FIC: Towel Boy! (1/?)
Title: Towel Boy! (1/?)
Author: tessisamess & wherethewind
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Dave Karofsky/Kurt Hummel
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,839 // 2, 839 total
Warnings: Homophobia, RP-turned-fic
Spoilers: Canon up to right before the death threat. Death threat and all the ensuing drama did not happen. Doesn't exist here.
Summary: Kurt starts a GSA. The only problem is, it isn't OK'd by the school, first. The GSA gets shut down, and Kurt's punishment? He's now the towel boy for the boys' sports teams. There's a ton of other plot (hell, it's 60k, of course there is) but that's the starter plot. The Kurtofsky aspect is surprisingly light on angst, the other aspects? Not so much. Oh, and it has our first version ever of Rossman in it.
One
Hey! Towel Boy!
Dave was getting sick of always feeling like he had to look over his shoulder. As if what happened were a dude, waiting to come kick his teeth in. It was fucking retarded.
Or maybe he just didn't think Hummel would be able to keep his mouth shut forever, and he was really more worried about actually getting his teeth kicked in.
He just thanked who-the-fuck-ever that Azimio'd been hit one too many times in football. If the dude'd been just a little more observant, his thin excuses for why he wanted to lay the shit off of Lady Face wouldn't have lasted as long as they had.
As it stood, though, he was in the clear. For then.
Dave Karofsky wasn't stupid. Sure, he liked to play it off like he was, but it was mostly just because he hated having shit expected of him. It was just easier this way. No pressure (mostly).
But, that being said, it only made sense that Dave knew better than to keep pushing the little fairy when he had such a big secret to hold over his head. Even if he had been as stupid as he pretended -- he wasn't that stupid.
--
Kurt was on the brink of tweeting some extremely scathing remarks about the administration at McKinley. When he'd been called into Principal Figgins'office this afternoon, pretty much the last thing he was expecting to come out of the meeting was punishment. For him! Honestly, it wasn't as if he'd begun advocating that the cafeteria serve babies instead of chicken nuggets. A GLBTQIA club was just what this school needed, and despite this minor setback, he was going to continue to lobby for it. Through the "proper channels,"this time.
It wasn't like he was the only gay member of the student body, after all.
--
Dave listened, sort of, as the Beast reeled off announcements.
Blah, blah, blah, budget cutbacks.
He kept searching through his bag for the athletic tape that his equipment bag seemed to always like to eat.
Something, something, something, don't listen to Sylvester if she comes in saying hockey was invented by leprechauns in WWII and is disbanded because of this.
Oh, holy shit. His MP3 player. How long had that been in there?
Yadda, yadda, yadda Kurt Hummel's the new equipment manager.
Dave froze.
What?
The fuck?
--
Kurt wasn't really sure what he'd been expecting his first day on the job, but this? This was disgusting. Coach Bieste was saying something about towels, and he made sure to nod and smile whenever she paused, but --
He was going to need to bathe in Lysol when he got home. He hoped it wouldn't damage his hair too badly.
When Coach Bieste finished talking, Kurt smiled again and excused himself before sneaking into the trainer's office and stealing some latex gloves. Like hell he was going to touch anything in this locker room with his bare hands. Tomorrow, he'd have to make sure to come prepared with the proper attire for a task this hellacious. He wondered distantly if he could get a HAZMAT suit on such short notice.
He approached the first towel cautiously, as if it were about to leap at him from the bench it was haphazardly draped over. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Coach Bieste shake her head and walk out of the room.
--
Dave was just glad they'd brought Hummel in after the players were done showering. Not that he really believed the little homo would just stand there staring and ja-- moving on.
He'd forgotten what he was looking for, and Rossman was staring at him like he was retarded and -- oh. That's because he was staring. At Hummel.
Shit.
Dave ducked his head, going through his bag without really even looking for anything, then pulled something out at random, a magazine (what the hell, he needed to clean that thing out) and zipped it back up.
"I gotta go." He muttered, then pushed his way through the crowd of boys and got the fuck out of there.
--
Kurt surveyed the locker room, attempting to create a plan that would least likely result with his head in the toilet. Finally, schooling his features into something he hoped looked less horrified at being trapped in a room filled with giant, haphazardly-bathed manbeasts and more determined and detached, he grabbed the handle of the laundry cart and pushed it toward the showers.
