The air seemed somehow cleaner in the mountains. Maybe it really was; Puck didn't know. It did make for some spectacular views, though. Whatever pictures of mountains he'd seen in the brochure, they had nothing on the actual view from a mountain.

He stood holding his sweaty blue jersey, looking over the edge of the road beside the activities building into a dramatic ravine, and whistled.

"Not much like Ohio, I bet." Hunter slipped his own blue jersey off and came to stand beside Puck, mopping his forehead.

"Nope. It's pretty flat there."

Hunter moved closer to the edge, close enough that Puck had to fight an urge to grab him and pull him away. He grinned at Puck over his shoulder.

"Don't like heights?"

"Don't like falling," he muttered. "Would you… just take a couple steps back?"

"I'm fine. I've walked this road dozens of times." He balanced along the edge of the ravine, pretending to slip at one point, then laughed when Puck swore and grabbed for him. "Don't worry."

"Fuck you," Puck protested. "Get the hell away from there!"

"You weren't worried about falling when we were playing Capture the Flag."

"It's different. There was a job." He had no other explanation. "Come on, I'm starving. What's next?"

"Lunch," said Hunter, falling into step beside him, "then scripture study, then we break out into groups for trust exercises."

"Like the kind where we let somebody catch us?"

"Different than that." Hunter's smile was faint. "Where we talk about all the things we're missing and how we face them, together."

The lunch was just as mediocre as dinner had been. The guys in the kitchen, who Puck had learned were named Juan Pablo and Felipe, welcomed his help in cleaning up afterward. He didn't feel like he needed it as much as he had the night before, but it calmed him anyway. Hunter pitched in a little, too, carrying dishes into the kitchen and making a stack. Cy gave them both another approving nod.

He spent the rest of lunch helping the Banana Boat delivery guy unpack crates of almost-ripe bananas into the kitchen. The delivery guy looked at him a little funny.

"You're not working here, are you?" he asked.

"No," said Puck. "I'm here for Adventure Camp."

"Adventure Camp, huh?" The guy rubbed his tattooed neck, peering out from the kitchen into the eating hall. He dropped his voice. "You kids okay here?"

"Yeah. I think so. I mean, yeah, sure. We're okay."

Puck must have looked as conflicted as he felt, because the guy came in a little closer. Juan Pablo and Felipe watched them with worried eyes.

"It's just, I heard stories about this place," he said quietly. "I know it's not any of my business, but if something funny is going on with you kids… you can say something to me, all right?"

Puck had never been one to ask grownups for help, not even when it was social services. I'm not a snitch, he thought. But in this case, it was the grownups who were doing the shady things — and the kids were kind of asking them to do them, or at least he was. It was a weird position to be in.

"I think we're okay," he said at last. "I am, anyway. But thanks."

"Okay," said the guy. "It's just, my kid's gay, all right? And I think he's great. He don't need anybody telling him he needs to change."

"Even God?" Puck couldn't help asking.

"Especially not him," he said emphatically. "The Bible says he made my kid in his image, right? I think he made my kid just the way he should be."

Puck was able to avoid having to read out loud during scripture study by strategically leaving to use the bathroom just before his turn around the circle. By the time he got back, they were already halfway around again. He mostly tuned out the conversation, which seemed to be a lot like the ones they'd had in his dad's men's group back in Akron.

The small groups, however, presented a different issue, one he hadn't expected to encounter.

"Many of you are here because you want to learn how to have healthy relationships with other boys," Cy said to all of them. "What you need to do is find a safe way to be with one another while you begin to sort through the things in your life that support that goal and those things that are standing in your way. The first thing you'll do, alone or in your group, is to name some things you want to let go of. Then I'll show you a way you can help one another in the process."

"Anybody have something they want to let go?" Hunter asked their group. Trevor and Puck looked at one another.

"Fear?" Trevor said tentatively.

"More concrete than that. Is it a person who scares you? An event?"

Puck sat with this question while the others named the people and situations they wanted to eliminate from their lives. Most of them said they wanted to erase homosexual feelings or thinking about other guys. When they got back to him, he cleared his throat.

"I think maybe… I need to let go of my boyfriend Blaine."

Hunter regarded him dispassionately. "Only him?" he said. Puck knew he meant not the other boyfriends, too?

"His dad won't let me see him anymore." He tried to keep any note of whining out of his voice, no matter how much frustration and despair he might feel about the situation. "If Blaine can't have me — if I have to let go — I think it's better if Blaine doesn't think he has a choice."

