A/N: And now the moment you've all been waiting for...

Feel free to load your guns, be them confetti canons of joy or rifles of anger, I'll take either one.

Part X

Rachel bursts in before B. can respond. "Oh!" she says in surprise. "You… let him see you? I'm proud of you, Big D, but are you sure? He looks a little… confused." She steps closer. "Kurt…? Are you okay?"

Kurt is closing his eyes and shaking his head slowly, his hands coming up to grip his hair, palms over his ears, loud with his own pulse. No, I'm most certainly not okay, he thinks, screaming in his mind. Why couldn't it have been Puck or Sam?

Of course. "Big D" is one of his nicknames. Kurt's heard it before, in the locker rooms, back when Kurt was kicker on the football team. Some joked that it stood for 'big dick,' but everybody knew it was really as play on his name.

Big David. Big Dave. Tall, broad-shouldered, thick, meatheaded David Karofsky.

Kurt's a bit in a state of shock. His mind is blowing through thoughts in a torrent as violent as a tornado; his brain racing against the beat of his heart, and at the moment, his brain is winning.

B. is Karofsky, who is the essence of a hypocrite in Kurt's eyes, as well as a self-destructive individual who takes out his self-loathing on others. To Kurt, Karofsky is everything B. shouldn't be. And yet here Dave is, looking at Kurt with everything in his eyes, and Rachel is turning back and forth between them, not sure who to comfort.

She settles on saying, "Kurt? Say something."

"Please," Dave adds with a clenched jaw, and he looks as though he's about to take one of the throw pillows in the room (or possibly a book) and chuck it across the room. Almost to himself, Dave remarks, "I fucking knew this would happen. That's why I wanted to remain anonymous!" And then he does get a little violent, kicking at the back of a chair.

"Dave, please! Calm down," Rachel says. "My dad won't appreciate you abusing his office chair." She shakes his head. "Honestly, your temper. You need to express your pain better." She steps over to him and touches his arm. In a whisper that Kurt can't hear, she murmurs, "Go over there and convince him. I think he's just a little confused. He wasn't expecting it to be you, but if you just remind him of how sweet you can be, I think he'll be more open-minded like I know he has the potential to be."

Dave inhales deeply, and exhales again slowly. "Okay, Berry. Thanks." And he takes a few steps over to Kurt, mindful of how the shorter male's eyes flicker upward, his head following, as he backs up one step, but then stills when he spots the hurt, gentle expression Dave currently wears on his face.

Kurt stares up at Dave with widened eyes, big and blue and glassy, as if he's about to cry. But there's no fear there. Only confusion and surprise and uncertainty.

Dave takes Kurt into his arms, tucking the boy against his chest and cupping one hand behind his head in his soft hair. "Kurt… I'm sorry. For everything. I know you only think the worst of me, but remember all those things I've been doing for you for the past – what, two and a half months? December and January and now half of February – and how you liked them? Well, that's the real me, Kurt. The me that I can't show at school because everybody would call me a pussy or a wimp or a poser." He shakes his head, and having Kurt so close nearly makes him want to cry onto his shoulder or kiss him. "So… try to understand, okay, Kurt? And give me a chance. I could be so good to you, if you let me. And who knows? Maybe you'll give me the courage to be different outside of when I'm with you."

Kurt pushes away, but not as ferociously as that day in the locker room all those months ago. Instead, he pushes just hard enough to look Karofsky in the face. "I… understand," he murmurs shakily. He offers a tiny, loose smile. "I think… I think I can handle this if you do just that. No more pain and death-threats, because those things are just so below the B. that I know."

Dave chuckles a bit, out of nerves. "Yeah, you're right. So… you'll really be okay now? With me?"

Kurt looks torn. At length, he utters two simple words: "I'll try."

xXx

He really does try. When texts appear, Kurt changes the name from 'Your Stalker' to 'David,' and when he refers to the other male, he uses the name 'Dave' instead of 'B.' or 'Karofsky,' like he was previously accustomed to.

And when one of his family members question if Kurt's figured out who his admirer is yet, he brushes it off in some way, shape, or form; ignoring the question, picking up a task instead, saying that he doesn't know, or simply shrugging like it doesn't even matter. It throws off Burt and Carole the most, since they noticed before how ecstatic Kurt had been each time he got a new batch of flowers or chocolates or another trinket of some sort, and notice now how Kurt seems too mortified to speak of anything relating to it.

Kurt hasn't stopped getting things from Dave. Dave will send a rose or two on occasion, and more than once he's given Kurt a box containing a new DVD (usually a musical or chick-flick of some sort he thought Kurt might like, and somehow, Kurt always does) or once, a t-shirt (it was for Wicked, and how Dave got it without going to Chicago himself, Kurt doesn't even know).

And it's getting better. Kurt's growing used to Dave being this way, the visuals of the past blurring into the background as the actions of now come into the foreground.

'Let's go on a real date this time,' Dave texts one day during the first week of March. 'That "blind" one was fun and all, but Rachel was there, and we haven't seen each other since. I want to take you somewhere. I want to touch you again.'

Flushing pink, Kurt warily texts, 'Yeah, okay. When and where?'

'This weekend, on Friday. I'll pick you up at five. We can go to an early dinner and then a movie. But don't expect me to come in and meet the folks when I show up; last time I checked, you dad kind of hates my guts.'

'Only kind of. (;' Kurt jokes, smiling. 'But it sounds good. I'll see you then.' He sends the text, and as he does so, his heart flutters. Somehow, the idea of going out on a real date alone with Dave Karofsky is both exciting and terrifying.

A/N: I planned it all along to be Dave, but if you hadn't already guess by one of Kurt's initial thoughts, I was VERY SORELY TEMPTED to make the pairing either Puck/Kurt or Sam/Kurt. Dunno why I bothered thinking about it; I have WAAAY too large a soft spot for Dave. X3

More soon! Dunno how much longer this will be, though. Pro'lly no more than 15 parts, I should think. Pro'lly less than that, even. :/