Dependable. Reliable. Chapter One.
Title: Dependable. Reliable. Chapter 1/?
Author: Pulpobsessed.
Pairing: Dave/OC. Eventually Dave/Kurt
Characters: This chapter: Dave/OC
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
Summary: 10 years after graduation. Dave is an openly gay man, living in Washington, DC, after a heartbreaking and soul crushing break up, he suddenly finds himself facing McKinley high and his past.
Genre: FutureFic
Disclaimer: Glee belongs to Ryan Murphy. Not me.
A/N. It has been a very long time since I sat down and wrote any fiction - I would like to thank all the amazing other Kurtofsky shippers out there who have inspired me to produce something. I'm not sure how long this story will be, I suppose I'll know when I finish it.
Mods - May I have an author tag? Please.
There is a certain type of comfort to the silent din that you encounter when first entering a bar. The noise of the a dozen conversations. Glasses, bottles, plates, voices... all mingling together, allowing you to disappear. Inside the bar, you can become invisible. And right now, that’s all Dave Karofsky wants. To be invisible.
Dave sat at the bar, staring at the tall glass of gin and something in front of him. He watched as rivulets of condensation slowly marked the outside of the glass, pooling at its base, and momentarily considered snagging a drop to refresh his mouth, but then realized that he really didn’t want to interfere with the amount of alcohol he’d consumed over the past 6 hours.
Shit. Had he really been sitting here for 6 hours?
Sighing as he reached for the glass, he knew that yes, he had indeed he had been here for that long. The desire to become utterly anonymous and invisible had started 7 hours earlier when Dave had arrived home from work to find his boyfriend sitting quietly on the couch waiting for him. Looking rather guilty.
Shit.
**************
*Seven Hours Earlier*
“Adam? What are you doing home so early?” Dave’s voice belied none of the surprise he felt upon finding his boyfriend of 3 years sitting in his apartment at 5pm on a Wednesday afternoon. Adam, who usually works until at least 7 or later was sitting on Dave’s couch with his coat carefully folded over his lap. He looked up at Dave, giving him a weak smile that did not fully reach his eyes.
Upon seeing this, Dave immediately knew he was fucked.
“I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in. I needed to talk to you.”
“Oh?” That single syllable was pretty much all he could muster at the moment.
“Yeah.” Adam sighed and ran his hand through his hair, clearly uncomfortable. “I... shit.”
Dave stood frozen in his front entrance way, staring at Adam, unsure of exactly what he should say or do. Afraid that if he opened his mouth, this conversation would go in exactly the direction he figured it about to go in. Of course, he was also pretty sure that continuing to stand here like a mute idiot would have exactly the same result. He could feel the cold metal of the keys still in his hand, the wad of mail he held between his thumb and forefinger of his left hand, the weight of the bottle of wine he’d stopped for to share with Adam that night in his bag, the smell of the soap he used after the gym at lunch...but most of all he could feel his stomach falling out of his body.
“I’m so sorry, David.”
The sound of his formal name snapped Dave out of his paralysis. Dropping his keys and the mail, and shrugging off his bag, Dave stepped into the living room. “What is it? Adam? You’re kinda freaking me out here.” Dave pulled off his coat and tossed it onto the easy chair to the right of the couch, sat next to Adam. “Look, whatever is going on, just tell me, ok?”
He resisted the urge to grasp Adam’s hand, somehow he felt that would be the wrong thing to do.
“Dave, I... well, I love you, you know that right?”
“Of course! And I love you too.” Dave gave up the struggle and grabbed Adam’s hand. “I’ve loved you ever since that awful drunk karaoke night where you fell off the stage in the middle of The Locomotion. I love you so much, Adam.” Dave noted the distinct strained and hoarse tone to his voice. That was usually the first sign that he was going to start crying.
“Yeah,” Adam mumbled, “that was a fun night.” He looked down at the floor, sighing sadly.
