Cheetos; Glee fic
title: Cheetos
fandom: Glee
characters: Dave Karofsky
rating: R
words: ~4,900
genre: angst
summary: Karofsky begins to think that he may be a little too chubby so he does something about it, and it starts to spiral into something that he can't handle or even acknowledge, because only girls get eating disorders.
warnings: triggers for eating disorders like whoa. Also, for some homophobic langauge.
notes: I had to do this after I saw the "Karofsky gets a eating disorder" prompt be prompted like 20 times, and once I started I couldn't stop. By no means do I think that Max Adler (person who plays as Karofsky) should do anything in the story or that I think anything that I wrote. In fact, I think he is very handsome and adorable.
Vomiting after eating was something that David Karofsky never thought about doing himself; that was only for pussies and chicks. He had heard stories of how the Cheerios would take turns using the stalls in the girl’s bathroom on second floor next to chemistry class to empty their stomachs until their throats were raw and burning from stomach acid, all trying to lose those last two pounds that needed to disappear before their weekly weigh-in.
Yeah, only weak people with no guts do that. It’s totally girly to puke your brains out.
Dave wrinkles his forehead. Even though he’s been told that eating disorders were things that only girls do, it sounds pretty horrible and painful to him. However, when he thought of why all those girls do it - all those skinny bitches that already are too thin but think that they are humongous, and hate themselves and are so focused on their image - they care about their image. He remembered reading about it in psychology class; it is called distorted body image or something sissy like that.
And that is why Dave doesn’t want to go in the bathroom and stick his fingers down his throat so he can purge his dinner, why he doesn’t ever want to eat again. Because chubby guys that sweat too much don’t and shouldn’t care about how they look.
But Dave is a fag, and fags care how they look, and that fag Kurt Hummel said that Dave didn’t look good, and it hurts way more than it should, and Dave hates himself for it, and then he looks over into his mirror and hates himself even more.
Dave pulls on a sweatshirt, covering his body. He decides that he won’t become a bulimic because he’s gay enough already, and he’ll just have to watch what he eats, and exercise often. Simple.
--
It’s the second day into Dave’s new regimen of being healthy. He fixes himself some oatmeal for breakfast - plain. He lies to his mom when he says he is going to sprinkle sugar on top, he just grabs the bottle from her and makes shaking motions over the steaming bowl while Dave has his finger covering the hole so no sugar could contaminate his food. That added sugar would have been around an extra seventy calories that he doesn’t need.
Plain oatmeal with nothing in it tastes like horse shit Dave decides, but he grimaces and swallows it, while his mother pats him on the back as she slips into the seat next to him, complimenting that Dave is taking notice to be healthier.
“You should be eating sausage for breakfast like me,” Dave’s father grunts from behind his newspaper. “That’s how you become a real man, not with that pansy oatmeal crap.”
Dave looks up from his oatmeal to see his father’s round stomach, and his eyes travel up to his father's balding head.
He leaves over half a bowl of still warm oatmeal on the table.
--
Dave’s stomach makes violent, grumbling sounds and he sat in his English class not moving, hoping that people wouldn’t realize that he was the one whose stomach was starving.
I’m not hungry, Dave chants to himself. I’m just thinking that. I need to get used to this. Not going to eat until I get home.
“Man, what’s with you?” Azimio whispers. “It sounds like you haven’t eaten in a day.”
Dave cracks a smile. It sounds like he hasn’t eaten in a day because he hasn’t.
--
Thanksgiving has always been one of Dave’s favorite holidays. His mother cooks food that wasn’t at some point frozen, and then he sits around all day watching football on television, dozing off because of the turkey.
Day fourteen. Dave marks off the days on a calendar that he hides in his desk, and each square that represents a day he writes how much weight he’s lost on that day.
Dave steps onto the scale that he stole from a box of things that his sister didn’t take to college with her. One pound lost.
He frowns as he steps off the scale, kicks it back under his bed and scribbles the number on the calendar in the square for Thanksgiving Thursday. Chewing on the end of the pen, he adds up how much he’s lost in that week in total, and adds that number to the one that he had wrote when he added up the previous week.
A nice even number of twenty-six is able to be written at the end of the second line, and Dave circles it. Even though he’s disappointed that today only yielded one pound, he’s proud of what he’s done so far. His clothes hang loosely on him now and desperately needed a belt to hold up his pants, and two nights ago his mother said that he and her were going to go Black Friday shopping to get him some new clothes. Normally he would put up the biggest fight ever so he didn’t have to go shopping, but he was somewhat thrilled to be buying clothes that were smaller sizes.
After Dave dresses, he walks downstairs to meet with the family that he only sees a few times a year on Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and random weddings or birthday celebrations. The Karofsky family soon gathers around the table and they all take hands and Dave’s sister that is home for the holiday sighs when their uncle starts the usual what are you thankful for that travels to each family member, and they each mutter things that they are happy that they have in their life. Dave’s mom says she is thankful for her children, his aunt Marie is thankful that she got her promotion at work, his cousin is thankful for that the Buckeyes doing well this year, other people are thankful for different things, and his father will be thankful when he can eat the food that’s in front of him.
It’s Dave’s turn to say thanks, and he’s the only one at the table that hasn’t gone yet. Everyone looks at him in expectation - his mother wondering if her son is going to be say something sweet, his other relatives wondering what Dave is going to say because they don’t know much about him, and his dad just wonders when he’s going to say something and stop looking like an idiot.
