Author's notes: Yeah, I know. Another one-shot, but I couldn't sleep last night and this sort of spilled out while I was browsing prompts. Sorry for the lame title. Rated for swearing. There's a lot of it.

The lighted numbers of his alarm clock were staining the edges of the open notebook before him a pale lime green. Two thirty in the morning. On a Wednesday. By all accounts he should be asleep.

But Dave had a problem, a big one. And it haunted his every move, taunting him during everything he did. It just wouldn't let him be. You see, David fucking Karofsky was as queer as a two dollar bill, and he had no clue what the heck he was going to do about it. He'd been content for ages to just ignore it. Dudes could admire other dudes, right? It didn't make them fairies or nothing. Girls looked at each other all the time and no one thought any different, so why should it matter if he thought some other guy was well-built? That was perfectly normal.

Until it wasn't anymore. That fucking Hummel kid had changed all of that.

It wasn't as though Dave was obvious about anything—no one was any wiser if his eyes lingered a bit long when one of the guys removed his shirt after practice. No one bugged him that he never had a girlfriend (being a member of a losing team wasn't exactly a chick magnet). No one said a thing. Because he was fine. He was one of the guys. He was normal.

Hummel wasn't.

If one were to look up "homosexual" in any dictionary ever written, there'd be a note saying, "see Kurt Hummel," or a black and white picture of the kid just off to the side (most likely in one of those fairy outfits that he always wore) with a caption below it that simply said, "this guy." Dude was gay with a capital G.

It was actually pretty laughable when he joined the football team to prove how very not gay he was. Dave hadn't been on the team just then, but he'd gone and watched, just to see how badly he screwed things up for them. But the little fag had scored the winning point. Not only that, but he'd gayed up the entire team with that strange ass dance number to get them that far. What the hell?

Dave had been livid. It wasn't fucking fair. The little freak was out and proud the very next day (of course) and he'd helped pull Ohio's worst high school football team in forever out of the dark ages, and Dave was stuck in the closet sneaking glances at dudes in the locker room and hiding his internet history from his dad, trying desperately to prove how straight he was. How normal he was.

What. The. Hell.

He'd made it his mission then to make Hummel's life a living hell. Because hey, if he could go and be his little flamboyant fairy self out in public while the very thought of admitting that he had no sexual interest in girls at all made Dave want to shit himself, the very least he could do was let Hummel share a bit of his pain.

Of course, that had been before the kid had grown a pair and trapped him in the locker room. Of course he'd had to get all up in Dave's face about all the abuse he'd put him through. Of course he'd had to get so fucking close, and Dave had just panicked. He'd never meant to kiss Kurt, but what was done was done, and the kiss had been pretty fucking fantastic, even if Hummel hadn't exactly been a willing participant.

Little queer had to ruin even that for him.

And honestly, Dave hadn't really thought about the ramifications of the whole encounter until after. Until he saw Hummel walking down the halls the next day and the numb shock that had overtaken him had worn off to be replaced with a horrible, biting fear.

Hummel knew. Kurt Hummel knew he was into dudes. Or well, at least into him. Freak was going to tell people. Oh god, he was going to tell everyone.

Well, not if David fucking Karofsky had anything to say about it.

He threatened the kid, upped the stakes. Hummel would keep his mouth shut if he knew what was good for him. He wouldn't live to see another day if he spilled Dave's secret, and he had to give the guy credit; he never said a word about the whole gay thing to anyone except that preppy private school pansy who'd come and spouted some garbage at him about how fucking hard it was to come out, and how he shouldn't be afraid and loads of other bullshit. Well fuck that. David Karofsky didn't take shit from anyone. Especially if they didn't know a thing about him. Asshole could take his Oprah quotes and slicked-back hair somewhere else. Maybe he could go make out with Hummel while he was at it. Freak.

But the kid (Dave hadn't bothered to learn his name) did have one point. The pressure was starting to get to him. It was making him paranoid. Hummel knew. He could leak his secret at any time. Dave himself could slip up; someone could notice. He couldn't let that happen. There was no way in hell he was going to go out and put on some skirts or whatever and start queering up the halls of McKinley with the resident fag.

Dave was normal, damn it. He didn't like singing and dancing and makeup and shit like that. He wasn't some fag. And he proved it by posting up a few more pictures of girls wearing next to nothing on the walls of his room and getting completely and totally wasted with Azimio at his mom's place whenever he could get away with it. It wasn't like his dad cared what he did anymore. He'd never noticed when he was doing well—in sports, in grades, in everything, really—so why the hell would the man notice when things started to slip? Dealing with all of this crap was hard. Why did he need to be the one to bear all this shit?

But Hummel was finally gone. His secret was safe. Things were good, right? Yeah, things were good.

Except that people were starting to notice. Dave had never wanted Hummel back at school, providing that big, colorful distraction he so sorely needed, until Finn had made those little jibes at him on the practice field. So what if he brought up the gay thing a lot? Everyone knew he didn't like fags. He was the reason Hummel disappeared. So what if he didn't have a girlfriend? A lot of guys didn't. It wasn't like it was something unusual. And he was a little on the chubby side. Chicks didn't dig chubby dudes, right? Finn was just talking shit, trying to get him all riled up.

