Christmas Eve was a quiet affair. Mercedes was singing at a church - Kurt hadn't caught all the details, but he knew she was excited and something about it was a big deal. She had said she hoped to have news when she came over the next day, so that meant something was going on at least. Knowing Mercedes, it probably had to do with her career progress...either that, or the three girls had gotten together and decided they were going to kill Eva on Christmas Eve. He couldn't blame them for that one, but it didn't sound quite like what his oldest friend would do to celebrate one of the holiest days of the year.

Not that he saw it that way. To him, it meant beautiful songs and glitzy specials on television and elegant decorations in the windows. It meant the smell of pie baking and goose roasting, and brown paper packages tied up with string, and family.

He tried to remind himself that he hadn't always felt that way. After all, most years it had been just him and his dad trying to forget that Christmas had been his mom's favourite holiday, opening a few small gifts under a tree he had decorated by himself, before he went over to the Joneses' for a holiday feast and his dad made an excuse to get work done. But the last few years at home had been a proper Christmas; despite Carole's shortcomings as a homemaker, she certainly got into the holiday spirit, and they had cooked for hours his last year in Ohio - three different kinds of potatoes and stuffing and a mountain of cookies...sure, maybe it had been an attempt at distraction on his part, trying not to think about Christmas duets and whether a certain someone was back in the state for break, but it had worked. And last year, when he and Rachel had had nothing, it had still been nice - not perfect, but exciting with the rush of their first holiday in the big city, with enough to do to distract both of them from the fact that neither of them were with family. It felt like striking out on their own and making their own way in the world, and that had in itself been enough to make the holidays still feel magical somehow.

But this year...

It had been just long enough that the novelty of the city had worn off but not long enough to feel like it was really his home. He wanted to be in Ohio, gazing at the large pine in the living room, covered in ornaments he and Finn had made in elementary school, while snow swirled outside. He wanted to be where it smelled like gingerbread and from-scratch gravy instead of staring at the woefully small tree Rachel had trimmed, listening to Judy Garland while he curled on the couch with an afghan around his shoulders.

He tried to remind himself that it wouldn't be like that at home anymore, anyway. Finn was gone, and Carole wasn't herself because of it; his dad was picking up more hours at the shop, and he...well, he wasn't really part of any of it anymore, was he?

"So no Rachel again tonight?" his dad asked as he settled into the chair. He glanced at the menorah on the window sill meaningfully, as though he wasn't sure why they needed that but he didn't like that she wasn't here to light it.

Kurt shook his head. "She'll be back later."

"She with that, uh, director again?" The question was loaded, and Kurt knew it, but he didn't have the energy to engage the deeper parts of it. Pretending to be even remotely okay took all of his energy; he didn't have the wherewithall to pretend to be bothered by the fact that his supposed-girlfriend was spending all her time with another man.

"I think the entire cast is having a dinner."

"And that's okay with you?"

It was and it wasn't. On one hand, trying to field all her attempts at helping, to think quickly enough on his feet that he could easily follow the backstories that would come out of nowhere and massage them into the stories he had told his dad over dinner at La Fonda del Sol the night before, to act like an appropriate leading man to her ingenue, was exhausting to even contemplate, especially when his heart wasn't in it. But at the same time, he missed her. He missed dancing and singing around the apartment. He missed cooking dinner for more than just himself, which he had forgone a few weeks earlier. She had been the only person he could talk to about anything real, since Mercedes' schedule and discomfort level ruled her out, and even if Rachel was rarely helpful, she was a good friend. She tried, at any rate, and sometimes he just needed someone to try even if they got it wrong. Sometimes he just wanted someone to ask if anything interesting had happened at work - it hadn't, it never did, but the realization that he had fewer conversations now than when he was a lonely, unhappy teenager was depressing.

It wasn't how he had envisioned things at all. He imagined talking about his day over dinner and spending the night cuddled on the couch with the boy he loved while Rachel lived down the hall with a boy of her own. Instead Rachel had moved on without him, and the couch was cold.

He tugged the afghan more tightly around himself as he replied, "I don't tell her where to go and when."

"I thought you two were together."

