A/N: Warning for mild Samcedes toward the end, including implied kink.

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Your big dream is crashing down and out your door
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Santana's work has gotten weirder. The remodel has been finished since just before Halloween, and Stu had approached her and Helen and asked them if they wanted to stay overnight. Santana had said yes, because she knows she can't deal with customers, and she knows Stu knows (there may have been a incident, during that last hour the store was open during Santana's shift, in which she'd snapped at a woman who was rude to her and then went to hide in the back room, and Stu may have witnessed it. To be fair, the woman was speaking to her really slowly and simply, and had clearly assumed that she didn't speak English). To her relief, Helen had said she wants to stay overnight, too, because none of the positions open in dayside interest her. Helen is pretty much the only reason Santana likes showing up for work; they spend the entire shift making sarcastic jokes. Helen has a dry sense of humor, made funnier by her stoic personality. It's a little like being friends with a mixture of herself and Quinn.

Stu's proposal had involved letting her and Helen "lead" (in the sense of taking responsibility for, but not getting promoted or paid more) a group in the new fresh food section the remodel had produced. They're promised five days a week, four to deal with food deliveries, and one extra day each to maintain the section. They shrug and accept. They don't really have any other reasonable options.

It's not that bad at first, until they're told they also need to go into the back room refrigerators and freezer. Helen knows how deal with products stored in the back room, but neither of them have been officially trained. Still, Helen trains Santana, and then, in a bizarre twist, fills out her own training paperwork. Then Stu comes by, telling them both they just need to sign a paper and their training will be complete.

"This paper says I've been trained on the power pallet-jack. And the cardboard baler." Santana says uncertainly, "I definitely haven't."

"Yeah, I know, it's okay. You'll never need that. Just sign it, it's just for paperwork purposes," Stu responds unconcernedly.

Santana reluctantly signs, even though it feels really wrong, and Helen does the same, shrugging and telling Santana almost all her training has been this piecemeal and inaccurate.

The coolers and freezer are hellish. Well, the coolers aren't so bad; Santana just starts bringing a sweatshirt to work and they are provided with hats and gloves and they're fine. The freezer is awful. The thermometer next to it reads -15 degrees, and even though they're provided with insulated snowpants and jackets (all sized extra large, so Santana almost swims in them), Santana can feel her eyelashes freezing within five minutes, although she can't always feel her nose run until it actually drips onto her collar, which is just disgusting. If she and Helen are both there, it only takes them about twenty minutes to finish sorting out all the food the computer system tells them was sold that day, but alone, it obviously takes about double that time, and Santana's hands and feet are so cold that she feels like she's going to throw up—which, she never knew could even happen. They then have to take everything out and put it properly in the freezers and refrigerators on the sales floor, and if some of it doesn't fit, they have to go back in the freezer to file it away again.

It's at this point that Santana starts to really hate her job.

After Halloween, Kurt off-handedly mentions that his job had gotten rid of the seasonal workers, and in the process, had angered a few regular employees, who had quit. This means he has a ton of extra hours, overtime, even, and Rachel reads between the lines and realizes she can apply there. She does.

Kurt freaks out a little when she asks him to be a reference, "Rachel…don't take this the wrong way, because your fashion sense has been improving over time…but are you sure you want to work in a clothing store?"

Rachel huffs, offended, "I didn't realize I'd be called upon to make executive fashion decisions. I'm fairly certain the job description of 'sales clerk' involves ringing the cash register and restocking clothing."

Kurt sighs, and says, "Okay, but let me dress you for your job interview. I won't have you embarrass me."

Rachel fumes, growls, "Fine, if it means that much more to you than our friendship!" and stalks to her bedroom in possibly the least intense diva storm-out Santana has seen to date. She doesn't even slam the door.

Santana, drinking a pre-work coffee in the living room, gives Kurt a pointed look when he turns to her helplessly. His eyes drop immediately and he murmurs, "Yeah. You're right."

He grabs a notepad and pen from the kitchen junk drawer and Santana vaguely reads his short apology note that basically says, "sorry I'm so appearance conscious; my friendship with you comes first, and I'm an asshole for not recognizing that sooner." She smiles as he tucks it under her door and shuts himself in his own room in shame.

A few minutes later, Rachel comes out with a tremulous smile, knocks on his door just to murmur, "Apology accepted," before disappearing into her own room again.

