A/N: Okay, so maybe this will be a five-parter instead….heh heh. -_-‘

I don’t own anything….Damn.

Con-crit is always welcome!!!

“I’ve been in counseling, too.” Dave muttered, still not looking at Kurt after pulling himself together after almost breaking down. Admitting his weaknesses and grief over losing Azimio’s friendship and being comforted by his former victim had almost broken what self-control Dave had left.

Kurt hummed in thought. “Really? You mean Ms. Pillsbury is actually helping you, or is she just giving you a never-ending stream of pamphlets?”

Dave managed a small chuckle while Kurt lightly smiled at the sound. “Well, it started with pamphlets, but when she figured out that actually talking about things was the only way to make progress, she started asking me how I felt every two minutes. It was really annoying until she started asking real questions like why I had issues with New Directions and how I could find compromises with them and myself. We didn’t hit on the gay thing until the sixth session. As soon as I said it, I felt…lighter. Like I had been carrying a 75 pound barbell on my shoulders and it finally came off. Of course, she froze up for a second, then started sanitizing her desk while asking more questions. It took two hours for the smell of Pinesol to come out of my nose.”

Kurt had started lightly snickering during Dave’s account, but outright laughed at the image of Ms. Pillsbury in a hazmat suit, scrubbing her desk with a toothbrush while asking Dave, “Now, how does that make you feel?”

“Oh, well, at least that’s better than what she did for me. I have no idea where she gets her reference material from, but I seriously doubt it’s made in Ohio.”

Dave had settled down for a minute, waiting for Kurt to get his breath back from the spontaneous giggle fit he had. When Kurt was once again perfectly poised, Dave started again.

“Around our tenth session, we finally touched on you and what I’d done to you. I know that what I did is unforgiveable, and I’m not asking for forgiveness because that would be pretty arrogant and I don’t really deserve it, but I realized that I needed to talk to you if I was ever going to move past it. I’ve accepted that I’m gay, Kurt. I’m getting educated about it, too. (1) Ms. Pillsbury told me that if I wanted to talk to others in the community or other counselors, then she’d help me out. I took her up on it. And while it may have pissed off Miss Diva over there, I ended up talking to her dads.”

Kurt’s eyebrows rose again. “You did? That’s great, Dave. How’d it go?”

Dave chuckled again. “Well, after I got over the fear that they would mess with me in revenge for what I did to you, they really helped me a lot. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have any questions, some that were pretty embarrassing, but they were really patient and answered everything they could. When I explained why I did those things to you and the others, they weren’t judgmental like I thought they would be. They understood why I was so scared in the first place, considering where we all live and the society we grew up in. They knew that I felt guilty about all of it, so they advised me to find closure. To do that, I had to talk to you.”

Kurt smiled. “Well, I’m glad you did. I’ve wanted to talk to you, too.”

Dave’s head jerked up, his eyes wide in surprise. “You did?”

Kurt nodded. “Yes. I knew that none of this would be over unless we cleared the air or came up with some kind of truce. Even better, you came here to do just that. I know for a fact that Blaine wouldn’t have allowed me to go to you, no matter what I did to convince him otherwise.”

Dave became confused for a moment, his brows knitted together as he tried to remember. “Wait, is he the guy that showed up at school that day, the one that started preaching at me?”

Kurt giggled a bit. “Yeah, that’s Blaine. He volunteered to come to McKinley just for that confrontation.”

Dave whistled. “Damn, that’s one devoted boyfriend you’ve got then. He’s what, five feet tall total?”

Kurt playfully glared at him. “He’s 5’ 8”, for your information! And he wasn’t my boyfriend then. We got together right before Regionals.” Kurt couldn’t stop the wide, satisfied grin that took over his mouth when he remembered how they got together. If there was ever a reason to thank Pavarotti for kicking the bucket, then that would be it.

Dave watched the different emotions cross Kurt’s pale face, feeling a small stab of jealousy at seeing one half of a clearly happy gay couple that had miraculously formed in Ohio of all places, but then what Kurt said caught up to him. “Wait, what? You two just got together a week ago? How’s that possible? I thought you two were together months ago when he showed up to school with you.”

Kurt laughed. “Ha! Nope. We had only known each other for a few days by then.”

“But he had left his school in the middle of the day, a school that’s two hours away from McKinley, just to help you confront me, something that took all of five minutes? Man, he must have been seriously crushing on you for him to do all that.”

Kurt smiled smugly. “Well, it’s only recently come to my attention that he was, but had decided to be a mentor/friend only. Believe me, it was ridiculously frustrating when I wanted to be in a relationship with him, but was pushed into the friend zone. Stupid GAP…” Kurt trailed off, muttering colorful phrases about the clothing store. Dave was completely lost.

“What’s wrong with the GAP?”

Kurt groaned as he rubbed his forehead, barely controlling his urge to run his hand through his hair and pull on it. “On Valentine’s Day, he got all of the Warblers to serenade the assistant manager at the GAP with a song about sex toys in public. The guy turned him down, everyone was embarrassed, and I got my hopes up just to have them stepped on, as well as confined to the friend zone with ‘When Harry Met Sally.’ “

Dave just looked at him like he grew a second head. “Well….that’s confusing….and weird. Don’t they get together in the end?”
“I know! Wait…how do you know that?”

Dave shrugged. “My mom loves that movie. She’s made me watch it well over a hundred times. But, seriously, he did that to you on Valentine’s Day?”

Kurt nodded. “Yep.”

“Ouch.”

“Ditto. Kinda made it worse that I told him how I felt, but he said he didn’t want to mess up our friendship by becoming boyfriends.”

Dave winced. “Double ouch.”

