The Pains of Living - Chapter Two.
Title: The Pains of Living (3/?)
- Chapter 2 part 1.
Sequel to Velcro (Or, A Million and One Different Ways to Start Piecing Together Broken Hearts)
Author: Pulpobsessed.
Pairing: Multiple Pairings
Characters: This chapter: Dave Karofsky, Kurt Hummel, Chris Michaels (OC), and others
Overall Rating: NC17 (for violence and language)
Summary: Takes place a year and six months after the final chapters of Velcro. Dave thought his life was perfect. He had everything he could ever want or need. But when a real tragedy strikes, everything he knows is turned on its head.
Genre: FutureFic
Disclaimer: Glee belongs to Ryan Murphy. Not me. But this Dave...he's all mine.
Read D&R Here | Read Velcro Here
Read Pains of Living Prologue | Chapter 1.
A/N.So…I'm back. I can't tell you how good it feels to be writing again. This story has taken on a life of its own - a really wonderful life. I'm so happy with what I'm doing. As with most of my writing, I'm working through some of my own stuff at the same time as writing Dave through his own emotional crap. This chapter is told entirely from Chris' perspective - and I really love living inside Chris. I hope everyone likes it. I really do. Also, my chapters for this story tend to be long. Sorry. I'l try to post a chapter a week.
**Chapter 2** - A Forever Thing (or, Chris Michaels’ very long night.)
The lights they call me
Call me to your side
The lights they blind me
They take my sight
Will you restore me?
Grace my senses again?
The lights they blind me
Soon he descends
You belong to him tonight
There is nothing I can do
You belong to him tonight
There is nothing I can do
[1]
November 12, 2024 - 7:30pm.
“Drive faster! Just drive faster!” Chris slapped his hand against the partition separating him from the cab driver - a partition he was quite glad existed, since he was liable to start hitting the driver soon if he didn’t drive faster.
“Sir, I’m going as fast as I can...just calm down, we’re almost there.”
Chris let out a small sob and fell back against the seat.
This was not happening. It just wasn’t. Whatever was going on at The Centre, it couldn’t be Dave. The words Dave Karofsky and shooting just...they just didn’t make sense. The man didn’t even play violent video games, he was an adamant gun control advocate, he hated to see physical violence...so to think that he was involved in something like...whatever this is...god it just made no sense!
Chris’ brain tried to rationalize - there were a million possible reasons why Dave wasn’t answering his phone. Maybe Dave had been evacuated and just forgot his phone and he couldn’t remember Chris’ number - which he constantly forgot. Or maybe, Dave was in the Metro and would call Chris when he got home and saw piles of food in the kitchen, including a very melty tub of Oreo ice cream. Or...maybe Dave was trapped in that building, while a madman held a gun to his head.
Chris felt himself become rather light headed with that thought.
He tapped the screen on his phone, waking it up. It was unbearably bright in the dim cab. Still nothing - his phone had sat silent as a rock for the last thirty minutes.
“Please call, Dave… please please.”
His phone responded. The sound of it ringing was harsh and unbearable in the silence.
Jess.
“Chris!” Her voice was panicked and scared. “I can’t reach him. Why can’t I reach him?”
“I don’t know...I...I’m on my way there now.”
He knows his voice sounds high pitched and unnatural - as though he is speaking through a megaphone inside a long dark tunnel.
“Jess…”
“Its ok, Chris...he’s going to be ok.”
“We fought, Jess...we fought last night. I didn’t even tell him I love him last night. What if…”
“No...you don’t get to say that. You don’t get to think that.”
“I’m so scared. I’m so scared.”
“He’ll be ok, I know he will...this is Dave, he always somehow comes out on top.”
“Sir…” the cab driver’s voice was even louder than Jess’ or his own sobbing. “We’re here, sir.”
Chris slammed his credit card against the payment console and leaped out of the car. “I’m here...I’m running.”