Santana figures this is the end of it and heads to work, which is a clusterfuck. After she and Helen deal with the freezers and coolers, they keep finding rotting and expired food as they stock the grocery section. They tell Stu there's obviously a problem and he allows them to spend most of the night finding disgusting food and attempted to gross-out each other to find the most out-of-date thing—which turns out to be multiple packages of basil that somehow ended up on their shelves even though they expired before the fresh food section was even open.

By the time she wakes up the next day, it's clear that Rachel has gotten the job, because she and Kurt are chattering excitedly in the living room. They work together that weekend. She hears Kurt asking if Rachel saw the "extreme hipster" working the floor that day and both dissolve into giggles again. Santana just rolls her eyes, but she's glad they seem to have put the incident behind them.

It's odd, though, when that entire weekend, Kurt comes back from work alone at around 9. He always just says Rachel is on campus, practicing, and Santana encourages him to meet her as she comes home on the subway so that she doesn't have to walk alone, but she can't exactly guess why Rachel might be on-campus that late at night.

By Monday, things make more sense. When Santana wakes up a bit past 1, Rachel is just coming back from being on campus. Kurt has the day off and is watching King of the Hill, for god knows what reason. They both greet Rachel distractedly, exchanging a troubled look when they see her holding a familiarly wrinkled envelope to her chest that she takes to her room. When Santana settles next to Kurt on the couch and begins to eat, he asks casually, "Are you going for a run today?"

Santana shrugs. She's been trying to go running most days, but sometimes she just can't force herself to go. And, since daylight savings time ended, it's suddenly dark at the time she normally likes to go running—at around 4—which has thrown a wrench in her fitness plans, because she really doesn't want to go running in the dark in her neighborhood. But Kurt goes with her sometimes, to her surprise; she had thought he was allergic to sweat. When she'd pointed this out, he'd shuddered violently and had told her that, believe him, he loathed sweat, but wanted to stay sexy for Blaine.

"I might. I got up early enough that I might actually be ready before it gets dark. You want to go?" Running is different when Kurt goes with her. When she goes by herself, she just focuses on the route, which is basically the same every day, but Kurt likes to switch things up, go down roads they haven't run on before, and he likes to try to talk during. And he makes her laugh during, which just slows her down, but it's fun in its own way. She's also somewhat surprised they run at about the same pace, because, while Kurt was never quite as athletic as she is, his body has definitely become toned over the years she's known him, not to mention he is male and about half a foot taller than she is. But he doesn't really have long legs. So it works, somehow.

"Probably, yeah," he responds, and they lapse into silence.

After a few minutes, they both warily look up as they realize simultaneously that Rachel is standing across from them, hands on her hips, her face theatrically determined.

"So," Rachel reports, and with a scowl, Kurt pauses Netflix, "I have several auditions this week. Two for on-campus productions, and one for an off-Broadway show. I feel pretty confident about the productions on-campus, but the off-Broadway, which is tomorrow, is understandably intimidating."

Santana just nods dumbly, noting vaguely that, next to her, Kurt's spine has straightened.

"I've been practicing for weeks now, and I would like to get your opinions on my audition selections."

"Whatever, sure," Santana says neutrally, glancing at Kurt, who just works his jaw for a moment and nods.

Rachel nods and strides in front of the television, straightens her shoulders, beams and says, "I'm going to be performing 'Wouldn't It be Loverly?' from My Fair Lady."

Kurt snorts at this, and loudly. Santana glances at him, surprised, and Rachel looks hurt, "Kurt?" she questions.

"Seriously, Rachel? With the Cockney accent or without? Because if you don't have to accent down, don't bother."

"With the accent, thank you," Rachel answers, with more patience than Santana expected, "It's a matter of mimicry. I can handle it for just one song."

"Right, right, sure," Kurt drawls.

"I think it could be good," Santana breaks in, "It shows you're not afraid of a challenge, that you're versatile. That's the idea, right?"

"Thank you, Santana," Rachel says quietly, but they both see Kurt roll his eyes.

Rachel's smile falters, but then she hums for a second to get her pitch and then begins to sing. Santana doesn't know this song—she likes some musicals, but mostly stuff that happened after at least 1970, or musical films—and she has to admit she doesn't know for sure what the accent Kurt was talking about is supposed to sound like, but Rachel is rolling vowels around in her mouth in an exaggerated way that seems right, like the vaguely annoying quality her voice is taking on is supposed to be there. Kurt just folds his arms through the song.

