Fic: Fidelity - Second Interlude
Fic summary: An unlikely friendship forms. Dave learns to love himself, Blaine learns to trust love, and Kurt learns that love is both simpler and a lot more complicated than he expected. AU from 3.05 with canon elements.
Section summary: The story of why Dave stopped playing hockey. It’s not a happy one. ~1,235 words.
Notes: It feels weird to post fic today, but I said I would, so I am. Now's a good time to repeat that I ignore 3.14 "On My Way" in this fic. Here’s what I did take from canon: Dave was a member of the hockey team in season 1 (it’s mentioned in 1.08, “Mash-Up”). Scott Cooper was the hockey team member who led the slushying of the football team in 2.11, “The Sue Sylvester Shuffle.” Rick “The Stick” Nelson is the member of the hockey team who ran for class president against Kurt, Brittany and Rachel in Season 3. Also, this chapter is sad (although hopeful). If you’re in the mood for that, okay; if not, wait to read it until I post the next chapter so you can read both at the same time. The next chapter is a lot happier.
Warnings: Bullying, harassment, homophobia and homophobic language/actions, violence, physical pain, people being awful
Rating: This chapter PG-13.
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Second Interlude
The spring of Dave's sophomore year at McKinley, on the day that his finger splints were removed, he sat down at the piano and tried to play. But every stroke against the keys made him flinch.
The pain brought him back to the moment when Scott Cooper broke his fingers and then tugged him up off the ice with a "Stop moaning, you goddamn Liberace."
The whole thing was probably an accident. Dave kept repeating that reassurance to himself in his head - if he hadn't, he never would have been able to make it through the rest of the season and another one with the hockey team, or to face Scott at each practice and laugh at his awful, unfunny jokes at the lunch table.
It was probably an accident, even though Scott had been upping the ante against Dave for weeks, ever since Dave had performed Chopin's Waltz in A Minor flawlessly at a group piano recital.
Scott had been in the audience, fidgeting and checking messages on his phone despite his mother's stern looks, trying not to think about the fact that he was going to have to hear his sister play Für Elise yet again - and in a theater, this time, where he couldn't stick his iPod in his ears and tune it out - when he looked up and realized that the kid playing the melancholy tune that sounded like spring and storm clouds was none other than his hockey teammate Dave Karofsky.
Dave looked calm, and ecstatic, and maybe a little in love.
It's one thing to play the piano because your parents force you to. Scott had, himself, up through the eighth grade. But to play like you cared about it - well, that was another thing entirely.
Fuck, you'll never believe who's a piano-loving pansy, Scott texted to their teammate Rick Nelson.
Besides your sister? replied Rick.
Don't be an idiot, girls can't be pansies. No, Dave Karofsky. He's making sweet love to the keyboard right now. What a fag.
Whether Dave was, in fact, a fag or not was irrelevant. Scott didn't give it much thought. What was important was that Dave was acting like one, and that had to stop.
So he decided to toughen Dave up. He started by nicknaming Dave Liberace at their next practice, and Rick followed suit, even though he didn't know who Liberace was. Scott checked Dave against the boards every chance he got, elbowed him as often as possible, and "accidentally" whacked him with his hockey stick with increasing frequency.
(It made things a little more complicated that Dave's first wet dream, back when Dave's premature puberty upturned his life like a freak tornado, had been of wrestling Scott in his living room -- being thrown by him and pinned down and forced to beg for freedom.)
Dave refused to break. He ignored Scott He pretended that he didn't hear the name-calling; wasn't bothered by the growing number of bruises he went home with each day; didn't wish that the coach would look over, just once, and send Scott to the penalty box.
The checking and elbowing and whacking weren't accidents, but when Scott flipped Dave over on the ice and almost went down with him before regaining his balance - stepping on Dave's bent fingers with his blade in the process - well, Dave doesn't think the last part was intentional.
Still, Scott never apologized for breaking his fingers - why would he apologize for an accident? - and kept calling Dave Liberace. "What're you gonna do now, Liberace? Play your 'piano' single-handed?" Scott said, making jerking-off motions in the air, when Dave sat down to lunch the next day, his injured fingers splinted together.
The next day: "Hey, Liberace, don't you think that splint would look a little better covered in glitter?"
And a few weeks later: "Really? Coach is gonna put Liberace back into play? What, in a fucking sequined jersey?"
That was the last time Scott used the nickname. With a quick twist of his foot, Dave sent Scott sprawling onto the floor of the McKinley hallway. "Drop the 'Liberace,'" Dave said when he bent down to pick Scott up. "Just because my parents force me to play the piano doesn't mean I enjoy it."
"Jesus, fine," grumbled Scott. "You know I was only trying to make sure you weren't going to queer up the whole team. Teammates gotta keep each other in line. We're cool?"
"Fine, yeah, we're cool," said Dave, even though he felt like his guts were being sliced down the middle.
"Good." Scott slapped him on the shoulder. "It'll be good to have you back. But seriously, you've got to get your parents to drop the lessons."
"I've got the perfect excuse, thanks to you," Dave said, waving his splinted fingers in the air. He chuckled instead of wept, because that's what tough guys do when their dreams burn into ash.
"Awesome, great." Scott smiled in a way that looked almost genuine. "Glad I could be of help, Karofsky."
It was the first time in ages Scott had called him by his actual name.
Dave tried not to break. He really did try. But whenever he sat down to reacquaint his healing fingers with Chopin and Mozart, whenever he started to let go the slightest bit, to lose himself in the music and feel comforted by something for once, he'd hear Scott's voice - Liberace, Liberace, Liberace - and the pain in his hand turned to stabbing.
It wasn't worth it.
He broke.
* * *
The Monday after their walk through the woods and over the ice, Dave finds himself asking Blaine if he can play the Steinway.
Blaine looks up. HIs smile lights up his whole face. "Sure. I'd love to hear you."
"Well, I doubt it will be very good." Dave shrugs. "It's been a while."
Dave walks into the front room and folds back the keyboard cover. He doesn't press any of the keys down at first, just lets his fingers run patterns over them. Scales, mostly. The opening bars of Für Elise. He does this until he's convinced he hasn't completely forgotten. And then he presses the keys.
His hands are tight and he flubs some of the notes even though he's had the songs memorized for years. Für Elise and Ronda alla Turca should not be that goddamned hard.
But Dave keeps going at them anyway - that afternoon and on the afternoons that follow - and every time he sits down again, his fingers feel a little more flexible and the notes come a little easier, and soon he's whipping his way through them as easily as he did before he quit.
He should focus a bit more on mood and technique, not just speed through the music like his hands are running on caffeine and Ritalin. But once a dam breaks, it's easier to let the water rush out than to hold it back.
He thinks, occasionally, about opening up one of the music books on the shelf near the Anderson's piano, looking for something new to play. His fingers itch with desire. But he resists. He's gotten so good at resisting.
Instead, he goes deeper into his mind, to some of the slower songs, the dangerous ones that make him feel like his heart is opening. He plays the slow, longing strains of Chopin's Waltz in A Minor and lets it say everything he’s been afraid to say for so long.