They silently at like that for a while. Dave nervously rubbing circles on the top of Adam’s hand, while Adam seemed to be studying a one-inch space between Dave’s coffee table and sofa. Both afraid to speak, because even the smallest noise might start a conversation that neither would be able to come back from. Dave’s brain was trying to formulate some idea as to what exactly was coming... maybe he wasn’t about to get dumped. Maybe Adam had cancer. Or worse. Ok, so thinking that might make him a horrible person, but they could survive cancer. Dave could become the loving caretaker who would nurse his lover back to health and they would live happily ever after. Yes, perhaps that was really where this was going.
Dave would now look up and tell Adam that he would be there for him right till the end. Too bad he didn’t have a soundtrack attached to his life, he was fairly certain that this moment might deserve some swelling orchestration.
Dave raised his eyes to look at Adam, who was nervously chewing the inside of his cheek as though his life depended on it. “One of these days you’re going to chew a hole there, you know.”
Adam smiled. “Yeah, luckily I have good medical coverage, they’ll build me a new face.”
“Just don’t let them change too much, I kinda like this one.”
“I could go for the two-face look?”
“You would. I swear I’ve never met someone with as many Batman comics as you do.”
“Heh. Whatever, I see you reading them sometimes.”
“Purely as a way to better understand my boyfriend.” Dave gave Adam’s hand a small squeeze as he said this, a reassurance that their relationship was still intact, that Dave would be the perfect nurse. Sadly, Dave realized, he did not exactly know who he was trying to reassure.
It was then that Dave noticed the small wheeled suitcase sitting by the entrance-way. Normally because Dave was rather meticulous about his apartment, he would have noticed it right away upon entering, but he supposed that Adam’s surprising presence probably distracted him. Either that or he had subconsciously denied its existence, because acknowledging the suitcase meant that this conversation was going exactly the way he now knew it was going.
So, definitely not cancer then...
Dave sat staring at the suitcase, wondering if it would be uncouth to get up, grab a bottle of vodka, and start drinking it straight from the bottle as a way to dilute exactly what was coming his way. After momentarily considering making a move for the vodka, Dave decided that it might be best to save his drinking for when he was alone. There were fewer chances of Dave getting sloppy, which would lead directly to weepy begging on his part.
Pulling his eyes from the suitcase, he found Adam’s eyes steadily trained on him. What he saw in them certainly did not suggest that Adam was surprising him with a spontaneous trip to Mexico or anything.
“Adam...”
“I met someone else, Dave.”
Ok, that he was not expecting.
“Huh?” Not the most articulate or intelligent.
“His name is Michael. He’s a dentist. We met at that bear dance you were to sick to go to a few months ago.”
Dave processed this information, slowly. First, his boyfriend of 3 years was seeing someone else. Secondly, that person was a dentist... he was getting dumped for a dentist. And third, his boyfriend had picked up Mr. Dentist-dude at a dance while Dave was lying in bed feeling sorry for himself and watching bad Julia Roberts movies on the Movie Channel. Well, fuck. Just fuck.
“A dentist?” Why was he so fixated on that?
“Dave, I’m sorry. I never meant for this to happen! I love you. I really, really do love you. You’re my best friend. And what we’ve had for the past three years was amazing. It was perfect. But when I kissed Mike that night at the dance, it was like...fireworks. Like millions and millions of little explosions went off all at once. And I just can’t ignore that!”
Dave had been dumped before, many times before. And in each case, the guy had found a way to not utterly destroy Dave. The guy he had been seeing during Dave’s last year of grad school had told him that he just could not handle Dave’s crazy schedule anymore - honest, but understandable. The guy Dave dated when he was just starting out as a social worker told Dave that he just did not think they were compatible. And the guy Dave had been seeing just before he met Adam had said that he just was not ready to settle down, even though Dave had never even hinted at the idea that they get married and start raising kids or anything. Regardless, each time the excuse was something that Dave could rationalize. Either it was because he was too busy, or the guy was just the wrong fit for him, or he had been a lying jackass.