He knew the main entrance to the place was just around the corner on 14th, but it felt like such a long distance to run. He barrelled around the corner, and suddenly he stopped short. Unable to believe what he was seeing.
Police. Everywhere.
People yelling.
A group of people were running into the building - they were pulling a stretcher.
Another group was coming out, one EMT was supporting a young woman, whose shirt was covered in blood.
And a third group was pushing a stretcher with a body on it out of the building. A body he knew very well - he knew the every curve and contours of that body like he knew his own. He knew the way that body was oddly ticklish on its forearms. He knew how strong and powerful those arms, that chest, that neck was. He knew that body when it was asleep. When it was running next to him at the gym. When it was snuggled up against him on the couch. When it was holding him in bed. When it was grunting in lustful pleasure while buried deep inside him, with Chris’ legs wrapped tightly around its waist - edging him on eagerly.
Dave.
His Dave.
His Dave hurt.
The guttural scream that tore itself out of his body startled a few of the onlookers gathered nearby.
He heard Jess’ panicked voice screaming his name through the phone, but the phone was falling out of his hand and hitting the pavement. As he moved forward, screaming Dave’s name, he was vaguely aware of a young man stooping to pick up the phone. Chris would later learn this was Sam, one of the volunteers at The Centre, who recognized Chris from the few times when Chris had come to pick up Dave at the end of the day.
Chris’ mind had gone blank, except for one singular thought - he had to get to Dave. Dave was hurt. He had to help Dave. And nothing was going to keep him from doing that.
He managed to run past the first group of people before someone grabbed him. A police officer.
“Sir. You can’t go in there...its not safe.”
“NO! I’m going...that man, that man on the stretcher! His name is David Karofsky. I’m his boyfriend, Chris Michaels. I am going to him.”
“Sir, I’m sorry…”
“No! I am going. Let me go...just let me go.” He pushed against the man. Chris rarely exerted his physical capabilities - mostly because he just never had reason to - but tonight, with the possibility that he might lose Dave before he could say I love you again, well he bloody well was going to exert it. Chris slammed himself against the officer, pushing him out of the way. He was able to make it about five steps before being yanked back again.
“You are not going there, Sir!”
Chris’ rational brain kicks in. He knows how to do this. He does this every day...in little ways: getting them reservations at places where you can’t even get reservations, getting airlines to bump them up into first class for no actual reason, having his lunch prepared before everyone else. Chris Michaels does not like working for the FBI most days, but he sure as fuck knows how to make the FBI work for him.
“Look…” Chris pulls out his ID, “I work for the FBI, I consult and as such I know a lot of people there. I am five phone transfers away from the Assistant Director. If you do not let me go and let me go to Dave, I will make those five phone transfers and I will make sure you and anyone else who stands in my way right now will barely be fit to work as a mall security guard. Now, please…” Chris’ voice broke, heavy tears bordered the edges of his words… “Please, just let me go to him...please.”
The officer watched the short man before him, a man very nearly on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown...then he nodded. “Come on...follow me.” He then turned and pushed Chris forward, yelling “Let us through…”
Seconds later, Chris was at Dave’s side.
Chris knew he was on precarious ground already - he had just threatened a Maryland police officer, he was using his position at the Bureau in a way that was really really not ok and could easily get him fired or worse...so when he saw Dave’s shattered form, he had to swallow the urge to scream or sob...he had to be normal, rational and as calm as possible.
God, there was so much blood. Dave’s shirt was saturated in it and it looked like the EMTs were pressing gauze or something onto Dave’s chest...hot red blood was seeping through the fabric.
His face...good lord...his face was destroyed. One eye was completely swollen and there was so much blood. He had cuts and bruises and swelling everywhere.
Chris caught the eye of one of the EMTs - a friend of Tim’s.
“Jesus, Chris...you shouldn’t be…”
“I’m staying with him.” His voice was even, hard. Determined.
