Day of Silence, 2012 (3b/3)
Media: Fic
Title: Day of Silence, 2012 (3/3)
Rating: PG-13 or very light R
Pairings: Kurt/Blaine, Santana/Brittany. A variety of friendships.
Spoilers: No
Warnings: Some homophobic language, some bullying, both on par with the show. Also spoilery possible trigger: mention/mourning of suicide, not a main character
Word Count: c. 18,250 words for this segment. For the entire Day of Silence 'verse, c. 32,500 words.
Summary: This story follows from Day of Silence, 2011 and Day of Silence, Intermezzo. In this part: the Day of Silence at McKinley (and more). There's Klaine being Klaine in all their spectacular adorableness; there's Santana being Santana in all her fiery, vulnerable glory; there's Quinn being a strong, independent woman; there's Dave Karofsky grappling with who he is and who he wants to be; there's Nick and Jeff (and you'll just have to read to find out about them); and throughout everything there's New Directions as a family.
Continued from Part 3a
* * *
8:00 a.m.
Dave is laying in bed, fully dressed. He’d gotten up as usual, dressed, eaten…. But he’d known since talking to Santana that he wouldn’t go to school today. And, sure, whatever, maybe he’d thought about it while going through his morning routine, but…. Honestly, getting ready this morning had been mostly for show, so his parents would leave for work, thinking that he was just running late, not skipping.
So now it’s a waiting game. His mom has already left, so all he’s waiting for is-yes, there, he can hear a car in the driveway; his dad must be leaving.
Dave doesn’t move. He doesn’t plan to move or speak until maybe dinnertime. Or maybe never, if the dead feeling in his chest doesn’t go away. He closes his eyes.
He drifts….
Snap.
Dave’s eyes shoot open, and inexplicably there stands “Sant-!” but she smacks her hand hard over his mouth. (Has he broken the silence, then? Does half a name count? He can’t tell if he feels guilty or not; he’s too busy with the dull ache that settled in his chest some time in the night, and weird distant panic, and Santana’s manic expression.) His phone buzzes on the bed, and Santana nods to it without taking her narrowed eyes off him.
Eyes watering from Santana’s slap, Dave slides his hand across the bedspread until he feels the smooth plastic of his cell, thinking that it would be unsafe to break eye contact with Santana right now. Like she’s a mountain lion or a snake or something. He worries about the razor blades fabled to be hidden in her hair for the first time in months.
One quick dangerous glance at his phone explains Santana’s presence:
To: Dave
From: Satan
You’re coming. Let’s go.
* * *
8:30 a.m.
Santana steps into Spanish 4, punctual for probably the first time all semester. (Whatever. She could ace this shit sleeping, which is basically what she’s been doing since freshman year, because hey, why not sign up for an automatic A+? The only downside is that Schuester does require that she actually show up to class. So here she is.)
She’s not going to broadcast this or anything, but stepping into Mr. Schuester’s classroom is the first time she’s relaxed since Blanderson’s stupid text the night before. Mr. Schu may be clueless, and a little pathetic (especially with Ms. Pillsbury, because seriously just tap it already), and a lot of a manwhore…but Santana respects him. He’s decent to her, to them, even though they’re just ‘kids’ or whatever. Plus he can do serious justice to Vanilla Ice, which she will never admit to his face. And, most importantly, he tries. Sure, he fucks up almost daily, does the same lesson plan like a hundred times and nearly gets them disqualified from shit and pushes them too hard or not enough or gives in to Rachel’s ridiculousness. But, as ready as Santana is to go all Lima Heights Adjacent on his ass over all of those offenses and more…really, none of it matters, looking back. What she remembers, what she respects, is that Mr. Schu actually gives a fuck about them.
