Fic: Only Sweet Things Turn To Dust (2/3)
Title: Only Sweet Things Turn To Dust
Fandom: Glee
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Kurt Hummel, Dave Karofsky
Pairing: Kurtofsky, Kurttany, Brittana.
Word Count: 2,035
Warning: Alcohol abuse. Implied rape, drug use and character death.
Story Summary: AU. We truly were a lost generation. Kurt Hummel and Dave Karofsky, from 1918 to 1942.
Disclaimer: Glee and anything else you may recognize belong to their rightful owners. Title based on a F. Scott Fitzgerald quote.
Previous
Chapter One
The Pearl was like any other bar, with the small detail of several men dancing together. A vamp with bobbed black hair and artfully applied make up stood on the stage, singing with a raspy voice.
Kurt bypassed the couples and made his way to the bar, ordering a bourbon as he sat at the stool next to a burly man. A movement out of the corner of his eye made him turn and look at the man with more attention.
“You.” He whispered. The man looked up with a raised eyebrow. The eyebrows, the strong jaw, the slightly crooked nose. It was him, alright. “Well, it’s a small world.”
“Excuse me?” He looked at him carefully as the barman deposited the bourbon in front of Kurt.
“I never forget a kiss.” Kurt smiled at him and held out his hand. “Princeton, about three years ago.” Dave Karofsky shook his head, before taking his hand.
“Yeah, I remember. Sorry, I was just…” He waved a hand absently and Kurt laughed.
“It’s ok.”
~
The woman on stage came over several times through the night. During first time, she introduced herself as Santana Lopez, and the in the following ones, just took a shot of courage and traded barbs with David.
By the time they left The Pearl and it’s patrons behind, they were spectacularly drunk on cheap gin. The caught a lift from a man that spent most of the night with his tongue down a Sophie Tucker look-alike with an Adam’s apple. The man, who they didn’t catch the name of, dropped them off a few blocks from Kurt’s apartment and he and David stumbled the rest of the way.
David spent the night and when Kurt woke up the following day with a headache, he was still there. He smiled before burrowing his head in the crook of the taller man’s neck.
~
Dave stayed for a week, a month, a year, two years.
During the day, Kurt wrote and at night Dave went out and came back at dawn. Kurt knew the smell left behind by a gunshot but he didn’t say anything when he recognized it on Dave’s sleeves.
It wasn’t perfect, not by a long shot. Sometimes they exploded at each other, an argument caused by something truly stupid and insignificant. Kurt called him a mindless thug and Dave screamed that he was a spoiled little boy.
One of them left and slammed the door behind him. He came back the following morning, smelling like alcohol and smoke and grabbed the one that had stayed to drown his sorrows at home like he never wanted to let go.
~
Dave didn’t speak about the war. The war was pain, and hopelessness and cold.
There was none of the honor the older men talked about, dying was painful and that was that. Dying in the war meant being shot, blown to pieces or being poisoned by the gas. If it didn’t kill the men instantly, the poor bastards could spend days in no man’s land, tangled in the wires as it cut into their skin, bleeding, pissing and shiting themselves, calling out for their mothers and their fathers and God. No one ever came.
“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.” He whispered like a mantra as he slammed the glass on the counter.
By the time death arrived, all they did was wonder why it didn’t come sooner.
The only thing Dave said was that he met a woman in France who spoke seven languages.
~
One day, after a series of visits to the veteran’s hospital and their embarrassing questions, the screaming and the anger became too much and Dave left for good. He was tired.
Kurt threw five plates at the front door.
~
He packed the things he could carry with him, put the rest in storage and handed Miss Beiste the key to the apartment.
~
Paris, 1923
Paris was everything he could ever hope for and more. The thought came to him as he giggled into Mercedes Jones’ lap. His mind felt hazy and warm, the alcohol still swimming around his mouth.
Mercedes Jones was one of the loveliest women he ever met. She was warm, caring, formidable and he feels like a child hiding behind her skirts. Her fingers run through his slicked hair and distantly he hears Mike Chang laugh.
“The Americans in Paris are all mad.” she said on the day they met.
“Even you?” He asked, taking a sip of champagne.