"Are you sure?" asked Trevor.

"No," said Puck. "But it's what I would want my boyfriend to do for me." He didn't specify which boyfriend, and he knew it wouldn't occur to anyone except Hunter to think he didn't mean Blaine.

"I've never had anything close to a boyfriend," Trevor said glumly. "But maybe like you're saying, it's better if I don't know what I'm missing."

"That's not exactly what I mean," said Puck. "I've done lots of things with lots of different guys, and I don't regret most of them, even if I don't ever get to do them again."

Trevor sat forward with a hungry, wistful expression. "What do you regret?"

"Mostly stupid stuff. Stuff I should have known better than to try. There was this one time, I went to Fight Club in a nearby town. Beat the crap out of some guy, and got the crap beat out of me, too, until we were all riled up. Then some random guy propositioned me. Took me into the bathroom at the county park and blew me."

"Whoa," Trevor breathed.

"Yeah, it was pretty fucked up. I wish I hadn't done that."

All the guys in their small group looked pretty uncomfortable and squirmy after that. One of them ventured to ask him, "How did you find other boys who wanted to do… stuff with you?"

"That's not really our goal here," Hunter said, but Puck just grinned.

"Everybody wants to do stuff with me," he said. "Boys and girls. They always have. I mostly just went for it. Except for when it came to those people who really mattered. I was too freaked out about wrecking what we had. Then I didn't say anything, for years."

The other boys nodded understanding. Hunter frowned, but before he could say anything else, Cy called their attention up to the front again.

"There is a Talmudic concept of teshuvah," he said, "which means turning away from transgression in one's past. That's what we're doing here. It's a sacred act. Unwanted same-sex attraction comes from an emotional deficit around same-gender bonding. It comes oftentimes from this sense of deficit in our inner sense of masculinity. When we try to close that gap romantically, we fail, because it doesn't address the very thing we're hoping to address, which is loneliness. Right now, we're going to give you a way to help you heal some of that loneliness."

Puck's own memories of last night's dreams of Blaine were very close to the surface, and Cy's words made him ache. He could see Trevor had tears in his eyes.

"Pair up with another member of your small group," said Cy. Trevor turned to him with a questioning look, and Puck nodded. He came to stand close to Puck, looking restless, as Cy went on. "Now, decide who's going to be the giver and who's going to be the receiver."

Now Trevor was positively panicked. "What is he talking about?" he whispered.

"I don't know," said Puck, "but how about I be the receiver?" He wasn't about to make a joke that that was his favorite role anyway. Trevor nodded, swallowing.

"Givers, you're going to sit here on the rug," Cy instructed. "Then you're going to open yourself up to hold your partner, like this." He sat down, spreading his legs wide to make room, while another one of the counselors sat in front of him, resting back against him like a lounge chair.

Now Puck was the one to feel choked by his distress. Finn often held him like this, and Kurt. When Trevor sat down and looked up at him in consternation, Puck had to struggle through a bout of near-panic before he could make himself comply.

"You okay?" Trevor asked nervously.

"Yeah," Puck replied in a low voice. "This is just… familiar."

The lights dimmed as soothing music began to play in the background, and Cy's voice instructed them: "Relax into the embrace of your brother, and know you are safe. This is healthy touch."

How could anyone ever tell you that you were anything less than beautiful?
How could anyone ever tell you you were less than whole?
How could anyone fail to notice that your loving is a miracle
How deeply you're connected to my soul?

Puck could hear the sighs and a few sobs of the boys around them. He could tell from his posture and breathing that Trevor was even more uncomfortable than he was, and without thinking about it, he drew Trevor's arms around his chest. He could feel Trevor's unmistakable erection pressed up against the small of his back.

"I'm sorry," Trevor murmured into his ear, sounding horrified. "I — I didn't mean to."

"Dude, no, it's fine." He turned in Trevor's arms to face him. "It happens, right?"

"Not unless you're messed up," said Trevor fervently.

Puck frowned. "You really think that's true?"

The boy nodded. "Don't you?"

Puck's immediate impulse was to turn around and kiss Trevor until he stopped thinking that way, but obviously that wouldn't have gone over well. He couldn't help but wonder why he didn't think it was wrong. If Cy and his dad and all these other guys thought so, why didn't he? Maybe there really was something messed up inside him.

