„Uh dude, why don't you make yourself useful and go visit the Garglers."

This is how the mess had started: Puck and the other boys were annoyed and he suggested that Kurt go spy on their competition.

And he had been so stupid as to do just that.

That's how he had ended up in this mess, Kurt thought, as he looked up into the much too golden eyes of the creepy Asian private school boy sitting in front of him.

Kurt had gone and tried to spy on the Warblers (thank you very much Puck, they are not called Garglers) but it turns out he had been a really lousy spy.

When he had arrived he followed the other students to a common room where a blonde boy with a stylish hair cut had sung with the rest of the Warblers.

At first, Kurt had thought, he'd hit the jackpot. But he had missed the eyes of that Asian guy in the second row following his every movement.

After the performance he had singled Kurt out and, with a black skinned boy, dragged him to another room and sat down into a stool.

"So, you came to spy on us." The Asian boy had said as the two boys sat down opposite Kurt.

Kurt felt cold sweat run down the back of his neck and his heart plummeted down.

This really didn't look good: he knew he was going to get beaten up for spying on them. And while his silent friend grinned at him like a crazy person all the time, bright white teeth contrasting against dark brown skin (maybe because he was going to get a show of Kurt getting beaten up) the Asian boy looked at Kurt with such amusement and a manic gleam in his eyes that Kurt was genuinely scared.

This was no sane person.

He was all alone with those two in a closed, secluded room in a private school in the middle of nowhere Ohio, after school hours.

Great.

"Actually..." Kurt exhaled, "I came here to spy, yes."

Better to get it over with, he thought.

It wasn't as if lying would help him anymore.

Strangely, the reaction Kurt had anticipated, both of them immediately getting their Warbler friends and beating him up, didn't come.

Instead the manic grinner's smile hadn't vanished one bit and the creep had his head cocked, looking at him as if contemplating something.

Kurt felt like he was being judged and it put him into an even more defensive mindset.

"But you didn't come here to only spy on us, did you?" the Asian guy asked and Kurt was caught off guard. How was he supposed to answer that?

His spine went stiff but he managed to mumble a "Maybe…"

He thought about the bullying at school.

How no one noticed, how scared he was of the football players and of Karofsky.

And yes, he had read up on Dalton. Their no-bullying policy had sounded like his gay dream. So maybe he had wanted to see this school for himself, see if it was true.

And somehow the Asian guy knew.

"You came here to seek help."

He just stated it like it was obvious.

Maybe Kurt was a really damn lousy spy and so miserable looking, anyone could see.

Oh God, he hoped not.

When Kurt didn't answer the Asian guy sighed.

"Look, please stop looking like we're going to beat you up any second. We won't. Yes, you spied on us, but I really have the feeling you didn't come here because of this. You look, forgive me for saying so, really bad. Stressed, and not because you got caught by us. We only want to help, that's why we dragged you here. What's your name?"

The other guy suddenly chimed in, for the first time changing his facial expression.

"And because my friend here forgot his manners: His name's Wes and you can call me David."

David was side eying Wes as he said this. Wes pursed his lips.

Kurt didn't know what was happening.

He glanced from Wes to David and back again.

"Kurt," he heard himself blurt, "my name's Kurt."

And he told them.

He told them about the bullying because once he'd started he didn't seem to be able to stop. It was pouring out of him, not emotionally, but in a resigned way.

He couldn't escape it and why not tell someone who actually asked? Even if it were two strangers Kurt had just met.

He felt pathetic.

As he told them, Wes and David kept exchanging glances between them, seemingly communicating silently.

It was odd, especially when Wes looked at David, gave a slight nod and David returned to grinning like THAT again.

When Kurt had finished and neither of them said of word for a long time, just staring at him, he felt stupid. He just had had verbal diarrhea and had told them everything he had been bottling up for the last few weeks.

When he glanced at the old clock at the far wall his cheeks flared up.

He had whined at them for almost half an hour. He cast his eyes down on the table: he didn't want to see their mocking eyes.

Only when he heard rustling and something heavy clonked onto the table did he look up.