“No kidding.”

Dave perked up again when he remembered something else. “What about what happened at Miss Diva’s party? Puck couldn’t keep his mouth shut about it. He mentioned you and some other guy, but then starting talking about a drunk Rachel, bad karaoke, and following Lauren around like a puppy.”

Kurt just glared at him a little and crossed his arms over his chest. “Are you seriously going to bring up all of my bad memories concerning Blaine?”

Dave shrugged. “Hey, listening to the guys talk about the crazy shit that’s happened in New Directions is pretty much the only interesting thing to do other than another Journey song or listening to Rachel harp on about absolutely nothing.”

Kurt opened his mouth to deliver a counter-argument, but stopped when he didn’t have one. Dave had a point. New Direction’s drama was better than day-time television soaps. “Fine. It turns out that Blaine plus alcohol plus a grabby Rachel during Spin the Bottle is enough to make him confused about his sexuality. We had a big fight about it, but made up a few days later when a sober kiss with Rachel cleared up his confusion, reasserting that he was 100% gay.”

Dave considered this. “Oh. Well, that was good for you, wasn’t it?”

Kurt sighed. “Yes. At least, until our next performance.”

“What, more assistant managers in clothing stores?”

“No. Crawford girls from Dalton’s sister school. He didn’t go for any of them, but the day did not end up how I pictured it.”

“What happened?”

Kurt began shaking his head frantically as his cheeks turned a vibrant pink. “Oh, no, I’m not reliving that experience, especially not with you. No offense, but that was just too embarrassing to be repeated.”

Dave lifted his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, no pressure. But, seriously, how did you two get together with all of this going on?”

Kurt smiled broadly.“A dead bird.”

“Say what now?”

“A dead bird. That’s how we got together. It’s tradition to give a real warbler to every new member of Dalton’s glee club to take care of. I got Pavarotti. A week before Regionals he died and I was really upset about it. I went completely against the Dalton norm by dressing in my own clothes and singing a eulogy for him during a meeting. Blaine said that watching me do ‘Blackbird’ made him see the light. The next day, he finally told me how he felt and we got together.”

Dave hummed thoughtfully to himself as he began to piece together the different situations. He sat back, staring off into the empty air before him, looking for all the world like he was contemplating a critical, vital-to-the-future-of-Earth issue. Kurt watched him for a moment, wondering what could have consumed Dave’s attention so quickly when the other boy abruptly turned to him, completely serious and deadpan.

“Blaine is really dense.”

Silence ensued…

…Until they both broke down laughing their asses off, nearly falling off the bench and into the begonias behind them. They laughed until they felt tears rolling down their flushing cheeks, their stomachs burning as the muscles constantly contracted, and their lungs were protesting the lack of air.

If that one statement had been uttered by any other person on the planet, Kurt thought, he would never have laughed so hard. Instead, he would have heartily agreed and continued with the conversation as planned. But, it wasn’t just anyone that had said it. Oh no. It just so happened to be Kurt’s former bully with denial issues that had to have stated something so heartbreakingly obvious that it became over-the-top hilarious. Kurt felt each bubble of laughter pop in his stomach before it came floating out of his mouth. He couldn’t stop himself at all. He knew that the others must think they’ve gone batshit bonkers, what with two previously sworn enemies cackling like mad hens together over who-knows-what, but Kurt couldn’t bring himself to care. It was like all of his built-up stress, worries, and fears had been obliterated as he shared in the insanity that was his life.

Looking over after catching a much-needed breath, Kurt saw the Dave was no better. His face had turned a dark pink, he mouth wide in a toothy smile that Kurt knew he had never seen on the jock’s face before. He could see how being open and honest about himself had really changed the boy. He no longer looked like he was ready to launch a paranoid punch or spit out a slur, his countenance forever soured with a scowl. Instead, he looked a lot younger than Kurt knew his age to be. He looked actually happy for once.

Kurt smiled when he realized this. Dave was finally happy with himself. He had accepted that small part of him that he once denied existed, allowing for him to pull away from the fear of exposure and rejection with much more ease than ever before. And yes, while it was sad and ultimately unfortunate that he had lost a dear friend in the process, Kurt had a feeling that Dave would bounce back in no time. Being surrounded by people that truly accepted you can do that.

For the first time in their whole conversation, possibly the first time in their whole high school career, Kurt reached out to Dave. He could feel the large jock freeze in shock as he laid his hand on the bigger teen’s shoulder. Slowly turning his head, Dave looked into Kurt’s eyes, somewhat confused by what he saw there. He could tell that Kurt’s eyes were warmer, friendlier than they had ever been towards him, but he didn’t know the reason why. The smile on the boy’s pale face seemed to match the emotion behind those blue eyes, and what came out stunned Dave to his core.

“I forgive you, Dave.”

Dave’s entire body jerked suddenly when he heard those quiet words come out of Kurt’s mouth. He could feel the slight sting of tears appear behind his eyes, but he didn’t bother trying to wipe them away. His arms were numb as his heart threatened to beat so hard that his ribs would break. As small, relieved tears slid down his face, Dave began to smile.

“Thank you, Kurt.”

Kurt smiled back before jerking his head over to the patio. “Now, come on. Best tell them all everything’s okay before they lose their minds.”

A/N: Hope you enjoyed my first real attempt at crackish comedy! I wanted to write a sort of recap of all the ridiculous things that have happened between Kurt and Blaine without actually making Kurt do a stereotypical monologue…so, I’m hoping I succeeded. Tell me?

(1) This was a shameless plug for the meeting between Kurt and Dave from BTW. No regrets….

As always, con-crit is loved and appreciated, so REVIEW!!! XD