The squeak seemed to echo through the room. Kurt took his hands off the railing on the side of the bed and stared at the wall.

"You okay?"

He curled his arms up, letting his hands rest on the pillow just under his head, "I'm fine, Finn."

"You're allowed to be nervous, but the squeaking is getting to me."

"I know," Kurt sighed, fighting the urge to spread his legs out, "I wish my dad could've come." Finn leaned back in his chair, breathing out slowly through his nose, "I'm sorry. It's not that I don't want you here, but–"

"Kurt, it's okay. I get it." Finn's hand settled on his arm and squeezed once, firm and comforting, and then released it, "I'd want my mom."

"Can you feel that?" Kurt shook his head; there was very little feeling in his lower back and the nurse or doctor started fiddling with something on the tray behind Kurt's head, "Alright, we've numbed the area as much as possible, but you might feel a little discomfort."

Finn made a big show of stretching his fingers and then reached out and twined Kurt's fingers through his, "Just squeeze if you need to." Kurt smiled tightly at Finn, who grinned sheepishly down at him, "This is kind of cool."

"Excuse me?" Kurt intoned, "Did you just imply that my getting a lumbar puncture is cool?"

Finn blanched, "No! No way, dude. I just mean–I always wanted a little brother, and now I'm like, taking you to doctor's appointments and looking after you and making you food and bringing you homework and–"

"I get it, Finn, but you do know you're barely a month older than me, right?"

Finn was avidly reading a poster on the wall, and when Kurt glanced up it was a diagram of how to perform a breast exam on yourself, complete with instructional images. He was nodding absently in response to Kurt, obviously not paying attention. Kurt hissed, tightening his fingers around Finn's hand, and the taller boy turned back to him, looking guilty, "Man, are you okay?" Kurt nodded, letting his eyes close and fighting the mixed guilt and satisfaction. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Sure, Finn."

"Has Rachel said anything about me to you?"

Kurt opened his eyes; Finn was chewing on his bottom lip worriedly, holding it in his mouth with the hand that wasn't holding Kurt's. "What do you mean?"

Kurt fought the urge to roll his eyes when Finn started in on one of his characteristic rants, "Well, we're sort of dating again and I told her I love her at Regionals so I kind of thought everything was okay but she's been acting really distant and not-Rachel and it's more confusing than usual, which is saying something because Rachel uses big words like you do and I have to look them up after and she never asks me over to her house or tries to hold my hand. I always have to grab her hand or force her to stay still long enough so I can kiss her and it's so annoying and I figured maybe Rachel had talked to you because she hangs out with you and stuff." He stopped, and Kurt watched, amused, as he sucked in a huge breath, "So… Did she?"

"Are you finished?" When Finn nodded, Kurt continued, "Well, how have you been treating her?"

"I don't know what I'm doing wrong! I listen to everything she says and some of the time I understand it all, but she wants me to be honest and then she looks hurt when I am and I mean, I should probably tell her I love her again cause Rachel needs to hear things like, a hundred times before she believes them and–"

Kurt squeezed Finn's hand to cut him off, "Let me get this straight. You haven't told her you love her since Regionals, which was nearly two months ago now?" Finn nodded, and Kurt fought a smile as pink filled the tall boy's cheeks, "And I'm not sure what you mean by honesty, but I've heard you call her annoying, obsessive, bossy, irritating, controlling, and crazy, all in the past two weeks."

Finn was avoiding Kurt's eyes now, and his voice was unnaturally quiet. "Well, she told me to tell her the truth."

"Dear Gucci, you have got to be joking." Kurt lifted the hand that was still on the pillow and pressed two of his fingers against his eyelids, "Tell her the truth about the big things, Finn, but for the love of Prada, don't tell her she's being annoying, even though Rachel is notoriously bothersome. Tell her she's sweet, or pretty, or talented–she loves hearing that."

Kurt had been under the impression that after planning a very romantic date for Finn to make it up to Rachel for being Finn that it would be the last he would hear of their relationship.

"So that stuff you told me really helped. I touched her hair a lot and told her how much I liked it and the date thing worked like a charm." Finn stopped to compare two bags of bread and then shrugged, tossing both into the cart that Kurt was leaning heavily on, "Like a charm, dude. I mean, Rachel actually, you know…" Finn trailed off, trying to lift his eyes suggestively and bringing his hands up to gesture.

Kurt swatted his hands down, pushing the cart past him and towards the meat section, "No, I don't know, and I don't want to, Finn." Finn watched as Kurt picked through some packaged meat, "I'm glad it all worked out between the two of you, really, but I'd rather not hear about the intimate moments. I'm also going to assume that Rachel would prefer if you kept those details private."

"Thanks, though. Everything's really awesome now."

"You're welcome." Kurt stopped at the hotdogs, "Which one do you like?"

Finn glanced down, "Doesn't matter."

Kurt bent down to pick one up, waving it in front of Finn's face and grimacing when the smell hit him, "These things are disgusting and I cannot believe your mother allows you to eat them."

Finn's hand lunged out and grabbed the package from Kurt and he threw it into the cart. Kurt turned, rolling his eyes, and grabbed the handles of the cart, making his way towards dairy. Finn walked past him and started examining the various juices while Kurt peeking into several egg cartons to check for cracks.

As Finn was coming back, he stopped, glancing past Kurt with a confused look on his face. He shook his head and took the last two steps to their cart, where Kurt was putting two egg cartons in the top compartment. Kurt opened his mouth and his yawn punctuated Finn's name, "Finn, what's left on the list?"

