Kurt woke in the middle of the night to prowling noises. They would have been much scarier if he hadn't left on a light in the corner of his room. He was embarrassed to admit that he had a nightlight, but even more embarrassed that, after the dreams of Sunday, he'd gotten his old stuffed Ernie down from the shelf to sleep with. He currently had a death grip on his worn orange neck, but luckily, Ernie didn't mind, or at least didn't have a voice with which to complain.

"Kurt?" he heard the whisper. "Are you awake?"

He relaxed, smiling, and opened the door to the family room to find both Puck and Finn hovering by the green couch. Puck's face looked worried. "You were making noises," he said. "They didn't sound like good-dream noises, either."

"Well," Kurt said, with what he hoped was a resolved tone, "you're here now, so I'm guessing my dreams are about to get better."

Finn reached for him, and Kurt slipped into his embrace. "You're warm," Finn murmured. Kurt carded his fingers through Finn's wet hair.

"My bed's warmer," Kurt suggested. "Take these off and come join me."

But as they divested themselves of their clothing, he couldn't help notice Finn's wrinkled brow, and Puck's silence. "Noah," he said quietly, his hands making short work of Puck's jeans. "How was your date?"

His smile seemed honest enough, and he kissed Kurt with sincerity. "Best date ever," he said. "Seriously. Never had one like that before. Thank you, baby."

"You're so welcome, sweetheart," he said, nestling into Puck's bare chest. It was firm enough that by all rights it could have felt like cuddling the side of a building, but somehow it never did. "Come to bed?"

They all piled onto Kurt's not-nearly-big-enough mattress and pulled the covers up over all of them, shivering in the late November night.

"What was the best part?" Kurt couldn't help asking, and watched Puck exchange a look with Finn. It was a complicated look, but there was definitely love there, and he was warmed by the way Finn reached across Kurt to put a gentle hand on Puck's chest. Puck closed his eyes at the touch.

"Spending time with each other," Finn said. "We haven't just hung out in a while. It felt like old times."

"With orgasms," Puck added, his lips quirking. "Which, hey, pretty much makes it not like old times."

"Dork," Finn said, poking Puck's sternum, and Puck snickered, and Kurt relaxed a little more. "Thank you," he added, giving Kurt a kiss. "We will definitely have to do that again. You plan awesome dates. I can't wait for Thursday."

"I was thinking about that," Puck said. Kurt felt a quiver in his stomach as Puck lay his head on Kurt's chest. "Do you guys want to, like, go out? Or would you rather… stay in? Because I think me and Finn can get away with the two friends hanging out thing, but it'll be harder with the two of you, and even harder with me and Kurt. But I figured you could, you know, go to another town, Findlay or maybe even Dayton, and go out on a real date."

The quiver in Kurt's stomach turned into an icicle, stabbing him in the gut, and Finn must have felt him stiffen because he moved his hand from Puck's chest to Kurt's, making little comforting circles. "I think we'd rather stay in and eat your food," Finn suggested, watching Kurt's face, and Kurt nodded.

"That's cool," Puck said, shrugging against Kurt's. "You know, whatever you want."

"You guys can talk about Saturday, too," Finn nodded. "I have some ideas, but tell me if you'd rather go out or stay in. I bet Burt would let you go to Dayton, if it's a weekend."

"We'll let you know," Kurt said, unwilling to pursue the conversation any further with the memories of the night's dreams so close in the room. He yawned.

"Don't crash out on us yet," Puck said. "We haven't thanked you for the date."

"Oh, you don't have to – ohhhhh," Kurt said, as Puck ducked under the covers. It was a singularly incredible experience, Puck's mouth on him. Finn watched Kurt's face hungrily, eyes widening a fraction as Kurt's lips parted and trembled with appreciation.

"He's so good at that," Finn said, low and breathy, and Kurt's enjoyment ratcheted up about six notches in the face of Finn's clear approval. Convenient, that, Kurt thought with glazed detachment. Noah gives me a blowjob, which gets me turned on, which turns Finn on, which turns me on; continue ad nauseum. He let out a strangled gasp as Puck did something with his tongue.

"Do that again," Finn said, putting a hand on Puck's head under the covers. The voice of command was incredibly erotic, and Kurt heard Puck groan in response, which gave Kurt yet another surge of wanting.

