Fic: Louder Than Sirens, Louder Than Bells
Author: likethedirection
Fandom/Pairings: Glee, one-sided Kurtofsky
Rating: R, mostly for language
Warnings: Some violence, some angst, mild sexual harassment, swearing/slurs
Summary: In his head, Dave saves him every time. In the real world, it's not so simple.
A/N: This is not at all what I imagined would be my first submission to the world of LJ gleekdom. Reasons for this: 1) I love Dave Karofsky so, so much; 2) One-sided Kurtofsky fics tend to just make me sad; 3) Kurt is my fave, so naturally I feel the need to beat the living crap out of him. It’s complicated. Dave knows what I’m talking about.
“Drumming Song” by Florence and the Machine is to blame for pretty much this whole thing.
(Part 2: To See Me Through)
>>Z: heard u got xpeld, wtf! don worry we got ur back, wait til after practice to come get ur shit. u gon love it lmao
This is the kind of text message that makes Dave really nervous.
He has probably looked at it thirty times since Azimio sent it to him this afternoon--when would it have been, fifth period?--while he was confined to his room until further notice. That gave him plenty of time to frown at it, and then try to figure it out, and then stew over it, and then kind of obsess over it, because this is going to be about Kurt.
But then, everything’s about Kurt. Every fucking thing, since the first time he saw him. It’s all about Kurt.
And if Azimio thinks he’s going to “love it” right after Kurt has gotten him expelled, that means that this could be bad. Because this…thing, between him and Kurt, that’s so far away from Azimio and Strando and Waco and all those guys. That’s Kurt knowing more about Dave than anyone else in the world, knowing the secret to his total and complete downfall, and holding it silently over his head day after day, never giving any sign of when he’s going to let it drop. And it’s Dave scrambling to hold it all together, and making sure that Kurt never even considers doing that to him, and digging himself a foot deeper into the ground with every moment that they share the same space.
But even if it’s all gone to hell now, it’s still between him and Kurt. It doesn’t belong to anyone else. Which is why this could be really, really bad.
Which is why he reasoned with his dad that it would be best to clean out his gym locker today around five, after football practice gets out, because Hummel would be long gone already (please let him be gone) and then he could say goodbye to his boys. His dad is still crazy pissed, which is why he’s waiting for Dave in the car right now, giving him exactly fifteen minutes to get his stuff (just his jacket, really, because he actually has most of his stuff out already) and say his farewells. And as he heads down the hall toward the locker room, he gets another text:
>>Z: where u at, we ready 4 u
Which is why his heart is starting to pound.
Because as many times as he can replay the fantasy in his head, the one where he finally, finally grows a pair and barrels in like a fucking action hero, and the guys back off, and Kurt looks at him like he’s something good, the truth is that if it’s bad, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do.
And then there’s the horrible, totally fucking horrible idea that maybe he’s got it all wrong. Maybe Kurt blabbed it all as soon as he was out the door, like a dam breaking without Dave there to hold it shut. Maybe they know now, and they want to deal some punishment, and this is a trap, not for Kurt, but for him.
He has been standing in front of the locker room door for a full two of his fifteen allotted minutes. There are at least three voices coming from inside. None of them are Kurt’s.
His stomach twists and his palms start to sweat, and okay, now he might be panicking a little.
He’s seriously considering just turning around and walking out--he doesn’t even go here anymore, they can keep the damn jacket--when the door flies open, and he’s face to face with Azimio.
Whose face goes from a surprised ‘o’ to a crocodile smile in about half a second. “Man, the hell’s a brother gotta do to get you to answer a fucking text?” He claps Dave on the shoulder and ushers him in. “Fellas, we got the guest of honor himself!”
Dressen, Strando, and Waco are all waiting for him with similar glitter-eyed grins, and Azimio shuts the door behind him. The fake smirk stretches Dave’s face out of habit, and thank God, because this is the second most terrifying moment of his life and he feels like he might actually throw up. “Boys.”