He wasn't sure why he wanted to say no all of a sudden, to just come right out and tell his dad that his and Rachel's relationship was one of convenience, a way to get both of them out of the state. He couldn't, he knew that. He couldn't tell his dad that he and Rachel weren't together because if a boy and girl living together without being married was strange, then a boy and a girl living together without any romantic entanglement was going to seem completely foreign to his poor father. And he would have to justify his lack of involvement - Rachel was a nice enough girl that she should have been a catch - at least for him...which meant he would have to tell his dad either the whole truth or nothing at all. Telling the whole truth wasn't an option, not remotely. He knew his dad loved him, but he knew that if complete strangers treated him badly because of who he was, then the man who was personally invested in his future wouldn't react well. It was hard enough to have his dad know he wasn't normal, to worry about him because he didn't like sports and he didn't get along with other boys and he wasn't content to sit in Ohio and work on cars his entire life. This would be a thousand times worse.

He was slowly coming to terms with the fact that he was going to be alone forever; he didn't need his dad to worry about him for it. He would be fine - really.

"You don't tell Carole she can't see her friends from work," Kurt pointed out; he hadn't lived there while Carole had been working, but he knew his dad and knew that wasn't something that would ever occur to him.

"No, she can go have lunch with the ladies if she wants. But she doesn't do it every night."

She didn't; she worked every night instead, the best Kurt could tell, but he wasn't going to point that out. He and his dad were both allowed to have things they didn't talk about, and Kurt doubted the way to get scrutiny off his romantic life was to cast it onto his dad's. They fell into awkward silence again, and he stared at the wall as he clutched the afghan beneath his chin. The final notes of "The First Noel" faded out, and the gentle strum of the next song faded in, signaling the start of Kurt's favourite and least favourite song on the album.

There were a dozen or more adaptations of this song now, and each of them had their favourites. Rachel loved the romantic feeling of Frank Sinatra and Mercedes preferred the upbeat, jazzy Ella. Some years he liked the Connie Francis best - he did love almost everything she sang...but when things felt too much, there was no one like Judy Garland. Blaine had been right, she sounded like she was trying to convince herself everything would be okay through song, and sometimes...most of the time...that was how he felt with music anymore. It wasn't about showing off or a career the way it was for either of his friends; it was about trying to hold himself together and let go all at the same time, and for a fleeting moment he wished his dad needed to go to the store or had stayed in a hotel or something because maybe - just maybe - if he could sing along he could feel better. If he could express himself, maybe he could let out all the sadness and frustration and loneliness and start to feel better again. It had worked before, he remembered, though he couldn't put his finger on precisely when anymore. He knew it had helped, but it had been so long...

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
Next year all our troubles will be out of sight.

He had never understood the problem in Meet Me in St. Louis. He knew they were sad about leaving before the World's Fair, but he didn't understand how anyone could be disappointed by having to move to New York - how anyone could see it as an obligation instead of the most incredible opportunity. He had wanted to go since he could remember, and so watching the remake on television (which might have been okay if he didn't already know the original soundtrack) when he was 17 he couldn't fathom why they were upset, why the younger daughter needed consoling. New York was the one place he looked forward to being, the one hope he had for his life. It was the one place he could go and not have to worry about being different, where he could live his dreams and have everything he'd ever wanted. Didn't they know what was waiting for them in the big city? There would be more excitement in a day than the World's Fair, and it would be like that all the time instead of just once. There would be a hundred lovely boys to meet on the trolley instead of just one and a thousand elegant balls...Why in the world would anyone choose to stay in their tiny town when New York was an option?

Maybe the Smiths had known what he hadn't, he concluded sadly. Maybe they had known all along what he was only learning after a year and a half of being stuck in the cold, unfeeling city: there were no boys on trolleys here. No boys next door, no one to dance with when he showed up in a borrowed tuxedo. Maybe if he'd stayed in Ohio...

...if he'd stayed in Ohio, then what? He would still be alone, just expectedly instead of assuming he would find someone. He wouldn't actually be any better off, even if it seemed like he would feel better.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the yuletide gay
Next year all our troubles will be miles away

"Kurt, what's going on with you?"

The question came out of nowhere, and it felt like a cold breeze sweeping through the room. On one hand, it was terrifying; his father knew. He knew things weren't right, that everything was going wrong, and he'd tried so hard to keep his dad from figuring that out. He'd given every happy anecdote he could think of over the past few days, and he'd tried to show the best possible side of the city, to prove to his dad that sending him here was worth it. It was worth having to hire someone else at the shop, and his dad and Carole being alone in that big house, and it was worth the astronomical rent and the job with the long hours and the tiny, cramped apartment. His dad had seen through him in a way he'd thought he was skilled enough to hide and now he was going to have to explain himself.

On the other...his dad knew he wasn't okay. After no one asking how he was, and Rachel being even more self-obsessed than usual, and Mercedes spending all her time ranting about her stupid group-mates and how frustrating success might be when she got there, after no one at all caring that he felt like he wanted to curl up in his room and never venture out again...his dad could still see through him and cared eough to know why he felt so horrible.