Santana applauds lightly at the end, after the last soft, drawn out "loverly," and Kurt grunts, "It's definitely not good enough."

Santana raises her eyebrows at him, "Seriously? I thought it was…it was good, okay?" she grinds out reluctantly, "Look, I'm not a Broadway diva like you two, and I don't know this song, but I know when something sounds good. She was clear and confident."

"Yeah, she sounded great, all right," Kurt mocks, "Spot-on accent and all." He gets up. "Yeah, good luck with that," he says pointedly as he goes into his room.

Tears are swimming in Rachel's eyes as she darts past the couch into their bedroom. Santana puts her face in her hands, and in that moment, it makes sense. She must've been too tired to put it together before. She had felt a dull sense of jealousy when Rachel had told her she was about to try out for an off-Broadway play and had wondered, why didn't Rachel tell me about this? Kurt must be feeling that times about a hundred right now, because that was so much more his dream than Santana's and…

She grabs her phone to text Quinn.

Tana: SOS K had a jealousy freakout
over R trying out for shows and now
Rachel's cryin in our room. I know ur
better at cheerin her up than me, can u
call her?

Q: On it.

Quinn responds so quickly it almost scares her when her phone buzzes in her hand, and as soon as she hears Rachel's phone blaring the Buffy theme song (she'd finally changed it; Santana supposed it was getting confusing to have both her ringtone and her texttone be a clip from "Defying Gravity"), Santana knocks on Kurt's door, ready to tear him a new one.

Because, she can't even really say when or how it happened, but she really doesn't like to see Rachel Berry upset.

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It was you who once again quickened my spirit
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Rachel is crying in her room, from a mixture of frustration and despair. Things with Kurt were going so well, she felt sure they were back to being close-to best friends again, and Kurt, as far as she can tell, has no reason to be this petty. He had flat-out assured he when he asked to move up that he was over NYADA, and she feels certain he wouldn't have come up if he were still upset about that. But he's also brutally honest to a fault, and though brutal is definitely more of the word here, there must be some truth to it. He isn't the type of person to lie about something like this. So she figures there must've been something wrong with her performance, which is baffling, because she's been working on it really hard.

So really, there's no point in trying out. She's clearly not ready.

Her phone blares to life and she jumps a little, wiping her eyes. A slight smile peeks out when she sees that it's Quinn, but when she answers, she knows her voice is lower than normal, and winces at her less-than-peppy tone.

"Hello, Quinn."

"Hey, Rach," Quinn greets warmly, "I wanted to tell you to break a leg for your audition today. At least, I think it's today."

"Thank you. And no, it's tomorrow." She knows she sounds dull, lifeless, but she just can't force herself to sound happy. She doesn't want to be fake around Quinn.

There's a pause, and Quinn hesitantly queries, "Are you nervous? You sound…"

Rachel sighs heavily and then mutters, "I'm…reconsidering auditioning."

"Oh. Why?" Quinn asks, and her voice is forced neutrality; Rachel knows Quinn must be disappointed in her, and it makes her ache, but…

"Kurt…made me realize I'm not ready."

"Kurt did, huh?" Quinn says, her voice just a touch dry. "What did he say?"

"Shouldn't you be in class right now?" Rachel asks, suddenly noting the time, and maybe she does have Quinn's schedule memorized; she doesn't want to embarrass her best friend by texting her in the middle of class just on the off-chance that Quinn forgets to silence her phone…

"Cancelled," Quinn responds breezily, "And nice deflection there."

"I learned from the best," Rachel shoots back, smiling a little in spite of herself. It occurs to her vaguely that Quinn hasn't been very deflective lately. She's been open, at least, about some things—when asked directly. But she still doesn't volunteer much information about herself.

"You wound me," Quinn drawls wryly, "And because I'm the best, don't think I didn't notice that that was another deflection. So tell me. What did Kurt say?"

Rachel gnaws her lip and then sighs, "He just…he told me my song wasn't nearly ready. Told me my accent was wrong—you remember the song I chose, right?" Quinn hums her assent, "And just…said I wasn't good."