“I-I’m thankful for…” Dave’s mind wonders. He is thankful for a lot of things, but he doesn’t think that it would be appropriate to say that he is thankful that Kurt Hummel has kept his word and hasn’t breathed a word about his sexuality or that fact that he kissed him to anybody, except that preppy gay kid.
“I’m thankful that my sister was able to visit,” Dave says quickly. His sister rolls her eyes from across the table, and their mother beams.
Food is dished out and the conversation begins.
“So Dave, your mother tells me that you’ve lost weight,” his aunt says and she slaps a spoonful of mashed potatoes onto her plate.
Slop.
Other people turn to look at Dave, and his cousin nods his head. “Yeah, I see it. You look good.”
Dave smiles, and wrings his hands together under the table. While he may look better than he had two weeks ago, he still had a lot of improvement to go. His stomach had to be a lot thinner, his face could slim down more, and his hips were going to take forever to get right. But instead of saying all of this, he just smiles.
“Thanks,” Dave says, as he takes the bowl of peas that are being passed around. He serves himself a lot of those, peas are good for you, right? Dave bites his lip as he sees the little green spears roll around on the plate, mixing into the mashed potatoes. It makes his stomach lurch because he hasn’t ate this much in days, but he thought that he has earned it. He’s lost over twenty-five pounds and besides, it was Thanksgiving.
“He’s been working out a lot. Working on stamina for hockey, right Dave?” his father asks.
“Yes sir.”
The rest of the family ask about his hockey team, and then the conversation turns to the professional teams, and the topic of Dave’s weight is left alone, and he is relieved.
Dave feels sick after eating. He overdid it, that one plate was too much. There were so many bad things he shouldn’t have eaten - the potatoes, the roll, the macaroni and cheese. He flops down onto the couch and his uncle turns his head away from the television.
“Diet went all to hell today, huh?” his uncle asks.
Dave can’t say anything, so he shrugs and attempts a half hearted laugh. Inside he wants to die, because he betrayed himself.
He makes some excuse and gets up from the living room and slips into the kitchen, where he finds his sister talking on the phone. She smiles at him while he takes one of the clean glasses from the cabinet and fills it with water from the tap. He takes small sips of water while watching his sister. She has always been thin, like their mother. She never had to watch what she ate and never had to work out to keep slim, and every boy she liked (and ones she didn’t like) liked her and thought that she was hot.
After a few minutes, his sister ends her call and sets her cell phone on the counter and smiles at her brother.
“So,” she begins, “who is she?”
“Uh, what?” Dave asks.
“Who do you fancy so much that you don’t take second helpings of aunt Marie’s dressing?” she elaborates.
Dave hopes that the gaping expression on his face won’t give him away, and that she won’t know that he is a fag just by looking at him, that he likes cock. “There’s no one.”
“Lair!” his sister laughs. She playfully punches his arm. “What’s her name? Is she pretty? Is she one of those stuck up cheerleader drones of Sylvester?”
Dave swallows. She is actually a he, even though he sounds like one when he sings, and is name is Kurt. He is pretty, or attractive, whatever it is that guys are. And yes, he is a cheerleader, but he isn’t a drone, he is independent and strong and brilliant -
“I’m telling you Lisa, there’s no girl,” Dave insists. It wasn’t a lie.
“Whatever.”
“So, who were you talking to?” Dave asks, hoping to change the subject.
“My boyfriend, Paul. We’ve been together for eight months, he’s a political science major. He’s really smart. He had to go visit his family in Maine for the holiday, I wanted to bring him here to meet mom and dad…,” Lisa, his sister says, with her voice trailing off, and fingers messing with the hem of her shirt.
“Do you love him?” Dave asks, surprising himself with the sudden question.
His sister gives a rare smile. “Yeah, I do.” Her face lights up even more if possible. “I have a picture, hold on -”
Lisa scrolls through things on her phone and when she finds what she’s looking for, hands the phone across the counter to Dave. He looks at the picture; his perfect sister is smiling just like she did a few seconds ago when she said that she loved her boyfriend, and the boyfriend that she loves has his arms around her and his head leaning on top of hers, and had a big smile that matches hers. Dave realizes that her boyfriend, Paul, is very attractive, a body that is thin and muscular where clothes are snug at all the right places. Paul the boyfriend has dark long hair that hangs in his face, dark eyes, and a sharp bone structure that reminds him of Mr. Schuester -
Dave hands the phone back to his sister, because he doesn’t want to think about the time that stupid glee club did that dance to “Toxic”, and that when he wasn’t looking at Kurt, he was looking at the performing Spanish teacher. Apparently he isn’t any different than the girls; they were lusting after Schuester during that performance too. How fucking great, they can be…what was the word? They could be his fag hags and they could gossip about their sexy teachers together.
“He seems nice,” Dave says.
Lisa smiles as she looks at the picture on her phone. “He is. Don’t tell mom or dad but…I think he is going to ask for me to marry him.”
Dave hugs his sister, because she can hardly contain her joy because she’s going to marry the man of her dreams and she just needs to share her happiness with her baby brother. Dave doesn’t really listen while she chats about all things she wants to do for her wedding, because he is too busy thinking that if he ever wanted to get married to somebody is liked he had to move to Canada or California or somewhere like that.
After the rest of the visitors go home, Dave goes into the bathroom and for the first time tries to force himself to throw up, but stops when he thinks that his sister might hear him gagging from the next room over.
Instead, Dave goes in his room, collapses onto his bed fully clothed, and has a dream where he and Kurt go on a road trip to Canada. In this dream, when they get to the United States - Canada border, the patrol tells them that once they go into Canada and get married that he and Kurt can’t come back to America because people like them weren’t allowed back into the country and that is their first stance against the fags in America.