Unfortunately that didn't do him much good. He couldn't very well explain what had him so upset, why things in New York had gone from frustrating to agonizing in the past few months. He couldn't tell his dad about the humiliation of being arrested and stripping down in front of men making fun of every inch of exposed skin, of the aching loneliness that came from realizing he was never going to find a place he belonged or a boy to love him the way he imagined. He couldn't tell his dad any of it.

So he fell back on what had served him well in the twenty years he had been alive. "Nothing." His voice was high, the way it always was when he was hiding something, but he added, "I'm fine. Why do you ask?"

His dad fixed him with a look that begged how dumb Kurt thought he was, but Kurt said nothing. Maybe if he stuck by his story, his dad would back off and drop the conversation they couldn't have. Maybe- "Because you look like you did when you were thirteen."

Kurt tried to force a smile in the hopes it would put this to an end, but he didn't do a very good job of it. He could feel his dad's eyes still boring through him even as he nonchalantly picked lint from the afghan. "Everything's fine, Dad, really. You don't have to worry about me."

"Mmhmm." The response was dry, almost sarcastic, in a way Kurt didn't think he'd ever heard from his dad, and he looked up in surprise. "Buddy, I know you. I've seen you since you were born, and believe me - 'fine' doesn't look like you look." Kurt didn't know how to refute that, what he could possibly say, and he glanced just past the side of his dad's head so he wouldn't have to look him in the eye. He wasn't fine, and he knew that, but he didn't know how to say it. Besides, his dad worrying about him wouldn't help anything and didn't seem entirely fair. There was nothing wrong with him, nothing that could be fixed at least, nothing that was worth sitting around Ohio and being concerned about, nothing that had his life in danger the way Finn's was... "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Don't give me that."

"Honestly, Dad, there's no reason to-"

"Kurt." He stopped and finally looked at his dad. He looked so much older than Kurt remembered, more tired, but he wasn't sure how much that had to do with spending three days walking around a city when his dad was used to driving everywhere, and how much of the change was just because they hadn't seen each other on so long. After all, his dad thought he looked tired and thin and sad, and he didn't feel like he'd changed that much. "What's wrong?"

He didn't know how to say 'nothing' anymore, how to summon the energy to keep pretending he was perfectly fine. He drew in a deep breath and forced the best smile he could; it was small and tight, lopsided, and just made him want to cry even more. "Things just aren't as easy as I thought they would be," he began. It was that simple, really, if he thought about it and tried to boil everything down to one easy-to-explain problem. He'd thought New York would have everything he wanted just waiting for him, and it turned out to be no better than where he'd come from.

"Things are never easy - not for you. Never got to you before."

Kurt didn't know how to explain that that was the problem. He had coped with things being harder than they should have been most of his life. Most other kids didn't get teased the way he did, their moms didn't die when they were little, they didn't have throngs of people telling them not to be friends with someone or have to be shipped off to boarding school because of narrow-minded segregationists. Most boys didn't have to feel as wrong as he'd felt or hide their first grand teenage romance. Most didn't have to convince the person they love that they weren't sick or pretend to date a girl they barely liked. It had never bothered him quite this much, never felt half as impossible as all the little things felt now. He simply nodded and offered a tiny shrug, not sure how to explain himself.

Once again, as in olden days,
Happy golden days
Of yore

"I guess I just thought things would be different here," Kurt ventured very slowly. He hadn't said it aloud before, hadn't admitted to anyone-

He and Rachel had things they didn't talk about. They didn't talk about how disappointing New York was, because if they started admitting that to one another, they might want to go back...and especially now that things were going well for her and no better for him, he didn't know how to start talking about the lies this city had told him because she was happy. She was having her dreams come true, even if it was through an untrustworthy louse of a director, and he...

It hurt to say.

"Work isn't what I thought it would be, and the people aren't like I expected, and it's just..."

"Harder," his dad filled in quietly, and Kurt nodded. "Never knew you to give up on stuff before."

He knew what his dad was trying to say, and on someone else it might have worked. On someone who needed to be told to buck up and rise to the occasion, that would have been fine. He understood where his dad was going with the statement - Kurt had never given up in the face of things being hard before. He had survived Ohio and not dressed more conventionally to make things easier on himself; he had managed to get out of the state when no one else in his graduating class, save Rachel and Mercedes, had accomplished the same. He had never backed down from a challenge in his life, and now wasn't the time to start - that was the pep talk his dad was trying to start.