Maybe he really was… bad.

Before bed that night, Puck played Mood for A Day on his guitar. Some of the other boys stopped to listen. It seemed to calm them, too.

Hunter paused by his cot, just as he had the night before. What was different tonight was the expression on his face. Puck wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

"How's it going?" he asked.

Puck shrugged. "Pretty sucky."

Hunter just nodded. "I'm sorry. Well… good night."

Puck did wake up again later. It was dark, and the rest of the bunk was silent and still. The only sound other than his own harsh breathing was an occasional sigh from one of the other sleepers in the hall.

"Noah?" called a soft voice by the door. Puck saw Hunter standing there.

"I'm here," he called back.

He stood and made his careful, fumbling way in the dark around the corner to Hunter's cot. He couldn't see Hunter's expression from where he was standing, silhouetted in the light from the bathroom.

"Trouble sleeping? You were talking in your sleep."

"I have dreams." Puck ran a hand over his face, trying to clear the memories.

"Bad ones?" asked Hunter. He sat down on the edge of his bed, and Puck sat with him.

"Sometimes. They make me miss things. People."

"Your boyfriend?"

"All of them. But yeah, him especially."

Hunter looked out at the sleeping room, then back to Puck. "You can lie down here, with me. If you want."

It made Puck want to cry, the way Hunter was being so good to him. He wanted to tell him, don't bother, it's not going to work, I'm not going to change. But he nodded, stretching out on his side on the edge of Hunter's bed. Hunter's warmth beside him felt familiar enough that he was able to close his eyes.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed before he felt the metal bed frame moving rhythmically beneath him. Without thinking, he put a hand out and touched Hunter's leg where it lay beside him. Hunter stopped his action immediately.

"I am so sorry," he whispered. "I thought you were asleep."

Puck didn't even question what Hunter was saying, or wonder about what he'd said earlier about not being even remotely bicurious. He just put his hand over Hunter's through his pajama pants, making him gasp.

"Lemme take care of that for you," Puck murmured.

Hunter's hand fell away as Puck's slid under the elastic of his waistband and resumed stroking where Hunter had left off. He was already hard and leaking. Puck had to wonder how long Hunter had waited before giving in. He felt an unfamiliar twinge of guilt.

"Do you — want me to stop?" he asked.

"No," Hunter said immediately. "Don't stop."

For a moment Puck considered offering him a blowjob. It wasn't like it had been with the creepy guy at Fight Club. Hunter had been good to him. It was almost beside the point that he was hot, or close to Puck's age, or that he'd claimed to be straight. When Hunter tensed up and made a desperate panicked noise, he said, "Just hang on."

Hunter didn't grab his arm, but when he came, he thrust almost hard enough to propel them both off the bed. They both lay there, panting.

"I can't believe I just did that," Hunter said, his voice hoarse. "I've never — with another person."

Puck withdrew his hand, suddenly uneasy. All he could think about was Blaine, saying the same thing at Masque. That time, he'd stopped, and hadn't pushed Blaine. He'd felt proud about not pushing him.

"Do you wish I hadn't?" he asked.

"No." Hunter sighed. "I don't know. I shouldn't want it."

"I don't get that," said Puck. "When I want something, I just… I go for it. I mean, if the other person wants it too." He looked over at Hunter in the dark. "So I guess you're a little curious after all?"

"No," said Hunter in a low voice. "I — I know exactly what I want."

He reached an arm over, and Hunter rolled into him, shaking. His confident self seemed to be gone. Puck sighed, holding him in a tight hug.

"I wish I could tell you it's gonna be better next time."

"Yeah, I don't know if there will be a next time," Hunter said miserably. "I shouldn't even have done this. At least now I'll have the memory of it."

"You don't think it's worse that way, if you don't ever have it again? To remember?"

"That way I can dream about it." Hunter's voice dropped to nothing. "Okay… I already do dream about it. But my dreams will be better because of… what we did."

They were quiet for a moment. Then Hunter sighed.

"I don't know if it's possible to sin in your dreams."

"I dream about my daughter," Puck said.

"Really?" Hunter rested his head on Puck's shoulder. "That's sweet. You're an amazing guy, Noah."

He closed his eyes. "Don't know about that. I'm… bad. I'm trying not to be."

"I guess we all are. We just have to ask forgiveness."

But I won't, thought Puck. You don't get it. I don't want anyone's forgiveness. That's what makes me bad.