Kurt begs for them to keep going, and he tells Dave that he loves him and he’s perfect and says that he shows everyone the picture of the two of them that is on his phone, but Dave can’t will himself to go, even though the smaller, skinnier boy is tugging at his arm.
Mr. Schuester then comes out of nowhere - like how most people show up in dreams, and tells Dave and Kurt in a calm voice that it’s going to be alright and he starts to pull on Dave’s other arm. Kurt and Mr. Schuester keep trying to drag him along but Dave just doesn’t budge from his spot, even though he wants to more than anything.
When Dave wakes up, he can’t remember if in his dream he actually went into Canadian territory.
When his mom knocks on his door asking if he wants a turkey sandwich, Dave pretends that he’s asleep. He changes into the pajamas and goes to sleep early, because he has to wake up early tomorrow in order to get new clothes.
--
It had been a month since the Thanksgiving incident. Dave’s new clothes fit loosely now, but he tries to hide it from his mom because he doesn’t want her to have to buy him new clothes again, because she was already asking questions about if Dave was eating enough.
“Of course I am,” Dave would always say as he took a plate of food up to his room. And every time before going into his room, he would stop by the bathroom and scrape it into the toilet and flush away the food. He felt bad about wasting the food, but it was easier than having to come up with other lies about why he isn’t eating.
Dave did eat, sometimes. However, when he did he would spend extra time on the treadmill, running and running just to get those extra calories off. But it was worth it. People have noticed that Dave Karofsky has slimmed down (even though when looking at himself, he still saw imperfection and the fat fag). He even was approached by the Brittany and Santana double team last week with a proposition, but Dave turned them down nicely.
As the two Cheerios walked away with their arms linked together, Azimio punched him in side and Dave had catch himself by putting his arm against the wall so he wouldn’t fall over.
“What’s wrong with you? Those two bisexual lesbian hot whatevers wanted you to bone them and you turn them down?” Azimio asks.
Dave shrugs. “Probably have some nasty diseases, you know.”
Azimio rolls his eyes. “Condoms, man,” he says before walking off, and Dave feels the need to mention that condoms don’t prevent all STDs but he doesn’t say anything.
The girls may have noticed the new Dave Karofsky, but Kurt Hummel still prances past him like he doesn’t exist.
Dave slams Kurt into a locker, just for good measure.
--
For some reason, today was harder, and the hunger ate away at him more than it had in a long time.
Dave reads in one of his mother’s magazines about Portia, that talk show chick Ellen’s wife, and finds out that she used to have problems with eating too. Dave skips a lot of the article because it doesn’t pertain to him or if it does, he doesn’t want to know about it.
He comes to one part of the article, where she said that she would eat Cheetos first before all other food, so when she was throwing up she knew that when her vomit was orange, she knew that she had reached the beginning of her binge.
Dave throws down the magazine and drives to the convenient store and buys Cheetos, and then he goes to Taco Bell and orders ten dollars worth of food, and sits in his truck in the parking lot and eats it all, starting with the Cheetos.
He then drives home, thankful that nobody else is home because he wants to be alone to do this. Sitting on his knees in his bathroom, he forces himself to throw up, and he gags and cries because he feels like such a failure at everything, and is so glad when he starts to see orange show up in the toilet bowl.
When he is done, he wipes his mouth with a piece of toilet paper and sits on the floor with his back against the tub, and wipes the tears that had fallen down on his cheeks, and decides that he didn’t want to do that again, and would stick with not eating.
--
It’s the second to last hockey game, Dave knows, because McKinley sucks at every sport and they won’t be going to the finals. He’s tired and weak, and has trouble breathing and can’t keep up with the other people skating around the rink and he has been yelled at by the coach twice already.
Right before he falls to the ground in unconsciousness, Dave’s vision of the arena blurs, and he hopes that nobody would skate over his fingers.
Dave wakes up in the hospital, and his mother is at his side as soon as she sees that he is awake. His dad lingers on the other side of the room, and with one look at his father’s face he knows that they know. They know that he has been starving himself, and still, he’s still that same chubby boy.
“We were so worried about you Dave,” his mom whispers as she runs her hand through her son’s short hair.
“I’ve been feeling sick…” Dave starts to try and formulate a lie to explain all of this, but he thinks of nothing.
“The doctors talked to us. She wants to talk to you,” his mom says, ever so gently. Dave wonders if she would be this calm if he were to come out to her.
Dave shakes his head. “Nothing’s wrong with me. I just need to sleep.”
He turns over in the uncomfortable hospital bed and hears his parents leave the room, closing the door behind them with a click.
The doctor does talk to Dave. It takes Dave a few minutes to figure out that she isn’t a medical doctor, but instead a psychologist. He locks up, not answering her questions. But then she does something truly evil, and brings a plate a food from the cafeteria and forces him to eat some of it with her sitting on the bed next to him.
He picks at the tuna salad and eats a few french fries.
“How do you feel?” psychologist doctor asks.
Dave turns the question over in his mind. “Bad.”
“Is that all?”
Dave shrugs.
The psychologist leaves, and warns Dave that he shouldn’t try to purge what he ate, because she would just come back and make him eat twice as much. He doesn’t tell her that he doesn’t plan to ever force himself to vomit again; the memory of burning stomach acid and Cheetos is still fresh in his mind.
The next day is when Dave is scheduled to go home, and that is that day that he is most surprised by in this entire ordeal. Lisa, the perfect skinny sister, looks up from her book to see Dave glaring harshly at the boy that is standing in the doorway.