So if there’s one place she knows she can just chill the hell out today, it’s Schu’s Spanish class. And after a morning like this one? She needs this. Otherwise someone will be going home one nut short today. She doesn’t know how Schu is planning to get anything done without his voice; she guesses he’ll just hand them some sickeningly huge stack of worksheets that her bilingual brain will race through in about ten minutes. And then maybe she can catch her usual nap…or continuously text Brittany reminders to keep her mouth shut…or maybe she’ll just sext Brittany for an hour instead, because whatever, that should keep B occupied enough that she doesn’t talk, right?
Santana settles into her seat. She is so ready for this shit.
“¡Hola! Buenos días, clase.”
…
Oh.
Hell.
To.
The.
No.
Of course the one thing she’s not prepared for, the one thing she hadn’t even considered-because she’d prepared herself for slushies and catfights and indifference and everything that Britt could possibly get up to which is honestly a lot and-everything-but what the fuck Schuester.
What the fuck.
Schuester and his sweater vest and his disgusting gelled hair and his goddamn smile and what the fuck.
She can’t believe it. He’s not doing it?
Her fists clench around the legs of her desk.
If he were a student, she would slap him across the face.
Where does he get off, thinking he can blow them off like this?
What does he even think-
That he has too much to lose, being silent with them? Because he sure as fuck doesn’t have more to lose than Dave, than Santana herself. Whatever he thought it would risk losing, well, she hopes it’s worth more than her respect.
Or does he think that teachers aren’t supposed to do this? Well, fine fucking time for the man to start caring about what is or isn’t appropriate-maybe he could’ve thought about that before that ballad lesson. Or, you know, Rocky Horror. Or the infamous Britney Spears sex riot assembly. Seriously.
You know what, fuck him.
Because his place, if he actually does give a damn about it, is with them. And he knows it.
“¿Señorita Lopez?”
Santana has spent the first fifteen minutes of class ignoring the lesson, staring at her fists, clenching them so hard that her fingers have gone cold and white. Now she looks up. She meets Mr. Schuester’s eyes.
Her glare is so violent that he takes a step back, his friendly expression faltering.
Her tries to recover. “¿Señorita Lopez? ¿Si pudieras, escribirías unos ejemplos en la pizzara?”
Santana stands, flexing her bloodless fingers.
She’s not entirely sure that she isn’t about to assault a teacher.
Because if there had been any uncertainty about exactly what is going on here, it’s gone now. Schuester knows. She’d figured in the first place that Blaine had likely texted Schu along with the glee kids, and there’d been little doubt that Kurt had managed to squeeze in a lecture for Mr. Schu because Kurt had definitely ‘educated’ the fuck out of the rest of them throughout the last week. But this is confirmation: Schuester never has students write on the board. He insists that they have enough practice with spelling on tests and papers, that in class it’s essential to practice pronunciación.
So of course he would call on her and tell her to write. Because he knows that she’s not talking today.
Santana holds Mr. Schuester’s gaze for the entire walk from her seat in the back. (She’s never understood the expression ‘cut the tension with a knife.’ If she had a knife now she wouldn’t be using it on the tension.)
Schuester continues lecturing once she’s at the board, but she doesn’t hear it. She doesn’t even know what she’s supposed to be giving examples of. Fuck if it matters, anyway.
Her stiff fingers can hardly grip the chalk. Her letters come out harsh and spiky.
She writes:
No creo esta mierda. ¿Eres nuestro enseñador? Que nos dé un ejemplo que merezca nuestro respeto. ¿Nos preocupa en absoluto, cabrón? Por lo que se puede ver-
“Santana.”
Mr. Schuester’s voice is shocked, and shockingly close. She removes her hand from the blackboard, letting the chalk drop and shatter on the ground.
“Siéntate, Señorita Lopez. Y ven a mi oficina durante almuerzo.”
Mr. Schuester erases her words methodically, not commenting on them, before continuing the lesson.
Santana wraps her fists back around the legs of her desk and tries not to scream and tries not to cry and wonders when someone will start to care about them.
(Someone who matters, someone who has some power, someone who could maybe change things.)
