There was something in the air today. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but it seemed to be affecting everyone. There were smiles and laughter and general happiness all through the halls of McKinley and he found it a bit odd. Not that he was one to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth when it stood before him. He would take whatever he could get. Even the jocks were being relatively un-abusive today. Whatever it was, Kurt liked it.

He was in an absolutely elated mood. It was Thursday morning and he had managed to avoid being tossed in the dumpster, the jocks appeared to be ultra distracted (with their new found happiness?) so there were no slushies to deal with, he'd gotten a 99% on his French mid-term (he was sure he'd deserved a 100% and he was determined to speak with Madame later on), his new Gucci shoes had arrived last night and best of all: Mr. Schue's glee assignment this week was to split them up into the traditional boys vs. girls and assign them songs that were traditionally sung by the opposite sex. While he had been initially annoyed with Mr. Schue for ignoring his desire to be with the girls, this was an assignment he could work with. He was definitely excited for fifth period today.

There was almost a skip in his step as he walked down the hall planning out the choreography to his favorite songs. There would be feather boas and sparkly striped shirts and leather boots. Oh yes, this would be good. He could finally get the boys to break out of their little shells of ignorance and try something new! He hummed under his breath, ignoring the voice in his head that told him the guys would probably never go for it, as he made his way to Rachel's locker where he knew Finn would be.

He felt an arm wrap around his shoulder as Noah Puckerman came into stride with him.

"Hey there Hummel," he said with a sly smile.

Kurt narrowed his eyes and shrugged out of the boy's grasp.

"No," he said suspiciously.

"Hey, I didn't say anything," the boy said with a mock hurt look. "I just wanted to see if maybe you'd like to hang out after school and help me with that project for chemistry."

"First of all," he said, stopping to stare at the boy, hand on his hip, "we're in physics, not chemistry, and second of all the answer is no. I'm not going to fall for that or those puppy eyes so put them away. I'm not that easy. Go ask someone else to let you copy their work."

Puck stood back and gave him a grin, "Damn Hummel- sassy. I like it!"

Kurt rolled his eyes and dodged the hand that had reached out to slap him on the back and continued merrily on his way to Rachel's locker.

"Hello Rachel," he greeted, stopping at her locker where she was chatting animatedly with Finn. "Hello Finn."

"Hey Kurt," she said, breaking away form her conversation with Finn to smile at him. "We're still on for tonight right? Breadstix?"

"Definitely," he agreed, giving her a genuinely happy smile.

"Hey Finn, are you and dad going to the Buckeye's game tonight?" he asked his stepbrother.

Finn's face lit up with excitement and Kurt just knew that any minute he was bound to start quoting stats at him and saying things that he didn't understand (and had no desire to). For the millionth time that day he reminded Kurt of a puppy that had just gotten his favorite toy. "Yeah man! I'm super excited. We even talked Mom into coming! You sure you don't want to come? We do have an extra ticket."

Kurt smiled at Finn brightly. It was a far cry from the pained 'I'm so in love with you' smile he'd used to save just for Finn. Now that he thought back on it, it kind of disturbed him a little bit. Oh well, the past was in the past. It touched him that Finn was finally thinking about him not as the weird gay boy who had a crush on him, but as part of his family. As his brother. He knew that Kurt had been initially very jealous of all the time he was spending with Burt, and since then had been attempting to include Kurt as much as possible.

Kurt's feelings of animosity toward Finn and his dad's budding relationship had faded away after his talk with his father and his own growing relationship with Carole. He hadn't had a real female presence in his life for a long time, and especially not one who had the potential to be a mother figure to him. He had to admit that he kind of liked it. Carole never judged him for who he was, and she never made fun of his sense of fashion or chalked all of his unusual quirks as part of "being gay." She accepted him for who he was and loved him for it. Plus, he totally enjoyed having someone to bake with and just chit-chat in general. He was also extremely grateful that there was someone else watching out for his father. Kurt's greatest fear was that something would happen to him and Kurt wouldn't be able to stop it, but with two sets of eyes watching it made Kurt feel much less anxious.