Too bad it had kind of worked.

Dave liked Coach Beiste. She was really talented. Hell, her strategies a had led them to the championships, a first in the history of William McKinley High. The football team wasn't a joke anymore. They were actually making something of themselves. But the whole glee thing? For a week or they're off the team?

Fuck. That.

That was blackmail at its worst. No one should be subjected to that torture to do something they loved.

Except that, well, he'd kind of enjoyed it. And Schuester had even pulled him aside to give him a compliment. He was good at this shit, and it was kind of freeing.

In a completely not gay sort of way, of course.

And the thing was, the whole thing had gotten Dave thinking. What if he came out? Not to everyone, of course. That was asking a little too much. His dad would probably kick him out of the house or something. No, but what about Azimio?

They'd been friends since forever. And Dave had been there for him throughout his parents' messy divorce and the ensuing custody battle. They were practically brothers. The least the guy could do was accept this one thing.

But he still hesitated.

What if Azimio thought Dave was looking at him in the showers? What if he freaked the fuck out and whaled on him? What if he held the whole thing with Hummel over his head, making him out to be nothing more than a little kid picking on his schoolboy crush?

Which was why he was still awake at two fucking thirty in the morning, tapping his pencil along the messy list of pros and cons of coming out to his best friend. Why was this shit so hard?

He threw his pencil hard across the room and heard it clatter against the wall somewhere near his closet. He couldn't do this anymore. He needed someone to know—someone other than Hummel, someone who was actually there for him, even if he did hate Dave's guts after all was said and done.

He tore the sheet form his notebook and crumpled it into a little wadded ball. It was settled. He needed to do this. He needed to get this off his chest and risk losing his goddamn best friend over this. Because he couldn't keep this up anymore.

He couldn't keep living a lie.

He'd been off at practice that day, and Coach had completely ridden his ass about it, but he couldn't bring himself to care. Why should he worry about sports or whatever when he was about to lose the only real friend he'd ever had? God, what he wouldn't give for some booze right now. A little liquid courage to loosen up the tongue.

He'd made sure to be one of the first guys out of the locker room, forgoing soap during his shower and throwing on his clothes as quickly as possible. Chang could keep his perfect abs for another day. Dave Karofsky had more important things to do.

Azimio's dad had given him this clunky red piece of crap car for his sweet sixteen. It was old and smelled kind of funny, but it got him where he needed to go. He and Dave had spent many an afternoon rolling along side streets and highways just driving, going nowhere in particular. Reveling in the act of simply being alive, and damn if he wasn't going to miss that.

He felt his throat tighten and his eyes sting, and he wasn't going to fucking cry. That was for pansies. Dave could do this. He needed to do this.

"Hey, man. What's up? Your car die again or something?" That was him. His best friend. His best friend who had a good two inches and twenty-plus pounds on him. Oh god, Azimio was going to fucking kill him.

"I…" he started, but his voice gave out. He couldn't do this. There was no need. He was just confused was all. That kiss meant nothing. Those looks meant nothing. He just didn't like girls. There was nothing wrong with that. It didn't mean he was queer. He could still turn back, pretend nothing was wrong. There was still time. He-

"Are you okay, man? You look kind of pale. I can call your dad or something if you need-"

"No! No, I'm fine. I just—I need to tell you something."

"Okay, but you're kind of freaking me out, dude. What's going on with you? Does it have something to do with how shitty your game was today, because man you sucked," he chuckled, slapping Dave good-naturedly on the shoulder.

You won't want to touch me when you hear what I'm about to say.

Azimio's deep voice cut into his thoughts. "Yo, Dave, you're kind of freaking me out."

"I'm gay."

There. He said it. He clenched his eyes shut and waited for the blow to come. There wasn't any way he was making it out of this alive. There was no way Azimio-

"Oh. You sure?"

Dave could hardly breathe. He peeked out cautiously from under his bunched eyelids to find Azimio's dark face. He didn't look angry. At all. What the hell?

"Yeah," he breathed. "I'm sure."

"Okay. Well, I guess that's cool." He shrugged, looking down at the ground before suddenly focusing his attention back at Dave. Dave flinched and braced himself for impact. "Wait, you haven't been watching me in the showers or anything because dude, that's just wrong."

"No."

The other boy deflated, a light smile forming on his lips. "Okay, then we're good."

"Wait. This doesn't…bug you or anything?"

"Well, yeah, man. A little. But you're still you, right? So tits don't really do anything for you. I don't think I would have expected you of all people to be batting for the other team, but you're still Dave, right? You're still my best friend."

And that really did it for him. He crumbled to the ground, fucking sobbing because this wasn't supposed to happen. Dave had been prepared for the worst, but there was no way in hell he could have prepared himself for this. Azimio wasn't supposed to be so cool about this; he was supposed to beat him to a bloody pulp, until they couldn't identify his body without checking the dental records. He was supposed to spit on him, call him a fag, do something. He wasn't supposed to be okay with this. He wasn't supposed to accept his queer ass.

He wasn't supposed to still be his friend.