And, yes, maybe if things were the way she wished then they, she and Brittany and Dave and Kurt and Blaine, wouldn’t be a little queer family. She would regret that. But maybe they wouldn’t have to be.
Kurt would have never feared for his life and Blaine wouldn’t have that scar across his ribs and Santana herself would never lay awake at night wondering if it was time yet to stop worrying about Dave killing himself. And she could kiss Brittany everywhere, all the time, and see her smile afterwards and not worry about anyone taking the smile off Brittany’s face.
Why doesn’t he want that?
* * *
9:40 a.m.
It’s second period, AP World History, and Blaine isn’t even trying to pay attention.
Ms. Jefferson seats alphabetically, but ‘Anderson’ and ‘Hummel’ align such that Blaine is seated just in front of Kurt. (Lucky, since this is the only period they share besides Glee.) This provides ample note-passing opportunities, and also ensures that neither of them ever learns anything during small group discussion.
But it’s still lecture now, and lecture is a different story. During lecture, when entire civilizations are often covered in under ten minutes, entire epochs of human history blazed through in half a class period, they both usually focus. And since absolute silence is always the rule, there’s no reason that today should be any different.
Blaine watches his pen trace nonsensical spirals across his otherwise impeccable notebook. Today is different.
If Blaine tries to pin it down, he thinks it’s an awareness of Kurt, just behind him and to his right. But that’s too passive, really: Blaine’s entire right arm, his side and every link in his spine, his right leg from hip to knee to ankle, vibrate with attention. It’s like half his blood cells carry a slight electric charge, like a finger is grazing the tips of the tiny invisible hairs covering his skin.
The only other times he’s felt anything like this are those scattered hours that he and Kurt have spent with just each other, wrapped together so thoroughly and for so long that Blaine’s reality resolves itself, simplifies itself into Kurt’s eyes, Kurt’s laugh, Kurt’s scent (which is more like home than anything else)….
This sensation now, Blaine decides as he watches his pen continue its absurd journey toward the left margin, is not identical. It’s not physical enough: nothing can quite match the warmth of holding his boyfriend, or that barest whisper of Kurt’s lips on Blaine’s throat, or the way they sometimes just listen to their heartbeats mingle.
But that delicate, fundamental awareness, the way that everything but Kurt seems irrelevant and other, is the same.
Blaine smiles, because it is, after all, beautiful.
(It is, after all, love.)
He lowers his head and chances a look over his shoulder.
Kurt is trailing his eyes over everything he can see of Blaine-Blaine feels his skin prickle as his boyfriend’s gaze follows the line of Blaine’s shoulder before meeting his eyes. They both smile.
The sharp click of chalk against the blackboard breaks the mutual haze; Blaine’s eyes shoot back to his pen.
He spends the next ten minutes inching his chair backwards so that, by the time Ms. Jefferson launches into the Second World War, his right elbow sits on the leftmost corner of Kurt’s desk. Kurt leans the back of his hand against Blaine’s arm, and there they rest, missing everything they could have learned about Vichy France and the Kiev offensive and the Atlantic Charter and the Yalta Conference in favor of relearning each other’s silence.
* * *
10:31 a.m.
Dave doesn’t ever catch them near each other, not outside Glee-but today is different, of course.
He’d hurried out of second period. Calc II. He’s usually pretty outspoken there-why not? Might as well show off once a day, rule one classroom for one hour…. But today he didn’t raise his hand in Calc at all.
(He noticed Mr. Hendrick’s eyes dart to him every few minutes, saw that repeated shift from automatic expectation to disappointment. Then, near the end of the period, Hendrick’s expression changed to something between suspicion and understanding, and all the muscles in Dave’s gut clenched…. Yeah, he’d gotten out of there before the bell was even done ringing.)
Dave hasn’t decided to do it.
He hasn’t decided not to.
