#Dave

It was never easy being Kurt Hummel's best friend. From the very first time Dave laid eyes on the boy he knew that Kurt was…well… different.

"Keep your filthy hands away from me!"

Dave heard the horror filled high voice behind him and turned around to see a little boy holding his hands protectively in front of him and trying to keep a good distance from Rob who looked like he was playing with mud and had it on all his hands and clothes.

The boy had his hair swept to the side. He wore a green colored shirt that was tucked into his dark shorts and he stood really straight reminding Dave of those princes in the Disney movies when they were about to ask a princess to dance with them.

"But Kurt, you have to see this! I think I saw a frog in the puddle." Rob took another step closer to Kurt and pointed to the puddle beside them.

"As lovely as it sounds," Kurt interrupted, still keeping a safe distance from the other boy. "I'm not about to ruin my new clothes in the search for a frog, especially because the thought about finding him…"

That seemed to be the limit to Rob's patience since he just turned around and walked away from him. Kurt stood there in shock for a few seconds looking at Rob's back and then shook out of it, running his hands to straighten his clothes and walked back inside the building.

Kurt never seemed invested in the things that other boys his age liked. He knew the names of fashion designers and famous Hollywood stars but never the names of baseball teams or superheroes. But eventhough Dave and Kurt's area of interest were so different, or maybe because of it, they always seemed to have things to talk about. But what made Kurt special also made him an easy target for ridicule along the way.

Dave walked through the crowded school's corridor to meet Kurt by the lockers when he noticed books and papers scattered on the floor and Kurt sitting in the middle of it and trying to pick it all up while students pass by him, intentionally not making any eye contact.

"What happened?" Dave fell quickly beside him and helped him.

"Nothing," Kurt replied while keeping his eyes glued to the ground. Dave also noticed his voice sounded higher than usual which, judging from experience, meant he was struggling to hold back tears.

Dave knew that pushing for an answer would do no good so he finished helping Kurt pick up everything, pushing all the books to his locker and walked to the dressing room to change for a game they had that afternoon. He was just about to exit the dressing room for the warm up when he heard a few boys talking behind him.

"Did you see Porcelain's face?" Dave remembered hearing Coach Sue using that name when she talked to Kurt so he listened to the boys more closely, getting a few steps closer to them. "He was about to cry like a little baby…"

"Shut up!" Dave yelled as the blood boiled in his veins, prompting him to act without thinking. He stormed quickly in his teammate's direction, fists at the ready.

"Oh… I forgot he was your BFF. How do you even like that lady boy?"

"Don't you ever call him that again. And if I hear about any of you hurting him again you'll be sorry!" Dave yelled at them, marching away furiously before he did anything rash. .

Dave succeeded in keeping Kurt out of harm most of the time. It helped that he was one of the better players on the school's baseball team which gave him enough influence to keep the bullies away from Kurt and any ridicule directed towards him due to their friendship at bay. There were still the occasional teasing and mean boys that tried to hurt Kurt but Dave knew it was nothing compared to what could have been.

It was never easy being Kurt's best friend but on a cold afternoon in the middle of December, Dave was about to discover that being Kurt's best friend was even harder than he thought it could be.

It started out as their regular studying session. Ever since their first year of school Kurt and Dave met after school to do their homework together. Even though both boys were now in the tenth grade and they were in different classes, they still kept the meetings out of habit.

When the door bell rang he hurried downstairs, hearing Zoey's excited cries of "Kutty! Kutty is here!"

Zoey was Dave's four year old little sister. When he got to the door, opening it for Kurt, she was already by his side.

"Princess!" Kurt immediately picked her up, planting kisses on her cheeks. "Is this a new dress?" he asked when he lowered her back to the floor. She nodded excitedly, swinging around a few times to show off the light pink cotton garment until she got dizzy and almost fell over, the two boys hurrying to stop her from falling."You look adorable," he smiled at her,petting her head which was full of blond curls.

"Kutty, come play with me!" She smiled at him, grabbing his hand and trying to lead him to the living room.

"Not today, Zoe. Next time, I promise!" He let go of her hand and they went upstairs.

An hour later Kurt was lying in the middle of the bed on top of the dark red duvet, looking down at his calculus book. Dave sat beside him, resting on a pillow by the wall, holding a thick practice test for his history class on his knees in front of him.

"When's your test?" Kurt asked, pulling a pen out of his mouth and using it to scratch the back of his head.

"Next week. No way in hell that I'll finish all this material by then," Dave complained with a tired sigh and dropped his head into the book.

"Stop it!" Kurt threw something at him and poked him at his side. "It's going to be fine… I'll ask Rachel for her notes tomorrow."

Dave raised his head slowly. "The holy-Berry-notebook? Do you really think she'll let me use it?" Dave asked with a fake admiration, though the question was entirely genuine.