--
The past week's worth of practice had been hell. Complete, utter, fucking hell. Of course, it wasn't practice so much as afterward, but that was beside the point.
The point was, Kurt Hummel was ruining Dave's life. He couldn't be in the locker room at the same time as the little shit because when he was he couldn't stop staring, but if he skipped a shower he'd get ripped a new asshole about personal hygiene from the Beast.
It was a lose/lose situation, really.
Dave hunched further over his lunch tray, trying his best to ignore Azimio's seemingly unending rant.
"Man, that little fag thinks he can just come up in there like he owns the place? S'fuckin' sick, dude, that's what it is."
"It's not like he did it on purpose." Dave muttered before he could stop himself.
"Uh, what?"
"Well, it's punishment or whatever for that club thing, right?"
"Please, man. I bet the queer planned that shit." Azimio was getting way too loud. People were starting to stare.
"Dude, that's so stupid."
"FUCK you, Karofsky. Don't call me stupid." He slammed his bottle of Gatorade down on the table so hard that the entire thing shook.
"Goddamn, Az. I didn't. I said the idea of that was stupid, not you."
"Whatever, man. Fuck you. If you want that fucking faggot spreading his AIDS all over the -- "
"WHOA, Az. What the HELL?" Dave stood up, his chair skittering back a good foot from the force.
"You fucking heard me!" Azimio followed suit, his entire body going stiff. "I SAID," he got up on the table, addressing the entire lunch crowd, "THAT IF THAT LITTLE FUCKING FAGGOT, KURT FUCKING HUMMEL, WANTS TO SPREAD HIS FUCKING AIDS ALL OVER THIS GODDAMN SCHOOL -- "
Dave kicked the table over -- something only he and the Beast would probably be capable of, considering who was standing on it -- and lunged at his so-called friend. Someone screamed and the area erupted in a wave of excited, semi-terrified chatter as Dave took hold of the other boy and showed him just what he thought about Azimio's opinion.
--
Kurt had heard about the incident in the cafeteria. Of course he had -- he wouldn't have been surprised if the entire county had heard by now. After Jacob Ben Israel had finished urinating in his off-the-rack jeans, he'd immediately raced to the nearest computer and written what would probably be his most-viewed blog post ever, describing the whole ordeal.
Azimio? Expelled.
The jock table in the cafeteria? Broken beyond repair.
And Karofsky? In an unbelievable twist of fate, David Karofsky had gone from being the villain of the McKinley student body to its hero. It had taken three other hockey players to pull Karofsky off of Azimio, and one of them was sporting a painful-looking black eye as a result.
Then there were the rumors. They ranged anywhere from "I heard Karofsky and Kurt have been secretly dating since middle school!" to "He's going to come out and ask Kurt to junior prom, I know it," to "I heard Karofsky was part gladiator," the last one having been uttered by Brittany just before glee club rehearsal that day. And they weren't. Letting. Up.
--
The rumors were killing Dave. Hell, sometimes it seemed like everything was 'killing' Dave lately. But this was the worst so far. Probably because he wished some of the less... utterly retarded rumors were true.
On the other hand, though, with Azimio gone it was like this big, closed-minded, oppressive weight had been lifted from his shoulders. It had taken him a couple of days to realize it -- but Dave didn't have to fall in line behind his friend anymore. He didn't have to torment the student body at WMHS. He didn't have to pretend he was something he wasn't.
Of course, that didn't mean he was about to go changing overnight. Really the only thing that'd changed was that the percentage of slushie facial incidents had dropped drastically. 7/11 was probably mourning the loss of their two best customers.
His mom was so proud of what he'd done she'd even overlooked the fact that he'd basically tried to break Azimio's face open in favor of just acknowledging why he did it. She'd even cried a little and, truth be told, it was fucking embarrassing.
Dave wasn't a hero or any shit. He just didn't know how to control his temper.
He winced slightly as he pulled off his gloves after practice. He'd hit Az so hard that one of his knuckles had dislocated. It wasn't really a big deal once he'd popped it back in, much to his mom's horror, but it still hurt like a bitch.
"Dude, your hand looks like shit." Rossman. Of course.
"So does your face but you don't hear me bitchin'."