Wes had set something on the table.

There, nestled in some white fabric, were two stone balls.

They were about the size of a coconut and smooth. They were shining in the sunlight which fell onto the table from the window. One was dark blue with speckles of ruby red and the other was a muddy earth brown with blotches of mossy green.

With a question in his eyes he looked up at Wes. What was that?

Wes was smirking at him and laying his hands on either side of the stones, as if presenting them to him.

"These, my friend, are -" he stopped for a moment, "uh…- energy giving esoteric stones."

He seemed to be at a loss for more words for a few moments before David started nodding fiercely.

He grinned, showing all of his white teeth.

"Yeah, they're like really cool! Whenever one of us feels really down Wes gives one of those to us and they totally help. Holding them or telling them your problems makes your life less stressful!"

Wes was now grinning along with him, even though his grin seemed much more forced.

Of course this would happen to Kurt.

He would run into the school's dealers. Only they were not trying to sell you drugs like at McKinley, no they would try to be proper and sell you esoteric stress-relieving stones.

What luck had befallen him!

Kurt cleared his throat. He just wanted to get away from them now. And if it meant buying some stupid stone, so be it.

"So…how much are they?"

Wes raised one of his eyebrows.

"They're free!"

He seemed affronted by Kurt's assumption.

"But" – oh, here it comes – "you only get one."

Thank god for small wonders. Kurt internally sighed in gratitude.

At least he wouldn't have to spend his hard earned money.

He looked at the stones.

The only one even half acceptable was the blue one. If he had to be seen carrying a stone around, he'd at least take the one which seemed at least one tiny bit fashionable.

The muddy one just looked like an artistic disaster.

"Okay, I'll take the blue one."

Wes didn't move a muscle. "No."

Kurt was sure he hadn't heard correctly.

Did Wes just tell him he wasn't allowed to take the blue one? But he had just offered one to him.

He took a breath.

"Seriously…you just told me I'm supposed to take one. Can I at least choose the once I'd like?"

Wes only raised his eyebrow.

Kurt felt the need to elaborate.

"The brown one is really not what I like. I don't think it suits me. It doesn't match my fashion sense, just look at it! It's so—plain!"

He hadn't meant to get bitchy, but really, what were they thinking?

Didn't Wes have eyes?

He looked much too fabulous to settle for that catastrophe in brown.

He was just about to go on in his tirade when he caught the look of David.

Wes still wasn't betraying any emotion, but David looked….sad?

Kurt clicked his mouth shut.

After a few seconds of trickling silence, none of them moving, Wes cleared his throat.

"Kurt."

Kurt's head snapped to Wes.

"I really, really think you should take the brown one. Yes, it's not as….fancy as the blue one but I think it'll suit you just fine. You need some calming colors and nothing fierce. And besides, the other one is kind of…already reserved."

The last bit of the sentence was mumbled and Kurt had to strain his ears to hear it.

He nibbled on his lower lip, glancing at the brown stone.

He just really wanted to get away from those two nut cases and not argue with them over some stupid stone he wasn't going to use anyway. He might as well humor them and take the brown one.

Kurt finally nodded.

"Okay, I'll take it."

The small squeak from Wes and the once-again-near manic grin from David told Kurt he had made the right decision: anything to get away from those two.

When Kurt got home he felt drained.

As soon as he had said those words, he had stumbled up to take the stone from the table and ran.

Only the freaking thing weighed a ton.

When trying to lift it from the table the weight had surprised him so much it had almost fallen to the floor.

Wes' piercing shriek of panic was still ringing in his ears.

After dragging the stone to his Navigator, flanked by Wes and David so the stone wouldn't fall, he had laid it down (under Wes' piercing gaze) on his passenger seat and taken off.

While driving out of the parking lot he had glanced at the ugly thing lying next to him.

"You'll be going into the garbage can as soon as I'm home."

But then of course there had to be traffic on the road and it had taken an hour longer than anticipated to get home.