There's silence for a few seconds, and then Quinn softly says, "Rachel, you do know that Kurt is jealous of you, right?"

Rachel scoffs before she can help it, "He was, but we moved past that. That's not it."

"No, he wants to move past it, but he definitely hasn't. Can you imagine how hard it must be for him to live with you, to watch you going to the classes he wishes he could go to, trying out for things he wishes he could?"

Tears prick Rachel's eyes without warning, "I'm not rubbing it in his face—" she starts defensively, and Quinn—

"I know, sweetie," she soothes, "It's his problem, and he will get past it, but meanwhile…you can't let his jealousy force you to hide how amazing you are. And you are amazing, and so talented. And I believe in you."

The tears in Rachel's eyes are there for an entirely different reason this time, and she manages to croak, "You do?"

"Of course I do. And I'll tell you any time you forget. You're a shining star." Quinn's voice is that low, soothing purr that just makes Rachel close her eyes to experience it more.

"Thank you," she breathes.

"No need for that. You can thank me by singing your little heart out at your auditions." The smile is evident in Quinn's voice, "But now, I'd better get back to class."

"Quinn Fabray! You told me it was cancelled!" Rachel squeals.

"I lied. You're more important." Quinn laughs, "Talk to you later, Rach. Break a leg!"

Quinn hangs up after Rachel murmurs "Thanks," once more and Rachel just sits and smiles at her phone for a moment. She shakes her head. How did Quinn know she needed to leave class to call her? Did Santana…? But then, how would Santana know that Quinn was exactly the person Rachel needed to hear from? Maybe she or Quinn were just a little bit psychic, like she was.

A few minutes later, there's a knock on the door. "Come in," she says softly.

Santana enters first, her eyes fierce, and Kurt follows, his eyes downcast. Santana stands by her bed with her arms folded, like a guard dog, while Kurt approaches Rachel, swallowing.

"I'm so sorry," he says, "I was…I was an inconsiderate imbecile. I should have been proud of you, but I was jealous and insecure…"

"I'm sorry, too," Rachel starts to say.

Santana interrupts sharply, "You have nothing to apologize for, Rachel."

She shakes her head, because, though she didn't intend it maliciously, she knows, however thoughtlessly, that she made the decision not to share audition information. Perhaps instinctually hoarding opportunities, she wanted to be the only one trying out. "No, I do. Kurt, I'm sorry that I haven't been encouraging you to audition with me. And you, too, Santana. I have my ear to the ground for these things at school, and I should be sharing the information with you. I should be helping you two with your dreams. I just…Santana, your schedule is so weird, and Kurt, you just got to town, I didn't know if you were ready…"

"Don't," Kurt says, staring at his house-slipper clad feet, "I should be looking, too. It's my responsibility. And I need to learn to be proud of you instead of jealous—and I'm working on that, I really am. You're an amazing person and a great friend to even be talking to me right now," he finishes with the ghost of a smile.

"It's because you're amazing," she returns, "I admire so much about you, Kurt. You're brave, and honest, and unapologetically you! You are so much more true to yourself than anyone else I know."

Kurt smiles a little at her compliments and responds lightly, "I dunno, you're pretty true to yourself, too," and shoots Santana a glance. She smiles and nods her agreement.

To their surprise, Rachel's gaze shoots away and she mashes her lips together, shaking her head slightly. "No," she says softly, "You are a far truer person than I."

Exchanging an equally bewildered glance with Santana, Kurt decides to drop it and asks playfully, "Are you going to hug me now?"

"Of course, both of you," Rachel breathes, standing quickly to squeeze Kurt and then Santana, who accepts and pats her back awkwardly, but gives Kurt an approving smile over Rachel's shoulder.

Kurt relaxes and pulls a surprised Rachel into another hug, whispering, "Break a leg. You sound great."

The beam he receives in response washes a bit of the envy from his brain.

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Apparently I'm digging it in
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It's been several days since Santana told him to get his shit together (her words) and stop begrudging Rachel her chances out of jealousy, and subsequently he and Rachel hugged it out, so to speak. She had gone to her auditions, and though she hasn't heard definitively about the on-campus productions, she did hear from the off-Broadway one. She'd been told they didn't think they had a part for her in this production, but she had been given information for several forthcoming productions they or their connections were planning, and was encouraged to please come back and try out for those, which…Kurt consciously quashes his jealousy, because that's good, they didn't just brush her off…

Although he has to laugh when he finds out they tell her that, due to her height, some of the other roles they think she should go for are to play characters barely more than kids, and…yeah. That does make him feel better, but then he finds himself worrying about the kinds of roles he could be considered for, because…how many roles are there for guys with a hell of a countertenor, anyway?