“Um, hi. If this is a bad time…” Kurt Hummel looks like he’s itching out his skin and doesn’t want to be in the hospital at all. Kurt crosses his arms, obviously waiting for a response.
“No, it’s fine.” Dave sits up in his bed, glad that he was already dressed in normal clothes and not the standard issue hospital gown. “Kurt, this is my sister Lisa. Lisa, this is...this is Kurt.”
“Hi.” Lisa crosses the room and shakes hands with Kurt.
“I go to school with Karofsky. Dave,” Kurt says, correcting himself.
“Nice to meet you. I’ll let you two talk.” Lisa leaves the room, and Dave wishes that he could call his big sister back without looking lame and helpless.
After Lisa left, the two boys don’t say anything. Kurt tentatively sits in the chair that was occupied by Dave’s sister.
“How did you know?” Dave spat. “Does everyone know?”
“Everyone knows that you passed out at the hockey game. But why, they don’t know,” Kurt explains. “But I was able to put together why.”
Dave stares at his feet that are stretched out on the bed. He hadn’t put on shoes yet, and only had on socks. They were white with a gold patch at the toes, one of the pairs that he had bought when he had gone shopping with this mom on the day after Thanksgiving.
“Dave. Why?” Kurt whispers. “Why did you think it would be ideal to starve yourself?”
Dave thinks about what he wants to say. One part of him wants to throw it all in Kurt’s face, and scream that it was he that called him a chubby loser, and made him feel like crap. However, the other part of him knew that it was his own fault, he knew that it wasn’t the right thing to do and that it was his choice, and this latter part was the one that made Dave have a swelling feeling in his chest, because he knew that was the truth.
“Is it because of what I said that one say in the locker room?”
Dave looks away from his socked feet to see Kurt with his hand up at his face just like he had after he had pushed Dave away in the locker room, with a similar pained expression, and his eyes filling up with tears.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean -,” Kurt began, “I am so sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, it was wrong of me. It’s just because you say such atrocious things to me all the time and that I thought that I should dish it out too, but that’s just making me on your level -”
“Hummel.”
“You’re not chubby, okay? I mean, you’re not svelte like me, but that’s okay because you’re like big, tall, stocky, athlete type. And actually that is kind of my type, I think, but you’re Dave Karofsky and oh my god, you throw me into dumpsters and why would you like me -”
“Kurt!”
Kurt stops jabbering and looks up at Dave with wide eyes, as if he was afraid that Dave was going to punch him in the face.
“It’s okay, I don’t blame you,” Dave says softly. “I’m the one that did it to myself.”
“But I -”
“Listen Hummel, I’m letting you off the hook. I suggest that you take the opportunity,” Dave says.
Kurt nods. They are both silent for a few minutes before Dave speaks.
“So how’s preppy boy?”
Kurt looks confused for a few seconds before he says, “Oh, Blaine. He’s okay. He tried to get me to go to his school, but I decided not to.”
“Why didn’t you? Don’t you want to be with your boyfriend?”
Kurt actually laughs. “Blaine’s not my boyfriend. Well, he was for awhile, but we decided that we make better friends and that we shouldn’t get caught up in the fact that while we may be one of the few gay guys that we know, that it doesn’t mean we should be together.”
“Oh.”
They are quiet for a few more minutes, and it’s Kurt turn this time to break the silence.
“I think I need to address the huge, gaping topic between us. You are very rude, Karofsky. You are violent and abusive, not only to me, but to my friends, and other people,” Kurt says slowly.
Dave doesn’t deny it.
“But, you obviously are gay or confused, or something, and for some reason you have a crush on me.”
Dave stammers over his words, but he isn’t able to form any coherent phrases.
“Do you like me, Dave?” Kurt asks. Dave figures that he was trying to be seductive, with his right leg crossed over his left, chin propped up on a hand, and a smile full of perfect white teeth.
Dave grunts an answer and he isn’t even sure what it means, as long as it wasn’t an outright yes.
“Well, whatever that was supposed to be, I’m taking that as a confirmation. Now don’t worry,” Kurt says when Dave starts to push himself off of the bed, “I’m not going to out you or anything. But you have to promise me that you won’t bully me or any of my friends any more. And you also have to promise me that you’ll eat.”
It almost makes Dave laugh when he thinks that he’d rather stop bullying before he would start eating normally again. He then sees the seriousness in Kurt’s eyes, and that this kid, the one that he used to torture, was sincere in wanting to help him, and it makes him want to cry. However, he clears his throat and thinks of other things, because be dammed he was not going to cry in front of Hummel.
“So if I do all of that, what I do get in return?” Dave asks.
Kurt sighs. “In return, I’ll be your friend. I want to help you Dave, I know how scary it is to be different, and I will be there for you for every confusing turn. And I want you to get better. Really.”
Dave smiles. Kind of.
“But don’t expect for me to kiss you or anything,” Kurt says. “I’m not so anxious to help to where I have to bribe you with favors.”
“Oh.” Dave then feels stupid that he doesn’t say anything more.
Kurt reaches over and grabs Dave’s hand. “It’s going to be okay.”
Dave rubs his thumb over Kurt’s hand, over the smaller boy’s boney knuckles and soft skin. Looking up at Kurt, Dave decides that having Kurt Hummel as a friend isn’t a bad thing after all, and maybe with a lot of change, Kurt would be able to look past the previous bullying that he put the singer through and the fact that he was going to bald early and then they could go to Canada together.