Waco steps up like he’s the brains of this outfit, and based on some of the stuff that’s come out of his mouth in the locker room in the past, he probably is. “What up, DK,” he says, leaning on one of the lockers with his hands in the pockets of his letter jacket. “On behalf of all of us, let me say it’s not gonna be the same around here without you. And to show our appreciation, we got a goodbye present for you.”
Dave steels himself and holds his breath, the fake smirk frozen on his lips.
But no one rushes at him. No one grabs him. Waco just bangs a fist twice on the locker, then jerks it open wide, and out of it tumbles a mountain of jockstraps and Kurt Hummel.
There’s a millisecond of relief before Dave’s heart sinks.
Kurt looks halfway to passing out, barely standing up and coughing uncontrollably as Waco throws a tight, almost friendly-looking arm around his neck. He’s still in his gym clothes. “Tossed him in after seventh period with the rest of the dirty laundry.”
“Figured you wouldn’t get the chance to get your payback after he sicced his daddy-waddy on you, so we’d give you a front-row seat,” Strando chimes in.
“Take it as a reminder who your real friends are at this school,” Azimio adds proudly. “Keepin’ the homos off your back.”
Kurt has stopped coughing, but no scathing retorts leave his mouth. He struggles against Waco and gets nowhere, his eyes sweeping across the locker room at the five of them. Next to them, he looks small and spindly and breakable. This time, there is no quiet defiance, no sharp-eyed glare. He looks absolutely terrified.
“Come on, man,” Dressen says. “You’re our fucking inspiration. We at least get a thank-you?”
Oh God.
Dave tears his eyes away from Kurt, looks at all of them, and looks forward again, and this time Kurt is staring straight back at him with huge, frozen eyes. Just like when he’d--
No.
“Thanks,” Dave mutters weakly, “but anyone finds him in here, they’re gonna think it was me. I’m already expelled, I’d rather stay out of juvie. Besides, I’ve got like ten minutes before the old man drives the car through that wall.” Now let him go. Let him go, let him go, let him--
“Nah, man, we got it all figured out,” Waco says. “Beiste’s got Hudson running laps for being a retard. School’s empty. We can make it short and sweet. And fairy-boy here isn’t gonna be saying anything,” he jerks the arm around Kurt’s neck, nearly choking him, “ are you?”
“Get off me,” Kurt finally says, but his voice is trembling and it just makes them laugh.
“I didn’t hear a ‘please,’ Miss Manners. Lay it on me.”
Kurt’s eyes tighten with humiliation, and he closes them for a second, his voice going quiet and low. “Please, let me go.”
(And in Dave’s head, he is already across that locker room, wrenching Waco’s arm away from Kurt, hissing through clenched teeth, “He said to fucking let go,” and then standing in front of Kurt as a shield and looking from one face to the next until they leave quietly, and then Kurt is thanking him--but no he isn’t, he shouldn’t have to thank him for anything, ever--and then Dave is magically brave enough to look him in the eye and say, “I’m sorry,” and Kurt gives him that look of angel-faced understanding and says, “I know,” and takes his hand--)
Dave can’t move.
“Now, see, all you had to do was ask!” Waco says, and Kurt doesn’t seem to figure out what that means until Waco is cheerfully rearing back and throwing him forward with a grunt that says he isn’t holding back. Kurt’s body hits the lockers hard, much harder than he does whenever Dave shoves him, and then Azimio grabs him before he can fall over (“Oh, my bad, forgot your homo nest is over this way.”) and swings him even harder into the opposite row. He slams into it so loudly that Dave almost flinches, but he can’t. He can’t do anything.
Strando doesn’t give Kurt time to catch his breath or nurse the shoulder it looks like he jarred before grabbing him by the shoulder and the hair and pitching him to Dressen, the biggest of them. He uses the momentum of catching Kurt to turn them half around and shove his shoulders into the lockers a third time, but then holds him there with one hand and slams his fist directly into his stomach, to a chorus of delighted “Ohh!”s from the others.