He laughed. "Fuck you, Karofsky. Seriously, have you had it checked out?"
Dave shrugged, pulling his jersey off. "Nah. It's no big deal."
"Oh, whatever badass."
Dave threw his shirt at the other boy -- then his helmet. "Could kick your ass, couldn't I?"
"Fair enough. Go change your tampon, man, jeez. I was just asking."
--
Kurt waited until Coach Bieste gave him the all-clear before donning his gloves and pushing through the door into the locker room with his laundry cart, one hand pulling a mop and bucket behind him. If he was going to tidy up this place on a daily basis, he'd decided after witnessing just how horrendous the smell could get in there, at least the floor would be clean. Like always, the sounds of conversation and laughter lulled for a moment when he entered, but they picked up again and, he was pleased to note, the quiet period appeared to be growing shorter each afternoon.
He left the mop and bucket near the door and pulled his safety glasses down over his eyes, straightening his heavy apron. Then he grabbed the laundry cart with both hands and pushed it toward the beginning of his usual route through the locker room, knowing the corner nearest the showers would be empty by now.
Except it wasn't.
"O-oh,"he stuttered, bringing the cart to an abrupt halt as he took in the player in the process of putting on his shirt. "I'll just -- " And he turned to go hide in the trainer's office until the locker room was clear. Mr. Clovis never seemed to mind.
--
Dave pulled his shirt down over his head, glancing over to see Hummel walking away -- and then Rossman coming toward him.
"Here, dude. Got ya something." Before Dave could as what, Rossman tossed a tampon at him -- unopened and unused, thank fucking god.
"Goddamn it, dude. I'm gonna shove this thing up your fucking ass. Hey, I though the Beast told you to stop 'accidentally wandering into' the girls' locker room." Dave picked up the tampon and chucked it back, hitting the only-slightly-smaller boy in the forehead. "Dick."
"Shut up, fag." Rossman was only joking, but as soon as he said it he paled. "I didn't mean it like that." He mumbled, immediately looking around for Hummel.
Dave shook his head, turning to put his things away, "Just shut the fuck up, you idiot." He slung his bag over his shoulder, nodding in response to the "Later, man," Rossman tossed behind him as he left the locker room.
--
Thirty minutes later, the last hockey player left the locker room and blessed silence descended upon it. So naturally Kurt put his ear buds in and turned his iPod up to the loudest comfortable decibel. Already bouncing a little to the beat of the playlist he'd created for doing chores at home, he donned his bright pink rubber gloves (yellow clashed with his apron), straightened his safety glasses, and danced out of the trainer's office to wage war on revolting things.
He'd been pretty well desensitized to the foulness that was the McKinley hockey team since he'd rather unwillingly become equipment manager. Towels that were white at the start of the day were, for the most part, no longer that color when he started to gather them in his cart. Sweat covered what seemed like every surface of the room and, on days when there were injuries, there might be blood in spots, too.
And then there were the Gatorade spills. Not a day went by that Kurt didn't have to mop up a tacky off-colored spot on the concrete where some meathead had dumped his sports drink. Since yet another janitor had apparently disappeared from McKinley's payroll, Kurt had made it his job to ensure that the locker room was spotless when the players arrived each day.
It wasn't for them, though. It was for the benefit of his own sanity. It had taken precisely three days of uncleaned locker room for Kurt to buckle under the thought of enduring another afternoon in that pit of filth (the team's) and despair (his). Since he'd added mopping and bench-wiping to his duties, he'd gotten back down to one shower a day, instead of two or three.
So what if he took a second shower that night while picturing that faceless hockey player's really impressive torso.
--
Mr. Sean Clovis was gone. Off to LA to finally realize his dream of becoming Ms. Sarah Clovis. No one on the team really knew what to think about... that. Not in a place like Lima. And anyway, none of them really wanted to think about what, exactly, that entailed.
It was just too painful.
Dave had listened in quiet agony (eavesdropping) as the Beast asked Hummel to take over and, oh, she knew it was a lot to ask -- but it paid! Two fifty a week with an added bonus of getting to slowly and excruciatingly crush Dave's life to little pieces. What a deal! Too good to pass up -- really!
Sometimes (most of the time) Dave hated his life with a vengeance.