But the problem wasn't that he was giving up. If he were thinking about giving up, he had a ready-made solution right there in his living room. His dad was right there, with an empty car practically begging to take him and all his belongings back to Ohio. He wasn't seriously considering that, not really. He wasn't giving up, he was just exhausted and quivering under the weight of everything, staring out at a long road with no turnoffs in sight.

"I'm not," he replied quietly, defensive. "It's just hard. That's all I was saying. I'm not giving up on anything."

"I didn't say you were. I was trying to-" His dad sighed and shook his head. "I know stuff's rough for you. But I don't know how this big city world you're in works. If you were home, I'd know who to tell you to talk to, how to get you a better job or find something you like doing. I know the shop was never your dream, it's mine and that's okay, y'know, you've gotta do what makes you happy. But you look miserable, kid." He couldn't refute it, so he just gave a tiny nod.

Faithful friends who were dear to us
Will be near to us
Once more

They fell into awkward silence again, and after a moment his dad stated, "I'm gonna buy you guys a television before I go. Bring it up, get that old set outta here."

Kurt looked up in surprise at the nonsequitor. "You don't have to-"

"The old one's busted, and I know better than to think you and Rachel can hoist a new one up all those stairs yourself."

"Really, Dad, we don't need a new tv."

"I know you like all the specials and stuff on it-"

"I'm serious."

"-And I don't want to think about you sitting up here by yourself listening to sad songs like this every night." Kurt stopped and looked at him, seeing an uncharacterstic vulnerability to his dad as he said, "There's a lot I can't do for you boys now, but this one's easy. Let me do this for you."

It wasn't about him, Kurt realized. Well, it was, but it wasn't. It wasn't about the television or about being able to watch variety shows on Sunday. His dad had gone from having two sons at home, from providing for them and giving them hours at the shop, to not being able to help either of them. They could send little bits of things to Finn, but nothing big, nothing that really helped or would keep him safer, and here Kurt was in a world that made almost no sense to his family, needing things his dad could never give him. The television wouldn't help him, but it wouldn't hurt either...and it would help his dad feel useful. Less helpless.

He could appreciate that.

"Okay," he replied with a very faint smile. "It will be nice to have one again - Rachel was getting worried about not being able to watch the Oscars."

His dad shifted uncomfortably, lips pressed together. When he spoke, it was in an awkward, halted tone, like he regretted everything he was saying but needed to get it out anyway. "Look, buddy, I know it's none of my business what you and your girlfriend do. I know things are different here in the big city, and boys and girls living together- well, it's not 'living in sin' here, so I'm not gonna lecture you. But I think you've gotta be careful about her. You trust the people you're close to, and that girl..."

"Dad."

"I know. I don't wanna say it, I've known Rachel a long time and she's...y'know, she's ok. High-strung, but you like that. But something about her and that director guy...she shouldn't spend that much time with him. And I don't want you getting hurt."

Kurt swallowed hard, fighting the urge to just tell his dad everything. He didn't know what would happen if he did, what kind of-...he knew that even though he knew there was nothing wrong with who he was, no one else seemed to understand that. His dad was already worried about him without adding this on top of everything, and he couldn't- "I won't, Dad."

"You're sleeping on the couch, looks like you already were."

His eyes widened even as he tried to keep his face neutral, swallowing hard as his mind raced. "How did you-"

His dad looked at him like it was a ridiculous question. "You're up before everyone else, you always go into the room I'm staying in if you need something, you two don't touch each other unless you have to."

Kurt looked away, cringing internally. He'd known this was a horrible idea, trying to pretend that wasn't his bedroom. Rachel said she'd learned from her dad and his lover, but she had figured out the two of them in about three visits - and Rachel wasn't the sharpest when it came to things. He should have known his dad would guess. "That's my room," he confirmed.

"I know they do things different here, but I don't know a teenager who wouldn't share a bed with his girlfriend if he had the chance. Even when I was your age, and we were more conservative then."

Kurt didn't know how to keep pretending anymore, what in the world to say to that. He'd been caught, and the amount of energy it took to craft some sort of elegant lie. The only options he could see were lousy: Either go along with what his dad feared for him, that Rachel was cheating on him with her director and he'd been hurt and was sleeping in the second bedroom because he couldn't bear to look at the woman who had betrayed him; or the truth, which was far uglier.

"Dad..." he began slowly, his voice quiet and nervous. "Rachel's not my girlfriend."