Kurt cries out and doubles over, and Dave sort of wants to scream, too. But his voice won’t come.
It looks like Kurt physically can’t straighten up for a second, and Dressen fists a hand in his hair and pushes. “While you’re down there, do a guy a favor and suck my balls?” Kurt jerks back with wide eyes while the others laugh and Dave wants to die. Dressen tosses Kurt back to Waco, nearly sending him airborne, and it’s one swift movement from catching him to ramming him into the lockers with the full weight of his 250-pound body, wrenching pure pain from Kurt’s throat.
“Little queer probably wouldn’t even know a pair if he saw ‘em,” Waco says, emphasizing with another hard push (slam, head bouncing off the metal, body lurching dizzily forward) and turning his full attention to Kurt. “Bet you don’t even have any.”
Two sharp movements: one hand clamping hard over Kurt’s mouth, and the other shooting down between his legs and twisting, hard.
Kurt screams under Waco’s hand, and fights, and writhes, and drips with tears, and Dave almost sobs.
“Whoop! Think I found the G-spot!” Waco crows, and the other three howl with laughter. Waco leans in close to Kurt and says, “You gonna remember this moment, homo? ‘Cause guess what the hell we’ll be lining up to do if you open your fucking mouth again. Got me?” He punctuates it with an extra jerk that makes Kurt’s voice jump before finally letting go. Kurt gasps in almost a sob, too sharp to let him speak. “What, too gay to answer a question? I said, you got me?” A second hard-hitting punch to his stomach, and Kurt makes a strangled sound and gags a little before gasping a broken, “Yes.”
At long last, Waco steps away and brushes off his hands. “Damn right, you do.” The other three cheer as if he has singlehandedly saved the school. Waco yanks Kurt away from the lockers by the shoulders and shoves him forward, and Dave barely throws his arms up in time to catch him. “All yours, Karofsky.”
Dave breaks into a cold sweat, taking in the four expectant pairs of eyes on him and trying in vain to reconcile them with how hard Kurt is shaking in his arms, and how much he wants to just keep him there. Thinking quickly, he forces another cocky smirk for his friends. His stupid, scary friends who he kind of fucking hates. “Think Fancy and I are gonna need some alone time, boys.”
The four of them delight, and Kurt panics, gasping “No,” and fighting so hard that Dave almost loses him.
“Say no more, man,” Waco says, gesturing the rest of them toward the door. “Teach ‘im.”
They file out, leaving him with hard pats on the shoulder, and he clenches his jaw when Waco leaves Kurt with a sharp smack on the ass. They won’t leave right away, he knows they won’t. They’ll be waiting outside the door, watching him as it swings. He swallows hard, then turns his back to the door, covering Kurt as much as he can, and draws back to shove him, the way he has a million times.
Kurt goes painfully tense in his arms and cries out when he’s shoved forward, but Dave quickly catches him around the back with one arm and slams his other hand into the locker. The crash sounds just like he’s thrown him, even as Kurt gasps, unharmed, against his chest.
Outside, his friends laugh and sound satisfied. Taking another deep breath, Dave clutches Kurt to him--just in case they come back in, so it would look like he’s just in between shoves--and pounds the lockers with his fist again, a few times, leaving enough space between to make it sound realistic. He isn’t sure if Kurt has figured out what he’s doing, but he has gone still, his muscles so tense that he seems ready to snap in half.
The other players’ voices finally began to fade as they leave down the hall, and as soon as they’re gone, Dave stops, breathing hard, his hand throbbing. Kurt is still shaking like a leaf, and it sounds like he might be crying, and Dave can’t make himself let go--even if this is scaring Kurt, even if he doesn’t want him close. He braces one hand against the locker and sort of holds him for a second, not knowing what else to do.
Three breaths, and their breath is the only sound.
