Guest: Sorry I keep forgetting to answer your question. Here's the answer: I have no friggin' clue. This is already longer than I intended it to be and I highly doubt it's halfway finished.

xoxoxo

"I've never had depression before. I'm not liking it."

David smiled wryly as he pulled into the parking lot at the furniture store. "I don't think you're supposed to like depression. How're things going with the therapist?"

Kurt shrugged, unlocking the side door. "I've only seen her twice. She's nice enough, but she's not offering any quick fixes. She won't even give me Xanax or whatever: not until we've met a few more times." Kurt walked around the backside of David's pickup truck, meeting him behind it as they headed towards to the store. "Have you ever…you know, had depression?" By now, all of Kurt's friends knew about his postpartum depression. Kurt had personally told a few of them (Tina, Mercedes, David), Finn had let it slip to a few more (Rachel, Quinn, Puck), the rest had found out seemingly by osmosis. It was impossible to keep secrets in glee club.

David snorted. "I'm a fat, balding, closeted homosexual with next to no friends who watched his mother get horrifically butchered when he was ten…nah, I've never had depression."

Kurt placed his hand on David's shoulder and rubbed circles with his thumb. "You aren't fat. Just because you don't have abs doesn't mean you're fat. You have a football body. You're a football player. You aren't going to have a swimmer or jogger's body when that's not who you are. Look at me; I have a dancer's body. No matter what I do, chances are, I'm never going to be ripped." David smiled a weak smile, but didn't say anything. "And having met your father, I think it's safe to say balding will never be an issue with you. When it comes to friends…well, it seems you're usually trying to impress the wrong people. You shun the people who make excellent, loyal friends – Finn, Puck, Sam, Mike, Artie – and instead try and make friends with guys I'm pretty sure would bully their own mothers. As for being a closeted homosexual, everything takes time. It's something hard that everyone needs to cope with in their own way."

"How did you deal with it? Coming out, I mean?"

They were in the store now, looking in the storage section. Kurt was looking at a system of coated-wire grids that interlocked to create storage cubes. "You've known me for quite a while, a couple of years, in fact. I don't think anyone was really shocked when I came out. Even my dad was kinda like 'well, duh.' Mercedes was the only one who seemed to be surprised. Everyone had years to get used to the idea of me coming out. You? I think you're going to be the type that actually needs a coming out party."

"A coming out party?"

"It's a huge thing for someone as closeted as you to come out. I think this is a good unit to clean up all of your sports equipment on the back porch, what do you think?" Kurt had been in dire need of retail therapy. It had been ages since he had done any serious shopping. David had volunteered to play the part of victim in Kurt's shopping addiction.

David wasn't in denial about the fact that he and his father were complete slobs. They hadn't done any updates to their living arrangements since they had moved to the border of the Redzone and their current furniture and living setup no longer really suited their needs. He was even still sleeping in the same twin bed that he had slept in when he was old enough to move out of his crib; the only real change was the lack of dinosaur sheets. "You know, you're not making me feel any more confident about 'coming out'. I don't want it to be a big deal. I just want it to happen without anyone saying shit. I don't need congratulations and empowerment any more than I want insults and putdowns. I don't want it to be any more of a big deal than…than my hair color. It's just part of who I am." David walked a loop around the storage unit, shaking it to check for sturdiness and pulling down on the cubes to check for strength. "It's actually pretty nice. I can even store my hockey sticks and golf clubs by sticking them through the spaces in the grids."

"That's a very mature observation, David. Being gay isn't any different than being brunette. All right, so we think this'll help get the porch straightened out?" David nodded as he scooped up on of the small boxes the storage unit somehow broke down into and placed it into the shopping cart. "It's pretty cheap, too." David shrugged. Money wasn't an issue for him, but Kurt didn't know that. "All right…tackling your metaphorical closet – or even your metaphysical closet – will take a lot more time than we have today, so let's work on your physical closet. Shoes first; shoes usually create the most clutter in a closet. A shoe rack'll take care of that."

"Just 'cause I'm gay doesn't mean I collect shoes. I have two, three pairs total, maybe."

"You may not collect shoes, but I promise you, you have more than three pairs." Kurt held up his hand in front of his face as they walked to the closet department. "You have the shoes you're wearing right now. Any other pairs of sneakers?" David shook his head. Kurt held up his pinky. "You have at least one pair of dress shoes, unless you rented them for prom?" David shook his head again, prompting Kurt to raise his ring finger to join his pinky. "Sandals?"

"One pair."

Kurt raised his middle finger to accompany the other two fingers. "You said you have gold clubs…any golf shoes?" David blushed while nodding awkwardly. Kurt raised another finger. "You have two different pairs of football shoes…don't think I haven't noticed. One pair's black and white, the other pair's red and white" Kurt raised his thumb and the pinky on his other hand. "Any work shoes? Like boots?"

"A pair of steel-toed boots and hiking boots."

Kurt's other ring fingers and middle finger went up, as well. "Snow boots? Rain boots?" David shook his head. "Anything I missed?"

David licked his lips, looking embarrassed. "A pair of Oxfords and a pair of loafers."

Kurt put both hands back down. "My oh my, two to three pairs turned into ten awfully fast. And I must admit, I'm proud of you for knowing what Oxford shoes are."

David shrugged, looking away from Kurt to hide the bright blush spreading over his cheeks. "They're classy. I like 'em." David tagged along after Kurt like a loyal puppy, even as the self-fashioned interior decorator flitted from display to display. "Oh, and a pair of cowboy boots."

