Because I adore you all, you get another chapter the day after. Best reviewers on the planet, seriously.
"Stop fussing," Kurt scolded Dave as he fidgeted awkwardly with the cuffs of his sleeves. "You look fine."
Kurt himself looked more than fine to Dave, lean and elegant in a black suit and tie with a red-yellow flower pinned to his lapel. He sat on the foldout bed – currently tucked back into sofa shape – fingers laced behind his head and feet propped up on a recently repacked cardboard box.
"I can't believe you of all people just told me to quit fussing over how I look," Dave said, laughing, but he left off tugging at his clothes.
"Someone had to," Kurt said, "And given that there's no one else here, that responsibility falls to me, however odd it may be to hear it from my lips and not someone less – well, less fussy." He grinned.
"Eh," Dave said, shoving a box out of the way to lounge against the wall. "Fussy works for you."
"Fussy is just another way of saying annoying and high maintenance," Kurt said. "But thank you anyway."
"Just take the compliment and pretend you don't think I mean annoying," Dave said.
"Will do," Kurt said. He looked around the room at all the boxes. "I can't believe we're actually moving."
"Weird?"
"Very weird," Kurt said. "We've lived here my whole life. It's strange to think that I'll have a new home to get used to."
Despite Kurt's original optimistic estimate, Christmas would be spent at the current Hummel home. Thanks to Burt and Carole's efficient house hunting skills and a very competent real estate agent, the new house had already been chosen and the seller had accepted their bid, but there were still several forms to fill out and deliver to the appropriate recipients, checks to be written, mortgages to be worked out…and that was just the boring part. Then there were rooms to be painted, furniture to be moved, boxes to unpack, and a dozen other projects that would keep them from being fully settled into the new house until January.
"Adjusting to a new home is pretty weird," Dave said, thinking of his own experience the first couple of weeks here at Kurt's house. He waved off Kurt's look of sympathy and said, "You know what else is weird? That we'll have this place to ourselves for a week while your dad and Carole are in Waikiki."
"And Finn," Kurt said, "Who will no doubt be over the moon about sleeping on the couch in the living room, since he loves it so much."
"If he loved it more Rachel would get jealous," Dave said.
"Very true," Kurt said. "Though as long as it doesn't suddenly develop an uncanny resemblance to Quinn I think he'll be safe from her wrath."
Dave laughed. "You're probably right, but I wouldn't bet on it. She's kinda unpredictable."
"Not really," Kurt said. "Once you know three basic things about Rachel, her behavior becomes ridiculously easy to predict."
"How so?"
"She wants all the solos, she's nuts about Finn, and her dads have the ACLU on speed dial," Kurt said. "She's a glory hound, a soppy romantic, albeit a jealous one when it comes to Finn, and an equal rights advocate. Pretty much everything that she does falls somewhere in those three categories."
"That really explains a whole lot," Dave said. "Anyway. Plans for tonight?"
"Finn's bringing 'Resident Evil' over," Kurt said, "And his Xbox. Apparently I've avoided learning how to play Guitar Hero for long enough, and now that we'll be family in a couple of hours he considers it his brotherly duty to make me play it with him."
"Sounds like a good Saturday night to me," Dave said. "And we're still on for bowling on Sunday with Rashad and Mercedes and all them?"
"If we're not, I haven't heard about it," Kurt told him. "And that reminds me; I've been wondering something. Why do you call Azimio by his first name and Anthony by his last? I've only ever heard you call him by his first name once. Aren't they both really good friends of yours?"
"Yeah," Dave said, "But there are six Anthonys at McKinley, and three of them are in our grade. Plus his last name's cooler than his first. And we've been calling him that since eighth grade, so by now it's just a habit. Good explanation?"
"Very good. My curiosity is satisfied on that account," Kurt said. "And what's with the habit that all of you football players have of calling each other by your last names?"
"Football thing," Dave explained. "Finn is only Finn now because his mom and your dad are together, so he's over here all the time."