One of the other EMTs nodded, “Then you better be ready to run, he needs help now.”
Chris nodded. He’d run to the ends of the earth if it meant helping...saving...Dave.
“Dave…” He said, leaning in as he ran alongside the stretcher. “Please don’t leave. Please stay...I love you.”
--/--
All Chris really remembers about the ride to the hospital was how he sat there, trying to stay out of the way, with his hand on Dave’s head, stroking his hair and whispering softly to him. He was not entirely sure how he managed to actually talk his way into the ambulance - but he was sure as shit glad that Tim’s friend had been the EMT.
Chris is really not used to seeing Dave like this - sure he’s watched Dave sleep many times before. Like that time when Dave had the flu so badly that he slept for 14 straight hours, and Chris had read sitting on the bed next to him, just to be near him. But this is different - this face, it looks like Dave, but it also doesn’t. His Dave doesn’t have blood oozing out of a head wound, his Dave doesn’t have a swollen eye. His Dave doesn’t have cuts, bruises, and a huge gash across his cheek. When his Dave sleeps, there is a look of contentment and peace that settles over his face...this Dave is completely devoid of that. This Dave looks...he looks like there is only pain and hurt written all over his body.
And Chris has no way to understand this.
Chris is a wizard with languages. If you present him with a new language, he’ll manage to unlock its secrets within weeks or months if it is cyrallic, but he cannot translate this. He cannot understand this. The pain he sees etched on his boyfriend’s body is untranslatable...because its Dave. And Dave is the most gentle and loving and generous person in the world. His body is meant to have only love and affection written on it...this abject, foreign language doesn’t belong. He swallows another sob because he is worried that if the EMTs seem him start to freak out, they will pull the ambulance over and kick him out. And he won’t leave Dave.
Suddenly, the doors to the ambulance are being thrown open and they all are running into the ER at George Washington University Hospital. He moves to follow them into the back room, but Tim’s friend - Jack! That’s his name - is holding him back.
“I’m sorry, Chris, you can’t go back there. Let them do their job. He’ll be ok. He’ll be ok.”
And then, frighteningly, Chris is alone.
And he doesn’t know what to do. Reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone and call Jess, he finds it empty and remembers having dropped it back in the middle of the road when he saw Dave on that stretcher.
No phone.
Dave might be dying.
He’s alone.
Chris’ eyes frantically search the room - he needs to find someone to help him.
Tim. He can call Tim. He knows Tim’s number off by heart - thanks to a promise back during their slutty bar days in New York.
He walks up to the nurses desk.
“Uh...excuse me?” His voice does not sound normal. It sounds weak and broken and completely devoid of life - which is probably true, seeing as how his life is currently being cut up somewhere in this hospital. “I need your help.”
The nurse, a tired looking black woman, takes in his appearance - rumbled, disheveled, large bloodstains on his shirt and he is clearly crying. She considers a moment, then “Yes?”
“My...my boyfriend was just brought in. He was shot...it was on the news...I came in with him.”
“I know. I saw you come in. Are you hurt too?” She gestures to his shirt.
“No. But...I need help. I lost my phone, I don’t know what to do. Can I please call someone?”
The nurse opens a drawer and draws out a brand new iPhone X, she slides it over to him. “I got unlimited minutes all the time - go to town.”
“T-t-thank you.” Nick pulls the phone towards him. “Uh...should I give you my information or his so you can process his insurance or anything.”
“You’re his boyfriend or husband?”
“We’re common-law.”
“Good enough for me. What’s your name?”
“Chris Michaels.”
“Ok, Chris Michaels - oh look, you’re suddenly his legal husband on his file, that means only you can get information about him and what’s going on...I’ll make sure a doctor comes to talk to you as soon as they can. Ok?”
“T-t-thank you...god, thank you so much.”
“He’s gonna be ok, honey.”
Chris nods and dials.