(And in his head, he’s holding him tight, kissing it better, keeping him safe. Whispering into his hair, back and forth between “I’m sorry” and “I lo--)
Kurt’s hands are pushing at him, pushing him back, just like the last time they were alone in here. Just like last time, Dave lets him go. Kurt staggers back, one arm curled over his stomach, the other one flailing out until it can press to a locker--Dave’s locker, but he doubts Kurt is thinking about that--and give him some balance. The riot of emotions in his face, the anger and confusion and humiliation and betrayal and fear and tear-streaked exhaustion, is enough to make Dave dizzy, and he’s just looking from the outside.
He finds his voice before Kurt does, feeling like there are a million things he should say, one for each feeling. All that comes out is a quiet, “I didn’t know shit about this.”
Kurt curls into himself even more at the sound of his voice. For a second he looks like he’s going to cry again, and then like he’s going to scream at him, but when he finally speaks, his voice is soft and hoarse and a little hysterical. “I don’t…understand you, I don’t…” He stops, squeezes his eyes shut, swallows. Opens them again, and they’re angry and helpless, and his voice shakes. “I don’t understand you! God, I--what do you want?”
Dave has an answer for him, but he will never, ever say it out loud.
“I didn’t tell!” Kurt insists, his voice crackling and low. “I’m never going to--”
“Why the hell not?” Dave shoots back, getting scared now and not quite sure why. “What the fuck was stopping you except me, huh? Did you think I was gonna let you just sit there with all the power in the world to fuck up everything? You think if they just slammed the shit out of you, it isn’t gonna be a thousand times worse what they’d do to me?” Something wells up in Kurt’s face that’s terrifying and heartbreaking at the same time, but Dave can’t stop talking, his deepest fears bubbling faster and faster to the surface. “You think I’m gonna let you decide when they fuck me up for life, whenever the hell you feel like it? No fucking way.”
“God, I can’t--” Kurt closes his eyes a moment, catches his breath. “I don’t care that you’re gay, Karofsky--”
“Will you shut up?”
“I don’t care! I don’t want to hold this over you, I don’t want to blackmail you, I don’t want any of this, I just want you, and-and them, all of you, to leave me alone!”
“Well guess what?” Dave barked, and he doesn’t even remember crossing the room but now he’s here and his hand is slamming into his locker next to Kurt’s head, making him jump and throw his hands up in front of his chest in a feeble shield. But his eyes don’t close, and they’re looking straight back at him from inches away, and they’re huge and terrified but so, so brave.
Dave’s voice drops low. “You got me fucking expelled.” He leans on his hand on the other side of Kurt’s head, trapping him with his body God he’s so close, and opens his locker with a jerk of the handle, making Kurt’s frame seize up again. And Dave is doing it again, doing everything all wrong, but his brain isn’t connecting to the rest of him anymore. When it’s Kurt, it never does. “My life is fucking over ‘cause I’m stuck in this cow-town for good, because of you.” He pulls out the last item, the only reason his dad thinks he came in here. The leather arm of the jacket brushes Kurt’s shoulder as he pulls it out, and Kurt closes his eyes, shuddering.
(And it’s horrible, but he looks absolutely fucking beautiful, and it would be so easy to kiss him right now.)
Kurt looks like he’s bracing himself for the inevitable slam, and Dave swallows hard, then shuts his locker slowly, with a quiet click. Kurt’s eyes are still squeezed shut, and Dave almost does it. Right on the mouth, or on the forehead, even, something to tell him, somehow, that none of this is how he wanted it to be. After all, this is it--the last moment he’ll ever have with Kurt Hummel. And he’s already fucked it all up anyway.
He leans in close, and Kurt can feel it, he can tell, because his breath speeds up and he inches back, and one fresh tear slips from the corner of each eye.
Out of nowhere, Dave notices his own eyes are wet too, and he doesn’t bother getting closer, because he knows he isn’t going to do this. Instead, he just murmurs in a voice that just starts to shake, “Wish granted.”
He’s across the locker room and out the door before Kurt can see him go.
(And in his head, there’s nothing, just his heart in his ears like a drum.)