"No, you don't"

David was taken aback by that, "Yes, I do."

"No. You. Don't. Not after I get done with your closet, you don't." Kurt looked at several styles of shoe storage devices. He focused most of his attention on a floor unit with three levels.

"What's wrong with cowboy boots? A pair of plain, brown, leather cowboy boots, blue jeans, a rancher jacket or plaid shirt: I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I look pretty decent."

"Sure, you do, Ennis Del Mar."

David narrowed his eyes, "Who?"

"Brokeback Mountain: watch it. I give you permission to either love it or hate it, but as a gay man I order you to at least watch it." Kurt picked up the rack he had been admiring. "What do you think?" David looked it over. It was basically parallel rods of wrought iron held together by other parallel rods of wrought iron.

"Simple, sleek. I approve."

Kurt placed it into David's shopping cart along with the storage cubes. "So…after your mom died, did you ever go to therapy?"

"Nope. Dad tried to make me, but I'm not the talkie-type. My therapy is a Glock 27."

"Glock?" Kurt searched through his mind. He knew he'd heard that word before. "You shoot?" David nodded. "Depression and a handgun…that sounds like a winning combination."

David chuckled at that. "No, a winning combination would be depression, a handgun, and al-key-hall." When he saw Kurt's eyes go wide, obviously not picking up the joking nature of his comment, he continued on. "Seriously, though. I don't shoot when I'm upset. I do it when I'm not upset and I find I get upset less often as a result. You wanna come to the range with me sometime?"

"Lemme think about that…no."

David shrugged. "The offer stands. You ever change your mind, just ask. I think you'd enjoy getting your hands on a Smith and Wesson 617, though." David stood on the rung at the back of the shopping cart and rolled himself along. "Do you think having the therapist will help you?"

"I…don't know. I mean, I really hope so; but, I just don't know. I love Alex, and it hurts me that I can't really feel the love I know I have for him. Not like I did those first few weeks, anyway. It's kind of like those depression medication commercials with the sad little rock or circle-thing with the rainy cloud that just followed him around."

"For me, it's like there's a black hole inside me. When I get depressed, it just sucks everything out of me until I want to do nothing but sleep."

"It's like happiness is nothing but a dream. Something nice to think about, but never going to happen."

"Dementors. It's like you've got a dementor following you."

"Exactly. Any suggestions?"

David was quiet as he looked over various closet organizers; pant racks that hung from the back of the closet door, sticks with holes in them that hung in the closet and allowed you to hang your shirts at different heights so you could fit more in, tie and belt hangers, and other things he didn't know he apparently needed in his life. "Moderation. You've got to know when it's ok to just…break down. It is ok to break down, you know; you just can't let the need to break down control you. At the same time, you need to know when you have to just power through it. And the crap about physical activity curing or treating depression is bullshit. I've always thought it was bullshit, but a study came out recently that confirmed it's bull. Everyone has their own coping mechanisms, and it's important that you find your own strategy. You're kind of touchy-feely, so I think just having a trained professional to talk to will help you a lot."

"That's what I'm hoping."

xoxoxo

"I think the hardest part was that it snuck up on me so slowly that by the time I realized I was depressed it was almost too overwhelming to deal with." Burt Hummel had started the quest to get Kurt a shrink the Monday after Kurt's revelation. It had taken two weeks to find a therapist that would be a good fit for Kurt: i.e. someone who was experienced with postpartum depression cases and wouldn't be bothered by the fact that Kurt was a homosexual dating an unhuman. It had been more difficult than Burt expected. But Kurt had been seeing her for a little over a week, at twice a week, and it already seemed to be helping a little; talking helped Kurt organize his thoughts and feelings so he could analyze them and deal with them, better.

"That can often be the case with depression. The three typical experiences with depression I get are that it has become such a long-standing, pervasive aspect of the person's life that they can't even remember a time before the depression; it happens gradually, such as in your case, so that a person almost doesn't realize that they need help until the feelings become more than they can handle; or something traumatic happens and sets off a sudden bought of depression."

"My friend David's got that last kind. He watched his mom get killed by a werewolf and it kind of sent him into a spiral." Kurt had expected the therapist to be like a court stenographer, frantically copying every sound, every expression, every mannerism Kurt made. She was very calm though, only occasionally looking down at her note pad to make a jot here and a notation there. "We've only been friends a few months now, but I've known him for years. I never really noticed him before last year, though. Never had a reason to notice him. The better I get to know him, the more tiny memories of him keep popping up. I suppose it's because I have a name and emotional connection to attach to the face now. Part of me remembers seeing him around school after his mom died. He was just a quiet, shy, chubby kid with a short temper…I think, what with Alex being a werewolf and everything, that things have been harder for him lately. But, at the same time, I think he's actually getting better about things. Being around Alex has mellowed him a lot…and I don't think he's as much a species-ist as he was before."

"We talk a lot about David."

Kurt felt that there was a question buried in that observation somewhere, but wasn't entirely certain what the question was, so he responded with his first thought, "David's my friend. He was there when Alex was born…I told you about that, already. He and Alex are close; he's there for me at the drop of a hat; I'm his fabulous gay mentor; he was my bodyguard for a while last year. We have a history together." He hoped he said 'history' in such a way that Ms. Langlin wouldn't press for details: she didn't. "He's quickly becoming my best friend. To be fair, though, Mercedes and I haven't been as close since I transferred back to McKinley. She and I both grew a lot during that time."

"Do you ever think of David as more than a friend?"

Kurt bit the inside of his cheek. "I have enough stress in my life right now. I can't afford to ask questions like that."