Their engagement hadn't really surprised him. He'd been expecting it, perhaps not so soon, but he had come to terms with it pretty early on. He hadn't seen his father happy in like this in years. He had been very touched, and perhaps a little teary eyed, when his father had come to him and sat him down to ask Kurt how he would feel about having Carole and Finn around as a permanent fixture in their lives. Kurt had been surprised to find that he was actually thrilled with the idea. Finn had been a little hesitant at first, and Kurt knew that. It was because he'd never had anyone other than his Mom and he still really did care what other people thought about him.

Then one day he'd found Karofsky shoving Kurt into a locker (literally, Kurt wasn't sure how he even managed to fit inside of it) and something just snapped in the boy.

Kurt didn't really like to think about Karofsky, or the numerous times a day that he was bullied by the boy, but it had changed things for Finn. Finn had realized that he couldn't not step up. He had realized that it didn't matter what other people thought about him; that Kurt was going to be his brother, and more than that, Kurt was his friend. And now Finn was being aware of his feelings. It made him incredibly proud of the boy's progress.

"Yea, I'm sure," he said with a smile. "I'm going to have dinner with the girls, and then go home and study. I have a mass media project and a Calc quiz tomorrow anyway."

"Cool dude," Finn said, reaching out to clap him on the shoulder. He leaned in and kissed Rachel on the cheek and told her he'd see her in the Glee club, before walking off to his next class. Kurt thought about pointing out that his class was in the opposite direction, but just shook his head fondly.

Rachel turned to him as soon as Finn was out of sight.

"Studying tonight? Please, Kurt, we both know that you of all people don't need to study for that Calc quiz. If you need to study for it, then I have no talent. What are you really doing?"

Kurt rolled his eyes at her perceptiveness, and beckoned to her to fall into stride with him as they made their way to their Drama class. Kurt was glad that after Drama they had lunch, because he was starving.

"Okay, so maybe I'm not studying, but having a night to myself at the house is kind of rare."

Rachel gave him a look.

"Are you going to have a guy over?" she teased, raising an eyebrow.

Kurt gave her a dazzling smile and reached out to link arms with her and dragging her toward the room.

"Gentlemen never tell," he retorted.

In fact Kurt did have plans that evening, but unfortunately they did not include a boy. He wished- like really really wished that there were a boy involved. But alas…. No. Kurt Hummel's life was, as it quite often was, lacking in the boy department.

Kurt's plans included watch the entire most recent season of America's Next Top Model while working on writing his article on Materialism in America for his Mass Media class. He knew it sounded ridiculous- him writing about materialism… but it was something that had really sparked his interest and he wanted to get it done with plenty of time to discuss it with his teacher.

He might also stop and pick up some cookie dough ice cream. Maybe.

By the time it was lunch Kurt had never been so happy to eat a chicken salad in his whole life. The glee boys had decided to hold their Boys Vs. Girls meeting during the lunch hour so they had more time to pick some songs and figure out a game plan. He finished up with his salad and was bouncing up and down in front of the other boys, showing them the plan he'd story boarded.

Except it didn't go as he'd hoped (he should probably learn to listen to that little voice in his head) and the boys had unanimously informed him that his ideas were too girly. But, he tried to rationalize, wasn't that the point of the assignment?

It's halfway through Kurt's attempt at appealing his case that Puck has the decency to go:

"Dude, why don't you make yourself useful and go put some rat poison in the old people's jello, or go visit the Garglers."

That pissed him off. For so many reasons.

"The Warblers," he returned tightly.

"Whatever, see what they're up to. You can wear all the feathers you want. You'll blend right in."

What. An. Asshole. Had he only recently been praising the progress that the boy had made? He noticed that none of the other boys spoke up to his defense either. Specifically that Finn did not speak up. Well then… that was just…fucking awesome. Screw them. This was exactly why he wanted to work with the girls. He blamed Mr. Schue for not listening to him, and he hated this stupid assignment and just….euuurgh.

"Fine," he said with a clenched jaw. He picked up his poster board and spun around on stormed out. Rachel would have been proud.

He missed the startled look between the other boys.