He flows through his routine, foreign and strange as it seems in silence, hyperaware of everything. (After Peterson, a linebacker, high-fived him in the hallway, he panicked for the rest of the passing period, trying to remember if they usually say anything to each other. Does he ever talk to people in the halls, in his classes? Can he get away with a nod? Will people start being suspicious? They will if your face says you’re freaking the fuck out, David, Jesus.) He continues, follows each step through to the next, because what else can he do? It’s fear or guilt. Rejection or disappointment. He edges between….
And that’s fine, everything is fine. Because it’s not like he really needs to speak today. Why should that be a big deal, one kid not talking?
That’s not such a big deal, right?
Not a big deal at all. He doesn’t have to make a thing out of it.
He’s caught them, though: he watches them leave Ms. Jefferson’s room, the slight quirk in Kurt’s eyebrow, casual, the twitch in the corner of Anderson’s lip, casual, but their eyes say love, he thinks, maybe, (they say something, anyway, something that’s not see you later, man,) and their fingers brush, linger too long, parting only with the greatest reluctance.
People are side-eyeing them, just for that, just for a brush of fingertips. Like half the people in the hallway.
And. Well.
It is a big deal. Isn’t it.
The silence.
He watches their last quick glance, watches some jerk shove past Kurt, knocking his shoulder much too hard to be unintentional, watches Kurt’s expression leap from soft to furious to resigned….
It’s just a big fucking deal.
The decision is over before Dave even processes it, and his gut constricts again but then, finally, settles.
That’s it, then. He’s in this with them. He is silent today.
(He digs for his phone. He doesn’t even rebuke himself for wanting to text Santana so badly.)
“There he is!” A heavy shoulder knocks into his own. Azimio. “Hey man, you are not gonna believe what shit is going down today.”
Dave opens his mouth.
Dave closes his mouth.
“No guesses? No, I hear you, it’s too fucking early be out of bed let alone in this hellhole, but I gotta say after Beiste’s two-a-days all first semester, I got so much energy I don’t even know what to-anyway, man, listen, it’s the greatest fucking thing today.”
Dave raises his eyebrows.
“It’s like Fairy Oppression Protest or something-I don’t know, don’t ask me, ‘cause I just heard from Rodriguez. Apparently none of the homos can talk, and Berry’s got her face duct taped, which I personally think is an improvement, but that’s just my opinion. Anyway, I got a whole fucking rainbow of slushies, man-” and he does, too; Dave had been studiously ignoring them for the whole conversation, just like all the other slushies Z has carried throughout this school year “-and you gotta do it with me; I know you’re all buddy-buddy with Homo Explosion now, and that’s cute-actually it’s a cause of concern for me, man, but I’m just looking out for you, as you know. But not today. They’re begging for it. And you know I am more than happy to keep some order around here. Gotta help me out. Like old times, am I right? Now, we hang a left here, probably catch that blonde dyke-” Z stops terrorizing passing freshmen with slushie fake-outs, turning to look at Dave, offering him the two slushies in his right hand. Pink and purple. “Here you go, man.”
Dave meets his old best friend’s eyes and shoves his hands into the pockets of his letterman jacket.
“Dave, come on. You haven’t slushied a kid this entire year. You can’t make one exception?”
Dave shakes his head.
Z stares.
“Holy shit,” he declares. “You’re not talking. You’re doing it with them. You are, aren’t you?”
Dave shrugs and nods.
Azimio cracks up. “I can’t believe-you’ve gotta be kidding me-Jesus Christ, Karofsky,” he says between chuckles.
He’s still laughing when he adds “Enjoy, man” and tosses two slushies into Dave’s face.