But Dave was getting ahead of himself.
fandom: Glee
characters: Dave Karofsky
rating: R
words: ~4,900
genre: angst
summary: Karofsky begins to think that he may be a little too chubby so he does something about it, and it starts to spiral into something that he can't handle or even acknowledge, because only girls get eating disorders.
warnings: triggers for eating disorders like whoa. Also, for some homophobic langauge.
notes: I had to do this after I saw the "Karofsky gets a eating disorder" prompt be prompted like 20 times, and once I started I couldn't stop. By no means do I think that Max Adler (person who plays as Karofsky) should do anything in the story or that I think anything that I wrote. In fact, I think he is very handsome and adorable.
Vomiting after eating was something that David Karofsky never thought about doing himself; that was only for pussies and chicks. He had heard stories of how the Cheerios would take turns using the stalls in the girl’s bathroom on second floor next to chemistry class to empty their stomachs until their throats were raw and burning from stomach acid, all trying to lose those last two pounds that needed to disappear before their weekly weigh-in.
Yeah, only weak people with no guts do that. It’s totally girly to puke your brains out.
Dave wrinkles his forehead. Even though he’s been told that eating disorders were things that only girls do, it sounds pretty horrible and painful to him. However, when he thought of why all those girls do it - all those skinny bitches that already are too thin but think that they are humongous, and hate themselves and are so focused on their image - they care about their image. He remembered reading about it in psychology class; it is called distorted body image or something sissy like that.
And that is why Dave doesn’t want to go in the bathroom and stick his fingers down his throat so he can purge his dinner, why he doesn’t ever want to eat again. Because chubby guys that sweat too much don’t and shouldn’t care about how they look.
But Dave is a fag, and fags care how they look, and that fag Kurt Hummel said that Dave didn’t look good, and it hurts way more than it should, and Dave hates himself for it, and then he looks over into his mirror and hates himself even more.
Dave pulls on a sweatshirt, covering his body. He decides that he won’t become a bulimic because he’s gay enough already, and he’ll just have to watch what he eats, and exercise often. Simple.
--
It’s the second day into Dave’s new regimen of being healthy. He fixes himself some oatmeal for breakfast - plain. He lies to his mom when he says he is going to sprinkle sugar on top, he just grabs the bottle from her and makes shaking motions over the steaming bowl while Dave has his finger covering the hole so no sugar could contaminate his food. That added sugar would have been around an extra seventy calories that he doesn’t need.
Plain oatmeal with nothing in it tastes like horse shit Dave decides, but he grimaces and swallows it, while his mother pats him on the back as she slips into the seat next to him, complimenting that Dave is taking notice to be healthier.
“You should be eating sausage for breakfast like me,” Dave’s father grunts from behind his newspaper. “That’s how you become a real man, not with that pansy oatmeal crap.”
Dave looks up from his oatmeal to see his father’s round stomach, and his eyes travel up to his father's balding head.
He leaves over half a bowl of still warm oatmeal on the table.
--
Dave’s stomach makes violent, grumbling sounds and he sat in his English class not moving, hoping that people wouldn’t realize that he was the one whose stomach was starving.
I’m not hungry, Dave chants to himself. I’m just thinking that. I need to get used to this. Not going to eat until I get home.
“Man, what’s with you?” Azimio whispers. “It sounds like you haven’t eaten in a day.”
Dave cracks a smile. It sounds like he hasn’t eaten in a day because he hasn’t.
--
Thanksgiving has always been one of Dave’s favorite holidays. His mother cooks food that wasn’t at some point frozen, and then he sits around all day watching football on television, dozing off because of the turkey.
Day fourteen. Dave marks off the days on a calendar that he hides in his desk, and each square that represents a day he writes how much weight he’s lost on that day.
Dave steps onto the scale that he stole from a box of things that his sister didn’t take to college with her. One pound lost.
He frowns as he steps off the scale, kicks it back under his bed and scribbles the number on the calendar in the square for Thanksgiving Thursday. Chewing on the end of the pen, he adds up how much he’s lost in that week in total, and adds that number to the one that he had wrote when he added up the previous week.
A nice even number of twenty-six is able to be written at the end of the second line, and Dave circles it. Even though he’s disappointed that today only yielded one pound, he’s proud of what he’s done so far. His clothes hang loosely on him now and desperately needed a belt to hold up his pants, and two nights ago his mother said that he and her were going to go Black Friday shopping to get him some new clothes. Normally he would put up the biggest fight ever so he didn’t have to go shopping, but he was somewhat thrilled to be buying clothes that were smaller sizes.
After Dave dresses, he walks downstairs to meet with the family that he only sees a few times a year on Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and random weddings or birthday celebrations. The Karofsky family soon gathers around the table and they all take hands and Dave’s sister that is home for the holiday sighs when their uncle starts the usual what are you thankful for that travels to each family member, and they each mutter things that they are happy that they have in their life. Dave’s mom says she is thankful for her children, his aunt Marie is thankful that she got her promotion at work, his cousin is thankful for that the Buckeyes doing well this year, other people are thankful for different things, and his father will be thankful when he can eat the food that’s in front of him.
It’s Dave’s turn to say thanks, and he’s the only one at the table that hasn’t gone yet. Everyone looks at him in expectation - his mother wondering if her son is going to be say something sweet, his other relatives wondering what Dave is going to say because they don’t know much about him, and his dad just wonders when he’s going to say something and stop looking like an idiot.