Otherwise, he's just been involved with a lot of work, which is necessary to afford living there. Thankfully, they like him there, and so far he's kept pretty regular hours. He's torn between being happy to be out of Lima and feeling slightly nostalgic—not just for Blaine, but because of the phone call he'd shared with his family earlier in the week, after his father had won the election—something that had overshadowed every other election result of the day for him. Even though they'd been fairly certain he would—polls had put him ahead through most of the campaign—it didn't stop him from squealing and crying on the phone in excitement, and then letting Carole talk his ear off about how crazy it was going to be handling two households after January and about how DC was closer than Lima, so maybe he could visit there? It was nice, and exciting, and all he had wanted to do was hug his father in congratulations.

But he'll see him before too long, because they're starting to make plans to go home for Thanksgiving. Santana had been sighing and wringing her hands about work all day yesterday. She had requested off to go home for Thanksgiving with them, and it had been approved, but when she saw the new schedule, she had been scheduled on the days she'd been, supposedly, given off. After raging for a good while, then stressing about whether it could put her job in jeopardy to tell her supervisor about the error, she'd apparently finally approached him and gotten the time off. Her friend Helen, she reports, had been impressed, because apparently Black Friday is a "blackout" day in scheduling, meaning no one can request off, but Santana had managed it. She says it's probably because everyone knows she's lousy at customer service and she'd never been trained to ring register, and all of this is fine with her—if she never has to speak to a customer again, she'll be happy.

It's also Friday, which means it's time for his and Mercedes's weekly Skype date. It had been a regular thing when Kurt was still in Lima, and his schedule hadn't been much more than occasional hours at the auto shop, time with Blaine, and time with Sam and the rest of the family, but now that his schedule varies so much, and Mercedes's school is getting crazier, they have been struggling to schedule them.

Santana is lucky enough to have off on this miserable, rainy evening and is lounging around in what she calls pajamas, but what Kurt would call glorified underwear (what looks like men's boxers and a men's undershirt), and she just nods to him and Rachel, who had worked with Kurt today, when they come home. Rachel had checked the mail as they'd come into the apartment and is now disappearing into her bedroom with an envelope.

He hears Santana's heavy sigh as her dark eyes follow Rachel's movement, and she grumbles, "If I have to listen to 'Can't Help Lovin' That Man' one more time…" and he twists his mouth and nods his agreement. He loves the song, of course, and Barbra definitely does one of the best versions that he's heard, but the fact that Rachel's become recently obsessed with it is definitely troubling. He hopes it means she's focusing on the bad parts of Finn, but he really can't know.

He had asked Rachel on the way home as they huddled under her umbrella together and now asks Santana if she Skypes with Mercedes, too, and her response is similar to Rachel's—they mostly keep in touch on Facebook and occasionally text. They exchange messages back and forth sometimes, but mostly it's a matter of commenting on each other's statuses, which…that's been a blessing. Pretty much everyone in the Glee club is on Facebook daily, and usually there's at least one thing to comment on. They even got Rachel to join Facebook just before graduation, because most of them didn't even have Myspace anymore, and those that did hadn't been on in years—Kurt's pretty sure he was way ahead of the curve when he deleted his account in eighth grade on Delete Your Myspace Account Day. But Facebook has made the distance seem not so bad, at least between friends; the distance between himself and Blaine is still torture.

Speaking of, when he launches Chrome after turning on his computer when he gets home from work, he sees he has a Facebook message and goes to check it.

It's from David Karofsky, and he can't help his surprise. He had…well, after David's suicide attempt, he hadn't heard much from him, even though it had felt like they might be on the path to friendship. It was too strange, with how responsible Kurt felt for his hospitalization, with how he now knew David felt about him, but they'd liked each other's statuses a few times on Facebook, and that had felt like something, and…

Now, here is David saying, "I just wanted to let you know that I reached out to Blaine last month, and we're working on being friends. We hung out for the first time yesterday. It's great to have someone here in Lima who can kind of understand what I'm going through, but it's made me realize I wish you and I had a real chance at friendship. I hope it's not too late for that. I've had to reassure Blaine that this whole thing isn't a way for me to get closer to you, had to tell him I'm over you, which is pretty much true, and I hope we can go from there."