Part 2: To See Me Through
Fandom/Pairings: Glee, one-sided Kurtofsky
Rating: R, mostly for language
Warnings: Some violence, some angst, mild sexual harassment, swearing/slurs
Summary: In his head, Dave saves him every time. In the real world, it's not so simple.
A/N: This is not at all what I imagined would be my first submission to the world of LJ gleekdom. Reasons for this: 1) I love Dave Karofsky so, so much; 2) One-sided Kurtofsky fics tend to just make me sad; 3) Kurt is my fave, so naturally I feel the need to beat the living crap out of him. It’s complicated. Dave knows what I’m talking about.
“Drumming Song” by Florence and the Machine is to blame for pretty much this whole thing.
(Part 2: To See Me Through)
>>Z: heard u got xpeld, wtf! don worry we got ur back, wait til after practice to come get ur shit. u gon love it lmao
This is the kind of text message that makes Dave really nervous.
He has probably looked at it thirty times since Azimio sent it to him this afternoon--when would it have been, fifth period?--while he was confined to his room until further notice. That gave him plenty of time to frown at it, and then try to figure it out, and then stew over it, and then kind of obsess over it, because this is going to be about Kurt.
But then, everything’s about Kurt. Every fucking thing, since the first time he saw him. It’s all about Kurt.
And if Azimio thinks he’s going to “love it” right after Kurt has gotten him expelled, that means that this could be bad. Because this…thing, between him and Kurt, that’s so far away from Azimio and Strando and Waco and all those guys. That’s Kurt knowing more about Dave than anyone else in the world, knowing the secret to his total and complete downfall, and holding it silently over his head day after day, never giving any sign of when he’s going to let it drop. And it’s Dave scrambling to hold it all together, and making sure that Kurt never even considers doing that to him, and digging himself a foot deeper into the ground with every moment that they share the same space.
But even if it’s all gone to hell now, it’s still between him and Kurt. It doesn’t belong to anyone else. Which is why this could be really, really bad.
Which is why he reasoned with his dad that it would be best to clean out his gym locker today around five, after football practice gets out, because Hummel would be long gone already (please let him be gone) and then he could say goodbye to his boys. His dad is still crazy pissed, which is why he’s waiting for Dave in the car right now, giving him exactly fifteen minutes to get his stuff (just his jacket, really, because he actually has most of his stuff out already) and say his farewells. And as he heads down the hall toward the locker room, he gets another text:
>>Z: where u at, we ready 4 u
Which is why his heart is starting to pound.
Because as many times as he can replay the fantasy in his head, the one where he finally, finally grows a pair and barrels in like a fucking action hero, and the guys back off, and Kurt looks at him like he’s something good, the truth is that if it’s bad, he doesn’t know what he’s going to do.
And then there’s the horrible, totally fucking horrible idea that maybe he’s got it all wrong. Maybe Kurt blabbed it all as soon as he was out the door, like a dam breaking without Dave there to hold it shut. Maybe they know now, and they want to deal some punishment, and this is a trap, not for Kurt, but for him.
He has been standing in front of the locker room door for a full two of his fifteen allotted minutes. There are at least three voices coming from inside. None of them are Kurt’s.
His stomach twists and his palms start to sweat, and okay, now he might be panicking a little.
He’s seriously considering just turning around and walking out--he doesn’t even go here anymore, they can keep the damn jacket--when the door flies open, and he’s face to face with Azimio.
Whose face goes from a surprised ‘o’ to a crocodile smile in about half a second. “Man, the hell’s a brother gotta do to get you to answer a fucking text?” He claps Dave on the shoulder and ushers him in. “Fellas, we got the guest of honor himself!”
Dressen, Strando, and Waco are all waiting for him with similar glitter-eyed grins, and Azimio shuts the door behind him. The fake smirk stretches Dave’s face out of habit, and thank God, because this is the second most terrifying moment of his life and he feels like he might actually throw up. “Boys.”