"I feel enlightened," Kurt said. "The closest we get to something like that on the Cheerios is by bonding through mutual agony over whatever horrible nickname Coach Sylvester saddles us with. Like Sappho," Kurt said. "Or Ladyface." He frowned. "She stuck me with that one last year."
"Before you had that growth spurt over the summer and got all…." Dave trailed off and made a vague gesture that could be interpreted as anything from 'unbelievably sexy' to 'this is how a tree grows' to 'it's wet, I'm opening my umbrella.' "You know. Billboard model-y." Kurt stared at him, blushing slightly, lips parted slightly in a surprised, pleased smile. Dave ducked his head. "She calls me Meathead," he offered, hoping to distract him.
Kurt gave him a knowing look, as if to say that he saw right through him, but he went along with it. "I'm going to give you the same belated advice that I received: never, ever get on Coach Sylvester's radar. Once you're on it, you're on it until you graduate."
"I could have used that advice about a month ago," Dave said. "Really."
"That's what I told Quinn," Kurt said. "To which she said no one ever finds out ahead of time." He glanced up at the clock and took his feet off his impromptu footstool to stand up. "We should head over. I have to meet with the rest of the Glee Club to run through the music one last time."
"Can I listen in?" Dave asked, following Kurt out into the hall and down the stairs.
"Why? Don't you want to have it be a surprise like it's going to be for the rest of the guests?" Kurt replied.
"If you insist," Dave said. "Just tell me: is it going to be cool?"
"It's going to be fantastic," Kurt said, throwing open the front door and doing a few impromptu dance steps. "It'll be the next big wedding entrance viral video on YouTube." Once Dave was standing next to him on the porch he turned and locked it, still bobbing his head to an inaudible beat.
"That's a pretty big claim," Dave said. "But can you deliver?"
Kurt winked and jumped the steps to the walkway, landing with a twirl before setting off with a jaunty stride to his car. "I haven't let you down yet, have I?" he tossed back over his shoulder.
No, Dave thought. You haven't let me down yet. So please – when you do, because you will, since you're human, make it something small.
TEAOMAL
"Seriously, that was awesome," Dave said for the fifth time to Abrams as they sat at their table near the dance floor and watched the guests shuffle back and forth holding hands while the Glee kids danced circles around them.
"It really was, wasn't it?" Abrams said smugly, also for the fifth time. "We were so badass. Sam's already posted it to YouTube. Quinn has to keep dragging him back onto the dance floor so that he doesn't obsessively check for hits on it every five minutes."
Sure enough, Quinn was pulling on Evans' hand to keep him on the dance floor, rolling her eyes in exasperation but still laughing. He turned and laughed as well, putting an arm around her waist and dipping her playfully before bringing her back up for a kiss.
"I'm still not sure about the song choice," Abrams said thoughtfully. "We had a restrained and mature conversation – that'd be just about shrieking our heads off at each other, for your information – about whether or not it was appropriate to start Finn and Kurt's parents' marriage with a song about getting married because you want to do something dumb, your girlfriend is pretty, and you're more than a little drunk."
Dave laughed. "I gotta admit I wasn't really listening to the lyrics. It just looked really cool."
"And there were a lot of good solos," Abrams said.
Out on the dance floor, Kurt and Puckerman were just barely keeping it together as they danced, laughing madly as they performed moves that seemed to involve a lot of clasping hands, leaning back, crouching to the ground, springing back up, and ducking under each other's arms. At one particularly elaborate move that sent them staggering away from one another, Kurt burst into a fit of helpless giggles and fell to his knees on the floor. Puckerman wasn't far behind him.
"So how'd the solos get decided?" Dave asked, unable to keep the grin off his face as he watched Kurt get himself back under control and stand again, this time to be pulled into a dance by Rachel.