But this... there was no rationalizing this. He had been cheated on. Adam had been fucking another guy for 3 months.
While he had been making plans for them to go on vacation next month - well, shit, those tickets better be refundable - or planning dinner dates, or making love to Adam, or holding his hand during a Sunday morning walk... Adam had been screwing another guy.
Dave mentally flashed through the past 3 months - hidden text message conversations, cancelled plans at the last minute, a weekend work trip to Baltimore.
“Baltimore?” Dave managed to croak out. “That wasn’t about work, was it?”
“No. Mike and I went away. It killed me to lie to you about it, though. But I just had to do it, to see if this thing with Mike was real. To see if it was worth exploring.”
“And it took you another month to decide that it was?” Dave’s voice, although he had meant to sound angry and spiteful, sounded weak and ineffectual.
“I know. I know, ok? I was an asshole. I should have told you right away. But you were so happy with us. I couldn’t hurt you like that.”
“But cheating on me for three months... that was ok?”
“It was the wrong thing to do.”
“No shit, sherlock.”
“But I had to. I had to see if ending us was the right thing to do.”
“Oh fuck you.”
“Don’t be like that Dave.”
“And exactly what should I be like? You just told me that you’ve been boning some dentist for three months. And then getting into bed with me, acting as though everything was perfect. So, please Adam, why don’t you tell me what I should be like!” It was then that Dave realized that he was still holding onto Adam’s hand, he yanked his hand out of Adam’s grip like he had just realized he’d been holding onto a rather large viper.
“Dave...I never meant to hurt you. It just sorta happened. I still love you... I’m just not in...”
“Get out.”
“Dave?!”
“Get out of my house.”
“Please, I want to make sure you’re ok.”
“Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. My. House.”
***********
Things happened pretty fast after that. Dave, fighting back tears, had started yelling. He was pretty sure that he had never felt anything like this before. He’d been betrayed. And seeing Adam standing in his apartment just made it worse.
Adam had pleaded with Dave to have a rational conversation with him about this. Dave was not entirely sure what that meant. Was he supposed to ask things like, “Tell me Adam, what is it like when you have sex with Mr. I’m-a-fucking-dentist? How does that compare to sleeping with me?”
No... certainly not going to have a rational conversation at this moment. The more Dave told Adam to leave, the more he just wanted to start drinking. But Adam seemed pretty set on have a conversation about their feelings.
It was then that Dave did something that he had not done since high-school. He punched a wall. Put a hole right through the living room wall. Dave remembered hearing this animalistic sound come out of his mouth, and then suddenly a lot of pain in his hand and arm. His hand was covered in blood and dry wall dust. And there was a fist size hole in wall next to kitchen - a wall he had spent hours painting a deep shade of red, his favorite color. Dave stared at his hand, incredulously.
“Dave! You’re bleeding!” Adam reached out to grab Dave’s arm to inspect the wound. Dave let him. The fight had gone out of him.
“Why?” Dave’s voice was barely a whisper.
Adam seemed to understand exactly what Dave was asking. “Because I needed to feel excited again.” Well Adam was certainly being really honest today it seems.
“And I’m not...exciting?”
“You’re Dave. Just Dave. Dependable, reliable...”
Dave sighed, defeatedly, pulled his hand away from Adam and moved towards the suitcase. He picked it up and walked to the front door, opening it. He placed Adam’s suitcase on the other side of the door, and turned to face Adam. “I, um, would really appreciate it if you left now. I think I’ve had enough for one day.”
“But your hand...”
“I used to play football, I think I can handle a cut on my hand, Adam.”
Adam nodded and moved towards the door. He stopped and faced Dave, lifting a hand up to touch Dave’s face. Dave turned away.
“Please...”
Adam nodded again and walked out.
Dave didn’t wait to see him get on the elevator, he just closed the door and walked into the bathroom, where he ran water over his damaged hand.