Waco steps up like he’s the brains of this outfit, and based on some of the stuff that’s come out of his mouth in the locker room in the past, he probably is. “What up, DK,” he says, leaning on one of the lockers with his hands in the pockets of his letter jacket. “On behalf of all of us, let me say it’s not gonna be the same around here without you. And to show our appreciation, we got a goodbye present for you.”
Dave steels himself and holds his breath, the fake smirk frozen on his lips.
But no one rushes at him. No one grabs him. Waco just bangs a fist twice on the locker, then jerks it open wide, and out of it tumbles a mountain of jockstraps and Kurt Hummel.
There’s a millisecond of relief before Dave’s heart sinks.
Kurt looks halfway to passing out, barely standing up and coughing uncontrollably as Waco throws a tight, almost friendly-looking arm around his neck. He’s still in his gym clothes. “Tossed him in after seventh period with the rest of the dirty laundry.”
“Figured you wouldn’t get the chance to get your payback after he sicced his daddy-waddy on you, so we’d give you a front-row seat,” Strando chimes in.
“Take it as a reminder who your real friends are at this school,” Azimio adds proudly. “Keepin’ the homos off your back.”
Kurt has stopped coughing, but no scathing retorts leave his mouth. He struggles against Waco and gets nowhere, his eyes sweeping across the locker room at the five of them. Next to them, he looks small and spindly and breakable. This time, there is no quiet defiance, no sharp-eyed glare. He looks absolutely terrified.
“Come on, man,” Dressen says. “You’re our fucking inspiration. We at least get a thank-you?”
Oh God.
Dave tears his eyes away from Kurt, looks at all of them, and looks forward again, and this time Kurt is staring straight back at him with huge, frozen eyes. Just like when he’d--
No.
“Thanks,” Dave mutters weakly, “but anyone finds him in here, they’re gonna think it was me. I’m already expelled, I’d rather stay out of juvie. Besides, I’ve got like ten minutes before the old man drives the car through that wall.” Now let him go. Let him go, let him go, let him--
“Nah, man, we got it all figured out,” Waco says. “Beiste’s got Hudson running laps for being a retard. School’s empty. We can make it short and sweet. And fairy-boy here isn’t gonna be saying anything,” he jerks the arm around Kurt’s neck, nearly choking him, “ are you?”
“Get off me,” Kurt finally says, but his voice is trembling and it just makes them laugh.
“I didn’t hear a ‘please,’ Miss Manners. Lay it on me.”
Kurt’s eyes tighten with humiliation, and he closes them for a second, his voice going quiet and low. “Please, let me go.”
(And in Dave’s head, he is already across that locker room, wrenching Waco’s arm away from Kurt, hissing through clenched teeth, “He said to fucking let go,” and then standing in front of Kurt as a shield and looking from one face to the next until they leave quietly, and then Kurt is thanking him--but no he isn’t, he shouldn’t have to thank him for anything, ever--and then Dave is magically brave enough to look him in the eye and say, “I’m sorry,” and Kurt gives him that look of angel-faced understanding and says, “I know,” and takes his hand--)
Dave can’t move.
“Now, see, all you had to do was ask!” Waco says, and Kurt doesn’t seem to figure out what that means until Waco is cheerfully rearing back and throwing him forward with a grunt that says he isn’t holding back. Kurt’s body hits the lockers hard, much harder than he does whenever Dave shoves him, and then Azimio grabs him before he can fall over (“Oh, my bad, forgot your homo nest is over this way.”) and swings him even harder into the opposite row. He slams into it so loudly that Dave almost flinches, but he can’t. He can’t do anything.
Strando doesn’t give Kurt time to catch his breath or nurse the shoulder it looks like he jarred before grabbing him by the shoulder and the hair and pitching him to Dressen, the biggest of them. He uses the momentum of catching Kurt to turn them half around and shove his shoulders into the lockers a third time, but then holds him there with one hand and slams his fist directly into his stomach, to a chorus of delighted “Ohh!”s from the others.