It rings once. “Tim...I need help...can you come…”
Sequel to Velcro (Or, A Million and One Different Ways to Start Piecing Together Broken Hearts)
Author: Pulpobsessed.
Pairing: Multiple Pairings
Characters: This chapter: Dave Karofsky, Kurt Hummel, Chris Michaels (OC), and others
Overall Rating: NC17 (for violence and language)
Summary: Takes place a year and six months after the final chapters of Velcro. Dave thought his life was perfect. He had everything he could ever want or need. But when a real tragedy strikes, everything he knows is turned on its head.
Genre: FutureFic
Disclaimer: Glee belongs to Ryan Murphy. Not me. But this Dave...he's all mine.
Read D&R Here | Read Velcro Here
Read Pains of Living Prologue | Chapter 1.
A/N.So…I'm back. I can't tell you how good it feels to be writing again. This story has taken on a life of its own - a really wonderful life. I'm so happy with what I'm doing. As with most of my writing, I'm working through some of my own stuff at the same time as writing Dave through his own emotional crap. This chapter is told entirely from Chris' perspective - and I really love living inside Chris. I hope everyone likes it. I really do. Also, my chapters for this story tend to be long. Sorry. I'l try to post a chapter a week.
**Chapter 2** - A Forever Thing (or, Chris Michaels’ very long night.)
The lights they call me
Call me to your side
The lights they blind me
They take my sight
Will you restore me?
Grace my senses again?
The lights they blind me
Soon he descends
You belong to him tonight
There is nothing I can do
You belong to him tonight
There is nothing I can do
Hercules and Love Affair, “You Belong.”
[1]
November 12, 2024 - 7:30pm.
“Drive faster! Just drive faster!” Chris slapped his hand against the partition separating him from the cab driver - a partition he was quite glad existed, since he was liable to start hitting the driver soon if he didn’t drive faster.
“Sir, I’m going as fast as I can...just calm down, we’re almost there.”
Chris let out a small sob and fell back against the seat.
This was not happening. It just wasn’t. Whatever was going on at The Centre, it couldn’t be Dave. The words Dave Karofsky and shooting just...they just didn’t make sense. The man didn’t even play violent video games, he was an adamant gun control advocate, he hated to see physical violence...so to think that he was involved in something like...whatever this is...god it just made no sense!
Chris’ brain tried to rationalize - there were a million possible reasons why Dave wasn’t answering his phone. Maybe Dave had been evacuated and just forgot his phone and he couldn’t remember Chris’ number - which he constantly forgot. Or maybe, Dave was in the Metro and would call Chris when he got home and saw piles of food in the kitchen, including a very melty tub of Oreo ice cream. Or...maybe Dave was trapped in that building, while a madman held a gun to his head.
Chris felt himself become rather light headed with that thought.
He tapped the screen on his phone, waking it up. It was unbearably bright in the dim cab. Still nothing - his phone had sat silent as a rock for the last thirty minutes.
“Please call, Dave… please please.”
His phone responded. The sound of it ringing was harsh and unbearable in the silence.
Jess.
“Chris!” Her voice was panicked and scared. “I can’t reach him. Why can’t I reach him?”
“I don’t know...I...I’m on my way there now.”
He knows his voice sounds high pitched and unnatural - as though he is speaking through a megaphone inside a long dark tunnel.
“Jess…”
“Its ok, Chris...he’s going to be ok.”
“We fought, Jess...we fought last night. I didn’t even tell him I love him last night. What if…”
“No...you don’t get to say that. You don’t get to think that.”
“I’m so scared. I’m so scared.”
“He’ll be ok, I know he will...this is Dave, he always somehow comes out on top.”
“Sir…” the cab driver’s voice was even louder than Jess’ or his own sobbing. “We’re here, sir.”
Chris slammed his credit card against the payment console and leaped out of the car. “I’m here...I’m running.”