Once he had bandaged his hand, Dave retrieved his coat, his wallet and cell phone, deciding that while he wanted to be alone, he also wanted to be quite invisible.
So he went to the bar.
***********
*Six hours later*
And that’s how David Karofsky - Dave. Just Dave. Good old dependable, reliable... boring... Dave - came be sitting at a bar watching the sweat from his glass make little pools on the coaster.
He knew he was pretty drunk. But not drunk enough that he couldn’t recognize exactly how incredibly hurt and empty Adam’s confession had left him. Dave loved Adam. He had loved him a lot. More than any other guy he’d ever been with.... well, with maybe one exception.
Dave had planned on asking Adam to move in next month when they went away to New York for a weekend, a trip Dave had planned to surprise Adam with over dinner this weekend. He had even been thinking about the big M word.
Dave loved Adam. Adam, decidedly, had not loved Dave quite the same.
“Want another?”
Dave’s head popped up in surprise. The bartender was standing in front of him, holding up a bottle of gin. “It looks like you could use another drink.”
“Sure. I’ll have one more. Thanks.”
“No problem, and this one’s on the house. Anyone looking as miserable as you do right now deserves a free drink. What happened to your hand?”
Dave, suddenly remembered that he had punched a hole in his wall, examined his wounded hand. “A wall got in my way.” Dave muttered, picking up the now full glass and taking a deep swallow.
“I feel sorry for the wall.”
“Thanks for the drink.”
The bartender, understanding this as his dismissal, moved away to serve other customers.
Ok, so if the bartender recognizes how disgustingly wretched you are, it is really time to go home. Dave slammed back the rest of the gin and attempted to stand up. He was rather wobbly on his feet, standing next to the bar stool, wavering back and forth for a few moments. Pulling three twenties out of his pocket, he had determined that he had drunk about that much, he tossed them onto the bar and left the bar.
The bar was not that far from his apartment building, but Dave was not entirely confident in his ability to find his way home, so hailed a cab.
**********
Fifteen minutes later, Dave was back inside his apartment. He pulled off his coat, dumping it on the floor in the entrance way, and kicked off his shoes. He stooped to grab the mail he had dropped earlier. Standing up was interesting, as the room started to spin Dave was uncertain if the booze in his stomach would stay there. After a couple minutes with his eyes closed, the room steadied itself. Taking a breath, Dave determined that he could probably handle moving. His eyes jumped over to the hole in the wall, the evening’s events rolled over him like a wave, threatening to send the room back into a tailspin. Dave again grasped the wall, closing his eyes, he willed his alcohol saturated brain to steady itself.
He stayed like that for a while. Slowly the nausea and emotional pain started to lessen... he felt comfortable enough trying this walking thing again.
He started to walk towards his bedroom, yanking his shirt off as he went. He realized that he was going to have to put down the mail, and possibly stop walking if he was going to succeed.
Shit. When did taking your clothes off become so difficult?
Dave dropped the mail on his bed, and nearly ripped his shirt off, tossing it over his shoulder. Dave undid his belt and jeans. His plan was to pull them of one leg at a time. This plan was resoundingly unsuccessful. His attempt at getting the pants off resulted in him landing facedown onto of his bed, with the jeans still looped around his ankles. Eventually after a lot of wiggling and pulling and pushing with his feet on the fabric, the heavy denim fell onto the floor.
Feeling victorious, Dave attempted his boxer briefs.
Ten minutes later, Dave finally was able to pick up the mail.
He sorted through the various envelopes of bills and junk mail. He stopped at item that was neither.
“Oh fuck.”
It was then that the room decided to do its little spinning dance again. Dave dropped the pile of mail and bolted for his en-suite bathroom, making it to the toilet just in time before all the gin came surging back up.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
He had been dumped, he had been cheated on. His heart was broken. He was naked in his bathroom, he was vomiting up 6 hours worth of gin.
He was pathetic.
And now he had been invited to his fucking ten year reunion at McKinley High.