--
After Coach Bieste's admittedly unorthodox request, Kurt had spent a solid week studying anatomy and physiology textbooks and watching all the YouTube videos he could find on sports injuries. Then he'd decided that the best he could offer the players was a band-aid, an ice pack, or a massage (although he had his doubts about his level of massage proficiency). For the rest, well... that's why hospitals existed.
The team seemed to take his new appointment in stride. It meant that they'd have to see a lot more of him, and he of them, but nobody had objected. As their new, highly unqualified trainer, Kurt tried to be as pleasant and friendly as he could with all of them, and it had paid off. He was greeted warmly every afternoon when he arrived at practice.
And he had discovered, much to his surprise, that he had developed an interest in watching the games. Although he was clueless about strategy, positions, and most of the rules of hockey, he found himself screaming as enthusiastically as any other McKinley fan once the Bulldogs took to the ice.
He was filling an ice pack for the chronically sore shoulder of one of the players when another knocked on the frame of the trainer's office door. He tied off the bag and waved the other player in without looking up. "Here you go, Tim. See you tomorrow." He handed the bag of ice over to Tim, who exited with the ice already firmly pressed to his shoulder. Then Kurt finally looked over to the newcomer. "Ron, hi. I didn't know you were injured today."
"I wasn't," Ron ‘Weasley' Lewis said with a grin, running one hand through his still damp shock of red hair. "Me and some of the guys are gonna get some pizza at Cassano's when everyone's ready to go. Wanted to know if you wanted to come with us."
Kurt blinked. "Really?"
Ron laughed. "Yeah. You're cool, Hummel. Thought you might want to hang out."
"I, uh." Kurt blinked again, internally berating himself for his apparent inability to speak. "I can't. I have to clean up, and -- "
"No you don't."
"What?"Kurt asked.
"Taken care of," Ron replied, gesturing out into the locker room where, sure enough, four players were picking up towels (and having towel fights with them) and depositing them in the laundry cart while a fifth mopped and a sixth wiped down the benches.
Kurt's eyes went wide and for a second he thought he might tear up. "I -- " That's so nice, he wanted to shout, but instead he schooled his features into something resembling a cheerful smile. "Sure, I'll come. But Don Franco's makes better wings."
Author: tessisamess & wherethewind
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Dave Karofsky/Kurt Hummel
Rating: R
Word Count: 2,839 // 2, 839 total
Warnings: Homophobia, RP-turned-fic
Spoilers: Canon up to right before the death threat. Death threat and all the ensuing drama did not happen. Doesn't exist here.
Summary: Kurt starts a GSA. The only problem is, it isn't OK'd by the school, first. The GSA gets shut down, and Kurt's punishment? He's now the towel boy for the boys' sports teams. There's a ton of other plot (hell, it's 60k, of course there is) but that's the starter plot. The Kurtofsky aspect is surprisingly light on angst, the other aspects? Not so much. Oh, and it has our first version ever of Rossman in it.
One
Hey! Towel Boy!
Dave was getting sick of always feeling like he had to look over his shoulder. As if what happened were a dude, waiting to come kick his teeth in. It was fucking retarded.
Or maybe he just didn't think Hummel would be able to keep his mouth shut forever, and he was really more worried about actually getting his teeth kicked in.
He just thanked who-the-fuck-ever that Azimio'd been hit one too many times in football. If the dude'd been just a little more observant, his thin excuses for why he wanted to lay the shit off of Lady Face wouldn't have lasted as long as they had.
As it stood, though, he was in the clear. For then.
Dave Karofsky wasn't stupid. Sure, he liked to play it off like he was, but it was mostly just because he hated having shit expected of him. It was just easier this way. No pressure (mostly).
But, that being said, it only made sense that Dave knew better than to keep pushing the little fairy when he had such a big secret to hold over his head. Even if he had been as stupid as he pretended -- he wasn't that stupid.
--
Kurt was on the brink of tweeting some extremely scathing remarks about the administration at McKinley. When he'd been called into Principal Figgins'office this afternoon, pretty much the last thing he was expecting to come out of the meeting was punishment. For him! Honestly, it wasn't as if he'd begun advocating that the cafeteria serve babies instead of chicken nuggets. A GLBTQIA club was just what this school needed, and despite this minor setback, he was going to continue to lobby for it. Through the "proper channels,"this time.