And, of course, Kurt tells him, "I'd like that very much, and I'm glad Blaine is there for you," and proceeds to tell him about New York so far. Because, this sort of casual conversation is exactly where to start, as far as he knows.

It's weird, though, that Blaine hasn't mentioned this. Maybe Blaine doesn't really trust David and is waiting to see what will happen, but who knows?

He waits about ten minutes for Rachel to come back out to the living room, noting the watery look of her eyes and the forced smile. "What do you guys think we should do for dinner?" she asks.

Kurt shrugs, "I was just going to stir fry some broccoli or something, mix up a little Thai peanut sauce. I'm about to Skype Mercedes, though, do you want to say hi?"

"Of course!" Rachel smiles excitedly.

Kurt signs on and sees the little green phone next to Mercedes Jones's icon, and grins. After a moment, her incoming call pops up and he answers.

"Took you long enough, girl," Mercedes grumbles at him good-naturedly, "I should've known to tell you fifteen minutes earlier, then you'd be on-time."

Kurt laughs, "Hi, Mercedes."

"Hi, Mercedes!" Rachel echoes, leaning over the couch behind Kurt so her face is in the shot.

Santana grins and leans over and rests her head on Kurt's shoulder so that she's in the shot, too, "Hey, Aretha!" she greets, all the bite gone from her old mocking insult.

"Woah!" Mercedes smiles, "Hey, ladies! I didn't know you all'd be home!"

"Yeah, it's a shame we're not talking on a Quinn weekend," Kurt offers, "she practically lives here, too." It's an exaggeration, obviously, but it feels very natural every time she visits, that it seems like she belongs there.

Mercedes smiles fondly, "Oh, I know. She's so happy every time she gets to visit you guys. But it's so good to see all your faces!"

"You, too. You look great!" Rachel gushes, and Kurt nods his agreement. The west coast has been good for Mercedes. Even juggling classes and her budding music career, Mercedes looks well-rested and laid-back, and her hair is in simple soft waves and from what Kurt can see she's wearing an attractive off the shoulder blouse.

"Yeah, how's LA?" Santana asks, lifting her head from Kurt's shoulder so that she's only partially in the camera now.

"Busy. But great," Mercedes keeps it succinct, knowing that Santana and Rachel have gotten more detail from Facebook and texting than she needs to give at the moment.

Rachel excuses herself to go try to throw together dinner, asking Kurt if he wants her to make that vegetable stir-fry, which he politely declines, because he knows she'll end up making it in the microwave, and to him, stir fry means actually using a pan; he doesn't want soggy vegetables. Santana leans back over onto her side of the couch and picks her laptop back up, but half-listens to his conversation with Mercedes, occasionally cutting into it.

The conversation is mostly casual. Kurt updates her on his job, talks a little bit about how he occasionally gets to hang with Rachel on the job, but they are usually in different parts of the store, talks about some of their weird coworkers (the extreme hipster who meows quietly to himself, the gay guy who makes up stories about his drag queen alter ego that everyone pretends to believe, the exhausted grad student manager that everyone calls over to deal with difficult customers because she pretty much has a pass to be as rude as she wants).

Mercedes updates him on her classes and singing, and the classes are beginning to get crazy, and she has some upcoming studio time, but there aren't too many interesting specifics on either front. Then she smiles and says, "I went on a date last night."

"Oh?" Kurt asks, grinning, noting Santana glancing over with an expression of mild surprise, and sensing that Rachel has stopped what she's doing in the kitchen and is peeking into the living room to listen.

"Yeah," Mercedes says, "Nice guy. Kinda scrawny. I thought he was gay when I first met him, actually," she says thoughtfully.

Kurt laughs, "Well, I thought the same about Sam, and let's not forget your crush on me…You may have a type."

Mercedes rolls her eyes, but doesn't comment, instead continuing, "He's not a singer—he's a flautist, actually, so I dunno if that's gonna work out. But, ya know. I'm not looking for serious, and we had fun. I might see him again, just to have a good time."

