Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, nor do I completely own Nick and Jeff (although I'm pretty much creating their personalities myself since we haven't gotten to know them too well on the show).

A/n: So I realized recently that I've been writing all of these as if there is an established relationship between Jeff and Nick for a while now, so I thought that maybe we needed a little bit of unrequited love thrown into the mix. Because it's kind of adorable.

Hat

Nick hated that hat. More than anything else he had ever seen, Nick absolutely could not stand Jeff's old beaten-up ski hat. The trouble was, that hat hardly ever left Jeff's head during the winter, meaning that Nick really couldn't do anything about it.

Which was precisely why Nick watched and waited for his opportunity, when Jeff was knocked out with Nyquil thanks to the killer cold virus that had swept through campus literally within a period of two days. Jeff was a heavy sleeper on a normal basis, but with the addition of Nyquil he would be a living, breathing rock for at least six hours.

Nick pretended to go to sleep along with his roommate, but in reality he was just waiting to hear the blonde boy snoring, so that he could snatch the knit hat off the boy's head and find somewhere to hide it until he could dispose of it properly while Jeff was gone somewhere else. It was kind of hard for Nick to pull himself away from staring at Jeff. The truth was that Nick… well, he was kind of falling for Jeff. Hard. Which was weird, considering the fact that Nick hadn't ever really felt that way about a boy before. He didn't really have any experience falling for a guy… or really for anyone, for that matter. So it was really hard to avoid staring as his roommate slept peacefully, despite the way he snored thanks to his cold.

Nick finally shook himself out of his reverie, snatching the hat off his roommate's head and hastily stuffed it underneath the bag in his wastebasket to be disposed of properly later.

When Jeff woke up the next morning, Nick was the first one to know about it. "Fuck! Where's my hat?" Nick opened his eyes, groaning as he realized that it was still about thirty minutes before he had to get up to go to class.

"What are you talking about?" Nick asked.

"My hat! The one my grandfather gave me… it's missing!" Nick raised an eyebrow; he'd never known that the hat was a present from the boy's grandfather. He sat up, watching as Jeff tore his bed apart looking for the awful knit monstrosity. It wasn't until Nick saw that the boy was starting to cry that he got up, determined to figure out what the problem was.

"Jeff… what's wrong? Why are you crying?"

"It… it was a present from Papa. It was the last thing he gave me…" Nick hurriedly stood up, rushing over to Jeff and wrapping his arms around the taller boy, letting him rest his head against Nick's shoulder.

"Shh… it's okay…"

"No, Nick… it's not! I need that hat back! It's the only thing I have left of him…" Nick sighed, walking over to the wastebasket and pulling out the hat.

"I'm sorry… I didn't know it was that important to you…" Nick began. He handed the hat back to Jeff. "I was going to get rid of it, get you a new one." Nick watched as Jeff looked down at the hat.

"You… you took my hat?"

"It was just so ratty… I was going to replace it for you, give you something nicer to wear instead of that," Nick explained. "I honestly didn't know that it meant something to you. If I'd known, I never would have taken it."

"You took my hat…"

"I really am sorry… I didn't know." Nick watched his roommate's face, wishing that the other boy would give him some kind of reaction to show that they were okay." Finally the boy sighed.

"I guess I should probably retire this hat before I ruin it…" Jeff began. Nick smiled.

"Like I said, I'll get you a new one."