking about Sandra?" he offers.

I shrug. "Yeah, whatever. Her. She's been driving me up the wall for the past, I don't know, two hours or so? Like I know everything! What makes her think she should ask me?"

He offers a weak smile. "Because you act like you know what you're doing – and you do know what you're doing – and maybe because you have an open, honest face that people feel they can talk to."

I don't say anything to that. I simply slip my bag onto my shoulder and move to head out.

"Hey, wait up a sec, Kurt," Dave calls behind me. I stop and turn on my heel.

"Yes?" I say curiously.

"Um, I was just wondering… do you want to go ice skating with me on Sunday? I was going to go with a friend of mine to play some one-on-one hockey, but something came up and he bailed. And even though I know you don't play, I thought you might like to, er, skate with me anyway?" Dave poses meekly, barely glancing at me while he hastily explains himself. He straightens and adjusts his shirt collar. "You don't have to, though. Feel obligated to or anything, since my friend cancelled. I just thought it might be… nice."

I bite my lip. Do I want to? I might wind up making a fool of myself, seeing as how I haven't ice skated since I was… what? Eleven, twelve? Before I met Finn, or Carole, and back when my dad was on better terms with my aunt. I remember skating with them for a few winters in a row, from about ages eight or nine to eleven or twelve, and I remember holding both their hands at first as I gained balance and became accustomed to the icy version of roller blades. I was always better at roller skates, due to the more solid balance. But I eventually got used to the ice skates, and I was pretty good at it.

Only… that was years ago.

"Uh… sure. I'd really like that," I say, finally coming to the conclusion that I don't like the left-hanging, on-the-brink-of-disappointment expression on Dave's face, and the conclusion that if I can trust Dave at all, I can at least trust him to be a study pair of arms to catch me if (or, rather, when) I fall.

He looks reassured and joyful. "Great! I'll drop by your apartment around noon on Sunday, and then we can walk down by Millennium Park where they set up the giant skating rink."

And as I march out of the theatre, I'm suddenly in a much, much better mood. Perhaps this rehearsal wasn't entirely negative.…