It wasn't like he was the only gay member of the student body, after all.
--
Dave listened, sort of, as the Beast reeled off announcements.
Blah, blah, blah, budget cutbacks.
He kept searching through his bag for the athletic tape that his equipment bag seemed to always like to eat.
Something, something, something, don't listen to Sylvester if she comes in saying hockey was invented by leprechauns in WWII and is disbanded because of this.
Oh, holy shit. His MP3 player. How long had that been in there?
Yadda, yadda, yadda Kurt Hummel's the new equipment manager.
Dave froze.
What?
The fuck?
--
Kurt wasn't really sure what he'd been expecting his first day on the job, but this? This was disgusting. Coach Bieste was saying something about towels, and he made sure to nod and smile whenever she paused, but --
He was going to need to bathe in Lysol when he got home. He hoped it wouldn't damage his hair too badly.
When Coach Bieste finished talking, Kurt smiled again and excused himself before sneaking into the trainer's office and stealing some latex gloves. Like hell he was going to touch anything in this locker room with his bare hands. Tomorrow, he'd have to make sure to come prepared with the proper attire for a task this hellacious. He wondered distantly if he could get a HAZMAT suit on such short notice.
He approached the first towel cautiously, as if it were about to leap at him from the bench it was haphazardly draped over. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Coach Bieste shake her head and walk out of the room.
--
Dave was just glad they'd brought Hummel in after the players were done showering. Not that he really believed the little homo would just stand there staring and ja-- moving on.
He'd forgotten what he was looking for, and Rossman was staring at him like he was retarded and -- oh. That's because he was staring. At Hummel.
Shit.
Dave ducked his head, going through his bag without really even looking for anything, then pulled something out at random, a magazine (what the hell, he needed to clean that thing out) and zipped it back up.
"I gotta go." He muttered, then pushed his way through the crowd of boys and got the fuck out of there.
--
Kurt surveyed the locker room, attempting to create a plan that would least likely result with his head in the toilet. Finally, schooling his features into something he hoped looked less horrified at being trapped in a room filled with giant, haphazardly-bathed manbeasts and more determined and detached, he grabbed the handle of the laundry cart and pushed it toward the showers.
--
The past week's worth of practice had been hell. Complete, utter, fucking hell. Of course, it wasn't practice so much as afterward, but that was beside the point.
The point was, Kurt Hummel was ruining Dave's life. He couldn't be in the locker room at the same time as the little shit because when he was he couldn't stop staring, but if he skipped a shower he'd get ripped a new asshole about personal hygiene from the Beast.
It was a lose/lose situation, really.
Dave hunched further over his lunch tray, trying his best to ignore Azimio's seemingly unending rant.
"Man, that little fag thinks he can just come up in there like he owns the place? S'fuckin' sick, dude, that's what it is."
"It's not like he did it on purpose." Dave muttered before he could stop himself.
"Uh, what?"
"Well, it's punishment or whatever for that club thing, right?"
"Please, man. I bet the queer planned that shit." Azimio was getting way too loud. People were starting to stare.
"Dude, that's so stupid."
"FUCK you, Karofsky. Don't call me stupid." He slammed his bottle of Gatorade down on the table so hard that the entire thing shook.
"Goddamn, Az. I didn't. I said the idea of that was stupid, not you."
"Whatever, man. Fuck you. If you want that fucking faggot spreading his AIDS all over the -- "
"WHOA, Az. What the HELL?" Dave stood up, his chair skittering back a good foot from the force.
"You fucking heard me!" Azimio followed suit, his entire body going stiff. "I SAID," he got up on the table, addressing the entire lunch crowd, "THAT IF THAT LITTLE FUCKING FAGGOT, KURT FUCKING HUMMEL, WANTS TO SPREAD HIS FUCKING AIDS ALL OVER THIS GODDAMN SCHOOL -- "
Dave kicked the table over -- something only he and the Beast would probably be capable of, considering who was standing on it -- and lunged at his so-called friend. Someone screamed and the area erupted in a wave of excited, semi-terrified chatter as Dave took hold of the other boy and showed him just what he thought about Azimio's opinion.