"God," he panted. "You guys are making me... god… I'm not going to last long, at this rate."

Puck seemed okay with this news, because he did the something about six more times, and Finn moaned in vicarious enjoyment as Kurt bucked his hips and threw his head back, coming hard.

"I think you two need to go on more dates," Kurt suggested, regaining his equilibrium. Finn chuckled, settling down on the pillow to his right, while Puck crept out from under the duvet and threw a leg over Kurt on his left.

"Sounds like a plan," Puck agreed sleepily.

Kurt slept, with no more dreams, through until morning – though they had a moment of collective panic when Burt called down the stairs at 7am, "Do I want to know the answer to why Puckerman's truck is in the driveway?"

"Uh… no?" Kurt called back, as Puck stirred beside him.

"I'll talk to him," Finn said stretching his long legs so that they poked out from the foot of the bed. "We should have asked permission."

"Yeah," Kurt agreed, savoring the last minutes of togetherness. "But it was so worth it."


"I hate to say it, but Mr. Schue looks just terrible," Kurt said to Finn, closing his locker. "And I'm not referring to his unfortunate fashion sense. He and Principal Figgins and Coach Sylvester were yelling about something in the office this morning. I could store my entire moisturizing regimen in the bags under his eyes."

"He was kind of out of it in Spanish this morning," Finn agreed, and was about to say more, but Quinn grabbed his arm as she hurried by. She included Kurt in her desperate expression.

"Finn – Coach Sylvester's getting us disqualified from sectionals."

"What?" Kurt said, staring wide-eyed at Quinn.

"It's something about the mattresses – I don't really understand, but them being a gift, and us accepting them, somehow… and then Mr. Schue slept on one of them last night, so –"

"What? Why?" Now Finn looked puzzled. "I'm going to go talk to Mr. Schue right now."

"Don't bother – he's in with Miss Pillsbury," Quinn said. She leaned on the lockers, looking back and forth between both of them. "What are we going to do?"

"We need to find out what's going on first," Finn said. "Then we'll figure out what to do to fix it. Don't worry." He reached out and took Quinn's hand.

"I can't believe I even care," Quinn said, shaking her head. "It's just stupid Gleeclub… but I do. I don't want to miss this. I think – I think we might have a chance at regionals."

"Of course we do," Kurt said. "I'm not deluding myself, but we've got some heavy-hitting talent, and we've got heart. The judges will see that."

"I wish we could do that Hair song," Quinn said to Kurt, surprising him. I think this is the first time she's ever spoken to me without making fun of me, he thought, but he just looked steadily back and tried to take it at face value. "That was really good."

"Did you hear Lady Gaga called and said how much she loved it?" Finn said, grinning at Quinn's reaction. "She wants Kurt and Brad to go out to her house in Bel-Air and talk music."

"Get. Out." Quinn crossed her arms and gave Kurt a genuinely impressed look. "Is your dad going to let you go?"

"He said if Brad would go, that would be okay," he told her, with a tentative smile.

"Cool," Quinn said, and smiled back for a moment before she seemed to realize she was in the middle of the hallway with Kurt Hummel, and replaced her expression with a frown. "I'm going to go run some recon with Santana, see if I can figure out more. See you in Glee." She pressed a kiss to Finn's cheek before striding quickly away.

"What do you think that's all about?" Finn said, half to himself.

"I don't know," Kurt said, watching her go, and straightened the buckles on his jacket with a little jerk. He felt an enormous surge of jealousy at Quinn's ability to just kiss Finn whenever she wanted, and to have no one even care. "I'll meet you at our usual time, okay?"

Finn nodded, not watching him go, but that was the way they had to play it if they wanted to stay safe. Kurt watched Azimio walk by on the other side of the hallway, and he didn't look too closely at him either. It was just better not to make any kind of eye contact. He shuddered, thinking of the dream last night, and what Azimio and Karofsky had done, and how he really hoped it never happened in real life. There were so many worse things than being shoved into a locker.

Kurt found himself walking down the hallway toward Miss Pillsbury's office. Through the glass he could see Mr. Schue talking to her intently. For a while he'd thought they might be having an affair, but then he found out about Miss Pillsbury's upcoming marriage to Coach Tanaka. Who knows, he thought, as Mr. Schue pushed back his chair and stood with a wan smile. Knowing how complicated my own relationships are, there's no reason why everybody else's couldn't be equally complicated.