“I-I’m thankful for…” Dave’s mind wonders. He is thankful for a lot of things, but he doesn’t think that it would be appropriate to say that he is thankful that Kurt Hummel has kept his word and hasn’t breathed a word about his sexuality or that fact that he kissed him to anybody, except that preppy gay kid.
“I’m thankful that my sister was able to visit,” Dave says quickly. His sister rolls her eyes from across the table, and their mother beams.
Food is dished out and the conversation begins.
“So Dave, your mother tells me that you’ve lost weight,” his aunt says and she slaps a spoonful of mashed potatoes onto her plate.
Slop.
Other people turn to look at Dave, and his cousin nods his head. “Yeah, I see it. You look good.”
Dave smiles, and wrings his hands together under the table. While he may look better than he had two weeks ago, he still had a lot of improvement to go. His stomach had to be a lot thinner, his face could slim down more, and his hips were going to take forever to get right. But instead of saying all of this, he just smiles.
“Thanks,” Dave says, as he takes the bowl of peas that are being passed around. He serves himself a lot of those, peas are good for you, right? Dave bites his lip as he sees the little green spears roll around on the plate, mixing into the mashed potatoes. It makes his stomach lurch because he hasn’t ate this much in days, but he thought that he has earned it. He’s lost over twenty-five pounds and besides, it was Thanksgiving.
“He’s been working out a lot. Working on stamina for hockey, right Dave?” his father asks.
“Yes sir.”
The rest of the family ask about his hockey team, and then the conversation turns to the professional teams, and the topic of Dave’s weight is left alone, and he is relieved.
Dave feels sick after eating. He overdid it, that one plate was too much. There were so many bad things he shouldn’t have eaten - the potatoes, the roll, the macaroni and cheese. He flops down onto the couch and his uncle turns his head away from the television.
“Diet went all to hell today, huh?” his uncle asks.
Dave can’t say anything, so he shrugs and attempts a half hearted laugh. Inside he wants to die, because he betrayed himself.
He makes some excuse and gets up from the living room and slips into the kitchen, where he finds his sister talking on the phone. She smiles at him while he takes one of the clean glasses from the cabinet and fills it with water from the tap. He takes small sips of water while watching his sister. She has always been thin, like their mother. She never had to watch what she ate and never had to work out to keep slim, and every boy she liked (and ones she didn’t like) liked her and thought that she was hot.
After a few minutes, his sister ends her call and sets her cell phone on the counter and smiles at her brother.
“So,” she begins, “who is she?”
“Uh, what?” Dave asks.
“Who do you fancy so much that you don’t take second helpings of aunt Marie’s dressing?” she elaborates.
Dave hopes that the gaping expression on his face won’t give him away, and that she won’t know that he is a fag just by looking at him, that he likes cock. “There’s no one.”
“Lair!” his sister laughs. She playfully punches his arm. “What’s her name? Is she pretty? Is she one of those stuck up cheerleader drones of Sylvester?”
Dave swallows. She is actually a he, even though he sounds like one when he sings, and is name is Kurt. He is pretty, or attractive, whatever it is that guys are. And yes, he is a cheerleader, but he isn’t a drone, he is independent and strong and brilliant -
“I’m telling you Lisa, there’s no girl,” Dave insists. It wasn’t a lie.
“Whatever.”
“So, who were you talking to?” Dave asks, hoping to change the subject.
“My boyfriend, Paul. We’ve been together for eight months, he’s a political science major. He’s really smart. He had to go visit his family in Maine for the holiday, I wanted to bring him here to meet mom and dad…,” Lisa, his sister says, with her voice trailing off, and fingers messing with the hem of her shirt.
“Do you love him?” Dave asks, surprising himself with the sudden question.
His sister gives a rare smile. “Yeah, I do.” Her face lights up even more if possible. “I have a picture, hold on -”
Lisa scrolls through things on her phone and when she finds what she’s looking for, hands the phone across the counter to Dave. He looks at the picture; his perfect sister is smiling just like she did a few seconds ago when she said that she loved her boyfriend, and the boyfriend that she loves has his arms around her and his head leaning on top of hers, and had a big smile that matches hers. Dave realizes that her boyfriend, Paul, is very attractive, a body that is thin and muscular where clothes are snug at all the right places. Paul the boyfriend has dark long hair that hangs in his face, dark eyes, and a sharp bone structure that reminds him of Mr. Schuester -
Dave hands the phone back to his sister, because he doesn’t want to think about the time that stupid glee club did that dance to “Toxic”, and that when he wasn’t looking at Kurt, he was looking at the performing Spanish teacher. Apparently he isn’t any different than the girls; they were lusting after Schuester during that performance too. How fucking great, they can be…what was the word? They could be his fag hags and they could gossip about their sexy teachers together.
“He seems nice,” Dave says.
Lisa smiles as she looks at the picture on her phone. “He is. Don’t tell mom or dad but…I think he is going to ask for me to marry him.”
Dave hugs his sister, because she can hardly contain her joy because she’s going to marry the man of her dreams and she just needs to share her happiness with her baby brother. Dave doesn’t really listen while she chats about all things she wants to do for her wedding, because he is too busy thinking that if he ever wanted to get married to somebody is liked he had to move to Canada or California or somewhere like that.
After the rest of the visitors go home, Dave goes into the bathroom and for the first time tries to force himself to throw up, but stops when he thinks that his sister might hear him gagging from the next room over.
Instead, Dave goes in his room, collapses onto his bed fully clothed, and has a dream where he and Kurt go on a road trip to Canada. In this dream, when they get to the United States - Canada border, the patrol tells them that once they go into Canada and get married that he and Kurt can’t come back to America because people like them weren’t allowed back into the country and that is their first stance against the fags in America.