The cold hits hard-he had never even considered, never even thought, ohmygodholyshit is he cold-and he nearly shouts What the fuck? at Azimio, but he chokes it back so it comes out like a gag or, worse, a sob, and distantly he hears Z still laughing. He gets his eyes open, knuckling the stinging syrup across his cheeks, seriously considering punching the shit out of Azimio. (And fuck, why did it have to be pink and purple? He even has to be slushied just like a fairy?) But then-
Then, Puck-Puck, who’s been in juvie, who glared at Dave for the entire first quarter in glee, whose mouth is covered with silver duct tape-has already taken Z by the lapels of his jacket, is slamming him against the nearest lockers. (When Azimio tries to break away, freaking Zizes comes out of nowhere and slams him back against the metal with an almighty clang. Shit, Dave knew he liked that girl.)
Dave has to look away when more syrup starts dripping into his eyes; he tries to ignore the stares of every kid in the hallway, tries to remember where the nearest bathroom is. He’s angry, sure, but Puck and Zizes can clearly handle Azimio…and Dave mostly just wants to get this crap off his face, get people’s eyes off him… wash his jacket before it’s stained fucking pink forever, Jesus Christ….
He’s taken one step back into the crossroads when Anderson and Santana materialize, fall into step on either side of him without a word, and escort him to the nearest bathroom. Santana follows them in and bodily turns Dave to face her. She pauses. Then she launches herself at him, clinging around his neck, her stiletto boots off the ground, her perfectly straightened hair getting syrupy. She sobs into his neck, and he can’t say anything, wouldn’t know what to say anyway, so he just wraps his arms around her back and lets her cry.
When her gasping dies down and she shoves her way back to her own two feet, Anderson is standing there offering him a wet washcloth. Dave takes it with a weak smile. It’s warm and feels clean and calming against his freezing skin.
They let him clean himself off (probably guessing correctly that helping would only make him feel even more pathetic), but they stay in the bathroom long after the bell rings, shoulder to shoulder. Standing guard, maybe? Keeping him company? Either way, they calm him. By the time he’s gotten all the slushie off his skin (and has given up on getting the pink off his jacket without the help of a dry cleaner), he feels better than he has all day.
He turns around. Santana grins, and maybe she’s still a little puffy around the eyes but her grin is full-on bitch. She leans up and presses a solid kiss to his cheek before spinning on one perfectly spiked heel, patting Anderson’s cheek condescendingly, and leaving. Anderson, to Dave’s surprise, doesn’t go out with her. He steps forward, into Dave’s space, and pulls him into a hug. Dave goes completely still; Anderson seems oblivious, not at all awkward even though Dave is just standing there, frozen, not hugging him back. A few seconds later Anderson steps back, holding Dave’s shoulders. Thank you, he mouths, before following Santana out the door.
* * *
11:01 a.m.
Emma is just washing down her pill with a sip of water when Will barges through the door, one hand pulling at his hair and the other gripping a piece of loose leaf with ragged edges.
She focuses on his face instead of the little paper crumbs that the loose leaf is shedding onto her carpet. Will barely offers a “Morning, Emma” before asking if she can spare him some guidance and launching into an impassioned rant.
She reorganizes her pens by color instead of increasing size while he speaks. (“What did she expect? I mean, how can I effectively teach a Spanish class without speaking a single word of Spanish? Let alone trying to teach Glee without making a sound. I can’t just shirk my job like that….”) Finally, when it seems he’s in the home stretch, she tosses them all into a drawer and watches him.
“-and after she did show up, she sat there and filed her nails. The whole time! She filed her nails as I’m trying to teach her about respect. I just don’t know how to get her to understand that what she did, what she’s doing, is not okay behavior. And she didn’t even wait for me to dismiss her. Five minutes in, she just stands up, hands me this-” he brandishes the paper “-and walks out.”
Will offers it to her and she takes it carefully, smoothing it out on her desk.
Yes, there’s Santana’s messy mix of cursive and print. Emma reads it (I thought you cared about us and I don’t know what you’re so afraid of and I don’t owe you an apology, you owe us an apology) as Will continues “I just don’t know how to get through to her.”
Emma looks up at him again, and does not know whether it is attraction or affection or pity twisting through her stomach.