"Whoever in Glee was dating somebody else in Glee," Abrams said. "So that's Finn and Rachel, Quinn and Sam, Mike and Tina, and Santana and Brittany. We had another mature and restrained conversation about that, since a number of us thought that Kurt ought to have one too – it's his dad's wedding, after all. But he's actually the one who turned it down. Said it would mess with the symmetry of the number." He smiled and shook his head. "It wasn't to keep any homophobes at the wedding from raising a fuss, dude. Burt and Carole saw to that."
"Yeah?" Dave asked. "How so?"
"Kurt brought in the invitations that his dad and Carole sent out," Abrams said. "Aside from the date and place and all that, they billed us as the McKinley High School Gay-Straight Alliance instead of the Glee Club. Which, in polite wedding invitation speak, basically translates to 'gay kids will be there, and if you're going to so much as think bad things at them, RSVP with your regret.'"
"They have to be the best parents on earth," Dave said.
"For sure," Abrams agreed.
Dave leaned back in his chair, happy just to watch Kurt and Rachel tear up their corner of the dance floor with manic glee, Kurt occasionally pulling Rachel in close to lift her by the waist and set her back down for another round of holding hands and doing fancy footwork that had them twirling around each other. "So you 'n Puckerman are cool with Kurt now?"
"Yeah, we're cool," Abrams said. "That's the nice thing about Kurt. He gets mad, but once things get settled he's pretty much done with it. No grudge holding. When we apologized to him, he actually told us that he was sorry for not having said anything sooner – he hadn't really wanted to call us out in front of everyone like that, but it was sort of the straw that broke the camel's back, so to speak."
"He's a good guy," Dave said.
"No need to tell me that," Abrams said emphatically.
Rachel let go of Kurt and shoved him into Finn's arms, beaming when they just laughed and started dancing in a much less complicated manner than she and Kurt had been doing a few seconds ago. She nodded in satisfaction and took off toward Dave, stopping by his side and taking a moment to brace herself against the table. "You need to come dance with me," she told him, pink cheeked and slightly out of breath.
"I'm good with sitting here," he said. "Really."
"It's not up for negotiation," she said, grabbing his arm and tugging rather ineffectually. "Come on, just one dance and then I'll let you go back to being boring and sitting on the side."
"Why?" he asked, getting up in spite of himself.
"Because she does hold grudges, dude," Abrams said. "And she's passive aggressive."
"Thank you, Artie," she said, poisonously sweet. "I'll remember that."
"Sounds like it's in my best interest, then," Dave said in resignation, and Rachel made a funny high pitched squeal of delight and pulled him out onto the dance floor after her.
They hadn't even taken a half dozen steps onto the dance floor when Finn and Kurt danced over to their side, Finn looking delighted and intent and Kurt looking amused and long-suffering. "Hey there, pretty lady," Finn said, taking Rachel's free hand. "Wanna dance?"
"Yes!" she said immediately, then frowned and turned back to Dave. "I'll be coming back to collect my dance," she told him. "I'm sure Kurt can keep you occupied until then."
And then they were flying off in another direction, and Kurt and Dave were left standing together near the side of the dance floor. "How about it?" Kurt asked, offering him that same look he'd worn when Finn had danced them over. "Want to dance?"
Yes. God yes. I really want to dance with you. I want to clear the room and turn on a disgustingly mushy song and fucking slow dance with you like a middle schooler at his first school dance. But that look Kurt had – amused, and patiently coping with trying circumstances – didn't speak of even a hint of returned affections.
"No," Dave said carefully.
Kurt's expression shifted immediately into disappointment. "Why not?" he asked. "I'd like to dance with you."
"I just don't think it's something I want to do," Dave said. "Dancing's not really something I think of as a thing that people do as just friends."
"Oh," Kurt said. "But it can be. Look at Mike and Brittany," he said, gesturing across the dance floor at their friends, who were dancing together and laughing. "It's just a dance between friends. It doesn't have to mean anything."