"That's great," Kurt smiles, "One of us has to be a heartbreaker right now."

Mercedes laughs, and says, "Oh, you're probably breaking them and you don't even know it. I'm just playing a more active role."

They laugh, and disconnect after a few more minutes of small talk. By this time, Rachel has settled in the armchair with a bowl of macaroni and vegan cheese mixed with peas. "Mercedes went on a date?" she asks, mildly confused.

"Yeah! Good for her, right?" Kurt responds, seeing Rachel and Santana exchange a concerned and confused look, "What?"

"Isn't she…seeing Sam?" Rachel asks tentatively.

Kurt raises an eyebrow and then says, "No?"

"Really?" Rachel presses.

"Yes, really," Kurt responds, "Look, I'm not entirely clear how they work, because I know they care a lot about each other, but I know that Sam made a point to…set her free, I suppose, when she went to California. He wants her to focus on herself and her career, and doesn't want to be a distraction." He smiles a little and shrugs, "Of course, that doesn't mean they don't talk frequently and probably love each other deeply. And I really assume that once Sam graduates, they will get back together."

"That's cool, I guess," Santana says uncertainly, "It's not something I'm capable of."

"Oh, me neither," Kurt cuts in, "I'm far too selfish to take that kind of chance on Blaine. I'd rather…weather the distance. But I've got to respect Sam's sacrifice."

Santana chews her lip, frowning a little, and her eyes shoot to Rachel, which confuses Kurt. He then takes note of Rachel's distant expression.

When she notices Santana and Kurt looking at her, she gives a small smile and says with forced nonchalance, "Yes. I'm glad Sam and Mercedes found what works for them. I do hope they get back together someday, though, because they clearly think so highly of one another."

And when she looks back down at her food thoughtfully, Kurt glances at Santana and catches her tight-lipped glare. He's bewildered for a moment, until…

Shit. Finn.

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It's me who's feeling strange
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When Kurt and Rachel come home after work the next evening, shaking out umbrellas and looking disgruntled with pants wet up to their knees (yes, Rachel had worn pants that day; Santana had nearly laughed out loud in shock at her fitted slacks), Rachel is holding multiple fancy-looking envelopes, and she distributes them to each roommate. Santana is the first to open hers, since she just tends to shred into them rather than opening carefully, the way Rachel and Kurt do. "Oh, it's the invitation to Mr. Schue and Ms. Pillsbury's wedding," she reports.

Everyone had gotten the save-the-date over the summer, but here, just shy of two weeks before the wedding itself (which is the day after Thanksgiving), the invitations finally arrive. Santana's not all that surprised—Glee club had demonstrated that Mr. Schue is a chronic procrastinator—although she'd thought that maybe Ms. Pillsbury's neurosis would have forced Mr. Schue to get things like this on track, but apparently not.

She reads the invitation and the small insert. The insert informs her that he wants current and former members of the Glee club to be his wedding party, says he has clothes currently being made based on their measurements for Nationals last year (here Santana bites her lip and hopes she hasn't gained weight, as she fears), and that he pretty much just wants them to process in and sing "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Somebody to Love" at different times during the ceremony, which…well, she's pretty sure both those songs have been drilled into her head permanently, from all the times they warmed up with them, and figures Mr. Schue is making the current Glee club practice them as well, so…

She glances up to see Rachel and Kurt reading their invitations and then says, "Okay, am I the only one who thinks it's weird that we're his wedding party?" At Kurt's sharp look, she continues, "Look, it's different than your dad's wedding, that was pretty spontaneous and he put you in charge of planning, so having us there was like, making the best of what you guys had available. But like. Doesn't Mr. Schue have some adults he could have incorporated in the months he's been planning this wedding?"

Kurt smirks and Rachel shrugs and says, "Well, Glee club has basically been his life for years. I think it's nice that he wants to share his special day with us."

"Yeah, I guess so, but man…he was our teacher, you know? It's just…weird."

Rachel giggles at this and says, "I'm not disagreeing, it's very weird, but I can see why he chose it this way."

"This will be a mess," Kurt muses, "There's no rehearsal dinner or anything, we'll just be…winging it."

"So it's gonna be like, every competition we were in, ever?" Santana asks pointedly, and they all laugh.

.
What is behind that curtain?
.