Author: Pulpobsessed.
Pairing: Dave/OC. Eventually Dave/Kurt
Characters: This chapter: Dave/OC
Rating: PG-13 (for language)
Summary: 10 years after graduation. Dave is an openly gay man, living in Washington, DC, after a heartbreaking and soul crushing break up, he suddenly finds himself facing McKinley high and his past.
Genre: FutureFic
Disclaimer: Glee belongs to Ryan Murphy. Not me.
A/N. It has been a very long time since I sat down and wrote any fiction - I would like to thank all the amazing other Kurtofsky shippers out there who have inspired me to produce something. I'm not sure how long this story will be, I suppose I'll know when I finish it.
Mods - May I have an author tag? Please.
There is a certain type of comfort to the silent din that you encounter when first entering a bar. The noise of the a dozen conversations. Glasses, bottles, plates, voices... all mingling together, allowing you to disappear. Inside the bar, you can become invisible. And right now, that’s all Dave Karofsky wants. To be invisible.
Dave sat at the bar, staring at the tall glass of gin and something in front of him. He watched as rivulets of condensation slowly marked the outside of the glass, pooling at its base, and momentarily considered snagging a drop to refresh his mouth, but then realized that he really didn’t want to interfere with the amount of alcohol he’d consumed over the past 6 hours.
Shit. Had he really been sitting here for 6 hours?
Sighing as he reached for the glass, he knew that yes, he had indeed he had been here for that long. The desire to become utterly anonymous and invisible had started 7 hours earlier when Dave had arrived home from work to find his boyfriend sitting quietly on the couch waiting for him. Looking rather guilty.
Shit.
**************
*Seven Hours Earlier*
“Adam? What are you doing home so early?” Dave’s voice belied none of the surprise he felt upon finding his boyfriend of 3 years sitting in his apartment at 5pm on a Wednesday afternoon. Adam, who usually works until at least 7 or later was sitting on Dave’s couch with his coat carefully folded over his lap. He looked up at Dave, giving him a weak smile that did not fully reach his eyes.
Upon seeing this, Dave immediately knew he was fucked.
“I hope you don’t mind that I let myself in. I needed to talk to you.”
“Oh?” That single syllable was pretty much all he could muster at the moment.
“Yeah.” Adam sighed and ran his hand through his hair, clearly uncomfortable. “I... shit.”
Dave stood frozen in his front entrance way, staring at Adam, unsure of exactly what he should say or do. Afraid that if he opened his mouth, this conversation would go in exactly the direction he figured it about to go in. Of course, he was also pretty sure that continuing to stand here like a mute idiot would have exactly the same result. He could feel the cold metal of the keys still in his hand, the wad of mail he held between his thumb and forefinger of his left hand, the weight of the bottle of wine he’d stopped for to share with Adam that night in his bag, the smell of the soap he used after the gym at lunch...but most of all he could feel his stomach falling out of his body.
“I’m so sorry, David.”
The sound of his formal name snapped Dave out of his paralysis. Dropping his keys and the mail, and shrugging off his bag, Dave stepped into the living room. “What is it? Adam? You’re kinda freaking me out here.” Dave pulled off his coat and tossed it onto the easy chair to the right of the couch, sat next to Adam. “Look, whatever is going on, just tell me, ok?”
He resisted the urge to grasp Adam’s hand, somehow he felt that would be the wrong thing to do.
“Dave, I... well, I love you, you know that right?”
“Of course! And I love you too.” Dave gave up the struggle and grabbed Adam’s hand. “I’ve loved you ever since that awful drunk karaoke night where you fell off the stage in the middle of The Locomotion. I love you so much, Adam.” Dave noted the distinct strained and hoarse tone to his voice. That was usually the first sign that he was going to start crying.
“Yeah,” Adam mumbled, “that was a fun night.” He looked down at the floor, sighing sadly.