I'm actually going to have to say it, aren't I? Goddamn it. Not where I wanted to do it. Not when I wanted to do it. And it's really, really not how I wanted to do it.
"Doesn't it?" Dave asked, frustrated. "Maybe it doesn't with them, but god, Kurt, with us? With me? You can't say it's nothing when –" He took a deep breath and somehow found the courage to say it. "When you know how I feel about you."
Kurt stepped back, looking incredibly apologetic. "I do know," he said quietly. "I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking." He made a slight move toward Dave as if to take his arm, but held back and pointed to the side of the hall instead. "Let's get off the dance floor, okay?"
Dave nodded and followed him to the last row of chairs on the right hand side. They sat beside one another, shoulders brushing, just watching the dancers for a minute in silence. Finally Kurt said, not looking away from the dance floor, "I honestly didn't think you'd say anything about it for a lot longer."
"I wouldn't have," Dave said. "But thinking about dancing with you like that, and you saying it didn't have to mean anything – it's a little too much to take. I'm fine with what we have, honestly, and I won't ever push for more, but it's hard to remember that when you're standing on the dance floor asking me to dance with you."
"I should have realized that," Kurt said. "It was insensitive of me."
"I appreciate it," Dave said. "And don't get me wrong, I'd really like to dance with you. But not like that."
Kurt glanced at him briefly and then back away toward the dance floor. He drummed his fingers against his knee – a nervous gesture Dave had never seen before. "Are you really alright with how things stand between us?"
"As good as I can be," Dave said. "You treat me like a friend, and I never thought I'd even have that. It's nice – seriously. I just can't help liking you more than that." Loving you more, his mind supplied.
"I know." Kurt's drumming picked up in intensity, and he cut it off suddenly, leaning back in his chair. "Look. I don't – I don't not like you that way. I just don't know if I do feel that way or not. I do know that we're friends, and we're becoming good friends, and that matters to me. If I could make it all crystal clear in my mind, and just decide right now to have romantic feelings for you, I would."
"I hear a but," Dave said.
"But that's not how it works," Kurt said. "You've become this person I hardly recognize as the guy I went to school with at the start of last month, and it's amazing and wonderful. But it's still new, and I want to make sure we don't fall into something we might regret later because we didn't wait."
"I'm pretty sure that me having a starring role in some of your worst memories of high school doesn't help," Dave said, and Kurt winced.
"No, it doesn't," he admitted. "I wasn't ever going to say anything about it, but I suppose that if we're actually going to have this conversation then it needs to come out." Kurt sighed and looked down at his hands where they rested on his knees. "When I'm sitting and talking with you, or when we're watching movies or doing homework together, it's so easy to forget that a month and a half ago you threatened me with 'the Fury.'" He glanced at Dave again, this time with a small, teasing smile at the ridiculous nickname. "But when I step back to take in the wider view, I get conflicted. We don't have a nice history, Dave."
"I know," Dave said, subdued.
"And yet," Kurt continued, "Seeing you this past month that you've been out, and getting to know you, makes me think that this is the Dave Karofsky that has always been there just under the surface, waiting for the day that the mask would drop. And I can't begin to tell you how much better I like this version of you." He smiled, and Dave smiled back reflexively. "We've spent more time together in the last four weeks than we had in the year that came before it," he said, "And sometimes it makes me wonder if I'm just being overly cautious. Mostly, however, I don't think so. I'm not saying never. I'm just saying that I –"
"Need time," Dave finished. He hesitated, then added, knowing Kurt would understand, "Because some wounds take longer to heal."
Kurt's eyes widened, and he dragged his chair around to be able to face Dave directly. "You were awake," he said. Dave just looked at him, and Kurt's face fell. "Oh, no," he breathed. "No. You were supposed to be asleep. You weren't ever supposed to hear that – I never in a million years wanted you to hear what I told Finn."
"You told Finn what I needed to hear," Dave said.
"You needed to hear me tell Finn that I still get scared around you occasionally?" Kurt asked incredulously.