Kurt begs for them to keep going, and he tells Dave that he loves him and he’s perfect and says that he shows everyone the picture of the two of them that is on his phone, but Dave can’t will himself to go, even though the smaller, skinnier boy is tugging at his arm.
Mr. Schuester then comes out of nowhere - like how most people show up in dreams, and tells Dave and Kurt in a calm voice that it’s going to be alright and he starts to pull on Dave’s other arm. Kurt and Mr. Schuester keep trying to drag him along but Dave just doesn’t budge from his spot, even though he wants to more than anything.
When Dave wakes up, he can’t remember if in his dream he actually went into Canadian territory.
When his mom knocks on his door asking if he wants a turkey sandwich, Dave pretends that he’s asleep. He changes into the pajamas and goes to sleep early, because he has to wake up early tomorrow in order to get new clothes.
--
It had been a month since the Thanksgiving incident. Dave’s new clothes fit loosely now, but he tries to hide it from his mom because he doesn’t want her to have to buy him new clothes again, because she was already asking questions about if Dave was eating enough.
“Of course I am,” Dave would always say as he took a plate of food up to his room. And every time before going into his room, he would stop by the bathroom and scrape it into the toilet and flush away the food. He felt bad about wasting the food, but it was easier than having to come up with other lies about why he isn’t eating.
Dave did eat, sometimes. However, when he did he would spend extra time on the treadmill, running and running just to get those extra calories off. But it was worth it. People have noticed that Dave Karofsky has slimmed down (even though when looking at himself, he still saw imperfection and the fat fag). He even was approached by the Brittany and Santana double team last week with a proposition, but Dave turned them down nicely.
As the two Cheerios walked away with their arms linked together, Azimio punched him in side and Dave had catch himself by putting his arm against the wall so he wouldn’t fall over.
“What’s wrong with you? Those two bisexual lesbian hot whatevers wanted you to bone them and you turn them down?” Azimio asks.
Dave shrugs. “Probably have some nasty diseases, you know.”
Azimio rolls his eyes. “Condoms, man,” he says before walking off, and Dave feels the need to mention that condoms don’t prevent all STDs but he doesn’t say anything.
The girls may have noticed the new Dave Karofsky, but Kurt Hummel still prances past him like he doesn’t exist.
Dave slams Kurt into a locker, just for good measure.
--
For some reason, today was harder, and the hunger ate away at him more than it had in a long time.
Dave reads in one of his mother’s magazines about Portia, that talk show chick Ellen’s wife, and finds out that she used to have problems with eating too. Dave skips a lot of the article because it doesn’t pertain to him or if it does, he doesn’t want to know about it.
He comes to one part of the article, where she said that she would eat Cheetos first before all other food, so when she was throwing up she knew that when her vomit was orange, she knew that she had reached the beginning of her binge.
Dave throws down the magazine and drives to the convenient store and buys Cheetos, and then he goes to Taco Bell and orders ten dollars worth of food, and sits in his truck in the parking lot and eats it all, starting with the Cheetos.
He then drives home, thankful that nobody else is home because he wants to be alone to do this. Sitting on his knees in his bathroom, he forces himself to throw up, and he gags and cries because he feels like such a failure at everything, and is so glad when he starts to see orange show up in the toilet bowl.
When he is done, he wipes his mouth with a piece of toilet paper and sits on the floor with his back against the tub, and wipes the tears that had fallen down on his cheeks, and decides that he didn’t want to do that again, and would stick with not eating.
--
It’s the second to last hockey game, Dave knows, because McKinley sucks at every sport and they won’t be going to the finals. He’s tired and weak, and has trouble breathing and can’t keep up with the other people skating around the rink and he has been yelled at by the coach twice already.
Right before he falls to the ground in unconsciousness, Dave’s vision of the arena blurs, and he hopes that nobody would skate over his fingers.
Dave wakes up in the hospital, and his mother is at his side as soon as she sees that he is awake. His dad lingers on the other side of the room, and with one look at his father’s face he knows that they know. They know that he has been starving himself, and still, he’s still that same chubby boy.
“We were so worried about you Dave,” his mom whispers as she runs her hand through her son’s short hair.
“I’ve been feeling sick…” Dave starts to try and formulate a lie to explain all of this, but he thinks of nothing.
“The doctors talked to us. She wants to talk to you,” his mom says, ever so gently. Dave wonders if she would be this calm if he were to come out to her.
Dave shakes his head. “Nothing’s wrong with me. I just need to sleep.”
He turns over in the uncomfortable hospital bed and hears his parents leave the room, closing the door behind them with a click.
The doctor does talk to Dave. It takes Dave a few minutes to figure out that she isn’t a medical doctor, but instead a psychologist. He locks up, not answering her questions. But then she does something truly evil, and brings a plate a food from the cafeteria and forces him to eat some of it with her sitting on the bed next to him.
He picks at the tuna salad and eats a few french fries.
“How do you feel?” psychologist doctor asks.
Dave turns the question over in his mind. “Bad.”
“Is that all?”
Dave shrugs.
The psychologist leaves, and warns Dave that he shouldn’t try to purge what he ate, because she would just come back and make him eat twice as much. He doesn’t tell her that he doesn’t plan to ever force himself to vomit again; the memory of burning stomach acid and Cheetos is still fresh in his mind.
The next day is when Dave is scheduled to go home, and that is that day that he is most surprised by in this entire ordeal. Lisa, the perfect skinny sister, looks up from her book to see Dave glaring harshly at the boy that is standing in the doorway.