When he finally arrived Kurt was so tired and he didn't plan to move a single finger anymore. This included the heavy stone, so instead of finding out where he could dispose of it (he was pretty sure such a heavy bulky thing wasn't supposed to go into a normal garbage can in the kitchen), Kurt pushed it to the floor of the car.

He knew Finn would drive to school with him tomorrow so the thing couldn't remain on the passenger seat.

He went into the house to help make dinner as Carole and Finn were there, like they'd been most evenings the last month. Dinner was followed by some mindless TV show with his family, and at 11'o clock he finally went downstairs and to bed.

The next morning when Finn got into the Navigator's passenger seat he bumped his foot into the stone.

"Ow! Kurt, what the hell? What is this big – stone-thingy – on the floor?"

Kurt rolled his eyes.

"Never mind. It's nothing of any importance. I'll get rid of it after school, just put it on the back floor, so your poor big yeti feet won't get injured any more."

It wasn't until three weeks later Kurt found the stone in his car again.

School hadn't gotten any better, Karofsky was still bullying him endlessly and Kurt had taken to hiding in empty class rooms between classes and at lunch break.

But the impending wedding of his dad and Carole had taken up so much of his time, he hadn't had any room to dwell on his misery.

It wasn't until the whole family had moved into their new home (he now had a room UPstairs) and Kurt had just arrived with the last car-load from their old house at their new home, that he saw the stone lying under his seat in the back. It must have gotten wedged there and he had long forgotten about it.

He shrugged, might as well take everything out of the car, it needs cleaning anyways, so he grabbed the stone (still as heavy and ugly as ever) and put it onto the top of the box he was supposed to take upstairs.

It felt kind of warm in his hand, but lying in the sun all afternoon in a closed car explained that.

As soon as he got upstairs, he put it on his dresser so it wasn't in the way while unpacking; he really didn't want to stub his toes on it like Finn had done weeks ago.

Carole saw it the next morning, when coming in and asking him what dress she should wear with her new shoes.

She asked him what it was and he complained about the ugly thing and told her the whole "esoteric stone" story.

She started laughing and told him to humor it and keep it a while longer.

"Who knows maybe it does work?"

She winked at him and went downstairs, still chuckling to herself.

Kurt remained sitting on his bed, pouting at the stone. The sunlight from the window was shining on it and it STILL wasn't good looking.

"You know", he felt ridiculous talking to a stone, but nobody was going to hear him, "if you weren't so heavy I'd have gotten rid of you already. But I really don't wanna carry you downstairs all the way to the trash right now. I have to get to school and face my living nightmare of jocks and dumb Neanderthals."

He sighed, got up, grabbed his satchel and was out the door.

This is absolute hell,

Kurt thought as he shuffled down the hallway Friday evening. He felt completely numb and empty.

Today had been the day. Everything had escalated.

Karofsky had slushied him three times before lunch, he'd gotten locker checked so many times this day he couldn't remember and Kurt had finally snapped.

He'd stormed after Karofsky into the locker room. In hindsight, he shouldn't have done that, but it was too late already.

He had kissed him. This monster had kissed him.

Kurt felt vile and disgusting.

His first kiss: taken from him by a homophobic joke of a football player.

He sniffled as he trudged down to his room and into his bathroom. Kurt spent almost 30 minutes brushing his teeth, trying to get the taste and feeling of Karofsky away.

It was almost dark outside when he emerged in his pajamas from the bathroom, the house completely still and empty. Carole and his dad were on a short vacation, only coming back tomorrow evening and Finn was probably going to be at Puck's playing video games until morning.

A bitter taste welled up in his throat, realizing how utterly alone he felt. He couldn't even tell anybody.

Hot tears build up in his eyes until they spilled over and down his cheeks. He whimpered and don't ask him what possessed him to do this, but he went to his dresser and grabbed the stone and folded it into his arms. It was comfortingly warm from lying in the sun all day and he crawled into bed with it.

He lay down and hugged the stone to him as his tears turned into full-blown crying.

"I hate it, I hate him. I hate it all. I don't wanna go to school anymore, I really don't..."