He knew the main entrance to the place was just around the corner on 14th, but it felt like such a long distance to run. He barrelled around the corner, and suddenly he stopped short. Unable to believe what he was seeing.
Police. Everywhere.
People yelling.
A group of people were running into the building - they were pulling a stretcher.
Another group was coming out, one EMT was supporting a young woman, whose shirt was covered in blood.
And a third group was pushing a stretcher with a body on it out of the building. A body he knew very well - he knew the every curve and contours of that body like he knew his own. He knew the way that body was oddly ticklish on its forearms. He knew how strong and powerful those arms, that chest, that neck was. He knew that body when it was asleep. When it was running next to him at the gym. When it was snuggled up against him on the couch. When it was holding him in bed. When it was grunting in lustful pleasure while buried deep inside him, with Chris’ legs wrapped tightly around its waist - edging him on eagerly.
Dave.
His Dave.
His Dave hurt.
The guttural scream that tore itself out of his body startled a few of the onlookers gathered nearby.
He heard Jess’ panicked voice screaming his name through the phone, but the phone was falling out of his hand and hitting the pavement. As he moved forward, screaming Dave’s name, he was vaguely aware of a young man stooping to pick up the phone. Chris would later learn this was Sam, one of the volunteers at The Centre, who recognized Chris from the few times when Chris had come to pick up Dave at the end of the day.
Chris’ mind had gone blank, except for one singular thought - he had to get to Dave. Dave was hurt. He had to help Dave. And nothing was going to keep him from doing that.
He managed to run past the first group of people before someone grabbed him. A police officer.
“Sir. You can’t go in there...its not safe.”
“NO! I’m going...that man, that man on the stretcher! His name is David Karofsky. I’m his boyfriend, Chris Michaels. I am going to him.”
“Sir, I’m sorry…”
“No! I am going. Let me go...just let me go.” He pushed against the man. Chris rarely exerted his physical capabilities - mostly because he just never had reason to - but tonight, with the possibility that he might lose Dave before he could say I love you again, well he bloody well was going to exert it. Chris slammed himself against the officer, pushing him out of the way. He was able to make it about five steps before being yanked back again.
“You are not going there, Sir!”
Chris’ rational brain kicks in. He knows how to do this. He does this every day...in little ways: getting them reservations at places where you can’t even get reservations, getting airlines to bump them up into first class for no actual reason, having his lunch prepared before everyone else. Chris Michaels does not like working for the FBI most days, but he sure as fuck knows how to make the FBI work for him.
“Look…” Chris pulls out his ID, “I work for the FBI, I consult and as such I know a lot of people there. I am five phone transfers away from the Assistant Director. If you do not let me go and let me go to Dave, I will make those five phone transfers and I will make sure you and anyone else who stands in my way right now will barely be fit to work as a mall security guard. Now, please…” Chris’ voice broke, heavy tears bordered the edges of his words… “Please, just let me go to him...please.”
The officer watched the short man before him, a man very nearly on the verge of a complete nervous breakdown...then he nodded. “Come on...follow me.” He then turned and pushed Chris forward, yelling “Let us through…”
Seconds later, Chris was at Dave’s side.
Chris knew he was on precarious ground already - he had just threatened a Maryland police officer, he was using his position at the Bureau in a way that was really really not ok and could easily get him fired or worse...so when he saw Dave’s shattered form, he had to swallow the urge to scream or sob...he had to be normal, rational and as calm as possible.
God, there was so much blood. Dave’s shirt was saturated in it and it looked like the EMTs were pressing gauze or something onto Dave’s chest...hot red blood was seeping through the fabric.
His face...good lord...his face was destroyed. One eye was completely swollen and there was so much blood. He had cuts and bruises and swelling everywhere.
Chris caught the eye of one of the EMTs - a friend of Tim’s.
“Jesus, Chris...you shouldn’t be…”
“I’m staying with him.” His voice was even, hard. Determined.