"I needed to hear you say that I had to be more comfortable with myself, and less insecure about what other people might think," Dave said. "And yeah, it hurt to hear about how I still scare you sometimes, but I'd thought that once you forgave me it was like nothing had ever happened, so I kinda needed the reality check. But most of all I needed to hear the other things you said."
"What else did I say?" Kurt asked. His long, slender fingers stretched out in the space between their knees, as if Kurt wanted to but couldn't quite bring himself to bridge the gap.
"You said that you really did forgive me," Dave said, "And that you like me, and that you're here for me." And you said 'maybe,' he wanted to add, but held that one in, not wanting to let it out only to discover that he'd misheard him or misunderstood the context. He doubted it, but still. 'Maybe' was his good luck charm these days, his mantra, his one word inspirational quote.
"And I meant all of that," Kurt said, and his hand finally crossed the divide to settle on top of Dave's hand. He wrapped his fingers around it, fingertips curling tightly into Dave's palm. Dave closed his hand on Kurt's fingers and squeezed back. "I still do mean it."
"And that's why I'm fine with whatever you're willing to give me," Dave said. "Because you mean it."
Kurt smiled. "So – do you want to dance with me?"
"Depends. Does it mean anything?" Dave asked.
"It means that you're my friend," Kurt said, "And that I'm yours, and that we both know that even if it doesn't happen overnight, there's still potential for something bigger down the road. Does that mean enough?"
"Yeah," Dave said. "It means enough." He stood and pulled Kurt to his feet with their joined hands, then let go when a thought struck him. "I – um, I don't actually know how to dance," he confessed.
"You were there for the impromptu lesson on the waltz, weren't you?" Kurt said. "It doesn't matter if it's a box step or not; the basics remain the same. One person leads, the other follows, and don't look at your feet." He held out his hand in invitation. "We don't even have to go back out to the dance floor. We can dance right here by the chairs." When Dave continued to hesitate, he said, "If you don't have any hang ups about not being the lead, I can do the steering."
"It's kinda a metaphor for what we're doing, isn't it?" Dave said, taking his hand. "You lead, I follow." He laughed softly. "Borchard would keel over dead to hear me say that."
"Then let's just dance and avoid killing our teachers," Kurt said, "Appropriate metaphors or not."
They maneuvered away from the chairs and onto an open patch of floor, and a new song came on, a light, jazzy number that made Kurt stop and listen intently for a few seconds before he relaxed and stepped up to Dave, adjusting hands and elbows and feet before beginning to lead them in a very simple side to side dance. They slowly turned in place as they moved, and on the second rotation, Dave spied Rachel bouncing on the balls of her feet with an enormous smile and exchanging low-fives with a smug looking Finn.
"Don't look now," he said, "But your brand new brother and his girlfriend just congratulated each other when they saw us dancing."
"I'm not surprised they're colluding with each other," Kurt said dryly. "What does surprise me is that Finn's still trying to play matchmaker when I told him not to."
Dave laughed. "To be fair, you only told him not to try to talk you into it. You never said anything about not setting you up."
"Or not to recruit outside assistance," Kurt added. "Apparently I need to learn to close loopholes."
"Mm-hmm," Dave agreed. "Hey – what's this song? You seemed to recognize it."
"It's a Gershwin song," Kurt said, "From the late thirties. I was surprised because I'd never heard an instrumental version of it before."
"I like it," Dave said. "What's it called?"
Kurt shook his head and smiled. "I'm going to hold on to that answer for a while longer," he said.
"But you will tell me eventually?" Dave asked. He suspected the answer had something to do with why Rachel was now looking misty eyed and holding her hand to her heart.
"Yes," Kurt said. "I promise."
And as always, Dave couldn't help but believe him.
As always, I love feedback, and am forever curious to hear what you think.
Anyone who figures out which Gershwin song of the 30's I'm talking about is getting fresh baked internet cookies for life.