"Tired, I'm guessing." Kurt nodded. He glanced down at the crumpled list in his hand, "Well, just some pop for me and your dad, but we could live without it if you want… What the hell?" They had slowly been walking away from the dairy section and Finn threw his hand down to stop the cart, making Kurt jerk forward in surprise.

Kurt glanced behind them, following Finn's now surprisingly angry glare, and they landed on a man wearing the grocery store uniform placing several cartons of eggs in a cart. The man was wearing gloves and he glanced up at them, wearing an expression of pure disgust, "Finn, don't do anything stupid. Please. Can we just leave?" Finn didn't answer him; he kept his gaze focused on the man down the aisle, who was watching them stand there, "Finn, leave it."

Finn shook his head and shook Kurt's hand off, which has settled on his upper arm and was pulling gently to try and break Finn from his trance. He stormed past and Kurt followed, abandoning the cart.

"Hey!" The man, who Kurt could now see was wearing a "Manager" tag, pulled his cart back in an attempt to escape. Finn stopped him, grabbing the cart and pulling it back towards him, "What are you doing?"

The man sneered at Finn; Kurt expected him to deny it, but he felt himself gasp as the man started talking, "I will not have that freak contaminating my customers."

"You're serious!" Finn's voice was too loud and the people around them stopped browsing, trying to listen, "You're an asshole!"

"Finn!"

"No, Kurt, he's a jerk," Finn stared at the man's face, unyielding and unfriendly, and then glanced back at Kurt, who didn't have time to wipe the tears from his face, "You know what, I'm not going to bother arguing with this jerk." He reached into the cart and grabbed some of the eggs, opening the carton, "These aren't even cracked, Kurt, I don't know what you were thinking," and he tilted the carton upside down.

Kurt watched the eggs fall and explode on the floor in what felt like slow motion. The manager's face was livid, and Finn leaned forward as much as he dared over the mess of eggs on the floors, "I think we'll take our grocery list somewhere else." He took a step backward and grabbed Kurt's arm, practically dragging him from the store.

"You really did not need to do that, Finn."

Finn adjusted his arm, dropping his hand and moving it up to rest on Kurt's shoulder, "Look Kurt, I know you think I've done enough to apologize for what I said during Gaga week, but I can never forgive myself for that. I need to protect you from what I can, because..." Finn's eyes dropped to Kurt's collarbone and he stayed silent, so Kurt took a step forward and wrapped his arms loosely around Finn's torso.

Finn's arms came up around him and he closed his eyes.

"What's all that crap?"

Kurt glanced away from his magazine for barely a second to follow Puck's gesture, "It's not 'crap,' Noah. It's a manicure set; I gave Quinn one earlier."

Puck appreciated that Kurt had dropped the "I'm-better-and-smarter-than-you-and-I-know-it" tone around Puck, and due to his boredom and Kurt's apparent state of being bedridden for the entire week of treatment, Puck said something he never imagined he'd say, "You want to give me a manicure?"

Kurt blinked up at him, eyes narrowing in suspicion, "I'm sorry, I think my fever must have spiked and is causing hallucinations. I could have sworn that you just offered to let me give you a manicure."

"Whatever, dude, if you're good doing magazine quizzes, I'm good just–"

"Hands." Kurt let his magazine slide off his lap and onto the floor, leaning forward and making grabbing motions with his own hands; Fiyero lifted his head as the magazine landed next to him and nudged the open pages.

Kurt was already doing something with Puck's nails. He curled his fingers under his palms and pulled his hands away from Kurt, "This isn't gonna take too long, right? Cause I've got my fight club in an hour and a half."

Kurt was bouncing slightly with excitement, and he tried to grab Puck's hand again, "I can assure you that this will not take an hour and a half." Thin fingers brushed along his hand lightly and pulled it forward; Puck watched Kurt's eyes drop back to his rough hands, "Don't take your hands away again."

"Demanding," Puck teased, "I like it."

Kurt made a face but didn't say anything about Puck's flirting. Puck had noticed that: whenever Puck made a comment that suggested he might be interested in Kurt, the other boy would avoid the subject, "So what do you do at this 'fight club.' Besides the obvious."

Puck cleared his throat, straightening his back as much as he could with Kurt's hand locking his into place, and recited: "The first rule about Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club."

Kurt pinched the flesh on the side of Puck's pinky, "Don't be impertinent."

"Dude, I have no idea what that means. Have you never seen Fight Club?' His hand twitched slightly, now resting palm up in Kurt's hand, "You know, like, the best movie ever?"

Puck caught the edges of a faint smile fading as Kurt reached up to brush his hair out of his eyes; his eyes lingered on Kurt's hair, which Quinn had mentioned was starting to thin. Kurt hadn't seemed to have noticed and if he had, Puck was sure he hadn't talked about it yet, "Sorry, I've never heard of it."

"You've never–But it's, like–" Puck sputtered indignantly, "How can you not have even heard of it?" Kurt shrugged and Puck mused casually, "Well, I'll have to bring it by to watch sometime."

Kurt let out a short, breathless laugh, "I don't think 'Fight Club' sounds like my type of movie, Noah, but thank you for the offer."

"Ed Norton and Brad Pitt are shirtless and sweaty a lot."

Kurt's hand paused over his. His eyes darted up, too fast, and then back down. His voice was playful, lightly teasing, "Shirtless and sweaty, you say?"

Puck nodded, even though Kurt wasn't looking at his face, "There's loads of other dudes, too."

"Well, I may be able to suffer through it."

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