She pulls her favorite stationery out of its drawer. I think that, if you want to understand how to get through to her, you have to consider where she’s coming from, she begins.
“Emma?” Will says, and oh, he is studying her. She wishes sometimes that she didn’t enjoy his attention quite so much.
She blushes, flustered, but grins despite herself and holds up one finger: Wait is the silent command. Will drops heavily into one of the chairs facing her desk.
She feels betrayed, Emma continues in her neatest printing. It’s really hard for kids here to trust adults. You wouldn’t believe how many kids I could help who just won’t let me because I’m sitting behind this desk, not next to them in class. She purses her lips and glances at Will before adding, Santana has never felt comfortable enough to ask me for help. The fact that she feels betrayed means that she trusted you in the first place, and that is important. She disrespected you, twice, but you also violated her trust, even if you didn’t intend to.
Will is still watching her as she caps her pen, straightens the stationery into a neat pile, and hands it to him.
He reads about a sentence before looking up again.
“Does this mean you’re doing it, too?”
She nods.
He looks back to her stationery, frowning.
If he’s still confused, she decides, there is more he needs to hear. She pulls out another piece of stationery.
They don’t want just any adult, Will. They want you. I do the Day of Silence every year, sure, but I do Red Ribbon Week and drunk driving awareness and Chastity Club too. Besides, they don’t care about me the way they do about you. They’re your kids.
As far as the Day of Silence itself, you just have to put it in context: what are you really trying to teach these kids? What is it most important for them to learn, and what is the best way give them that lesson?
She hands him this last sheet, and he takes it, smiling faintly, before walking out the door.
* * *
11:04 a.m.
Blaine looks on in concern as Santana makes her way across the cafeteria. So far she has flipped off an entire table of hockey players and shoved a few oblivious freshmen out of her way. Now some other hotshot is mocking her and (ooh, even Blaine saw this one coming) she’s kicking his precariously tipped chair out from under him.
Blaine, Mercedes, and Sam actually applaud as she halfheartedly flips off one last heckler before collapsing on to the bench next to Blaine. She takes a slight sardonic bow to answer their grins and shrugs off the arm Blaine tries to put around her shoulders. It’s already halfway through their lunch period (where had she been, anyway?) and it doesn’t look like Santana is going to eat anything. Mercedes reluctantly offers her some tots (the only food left on Mercedes’s tray because she’d been savoring them) as Blaine texts You okay?
Santana pops a tot in her mouth (Mercedes watches the other girl chew with an intensity bordering on obsessive while Sam shakes with silent laughter and runs a soothing hand up and down his girlfriend’s arm) just as her phone lights up. She rolls her eyes at Blaine, whose phone is still in his hand, before answering him: fanfuckingtabulous.
Blaine slips his arm around her shoulders again and squeezes, not letting her shift away this time. He wishes, not for the first time, that Brittany shared their lunch period. Also Kurt.
His phone vibrates, and Santana must be the best in-class texter in all of McKinley because although her hands are folded neatly on the table, and her phone is tucked just as neatly into her bra, the message is from her: i’m fine, blanderson. and get your arm off me. i know you whore for cuddles like puckerman for milfs and schu for sweater vests, but now is not the time.
seriously tho i’ll be fine pops up over her first message, but he hardly has time to read it before yet another text comes through, followed by another…and another…and another….
Santana, still stuck under his arm, is staring at his continuously vibrating phone like it’s something obscene.
Blaine opens the first one. It’s from Nick. Blaine is glad to hear from him, since he’s one of Blaine’s only good friends who’s still at Dalton. But it’s strange that Nick is texting him now, during the school day (which actually makes a difference at Dalton) when they haven’t talked in about a week.
He opens the first message.
Hey Blaine, it reads. Hope the DoS is going well @ McKinley. I’m doing it here this year so Jeff doesn’t have to go it alone. That’s actually what I wanted to ask you about….