“Um, hi. If this is a bad time…” Kurt Hummel looks like he’s itching out his skin and doesn’t want to be in the hospital at all. Kurt crosses his arms, obviously waiting for a response.
“No, it’s fine.” Dave sits up in his bed, glad that he was already dressed in normal clothes and not the standard issue hospital gown. “Kurt, this is my sister Lisa. Lisa, this is...this is Kurt.”
“Hi.” Lisa crosses the room and shakes hands with Kurt.
“I go to school with Karofsky. Dave,” Kurt says, correcting himself.
“Nice to meet you. I’ll let you two talk.” Lisa leaves the room, and Dave wishes that he could call his big sister back without looking lame and helpless.
After Lisa left, the two boys don’t say anything. Kurt tentatively sits in the chair that was occupied by Dave’s sister.
“How did you know?” Dave spat. “Does everyone know?”
“Everyone knows that you passed out at the hockey game. But why, they don’t know,” Kurt explains. “But I was able to put together why.”
Dave stares at his feet that are stretched out on the bed. He hadn’t put on shoes yet, and only had on socks. They were white with a gold patch at the toes, one of the pairs that he had bought when he had gone shopping with this mom on the day after Thanksgiving.
“Dave. Why?” Kurt whispers. “Why did you think it would be ideal to starve yourself?”
Dave thinks about what he wants to say. One part of him wants to throw it all in Kurt’s face, and scream that it was he that called him a chubby loser, and made him feel like crap. However, the other part of him knew that it was his own fault, he knew that it wasn’t the right thing to do and that it was his choice, and this latter part was the one that made Dave have a swelling feeling in his chest, because he knew that was the truth.
“Is it because of what I said that one say in the locker room?”
Dave looks away from his socked feet to see Kurt with his hand up at his face just like he had after he had pushed Dave away in the locker room, with a similar pained expression, and his eyes filling up with tears.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean -,” Kurt began, “I am so sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, it was wrong of me. It’s just because you say such atrocious things to me all the time and that I thought that I should dish it out too, but that’s just making me on your level -”
“Hummel.”
“You’re not chubby, okay? I mean, you’re not svelte like me, but that’s okay because you’re like big, tall, stocky, athlete type. And actually that is kind of my type, I think, but you’re Dave Karofsky and oh my god, you throw me into dumpsters and why would you like me -”
“Kurt!”
Kurt stops jabbering and looks up at Dave with wide eyes, as if he was afraid that Dave was going to punch him in the face.
“It’s okay, I don’t blame you,” Dave says softly. “I’m the one that did it to myself.”
“But I -”
“Listen Hummel, I’m letting you off the hook. I suggest that you take the opportunity,” Dave says.
Kurt nods. They are both silent for a few minutes before Dave speaks.
“So how’s preppy boy?”
Kurt looks confused for a few seconds before he says, “Oh, Blaine. He’s okay. He tried to get me to go to his school, but I decided not to.”
“Why didn’t you? Don’t you want to be with your boyfriend?”
Kurt actually laughs. “Blaine’s not my boyfriend. Well, he was for awhile, but we decided that we make better friends and that we shouldn’t get caught up in the fact that while we may be one of the few gay guys that we know, that it doesn’t mean we should be together.”
“Oh.”
They are quiet for a few more minutes, and it’s Kurt turn this time to break the silence.
“I think I need to address the huge, gaping topic between us. You are very rude, Karofsky. You are violent and abusive, not only to me, but to my friends, and other people,” Kurt says slowly.
Dave doesn’t deny it.
“But, you obviously are gay or confused, or something, and for some reason you have a crush on me.”
Dave stammers over his words, but he isn’t able to form any coherent phrases.
“Do you like me, Dave?” Kurt asks. Dave figures that he was trying to be seductive, with his right leg crossed over his left, chin propped up on a hand, and a smile full of perfect white teeth.
Dave grunts an answer and he isn’t even sure what it means, as long as it wasn’t an outright yes.
“Well, whatever that was supposed to be, I’m taking that as a confirmation. Now don’t worry,” Kurt says when Dave starts to push himself off of the bed, “I’m not going to out you or anything. But you have to promise me that you won’t bully me or any of my friends any more. And you also have to promise me that you’ll eat.”
It almost makes Dave laugh when he thinks that he’d rather stop bullying before he would start eating normally again. He then sees the seriousness in Kurt’s eyes, and that this kid, the one that he used to torture, was sincere in wanting to help him, and it makes him want to cry. However, he clears his throat and thinks of other things, because be dammed he was not going to cry in front of Hummel.
“So if I do all of that, what I do get in return?” Dave asks.
Kurt sighs. “In return, I’ll be your friend. I want to help you Dave, I know how scary it is to be different, and I will be there for you for every confusing turn. And I want you to get better. Really.”
Dave smiles. Kind of.
“But don’t expect for me to kiss you or anything,” Kurt says. “I’m not so anxious to help to where I have to bribe you with favors.”
“Oh.” Dave then feels stupid that he doesn’t say anything more.
Kurt reaches over and grabs Dave’s hand. “It’s going to be okay.”
Dave rubs his thumb over Kurt’s hand, over the smaller boy’s boney knuckles and soft skin. Looking up at Kurt, Dave decides that having Kurt Hummel as a friend isn’t a bad thing after all, and maybe with a lot of change, Kurt would be able to look past the previous bullying that he put the singer through and the fact that he was going to bald early and then they could go to Canada together.
But Dave was getting ahead of himself.