"Mr. Schue," he said tentatively, as he stepped out of Miss Pillsbury's office. Mr. Schue looked up, surprised. "I heard Quinn say something about the Glee club being disqualified from Sectionals?"

"Yeah," Mr. Schue said, with a sigh. He squeezed his forehead like it was hurting. "Kurt, I'm really sorry to say this, but – there's an obscure rule about competing clubs accepting gifts, and the mattresses you guys got for that commercial… well, they count. We can't take them back now."

Kurt fell into step beside Mr. Schue, hanging onto the strap of his messenger bag. "Why not? They're in plastic and everything."

"Not… one of them." Kurt caught the panicked look in his eyes, and realized Mr. Schue was near tears. He steered them into the hallway outside the choir room, to that little alcove where he and Finn had had so many private conversations.

"Mr. Schue, are you okay?" he asked.

"Not really," he admitted, with a wry smile, "but I don't think it's appropriate for… students to know personal details about my life. This is pretty personal."

Kurt watched the indecision flicker over his face. "It's just that, I, um… I noticed you were pretty upset this morning, and I thought… well. I know you haven't really liked me very much, but Glee's important to me, and you're part of Glee. You're our leader. I want to help. I don't want us to miss this chance at Nationals."

Mr. Schue shook his head in concern. "Kurt, that's not - what makes you think I don't like you?"

Kurt let a little smile play over his lips. "Oh, come on, Mr. Schue. Let's not pretend here. There have been plenty of times you've passed me over in favor of Rachel or Finn. The thing with Defying Gravity was just one incident."

"I knew that was going to hurt," Mr. Schue murmured. "I'm – I'm sorry about that."

"So why?" He allowed some of the anger he still felt about that come through in his voice. "You're always saying how much you want us to be ourselves, to express our feelings. Why didn't you let me express mine? Is it because I'm gay, or because I sing like a girl, or what?"

Mr. Schue took a deep breath, closing his eyes briefly. "Kurt… my best friend growing up… he was gay."

"Toby?"

He blinked. "Yes – how did you…?"

"When I went to Brad's for a piano lesson this weekend, Laurie showed me a picture of him, of all of you, when you were in college." He didn't mention the letter. "Duncan said I reminded him of his Uncle Toby."

Mr. Schue smiled despite himself. "Well, he's right. You and… Toby… you have some things in common. Things that made Toby's life hard, in the same way I know you have to deal with, every day."

Kurt nodded. "It's better some days than others," he admitted. "It turns out this week has been particularly awful."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Mr. Schue's voice was low and pained, and Kurt saw, with a shock, how much it was hurting him. "Kurt, I didn't want to put you at risk, any more than you'd already been. I thought, by getting up in front of the audience at Sectionals, and singing a girl's song, you might be in real danger. The enemy you know is better than the enemy you don't. And so far the bullies here, though they've done some pretty terrible things, they haven't really hurt you. Toby – he got beat up, and worse."

"I know it could be worse," Kurt said. "But… Mr. Schue, it's bad, right now. It's really bad."

Mr. Schue nodded soberly. "You're incredibly brave, Kurt, to face that every day, and to – to be who you are. You're a lot braver than I'll ever be."

"I don't really have a choice, Mr. Schue." He held open his hands. "This is who I am. I don't think I can change that."

"Lots of people pretend to be something they're not," Mr. Schue said. "All their lives."

Kurt took a step back at the bitter tone in his voice, and cocked his head. "You're still friends with Toby," he said. "How… how is it now? For him?"

"Better." He smiled, his eyes going soft. "A lot better. Things have changed for gay people, in general, since we were kids."

Kurt thought about the picture of all of them, Brad and Laurie, and Mr. Schue, and Toby and the rest, their arms around each other. He felt a pang, wondering if that was how it might be someday, for him and Noah and Finn – if they would still be friends like that when they were grown. "Is he happy, though? Did… does he have someone? Someone to be, you know... home?"

He wasn't prepared for the look of tortured anguish on Mr. Schue's face. "I'm sorry," Kurt added quickly, but Mr. Schue just shook his head. Kurt put out a steadying hand, and Mr. Schue gripped it, almost too tight. He blinked away tears. Then he seemed to realize what he'd done, and he slowly released his grip.