They silently at like that for a while. Dave nervously rubbing circles on the top of Adam’s hand, while Adam seemed to be studying a one-inch space between Dave’s coffee table and sofa. Both afraid to speak, because even the smallest noise might start a conversation that neither would be able to come back from. Dave’s brain was trying to formulate some idea as to what exactly was coming... maybe he wasn’t about to get dumped. Maybe Adam had cancer. Or worse. Ok, so thinking that might make him a horrible person, but they could survive cancer. Dave could become the loving caretaker who would nurse his lover back to health and they would live happily ever after. Yes, perhaps that was really where this was going.
Dave would now look up and tell Adam that he would be there for him right till the end. Too bad he didn’t have a soundtrack attached to his life, he was fairly certain that this moment might deserve some swelling orchestration.
Dave raised his eyes to look at Adam, who was nervously chewing the inside of his cheek as though his life depended on it. “One of these days you’re going to chew a hole there, you know.”
Adam smiled. “Yeah, luckily I have good medical coverage, they’ll build me a new face.”
“Just don’t let them change too much, I kinda like this one.”
“I could go for the two-face look?”
“You would. I swear I’ve never met someone with as many Batman comics as you do.”
“Heh. Whatever, I see you reading them sometimes.”
“Purely as a way to better understand my boyfriend.” Dave gave Adam’s hand a small squeeze as he said this, a reassurance that their relationship was still intact, that Dave would be the perfect nurse. Sadly, Dave realized, he did not exactly know who he was trying to reassure.
It was then that Dave noticed the small wheeled suitcase sitting by the entrance-way. Normally because Dave was rather meticulous about his apartment, he would have noticed it right away upon entering, but he supposed that Adam’s surprising presence probably distracted him. Either that or he had subconsciously denied its existence, because acknowledging the suitcase meant that this conversation was going exactly the way he now knew it was going.
So, definitely not cancer then...
Dave sat staring at the suitcase, wondering if it would be uncouth to get up, grab a bottle of vodka, and start drinking it straight from the bottle as a way to dilute exactly what was coming his way. After momentarily considering making a move for the vodka, Dave decided that it might be best to save his drinking for when he was alone. There were fewer chances of Dave getting sloppy, which would lead directly to weepy begging on his part.
Pulling his eyes from the suitcase, he found Adam’s eyes steadily trained on him. What he saw in them certainly did not suggest that Adam was surprising him with a spontaneous trip to Mexico or anything.
“Adam...”
“I met someone else, Dave.”
Ok, that he was not expecting.
“Huh?” Not the most articulate or intelligent.
“His name is Michael. He’s a dentist. We met at that bear dance you were to sick to go to a few months ago.”
Dave processed this information, slowly. First, his boyfriend of 3 years was seeing someone else. Secondly, that person was a dentist... he was getting dumped for a dentist. And third, his boyfriend had picked up Mr. Dentist-dude at a dance while Dave was lying in bed feeling sorry for himself and watching bad Julia Roberts movies on the Movie Channel. Well, fuck. Just fuck.
“A dentist?” Why was he so fixated on that?
“Dave, I’m sorry. I never meant for this to happen! I love you. I really, really do love you. You’re my best friend. And what we’ve had for the past three years was amazing. It was perfect. But when I kissed Mike that night at the dance, it was like...fireworks. Like millions and millions of little explosions went off all at once. And I just can’t ignore that!”
Dave had been dumped before, many times before. And in each case, the guy had found a way to not utterly destroy Dave. The guy he had been seeing during Dave’s last year of grad school had told him that he just could not handle Dave’s crazy schedule anymore - honest, but understandable. The guy Dave dated when he was just starting out as a social worker told Dave that he just did not think they were compatible. And the guy Dave had been seeing just before he met Adam had said that he just was not ready to settle down, even though Dave had never even hinted at the idea that they get married and start raising kids or anything. Regardless, each time the excuse was something that Dave could rationalize. Either it was because he was too busy, or the guy was just the wrong fit for him, or he had been a lying jackass.