Kurt let himself whisper into the darkness. He had already talked to the stone once, why not do it again, nobody heard him.

This thought brought a new wave of tears to cascade down his cheeks, as this was exactly why all of this had happened. Nobody believed him at school, no one at the glee club.

Finn had realized something was bothering Kurt, and he hovered close by and always sending him concerned looks. Still, Kurt hadn't come up to him and told him outright (Kurt didn't think he had to, he thought it was obvious how miserable he was) so Finn's presence didn't really help.

He hadn't told their parents, out of fear of giving his father another heart attack. Things at school had been bad, but not so much, that Kurt wanted to risk his dad landing in the hospital again. And even though Carole was lovely, he didn't feel familiar enough with her yet.

So he sobbed and mumbled into the stone until he fell into an exhausted sleep.

Kurt woke the next morning to the sun shining directly in his face.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a few more minutes, trying to go back to sleep, it was Saturday for god's sake but it didn't work.

Squinting, he opened his eyes and looked to the window. He had forgotten to close the blinds last night.

Sighing internally, Kurt turned right, looking for the stone. He didn't feel it anymore, so it must have fallen off the bed.

Only instead of finding the stone on the floor, he touched something sharp edged, when he put out his hand to support himself.

Confused he shifted to look at what was under him.

His eyes grew big.

He was lying in shards.

Really big shards.

Shards of muddy brown with mossy green blotches.

Oh God.

He was lying in the remnants of the stone, his brain supplied.

Which apparently wasn't so stoney at all, it had to have been hollow. And his weight had crushed it.

Wonderful, Kurt thought.

Just the kind of morning he needed after that shitty evening. He knocked his head against one of the shards, berating himself for his stupidity on falling asleep like that.

And…ew…that was wet and cold.

Scrunching up his nose he moved his forehead away from the shard. It was slimy. And gooey. A slimy string hung between the shard and his forehead.

Out of reflex, he batted at the string near his forehead so it went away.

That was absolutely vile!

Why was there slime on the inside (inside? Yes, he checked, it was the inside of the stone) of the shards? Normally stones weren't hollow or WARM or slimy on the inside.

Eggs were.

He felt like crying again. His breath hitched, as he considered that thought. Goosebumps spread across his back.

He was lying in eggshells.

That stone hadn't been a stone, it had been an egg.

And whatever had been in there had apparently hatched successfully as there wasn't lying anything squished underneath him…

...which means it's in here somewhere.

Kurt really didn't like that thought. It was an understatement to describe the foreboding he felt.

Just as he was contemplating moving off the bed as slowly as possible he caught movement in the corner of his right eye.

Above him, on the headboard, was something swishing back and forth.

Dread filled, he slowly looked up.

The swishing was that of a tail. A thin, long, leathery tail which connected to a body of the size of a baby kitten, sitting on the top of his headboard. Its scaled skin was green (mossy green!) with blotches of brown (muddy brown, please no).

Slit golden eyes stared back at him. It's nostrils flared and the thing (which had wings, oh my) made a curious sound.

There was a winged lizard sitting on his headboard.

They stared at each other, before the thing made a motion, as if wanting to move toward Kurt.

Kurt screamed.

It was more like the high-pitched shrieking of a teenage girl, but he really didn't care right now. There was this vile thing trying to move toward him and it had been in an egg!

Oh god, how disgusting, he had slept with that egg in his bed.

That thing had been lying in his car all the time. And now it had hatched!

He scrambled backwards on the bed, just as he heard a loud thump down the corridor and heavy thumping footsteps before his door was banged open with so much force that it crashed against the wall and bounced back again.

Finn stood in the doorway, barefoot and gasping for breath, just clad in a t-shirt and boxers with a still sleep-ruffled head.

"Kurt! Jesus, what happened? Why'd you yell like that?"

Kurt just stared at Finn, unable to move. A small huff let his head whip back to the source of his stress.

That thing.

Finn followed Kurt's movement and his eyes almost bugged out of his head as he saw it.

His mouth was hanging open, before he whispered in awe,

"Oh my God, that's a DRAGON. So cool!"