Blaine frowns, opening the next message. Jeff’s obviously having a pretty tough day. Well. It’s been a tough week, tbh. Just…bad. Seems like nothing I do is helping. Not to put a ton of pressure on you
or anything, but I was wondering if you could come over to Dalton tonight, just hang out with us? Thinking maybe a change of pace could help.
Kurt can come too, of course.
And of course I completely understand if you already have plans etc.
Just let me know.
Blaine sits back, still cradling his phone. Santana-he’d forgotten about Santana-elbows him in this side. What was that? She mouths, giving his phone an exaggerated look; he realizes that she has been reading all along, has read the whole message.
He shakes his head. He loves the New Directions kids, he really does, but people at McKinley just don’t have any tact.
(Across the table, Mercedes nearly takes out one of Sam’s eyes when he snatches her last tot, and Blaine can hear, distantly, the screeches of a gaggle of freshmen band geeks being slushied. He almost laughs aloud-he’s worried about tact, of all things.)
We’ll be there, he texts Nick.
When Santana nudges him again, the what was that? still hanging between them, he texts her Someone who’s not fine.
* * *
11:32 a.m.
Kurt is smiling, probably smiling more than he has in McKinley’s halls since the first day Blaine transferred when he refused to let go of Kurt’s hand for even a second during passing period (despite multiple slushies and even more tardy slips).
Kurt practically sprinted out of French to avoid Azimio, who had somehow managed to sneak an entire tray full of slushies into class without a single comment from their teacher. Hardly three steps out the door, Kurt ran into Mike and Puck, both of whom high-fived him. (And Puck has duct tape over his mouth. This is the lowlife who used to throw Kurt into dumpsters, now giving him a solid friendly punch to his bicep and smirking through duct tape.)
Yes. Kurt is happy.
Rachel, really, is the icing on the cake. He sees her in the crossroads about half the time this passing period, and he’s ecstatic when they run into each other today because Rachel has taped her mouth in rainbow. Rainbow. She’d probably broken into her New Headbands savings piggybank just to get that many shades of duct tape. The sight is enough to make Kurt choke back laughter and hug Rachel and then pick her up, spinning her around and around in the hallway.
He sets her down and they exchange playfully dignified cheek kisses and go their separate ways.
Kurt has the best friends the whole damn world. Even if they’re all a little strange. Because they’re all a little strange.
Standing at his locker, he scribbles something to that effect on a spare sheet of looseleaf before tucking his books into the crook of his elbow and closing his locker. He’ll give the note to Rachel later, maybe, he thinks, grinning like crazy again because rainbow duct tape, god he can’t wait to tell Bl-
SMACK.
…
Damn.
Slushie sluices down his spine, ice cold and sticky. Kurt forces himself through the shock of it (why is it still always such a shock?), enough to swipe the syrup away from his eyes, glare at the kids with the empty cups.
It’s hockey players, four of them, still laughing, patting each other on the back, saying shit to him as though he hasn’t already heard every variation on ‘fag’ ever to cross into Ohio. Kurt is ready to give them the castigation of their year (it would feature several words over three syllables-poor little puckheads wouldn’t even know what he’s calling them-) before he remembers that he can’t talk today.
He settles instead for the most thorough glare he can manage with four different flavors of slushie dripping down his face. Then he turns back to his locker.
The combination is much more difficult when he’s shivering and furious and embarrassed and sticky.
But he’s fine. He’s fine. He expected to be slushied much earlier than this, if he’s being honest.
At least he had the good sense to bring several changes of clothes.
At least he’ll only miss his lunch period, not AP World or something horrifying like that.
At least he has friends, now, who care that this is how he’s treated. Who will duct tape their mouths and high-five him.
By the time Kurt makes it to the nearest girls’ room, there’s something like a smile tugging at his lips again.
* * *
11:36 a.m.
“Hey, Quinn!”