But this... there was no rationalizing this. He had been cheated on. Adam had been fucking another guy for 3 months.
While he had been making plans for them to go on vacation next month - well, shit, those tickets better be refundable - or planning dinner dates, or making love to Adam, or holding his hand during a Sunday morning walk... Adam had been screwing another guy.
Dave mentally flashed through the past 3 months - hidden text message conversations, cancelled plans at the last minute, a weekend work trip to Baltimore.
“Baltimore?” Dave managed to croak out. “That wasn’t about work, was it?”
“No. Mike and I went away. It killed me to lie to you about it, though. But I just had to do it, to see if this thing with Mike was real. To see if it was worth exploring.”
“And it took you another month to decide that it was?” Dave’s voice, although he had meant to sound angry and spiteful, sounded weak and ineffectual.
“I know. I know, ok? I was an asshole. I should have told you right away. But you were so happy with us. I couldn’t hurt you like that.”
“But cheating on me for three months... that was ok?”
“It was the wrong thing to do.”
“No shit, sherlock.”
“But I had to. I had to see if ending us was the right thing to do.”
“Oh fuck you.”
“Don’t be like that Dave.”
“And exactly what should I be like? You just told me that you’ve been boning some dentist for three months. And then getting into bed with me, acting as though everything was perfect. So, please Adam, why don’t you tell me what I should be like!” It was then that Dave realized that he was still holding onto Adam’s hand, he yanked his hand out of Adam’s grip like he had just realized he’d been holding onto a rather large viper.
“Dave...I never meant to hurt you. It just sorta happened. I still love you... I’m just not in...”
“Get out.”
“Dave?!”
“Get out of my house.”
“Please, I want to make sure you’re ok.”
“Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. My. House.”
***********
Things happened pretty fast after that. Dave, fighting back tears, had started yelling. He was pretty sure that he had never felt anything like this before. He’d been betrayed. And seeing Adam standing in his apartment just made it worse.
Adam had pleaded with Dave to have a rational conversation with him about this. Dave was not entirely sure what that meant. Was he supposed to ask things like, “Tell me Adam, what is it like when you have sex with Mr. I’m-a-fucking-dentist? How does that compare to sleeping with me?”
No... certainly not going to have a rational conversation at this moment. The more Dave told Adam to leave, the more he just wanted to start drinking. But Adam seemed pretty set on have a conversation about their feelings.
It was then that Dave did something that he had not done since high-school. He punched a wall. Put a hole right through the living room wall. Dave remembered hearing this animalistic sound come out of his mouth, and then suddenly a lot of pain in his hand and arm. His hand was covered in blood and dry wall dust. And there was a fist size hole in wall next to kitchen - a wall he had spent hours painting a deep shade of red, his favorite color. Dave stared at his hand, incredulously.
“Dave! You’re bleeding!” Adam reached out to grab Dave’s arm to inspect the wound. Dave let him. The fight had gone out of him.
“Why?” Dave’s voice was barely a whisper.
Adam seemed to understand exactly what Dave was asking. “Because I needed to feel excited again.” Well Adam was certainly being really honest today it seems.
“And I’m not...exciting?”
“You’re Dave. Just Dave. Dependable, reliable...”
Dave sighed, defeatedly, pulled his hand away from Adam and moved towards the suitcase. He picked it up and walked to the front door, opening it. He placed Adam’s suitcase on the other side of the door, and turned to face Adam. “I, um, would really appreciate it if you left now. I think I’ve had enough for one day.”
“But your hand...”
“I used to play football, I think I can handle a cut on my hand, Adam.”
Adam nodded and moved towards the door. He stopped and faced Dave, lifting a hand up to touch Dave’s face. Dave turned away.
“Please...”
Adam nodded again and walked out.
Dave didn’t wait to see him get on the elevator, he just closed the door and walked into the bathroom, where he ran water over his damaged hand.