Kurt looked at him over his shoulder with a thoughtful look that changed into a scheming one. "I'll just have to threaten her favorite reindeer sweater and she'll hand it right over!" Dave laughed hard, imagining the terrified look on Rachel's face, especially knowing that Kurt might actually act upon his threats since his hate for those sweaters was well known.

Kurt turned back to his work after their giggles died down but Dave couldn't read even one more letter about SOGs history so he just stared at the wall in front of him, trying to clear his mind from the studyingmaterial when Kurt's bare feet swaying in the air caught his attention. He looked down to where his friend's shirt rode up and out of his jeans, leaving fare skin exposed. Dave suddenly noticed that Kurt's jeans were much tighter than the ones he used to have which showed off the way his upper thighs and ass tensed and released according to the sway of his legs in the air. Dave closed his eyes and shook his head, feeling his face warming up even though it was cold and rainy outside. He wasn't sure what to make of what just happened so he tried to focus back on the history book only to find himself staring a moment later on the pen that was stuck between Kurt's teeth, wandering to his pale lips when Kurt turned around, taking the pen out of his mouth and about to say something but freeze when he realized that Dave was already looking at him. Kurt threw a questioning look at him but when Dave didn't respond he shrugged his shoulders and turned back to grab the math book, shoving it to Dave and raising from his position to sit next to him.

"Do you know how to solve this?" Kurt asked, pointing at an equation at the top of the page.

Dave tried to focus on it but the only thing that crossed his mind was that Kurt was sitting flush beside him. He could feel his warmth through his clothes and smell the vanilla and coconut scent of his hair.

Focus Dave! Focus!

He cleared his throat, hoping that Kurt wouldn't notice his flushed cheeks and tried once again to read the equation. "Yeah," Dave answered a minute later "We learned it last week." He explained it to Kurt thoroughly and they sold several questions together.

Later that night, when Kurt left, Dave was grateful that the awkward moment passed without notice from Kurt but he wasn't sure how to react upon what he was suddenly feeling. It was weird enough that he was having this thought for another boy, let alone his very best friend. Feeling guilty and ashamed, he cried himself to sleep that night.

Over the next few days, things seemed to get back to normal. Dave self consciously keeping the staring to zero and his thoughts from wandering but he couldn't ignore it for long. He noticed that since that night he was looking differently at Kurt and he couldn't talk with anyone about his feelings. If it was anyone other than Kurt then Dave could have shared it with him and he would have felt much better but Dave knew that he couldn't tell Kurt about his feelings because he couldn't risk hurting their friendship. Deep down he was terrified that Kurt might reject him cruellyor laugh at him. He found himself looking at Kurt literally all day long but the days spent longing for him would result in sleepless nights, feeling ashamed, and hating himself for his thoughts. A few weeks later he started to intentionally keep his distance from Kurt, avoiding him throughout school hours as much as he could and making excuses to cancel their study sessions. At first Kurt didn't seemed to notice anything was wrong but after three weeks on which they hadn't met for more than ten minutes he came to confront him by the school lockers at the end of the day.

"Hi, Dave," Kurt said, sounding a little more on edge than usual.

"Hi." Dave sent quick smile at him and got back to arranging his locker.

"Are we meeting today?"

"Yeah… no… I can't today, my mother…"

"Dave just… stop," Kurt cut him angrily, pushing on his locker door.

"What's wrong with you?" Dave turned around, looking angrily back at him.

"Now that I got your attention," Kurt stopped to take a deep breath. "Can you explain to me why you've been avoiding me for the last few weeks?"

Dave shook his head, looking down at his feet.

"So I'm right. You're avoiding me." Kurt stepped closer to him, crossing his hands in front of him. "Why? What happened?" He sounded hurt and it made Dave feel even worse. There was no way of getting out of this without someone getting hurt.

"It just… I don't …" Dave struggled and he could see Kurt's eyes fill with tears. They just stood there for a few minutes, Dave unable to find what to say until Kurt finally turned around and walked away. Dave watched him go, leaning heavily on the lockers behind him, tears running down his face.

Every night Dave would swear to himself that tomorrow he would fix this with Kurt but when the darkness went away so did his courage to talk to him. It took him two weeks but eventually he asked Kurt to meet him in the afternoon.

"I'm sorry I've been so distant lately," Dave started. Kurt nodded his head, encouraging him to go on. "It's just that… It's been a stressful time with the team and the tests…"

"Okay…" Kurt said but looked at him skeptically.

"I'm sorry. Please, let's just go back to being friends again."

Kurt smiled at him and nodded. "Sure. I missed you." He pulled him to a hug.

At that moment Dave felt whole even though he failed to notice something was so utterly missing from him.

They got back to being friends again but it never felt as natural between them as it used to be. Dave invested most of his free time in studying which resulted in them slowly growing apart from each other until one day Dave could no longer call Kurt his best friend.