--
Kurt had heard about the incident in the cafeteria. Of course he had -- he wouldn't have been surprised if the entire county had heard by now. After Jacob Ben Israel had finished urinating in his off-the-rack jeans, he'd immediately raced to the nearest computer and written what would probably be his most-viewed blog post ever, describing the whole ordeal.
Azimio? Expelled.
The jock table in the cafeteria? Broken beyond repair.
And Karofsky? In an unbelievable twist of fate, David Karofsky had gone from being the villain of the McKinley student body to its hero. It had taken three other hockey players to pull Karofsky off of Azimio, and one of them was sporting a painful-looking black eye as a result.
Then there were the rumors. They ranged anywhere from "I heard Karofsky and Kurt have been secretly dating since middle school!" to "He's going to come out and ask Kurt to junior prom, I know it," to "I heard Karofsky was part gladiator," the last one having been uttered by Brittany just before glee club rehearsal that day. And they weren't. Letting. Up.
--
The rumors were killing Dave. Hell, sometimes it seemed like everything was 'killing' Dave lately. But this was the worst so far. Probably because he wished some of the less... utterly retarded rumors were true.
On the other hand, though, with Azimio gone it was like this big, closed-minded, oppressive weight had been lifted from his shoulders. It had taken him a couple of days to realize it -- but Dave didn't have to fall in line behind his friend anymore. He didn't have to torment the student body at WMHS. He didn't have to pretend he was something he wasn't.
Of course, that didn't mean he was about to go changing overnight. Really the only thing that'd changed was that the percentage of slushie facial incidents had dropped drastically. 7/11 was probably mourning the loss of their two best customers.
His mom was so proud of what he'd done she'd even overlooked the fact that he'd basically tried to break Azimio's face open in favor of just acknowledging why he did it. She'd even cried a little and, truth be told, it was fucking embarrassing.
Dave wasn't a hero or any shit. He just didn't know how to control his temper.
He winced slightly as he pulled off his gloves after practice. He'd hit Az so hard that one of his knuckles had dislocated. It wasn't really a big deal once he'd popped it back in, much to his mom's horror, but it still hurt like a bitch.
"Dude, your hand looks like shit." Rossman. Of course.
"So does your face but you don't hear me bitchin'."
He laughed. "Fuck you, Karofsky. Seriously, have you had it checked out?"
Dave shrugged, pulling his jersey off. "Nah. It's no big deal."
"Oh, whatever badass."
Dave threw his shirt at the other boy -- then his helmet. "Could kick your ass, couldn't I?"
"Fair enough. Go change your tampon, man, jeez. I was just asking."
--
Kurt waited until Coach Bieste gave him the all-clear before donning his gloves and pushing through the door into the locker room with his laundry cart, one hand pulling a mop and bucket behind him. If he was going to tidy up this place on a daily basis, he'd decided after witnessing just how horrendous the smell could get in there, at least the floor would be clean. Like always, the sounds of conversation and laughter lulled for a moment when he entered, but they picked up again and, he was pleased to note, the quiet period appeared to be growing shorter each afternoon.
He left the mop and bucket near the door and pulled his safety glasses down over his eyes, straightening his heavy apron. Then he grabbed the laundry cart with both hands and pushed it toward the beginning of his usual route through the locker room, knowing the corner nearest the showers would be empty by now.
Except it wasn't.
"O-oh,"he stuttered, bringing the cart to an abrupt halt as he took in the player in the process of putting on his shirt. "I'll just -- " And he turned to go hide in the trainer's office until the locker room was clear. Mr. Clovis never seemed to mind.
--
Dave pulled his shirt down over his head, glancing over to see Hummel walking away -- and then Rossman coming toward him.
"Here, dude. Got ya something." Before Dave could as what, Rossman tossed a tampon at him -- unopened and unused, thank fucking god.
"Goddamn it, dude. I'm gonna shove this thing up your fucking ass. Hey, I though the Beast told you to stop 'accidentally wandering into' the girls' locker room." Dave picked up the tampon and chucked it back, hitting the only-slightly-smaller boy in the forehead. "Dick."
"Shut up, fag." Rossman was only joking, but as soon as he said it he paled. "I didn't mean it like that." He mumbled, immediately looking around for Hummel.
Dave shook his head, turning to put his things away, "Just shut the fuck up, you idiot." He slung his bag over his shoulder, nodding in response to the "Later, man," Rossman tossed behind him as he left the locker room.