Once he had bandaged his hand, Dave retrieved his coat, his wallet and cell phone, deciding that while he wanted to be alone, he also wanted to be quite invisible.
So he went to the bar.
***********
*Six hours later*
And that’s how David Karofsky - Dave. Just Dave. Good old dependable, reliable... boring... Dave - came be sitting at a bar watching the sweat from his glass make little pools on the coaster.
He knew he was pretty drunk. But not drunk enough that he couldn’t recognize exactly how incredibly hurt and empty Adam’s confession had left him. Dave loved Adam. He had loved him a lot. More than any other guy he’d ever been with.... well, with maybe one exception.
Dave had planned on asking Adam to move in next month when they went away to New York for a weekend, a trip Dave had planned to surprise Adam with over dinner this weekend. He had even been thinking about the big M word.
Dave loved Adam. Adam, decidedly, had not loved Dave quite the same.
“Want another?”
Dave’s head popped up in surprise. The bartender was standing in front of him, holding up a bottle of gin. “It looks like you could use another drink.”
“Sure. I’ll have one more. Thanks.”
“No problem, and this one’s on the house. Anyone looking as miserable as you do right now deserves a free drink. What happened to your hand?”
Dave, suddenly remembered that he had punched a hole in his wall, examined his wounded hand. “A wall got in my way.” Dave muttered, picking up the now full glass and taking a deep swallow.
“I feel sorry for the wall.”
“Thanks for the drink.”
The bartender, understanding this as his dismissal, moved away to serve other customers.
Ok, so if the bartender recognizes how disgustingly wretched you are, it is really time to go home. Dave slammed back the rest of the gin and attempted to stand up. He was rather wobbly on his feet, standing next to the bar stool, wavering back and forth for a few moments. Pulling three twenties out of his pocket, he had determined that he had drunk about that much, he tossed them onto the bar and left the bar.
The bar was not that far from his apartment building, but Dave was not entirely confident in his ability to find his way home, so hailed a cab.
**********
Fifteen minutes later, Dave was back inside his apartment. He pulled off his coat, dumping it on the floor in the entrance way, and kicked off his shoes. He stooped to grab the mail he had dropped earlier. Standing up was interesting, as the room started to spin Dave was uncertain if the booze in his stomach would stay there. After a couple minutes with his eyes closed, the room steadied itself. Taking a breath, Dave determined that he could probably handle moving. His eyes jumped over to the hole in the wall, the evening’s events rolled over him like a wave, threatening to send the room back into a tailspin. Dave again grasped the wall, closing his eyes, he willed his alcohol saturated brain to steady itself.
He stayed like that for a while. Slowly the nausea and emotional pain started to lessen... he felt comfortable enough trying this walking thing again.
He started to walk towards his bedroom, yanking his shirt off as he went. He realized that he was going to have to put down the mail, and possibly stop walking if he was going to succeed.
Shit. When did taking your clothes off become so difficult?
Dave dropped the mail on his bed, and nearly ripped his shirt off, tossing it over his shoulder. Dave undid his belt and jeans. His plan was to pull them of one leg at a time. This plan was resoundingly unsuccessful. His attempt at getting the pants off resulted in him landing facedown onto of his bed, with the jeans still looped around his ankles. Eventually after a lot of wiggling and pulling and pushing with his feet on the fabric, the heavy denim fell onto the floor.
Feeling victorious, Dave attempted his boxer briefs.
Ten minutes later, Dave finally was able to pick up the mail.
He sorted through the various envelopes of bills and junk mail. He stopped at item that was neither.
“Oh fuck.”
It was then that the room decided to do its little spinning dance again. Dave dropped the pile of mail and bolted for his en-suite bathroom, making it to the toilet just in time before all the gin came surging back up.
“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”
He had been dumped, he had been cheated on. His heart was broken. He was naked in his bathroom, he was vomiting up 6 hours worth of gin.
He was pathetic.
And now he had been invited to his fucking ten year reunion at McKinley High.