One of the other EMTs nodded, “Then you better be ready to run, he needs help now.”
Chris nodded. He’d run to the ends of the earth if it meant helping...saving...Dave.
“Dave…” He said, leaning in as he ran alongside the stretcher. “Please don’t leave. Please stay...I love you.”
--/--
All Chris really remembers about the ride to the hospital was how he sat there, trying to stay out of the way, with his hand on Dave’s head, stroking his hair and whispering softly to him. He was not entirely sure how he managed to actually talk his way into the ambulance - but he was sure as shit glad that Tim’s friend had been the EMT.
Chris is really not used to seeing Dave like this - sure he’s watched Dave sleep many times before. Like that time when Dave had the flu so badly that he slept for 14 straight hours, and Chris had read sitting on the bed next to him, just to be near him. But this is different - this face, it looks like Dave, but it also doesn’t. His Dave doesn’t have blood oozing out of a head wound, his Dave doesn’t have a swollen eye. His Dave doesn’t have cuts, bruises, and a huge gash across his cheek. When his Dave sleeps, there is a look of contentment and peace that settles over his face...this Dave is completely devoid of that. This Dave looks...he looks like there is only pain and hurt written all over his body.
And Chris has no way to understand this.
Chris is a wizard with languages. If you present him with a new language, he’ll manage to unlock its secrets within weeks or months if it is cyrallic, but he cannot translate this. He cannot understand this. The pain he sees etched on his boyfriend’s body is untranslatable...because its Dave. And Dave is the most gentle and loving and generous person in the world. His body is meant to have only love and affection written on it...this abject, foreign language doesn’t belong. He swallows another sob because he is worried that if the EMTs seem him start to freak out, they will pull the ambulance over and kick him out. And he won’t leave Dave.
Suddenly, the doors to the ambulance are being thrown open and they all are running into the ER at George Washington University Hospital. He moves to follow them into the back room, but Tim’s friend - Jack! That’s his name - is holding him back.
“I’m sorry, Chris, you can’t go back there. Let them do their job. He’ll be ok. He’ll be ok.”
And then, frighteningly, Chris is alone.
And he doesn’t know what to do. Reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone and call Jess, he finds it empty and remembers having dropped it back in the middle of the road when he saw Dave on that stretcher.
No phone.
Dave might be dying.
He’s alone.
Chris’ eyes frantically search the room - he needs to find someone to help him.
Tim. He can call Tim. He knows Tim’s number off by heart - thanks to a promise back during their slutty bar days in New York.
He walks up to the nurses desk.
“Uh...excuse me?” His voice does not sound normal. It sounds weak and broken and completely devoid of life - which is probably true, seeing as how his life is currently being cut up somewhere in this hospital. “I need your help.”
The nurse, a tired looking black woman, takes in his appearance - rumbled, disheveled, large bloodstains on his shirt and he is clearly crying. She considers a moment, then “Yes?”
“My...my boyfriend was just brought in. He was shot...it was on the news...I came in with him.”
“I know. I saw you come in. Are you hurt too?” She gestures to his shirt.
“No. But...I need help. I lost my phone, I don’t know what to do. Can I please call someone?”
The nurse opens a drawer and draws out a brand new iPhone X, she slides it over to him. “I got unlimited minutes all the time - go to town.”
“T-t-thank you.” Nick pulls the phone towards him. “Uh...should I give you my information or his so you can process his insurance or anything.”
“You’re his boyfriend or husband?”
“We’re common-law.”
“Good enough for me. What’s your name?”
“Chris Michaels.”
“Ok, Chris Michaels - oh look, you’re suddenly his legal husband on his file, that means only you can get information about him and what’s going on...I’ll make sure a doctor comes to talk to you as soon as they can. Ok?”
“T-t-thank you...god, thank you so much.”
“He’s gonna be ok, honey.”
Chris nods and dials.
It rings once. “Tim...I need help...can you come…”