"A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,
We bid be quiet when we hear it cry;
But were we burdened with like weight of pain,
As much or more we should ourselves complain."

-William Shakespeare

"There's beauty in the breakdown."

-Frau Frau

Puck drove down the freeway with the loudest noise he could find screaming at him through his impressive speakers. He banged his head back and forth, up and down, not so much in rhythm with the music but in his attempt to ward off all unnecessary and/or uncomfortable thoughts from his otherwise neutral stream of consciousness.

Where did that kid get off, telling him what was right and who was wrong? In Puck's opinion, anything his mother hadn't already told him wasn't important enough to learn. And she definitely had not taken him aside at any time during his playground bullying days and teach him the importance of sensitivity. She had taught him kill or be killed. Okay, so not that exact wording, but it was implied.

Besides, isn't that was Hummel had told Berry? Translated it from German or Canadian or something and said it, right there. Besides, anyone who looked at him could tell he hadn't had an easy time with jack shit. Fuck, Puck had been the one to give him his first dumpster dive. He knew, and Puck knew. So why didn't Finn?

He's too soft. That's what that is. His mom was too easy on him.

"Is Kurt here?"

Burt stood with the door barely opened, staring out at the circle of teenagers assembled at his doorstep. Which, it should be noted, included a skinny boy in a wheelchair, and Burt was nearly one hundred percent positive his home wasn't wheelchair accessible.

"I didn't know he was, uh, expecting anybody…" He blinked again because, upon further inspection, he realized this was the oddest group of people he'd seen since that one time he passed a gay pride parade when he was fifteen.

A cheerleader, chewing at both a strand of blond hair and her manicured pinky finger, looking a bit to intently at something to her right. A gothic Asian girl with a blinding smile. Two football players, one caramel skinned and one Asian, both grinning sheepishly and bouncing slightly. Mercedes at the front, holding a grocery bag, car keys wedged between her fingers.

"Dad."

Burt spun around to see Kurt in jeans and a-was that a tshirt? With a sports logo on the chest?

"Hope you don't mind," his son said apologetically, gesturing at his friends at the door. "We, uh, apparently have the biggest basement in Lima."

"Yeah," Burt said quickly, shaking his head and adjusting his hat. "No, yeah, it's no problem. Just don't, you know, make a mess or anything…"

Kurt waved a dismissive hand and Burt was suddenly pushed aside by the kids as they formed a stampede, past Kurt and towards the basement door. He heard their feet smack at the carpet, gradually fading in the sound of chips being ripped open and the TV flicking on. Even though Kurt himself had lagged behind, lingered at the doorframe and looked down the steps, presumably at the room below him. His eyes glazed over, flickered like he was spinning in and out of focus.

Burt cleared his throat. "You sure your up for this?"

Kurt, in a very un-Kurt-like manner, scratched the back of his head. "I guess I kind of have to be."

Looking around, at the dry dirt footprints on his hardwood floor and the disturbance of the place mat, Burt felt a twinge of sympathy. Kurt, despite his apparent blunt nature, would never tell his friends something they really, truly didn't want to hear. For their piece of mind, he would fake it.

"I could tell them to leave," Burt suggested. "I don't mind being the bad guy, y'know? I could just tell 'em your grounded or something…"

Kurt shook his head and placed a hand at the arch of the doorway. "They'll leave soon. Mercedes and Brittany have a Bio paper due Monday."

He went down the stairs, his footsteps so light the sound only lasted the first two steps until the sound was lost to his friends' laughter. So much for sound proof.

How are they so happy right now?

How can anyone be anything but swimming in misery when people like Kurt can just be picked off like pigs in a slaughter pen? How can they be laughing so goddamn loudly when Kurt, their humble host, had obviously done something terrible, something that deserved this kind of torment and this kind of heartache and this kind of pain and fuck you if you think he's being dramatic. He doesn't know any other way and even if he did, it hurt, damnit.

It hurt to smile and laugh and mock Lindsay Lohan's fashion selections when a pressure was growing in his chest, like a heart attack, eating him until there was nothing left. He couldn't breathe he couldn't breath.

Before he knew how or why suddenly his karaoke machine was on and Mercedes was belting out her solo, that song from Chicago that was a more than slightly offensive selection for their token black girl. The only ones not participating were himself and Brittany, who leaned back next to him and stared at her hands.

If Kurt had not been in such a state, he would have noticed the redness of her eyes and the hardness of her lips and the disarray of her uniform. He did, however, notice it when she said;

"I think I'm quitting glee."

And Kurt knew why; why wouldn't you, with the stigma it came with. The fact that Kurt himself was part of the offending club only worsened the tension between glee and the rest of the world. He poisoned show choir's good way. He thought this without an ounce of self-pity, because everyone could tell him this wasn't true till they were blue in the face but he knew as well as anyone that, as the only boy in Lima, Ohio with a fashion sense, he was a dead man walking and anyone beside him was guilty by association. So he didn't ask Brittany what caused this rash decision, he only nodded and smiled weakly and looked ahead, at no particular thing. Because, in all honesty, if it were him he wouldn't want reassurances either.

A/N The title is being changed to We Are Golden by the next chapter. Any objections? Speak now or forever hold your peace.