Kurt cries out and doubles over, and Dave sort of wants to scream, too. But his voice won’t come.
It looks like Kurt physically can’t straighten up for a second, and Dressen fists a hand in his hair and pushes. “While you’re down there, do a guy a favor and suck my balls?” Kurt jerks back with wide eyes while the others laugh and Dave wants to die. Dressen tosses Kurt back to Waco, nearly sending him airborne, and it’s one swift movement from catching him to ramming him into the lockers with the full weight of his 250-pound body, wrenching pure pain from Kurt’s throat.
“Little queer probably wouldn’t even know a pair if he saw ‘em,” Waco says, emphasizing with another hard push (slam, head bouncing off the metal, body lurching dizzily forward) and turning his full attention to Kurt. “Bet you don’t even have any.”
Two sharp movements: one hand clamping hard over Kurt’s mouth, and the other shooting down between his legs and twisting, hard.
Kurt screams under Waco’s hand, and fights, and writhes, and drips with tears, and Dave almost sobs.
“Whoop! Think I found the G-spot!” Waco crows, and the other three howl with laughter. Waco leans in close to Kurt and says, “You gonna remember this moment, homo? ‘Cause guess what the hell we’ll be lining up to do if you open your fucking mouth again. Got me?” He punctuates it with an extra jerk that makes Kurt’s voice jump before finally letting go. Kurt gasps in almost a sob, too sharp to let him speak. “What, too gay to answer a question? I said, you got me?” A second hard-hitting punch to his stomach, and Kurt makes a strangled sound and gags a little before gasping a broken, “Yes.”
At long last, Waco steps away and brushes off his hands. “Damn right, you do.” The other three cheer as if he has singlehandedly saved the school. Waco yanks Kurt away from the lockers by the shoulders and shoves him forward, and Dave barely throws his arms up in time to catch him. “All yours, Karofsky.”
Dave breaks into a cold sweat, taking in the four expectant pairs of eyes on him and trying in vain to reconcile them with how hard Kurt is shaking in his arms, and how much he wants to just keep him there. Thinking quickly, he forces another cocky smirk for his friends. His stupid, scary friends who he kind of fucking hates. “Think Fancy and I are gonna need some alone time, boys.”
The four of them delight, and Kurt panics, gasping “No,” and fighting so hard that Dave almost loses him.
“Say no more, man,” Waco says, gesturing the rest of them toward the door. “Teach ‘im.”
They file out, leaving him with hard pats on the shoulder, and he clenches his jaw when Waco leaves Kurt with a sharp smack on the ass. They won’t leave right away, he knows they won’t. They’ll be waiting outside the door, watching him as it swings. He swallows hard, then turns his back to the door, covering Kurt as much as he can, and draws back to shove him, the way he has a million times.
Kurt goes painfully tense in his arms and cries out when he’s shoved forward, but Dave quickly catches him around the back with one arm and slams his other hand into the locker. The crash sounds just like he’s thrown him, even as Kurt gasps, unharmed, against his chest.
Outside, his friends laugh and sound satisfied. Taking another deep breath, Dave clutches Kurt to him--just in case they come back in, so it would look like he’s just in between shoves--and pounds the lockers with his fist again, a few times, leaving enough space between to make it sound realistic. He isn’t sure if Kurt has figured out what he’s doing, but he has gone still, his muscles so tense that he seems ready to snap in half.
The other players’ voices finally began to fade as they leave down the hall, and as soon as they’re gone, Dave stops, breathing hard, his hand throbbing. Kurt is still shaking like a leaf, and it sounds like he might be crying, and Dave can’t make himself let go--even if this is scaring Kurt, even if he doesn’t want him close. He braces one hand against the locker and sort of holds him for a second, not knowing what else to do.
Three breaths, and their breath is the only sound.