Quinn turns, one eyebrow raised-
And is met with a face full of slushie.
And another.
And another.
She chokes on the cold before forcing her eyes back open.
Everyone in the hallway is staring.
Azimio stands before her, holding several empty, stacked slushie cups. He’s laughing; he’s talking about how far she’s fallen and probably other things too, Beth maybe except thank God that name never got out, but it doesn’t matter because Quinn isn’t listening.
Quinn sets down her books.
Everyone is still watching.
She takes off her sweater-it’s ruined anyway, and she has a short sleeved shirt on underneath-and wrings it out over Azimio’s shoes.
Azimio stops talking.
They’re still watching.
She hands him the sweater. He takes it.
She twists her head sideways and wrings her ponytail out over his shoes, too.
Azimio steps back, apparently breaking free of his shock, throwing down her sweater, snorting once before he turns to walk away.
She grabs his bicep, though, and yanks him back to face her.
Wipes her hands off on his letterman jacket.
Everyone is still watching. She shoots the entire hallway a disdainful glance, smiles at Azimio (he doesn’t see, too busy gaping at his jacket in horror), picks up her books, and beelines to the nearest girls’ bathroom.
But the nearest girls’ bathroom is inexplicably locked, and Quinn feels something like shame or maybe panic for the first time: no way in hell is she walking all the way across the across the science wing to get to the next closest bathroom. Not dripping three different colors of slushie. She pounds on the door until it opens one crack, revealing a familiar eye-
She squeaks when Kurt yanks her inside before locking the door again. Sorry, he mouths to her, wiping some dripping slushie from her forehead, but she waves him off. He’s dressed in his usual painted-on skinny jeans along with a clean white T-shirt; she can see his ruined clothes crumpled sadly in a plastic bag and a clean shirt hanging from the corner of the sink. His hair is clean but unstyled: she’s seen him like this all of once before, just a glimpse one morning in New York when he snuck past her to get to the shower, and she hadn’t realized how young he looks, how vulnerable.
(They’re all so much more vulnerable than they like to pretend.)
She shoves the worst of her syrupy hair behind her and pulls him into a hug.
He stays with her the rest of the period, first helping her clean herself off, then fetching a change of clothes from her locker, then just keeping her company. She suspects that he is as reluctant to rejoin the rest of McKinley as she is. Once her hair is mostly dry, he braids it into something complicated and gorgeous and crown-like, and when the bells rings they hug again and Kurt presses a wrinkled, slushie-stained piece of loose leaf into her hand.
* * *
Thank you all for doing this. You are the best friends I could ever ask for.
- Kurt Elizabeth Hummel
I want to thank you all, too. You are my family.
-Q
You guys are the best. (And Kurt-you bet your white boy ass we are!)
-Mercedes
J Guys, I’m glad we did today.
-Sam
I love our family
-Brittany
I love you guys too
-Finn
Do you guys remember that week we were all in wheelchairs? Today feels like that. Basically, we’re the shit.
-Artie Abrams
You guys are the best people I’ve ever met.
-Mike Chang
Guys. What the fuck. Reading this is making me grow a vagina.
-The Puckasaurus
Ignore Puckerman. He was sobbing his eyes out when he read this. I’m seconding everything all of you have said, btw.
-Lauren
I don’t even know who I’d be without you guys. You really are the best friends ever.
-Tina Cohen-Chang
All these messages are so touching! This almost makes up for the trauma of voluntarily suppressing my voice for 24 agonizing hours. Like many of you, I would like to say that I love you. You guys are really the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and that includes meeting Patti LuPone.
-Rachel Berry ★
I don’t know how to thank you guys. That you all participated today means the world to Kurt and me. And I want to thank you for welcoming me into your family. This year has been amazing.
-Blaine Anderson
What Quinn said. I love every one of you crazy losers. Whatever, it’s April of our senior year, I’m not gonna deny it.
-Santana
* * *
Continue to Part 3c