"I get that places to live are expensive around here, but it can't be worth living with an ex, especially not when she's, y'know, moving on with another-"

"She's not my ex, we were never-" He stopped, not sure how to explain himself, to explain them. He drew in a deep breath, and when he began his voice was a lot quieter. "Do you remember when...I was at Dalton, and I called you really early on a Sunday morning to ask if you ever thought about....me growing up and having a family?"

"Yeah." His dad nodded slowly, trying to figure out where this was going, but Kurt could barely hear the response over his heart beating in his ears. "You sounded strange, like something was going on."

"I-it kind of was?" Kurt replied, his throat feeling tighter by the moment. He swallowed twice to try to relax, but instead he just felt like he was going to choke.

"You didn't start dating her because I said you couldn't go with Mercedes, did you? 'Cause in a big city like this-"

"No," Kurt replied quietly. He had to just say it, because if he didn't he was going to lose his nerve and keep feeling like this, and have to make up more stories from now until the end of the week when his dad went home...and again the next time they saw each other, and again and again on that neverending road- "I wasn't asking because of Mercedes." He wasn't sure how to phrase it and almost wished his dad would say something so he could respond again, could be the one in the position of answering instead of preemptively stating everything. He hadn't tried to tell anyone in a couple years now, and even then he had only really ever told Mercedes and Blaine and he wasn't sure how to begin. "I came to New York because it's supposed to be a city of dreams. The place where everyone can be whatever they want to be. And what I am...is..." He could feel his eyes filling with tears already, and his stomach churned violently. He hadn't even been this scared when Rachel had confronted him about it, when he thought everyone knew about him, that everyone could tell...but now, knowing his dad didn't know but was about to- All he heard was the rush of blood in his ears as he mouthed the words, "I'm a homosexual."

He wasn't sure what response he had been expecting, but awkward silence felt wrong all around. It wasn't anything he could respond to, anything he knew how to deal with, and he found himself babbling uncomfortably. "I don't want to date Rachel or Mercedes or any other- girl, I want to-" His dad cut him off with a sharp nod before he could say anything else and embarrass himself further, and he fell silent, staring at his father's face and trying to will himself not to cry.

His dad had always been prototypically Midwestern, stiff and unreadable in his expressions, and Kurt cursed the firm clench of his father's jaw and the dim light that made it impossible to see his eyes as well as Kurt would have liked. He couldn't tell what the man who had raised him and taken care of him his entire life was thinking or about to say, and he didn't think there was a scarier moment than the few seconds that tense silence hung around them before his dad grumbled a single word.

"Okay."

"...Okay?" Kurt repeated slowly.

His dad nodded again with a stiff shrug, shoulders raising and slumping again as he added, "I dunno what to say about it. But...okay."

He didn't know what he'd been hoping his dad would say, but the lack of an opinion was unnerving. Of course, on the other hand, he had no right to hope for outright acceptance and certainly not happiness over the news, so he supposed neutrality was better than being told he was sick or- or wrong. It wasn't as satisfying as he hoped, nor as devastating, and he felt like there should be more now but didn't know what else to say.

It appeared his dad didn't, either, as they both shifted in their respective chairs. After a moment, his dad rose and announced, "I think I'm gonna make some toast, you want some?"

To anyone else, it would have seemed like an odd gesture, but Kurt knew better. His dad couldn't cook, which was part of the reason for Mrs. Jones coming to work for them - between the lack of cooking skills and his inability to drop everything to take care of his 6-year-old son, there were no other options. Over time Kurt had learned to cook, pretty well if he did say so himself, but his dad never needed to. There were exactly two things he could make: toast and warm milk. Over the years, Kurt couldn't even count the number of times his dad had made him toast - with cinnamon and sugar when he was little, then plain with butter as he got older - and watched him eat it after an especially hard day. They didn't talk; At first it was because Kurt couldn't find the words to explain what happened, what had hurt him so badly, then later because he didn't want to worry his dad by telling him just how horribly boys at school and adults in town alike treated him just for being himself. But the toast made him feel better anyway. "Sure," he replied softly, his smile weak and watery but genuine.

His dad nodded, mouth tight, and walked toward the kitchen. As he passed the couch, he paused and reached out for a moment, grasping Kurt's shoulder and giving it a light squeeze. They didn't look at each other, didn't speak, didn't try to find inadequate words to fill the silence, but it was enough to make the tears that had been welling in Kurt's eyes start to spill over. He swallowed hard as the tears rolled slowly down his cheeks, eyes red and burning, and his dad squeezed again before continuing into the kitchen to set about making toast for both of them, letting them both retreat into blissful silence.

Someday soon we all be together
If the fates allow
Until then we'll have to muddle through somehow
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.