(And in his head, he’s holding him tight, kissing it better, keeping him safe. Whispering into his hair, back and forth between “I’m sorry” and “I lo--)
Kurt’s hands are pushing at him, pushing him back, just like the last time they were alone in here. Just like last time, Dave lets him go. Kurt staggers back, one arm curled over his stomach, the other one flailing out until it can press to a locker--Dave’s locker, but he doubts Kurt is thinking about that--and give him some balance. The riot of emotions in his face, the anger and confusion and humiliation and betrayal and fear and tear-streaked exhaustion, is enough to make Dave dizzy, and he’s just looking from the outside.
He finds his voice before Kurt does, feeling like there are a million things he should say, one for each feeling. All that comes out is a quiet, “I didn’t know shit about this.”
Kurt curls into himself even more at the sound of his voice. For a second he looks like he’s going to cry again, and then like he’s going to scream at him, but when he finally speaks, his voice is soft and hoarse and a little hysterical. “I don’t…understand you, I don’t…” He stops, squeezes his eyes shut, swallows. Opens them again, and they’re angry and helpless, and his voice shakes. “I don’t understand you! God, I--what do you want?”
Dave has an answer for him, but he will never, ever say it out loud.
“I didn’t tell!” Kurt insists, his voice crackling and low. “I’m never going to--”
“Why the hell not?” Dave shoots back, getting scared now and not quite sure why. “What the fuck was stopping you except me, huh? Did you think I was gonna let you just sit there with all the power in the world to fuck up everything? You think if they just slammed the shit out of you, it isn’t gonna be a thousand times worse what they’d do to me?” Something wells up in Kurt’s face that’s terrifying and heartbreaking at the same time, but Dave can’t stop talking, his deepest fears bubbling faster and faster to the surface. “You think I’m gonna let you decide when they fuck me up for life, whenever the hell you feel like it? No fucking way.”
“God, I can’t--” Kurt closes his eyes a moment, catches his breath. “I don’t care that you’re gay, Karofsky--”
“Will you shut up?”
“I don’t care! I don’t want to hold this over you, I don’t want to blackmail you, I don’t want any of this, I just want you, and-and them, all of you, to leave me alone!”
“Well guess what?” Dave barked, and he doesn’t even remember crossing the room but now he’s here and his hand is slamming into his locker next to Kurt’s head, making him jump and throw his hands up in front of his chest in a feeble shield. But his eyes don’t close, and they’re looking straight back at him from inches away, and they’re huge and terrified but so, so brave.
Dave’s voice drops low. “You got me fucking expelled.” He leans on his hand on the other side of Kurt’s head, trapping him with his body God he’s so close, and opens his locker with a jerk of the handle, making Kurt’s frame seize up again. And Dave is doing it again, doing everything all wrong, but his brain isn’t connecting to the rest of him anymore. When it’s Kurt, it never does. “My life is fucking over ‘cause I’m stuck in this cow-town for good, because of you.” He pulls out the last item, the only reason his dad thinks he came in here. The leather arm of the jacket brushes Kurt’s shoulder as he pulls it out, and Kurt closes his eyes, shuddering.
(And it’s horrible, but he looks absolutely fucking beautiful, and it would be so easy to kiss him right now.)
Kurt looks like he’s bracing himself for the inevitable slam, and Dave swallows hard, then shuts his locker slowly, with a quiet click. Kurt’s eyes are still squeezed shut, and Dave almost does it. Right on the mouth, or on the forehead, even, something to tell him, somehow, that none of this is how he wanted it to be. After all, this is it--the last moment he’ll ever have with Kurt Hummel. And he’s already fucked it all up anyway.
He leans in close, and Kurt can feel it, he can tell, because his breath speeds up and he inches back, and one fresh tear slips from the corner of each eye.
Out of nowhere, Dave notices his own eyes are wet too, and he doesn’t bother getting closer, because he knows he isn’t going to do this. Instead, he just murmurs in a voice that just starts to shake, “Wish granted.”
He’s across the locker room and out the door before Kurt can see him go.
(And in his head, there’s nothing, just his heart in his ears like a drum.)
Part 2: To See Me Through