After her Skype date with Kurt, Mercedes checks the time. It's getting late in Ohio, but she wants to talk to Sam, so she texts him to see if he's still awake. It occurs to her that he might be working that night, and sometimes a last-minute pizza order pushes the time he gets out of work back by almost an hour. Inevitably, the last-minute pizza orderer doesn't tip.

Sam gets the text just as he is tossing his jacket onto the desk chair in his room, exhausted from his night of delivering pizzas—Friday is always hellish. He smiles tiredly and calls Mercedes in response.

"Hey!" she greets warmly, and his tired smile shifts into a much more content one.

"How are you?" he asks, settling back onto his bed, and for awhile they give little life updates, though there's not much to report, except that Sectionals is next weekend and, as usual, they still don't know what they're singing, because they're spending too much time practicing music for Mr. Schue's wedding. They also finally got a twelfth member only about a week ago; Brittany had convinced Ashley, one of the Cheerios who had danced with the Troubletones the year before, to join. Mercedes just laughs and sighs in response to the typical New Directions scramblings, but Sam assures her that the leadership board is meeting tomorrow to select some numbers.

As she finishes telling him about the new piece of music she's been given to learn for her next studio day, he begins to sense her hesitation. He gives her a moment, but when he can still hear her uncertain breaths, he finally asks, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she says quickly, "I just…I went on a date last night."

Sam braces himself at the words, waiting for the wave of jealousy, waiting to wince, but it doesn't happen. "Oh, yeah?" he says, surprised at how…eager his voice comes out.

"Yeah," Mercedes says quietly, "Nice guy. Cute, I guess. I don't think it'll be serious, but…"

"Did you kiss him?" Sam blurts, shocking himself at the outburst.

"Sam…" Mercedes sighs, her nervousness giving way to a disappointed exhaustion.

"No, no," Sam clarifies, struggling to articulate why he asked, "I just…I'm not jealous," when Mercedes sighs again, he emphasizes, "I'm not. I promise. I just want to know more about your date because I want to hear about you being happy."

Mercedes is silent for a moment, and then finally says quietly, "Yes. We did. It was…nice, I guess."

"Oh," Sam says, his voice light, but not forced and…he pictures it. Some faceless guy, automatically he pictures him built like Kurt, because Kurt's kind of cute for a guy, right? The Faceless Kurt Body Snatcher is kissing Mercedes, and she's smiling into the kiss and enjoying it and…oh.

Sam shifts on the bed for a moment, trying to ignore the…the…

"Are you okay?" Mercedes asks worriedly.

"Yeah. Very, actually," Sam says, and his voice is a bit breathy now. The silence that follows feels heavy, and he continues, "I really like hearing about you happy, Mercedes. I've told you before, I want you to date, I want you to see what's out there. Because if you choose me, I want you to be sure. And I don't want you to hide it from me."

She's silent for a few more moments, and Sam shifts around again, and he's conjuring up other images: Mercedes's hands running down the faceless boy's chest, his hands cupping her breasts, her eyes watching his face with rapt attention, his breath puffing before releasing a little groan, her eyes dark with want, his hips jerking slightly, her hands sliding to his hips, brushing past his…fuck.

When did his pants get this uncomfortable?

"I'm glad you're okay with this," Mercedes finally breathes in relief.

"I am," Sam reassures, his voice thick, but not with sadness. He clears his throat as quietly as he can. "I can't wait to see you for Thanksgiving, though."

"Oh, me neither," she husks, which isn't helping his problem…

He hangs up with her soon afterwards to take care of this startling problem and when he collapses back onto his pillow and stares at his ceiling, he feels a slight measure of panic rising in his chest.

What the hell was that even about?

Additional A/N: Chapter titles from Barcelona, "Come Back When You Can," (another I found through pleasant-hell), Sigur Ros, "Ara Batur" (translated, obviously, accuracy not guaranteed), The Naked and Famous, "The Sun," (pretty sure thanks is owed here to bazinga01's now-defunct Tumblr), Passion Pit, "Smile Upon Me," and Laurie Anderson, "Born, Never Asked." Other songs mentioned are "Wouldn't It Be Loverly" from My Fair Lady, Nerf Herder, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer Theme," "Defying Gravity" from Wicked, "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man," from Show Boat (Barbra sings "That," though), Journey, "Don't Stop Believin'" and Queen, "Somebody to Love."