--
Thirty minutes later, the last hockey player left the locker room and blessed silence descended upon it. So naturally Kurt put his ear buds in and turned his iPod up to the loudest comfortable decibel. Already bouncing a little to the beat of the playlist he'd created for doing chores at home, he donned his bright pink rubber gloves (yellow clashed with his apron), straightened his safety glasses, and danced out of the trainer's office to wage war on revolting things.
He'd been pretty well desensitized to the foulness that was the McKinley hockey team since he'd rather unwillingly become equipment manager. Towels that were white at the start of the day were, for the most part, no longer that color when he started to gather them in his cart. Sweat covered what seemed like every surface of the room and, on days when there were injuries, there might be blood in spots, too.
And then there were the Gatorade spills. Not a day went by that Kurt didn't have to mop up a tacky off-colored spot on the concrete where some meathead had dumped his sports drink. Since yet another janitor had apparently disappeared from McKinley's payroll, Kurt had made it his job to ensure that the locker room was spotless when the players arrived each day.
It wasn't for them, though. It was for the benefit of his own sanity. It had taken precisely three days of uncleaned locker room for Kurt to buckle under the thought of enduring another afternoon in that pit of filth (the team's) and despair (his). Since he'd added mopping and bench-wiping to his duties, he'd gotten back down to one shower a day, instead of two or three.
So what if he took a second shower that night while picturing that faceless hockey player's really impressive torso.
--
Mr. Sean Clovis was gone. Off to LA to finally realize his dream of becoming Ms. Sarah Clovis. No one on the team really knew what to think about... that. Not in a place like Lima. And anyway, none of them really wanted to think about what, exactly, that entailed.
It was just too painful.
Dave had listened in quiet agony (eavesdropping) as the Beast asked Hummel to take over and, oh, she knew it was a lot to ask -- but it paid! Two fifty a week with an added bonus of getting to slowly and excruciatingly crush Dave's life to little pieces. What a deal! Too good to pass up -- really!
Sometimes (most of the time) Dave hated his life with a vengeance.
--
After Coach Bieste's admittedly unorthodox request, Kurt had spent a solid week studying anatomy and physiology textbooks and watching all the YouTube videos he could find on sports injuries. Then he'd decided that the best he could offer the players was a band-aid, an ice pack, or a massage (although he had his doubts about his level of massage proficiency). For the rest, well... that's why hospitals existed.
The team seemed to take his new appointment in stride. It meant that they'd have to see a lot more of him, and he of them, but nobody had objected. As their new, highly unqualified trainer, Kurt tried to be as pleasant and friendly as he could with all of them, and it had paid off. He was greeted warmly every afternoon when he arrived at practice.
And he had discovered, much to his surprise, that he had developed an interest in watching the games. Although he was clueless about strategy, positions, and most of the rules of hockey, he found himself screaming as enthusiastically as any other McKinley fan once the Bulldogs took to the ice.
He was filling an ice pack for the chronically sore shoulder of one of the players when another knocked on the frame of the trainer's office door. He tied off the bag and waved the other player in without looking up. "Here you go, Tim. See you tomorrow." He handed the bag of ice over to Tim, who exited with the ice already firmly pressed to his shoulder. Then Kurt finally looked over to the newcomer. "Ron, hi. I didn't know you were injured today."
"I wasn't," Ron ‘Weasley' Lewis said with a grin, running one hand through his still damp shock of red hair. "Me and some of the guys are gonna get some pizza at Cassano's when everyone's ready to go. Wanted to know if you wanted to come with us."
Kurt blinked. "Really?"
Ron laughed. "Yeah. You're cool, Hummel. Thought you might want to hang out."
"I, uh." Kurt blinked again, internally berating himself for his apparent inability to speak. "I can't. I have to clean up, and -- "
"No you don't."
"What?"Kurt asked.
"Taken care of," Ron replied, gesturing out into the locker room where, sure enough, four players were picking up towels (and having towel fights with them) and depositing them in the laundry cart while a fifth mopped and a sixth wiped down the benches.
Kurt's eyes went wide and for a second he thought he might tear up. "I -- " That's so nice, he wanted to shout, but instead he schooled his features into something resembling a cheerful smile. "Sure, I'll come. But Don Franco's makes better wings."