"No," he said. "It's okay. It's my… my wife." His mouth made a straight line, and he seemed to get taller, somehow. "I'm leaving her. We're getting a divorce."

"Oh." Kurt wasn't sure what to say in response. "Is that why you slept on that mattress?"

"Yeah." He sighed. "I didn't even think about it. They were just here, this big stack, and I… I didn't want to go back to that apartment and pretend it was home, not one more night, not when…"

"Mr. Schue?" Kurt's mind was racing. "Can you show me those Glee club rules? I want to see exactly what we're up against."

"Sure." Mr. Schue's hand on Kurt's shoulder felt warm. "And then I think I need to book a flight. I have some business to take care of."


Kurt let the State of Ohio Intramural Rule Book hit Quinn just above her baby bump as he strode by. "Follow me," he said, low enough not to be heard. After a pause, she did, far enough behind him not to look like she was intentionally walking with him, but when he turned into the girls' restroom, she came in right behind him.

"Leave," she ordered the juniors hovering by the mirror, and, after a calculating sneer, they did. Kurt nodded, impressed.

"I guess you haven't lost your touch, even though you're not wearing that uniform anymore," he said. She scowled at him.

"I'm going to get back on the Cheerios," she said. "I'll find a way."

"That's what I was going to ask you about." He tapped the hardcover rule book. "You know Coach Sylvester. I want you to look at these rules and see if there's anything we can use against her, the way she's using the rules against us. If you can do it for Glee club, there's no reason why you can't use it to help yourself, too."

"That's… actually pretty smart," Quinn said slowly, frowning at Kurt. "Why are you helping me, though?"

"Because, even though you might not love it all the time, I think you actually have a nice voice, and you're a great dancer. We need you in Glee." He considered her bump. "And even though you lied through your teeth to him about the baby, I know you care about Finn, too."

At least she had the grace to look embarrassed. "I do," she said. "At least now he gets to have it, anyway."

"What are you talking about?" he said.

She blinked. "Puck. The baby. It's his?"

"I know it's his," Kurt said. They just stared at each other for a moment, before she shook her head.

"I don't think it's a good idea," she said. "But I won't stand in his way."

Kurt flipped open the rule book, feeling uneasy, like he was missing something, but unwilling to spend more time with Quinn being cryptic. "Let's look through here. I've only go another five minutes before English."

She only had to glare once at the next group of girls that came into the restroom – that, plus Kurt's presence, was enough – and they left them alone to peruse the book. Kurt looked up the ruling that had gotten them in trouble with the mattresses, and they read it together.

"Huh," she said.

"What?"

She touched the page. "This. The Cheerios accept gifts all the time. I mean, seriously, we get all kinds of swag. There's no way she can pull this off."

Kurt rubbed his chin. "You think she'd back down if you brought that up?"

"Maybe… maybe." He could tell Quinn's mind was going a mile a minute.

"You should put on your Cheerios uniform and go in there."

She laughed. "There's no way I could fit into that."

"Oh, please. With the appropriate application of Spanx, we could get you into a toilet paper tube. What do you wear, a six?"

"Four, thank you," she said, with exaggerated icy calm, but her eyes were shining. "That's a pretty good idea, actually. You're a real ball-buster. Well. You know what I mean."

"I do," he said, grinning, and she grinned back.

"I'm going to go right now and try it on – and then I'm going right to Hypocrite Sylvester's office and giving her a piece of my mind. She can't bully Glee around like it's one of her Cheerios."

"I don't know why you want to bother with the Cheerios, anyway, if she's going to treat you that way," Kurt said, leaning back on the sink next to Quinn. "Don't you deserve to be in a group that really wants you there?"

"And you think Glee club does?" She snorted, and Kurt saw the anxiety in her eyes. He thought about Mr. Schue. God. Does everybody worry about fitting in? Even the popular kids? Even the grownups?

Then he remembered singing Hair for Glee, and he found himself gently touching Quinn's arm, and she looked at him, startled. "You belong, just as much as we all do. Glee - it's for everyone."

Her nose wrinkled, and she looked at him like he was crazy, but her words were mild as she slipped out of the restroom. "I wish I could believe that."