“Even me. I’d rather be mad than be a prisoner, though. There’s no freedom for black folks in America.” She gave him a sad smile.
~
He’d been in Paris for three months when they crossed paths for the third time. He looked the same as the chatty girl in front of them introduced them.
Dave spent the night with him.
~
It’s different than the first time.
Some things are the same. They still hop from party to party, Kurt more so than Dave and drink far too much.
But Paris was Wonderland and they ran around like children.
~
The rock whizzed out of his hand, as he let out a laugh. At his side, Dave shook his head and smiled.
The sound of glass breaking reached them and Dave quickly grabbed his hand, pulling him along. The soles of their shoes slapped across the ground as they ran down the street, the sound pounding in their ears.
Once they’d reached the second street corner, Kurt decided they had run enough. He pulled a panting Dave against him and pressed their lips together.
~
“Why did you come to Paris?” Kurt asked him in a whisper, his voice half-drowned by the pillow.
The hand tracing circles on the small of his back stilled.
“I needed to get away for a while.”
“Why Paris?”
“Well, I didn’t really get a chance to be a tourist last time I was here.”
~
They called them Rimbaud and Verlaine when they thought they couldn’t hear them.
It was a bad sign.
Fortunately, when Dave left again Kurt didn’t stab him in the hand.
~
St. Louis, 1926
In June, Kurt Hummel married Brittany S. Pierce, in a quiet ceremony. The bride is tall, blonde and during the reception dances on the tables with the dress pulled up to her thighs and drinks far too much. She’s a raging success.
~
The attraction of Brittany doesn’t lie in any physical attribute, to which Kurt is completely immune. His fondness for her arises from the unbearable resemblance she has to his mother. It doesn’t show through the picture of a seated young woman that he carries religiously in his luggage where ever he goes, but Elizabeth Hummel was a hurricane.
There was rhythm in every step she took, with an incomparable good humor, often grabbing an infant Kurt and swinging him around. Brittany had that same rhythm, music pulsing through her limbs. Kurt Hummel married a woman he didn’t want and who didn’t want him back but neither minded very much. It was always better than being alone.
It worked. Kurt didn’t mind the cocaine and Brittany didn’t mind the men.
~
Brittany Susan Pierce was twelve when a friend of her brother sneaked into her room and told her not to make a sound. When she was fourteen, she heard the other people say she’s simple, the poor girl.
When she was fifteen, she fell in love with a girl and left her home and Arizona behind.
She was a dancer when she met Kurt Hummel. He had soft hands, a kind smile and wild eyes and she was smitten.
~
Kurt went back to New York and took Brittany with him. She danced in their small rented, apartment like she was the main attraction of a music hall. It was too small to contain either of them.
He took her to every party, every speakeasy. The wide-eyed blonde who didn’t make sense. Finally, he took her to the Pearl.
~
She fell in love with the singer. What an extraordinary match, a singer and a dancer.
That was what he told himself as he helped her pack her bags.
That night he wasn’t able to sleep. He sat on the edge of the bed, with his head in his hands. He wondered why they all left.
~
Atlantic City, 1928
William Shuester called him to inform him he had received his last manuscript and gushed about how it was his best yet.
Kurt told him to wire him the damn money.
~
There are millions of people in the world and for some reason Kurt Hummel and Dave Karofsky always cross paths. That time it was across a packed ballroom. Kurt was standing alone and Dave had apparently been in conversation with Noah Puckerman, as anyone in Atlantic City for over a week quickly found out, and a blond man with disproportionate lips.
It wasn’t really surprising when Dave went with him for the night.
~
They tried to make it work that time, which was more than could be said about the past. Dave even got them a house, a place away from the bustle of the city, where Kurt could write in peace and where Dave didn’t felt the urge to grab his gun every time he heard a loud noise.
One time, he almost choked Kurt in his sleep. When he realized what his hands were urging him to do, he laid back, panting, drops of sweat rolling down his forehead. He screamed into the pillow. Kurt looked at him and didn’t say a word.
He reached out and took the pillow from his clenched hands and pulled Dave to him like he was a scared child. He waited until Dave’s breathing slowed.
Neither one slept that night.
~
Sam Evans was sweet. That was the only word Kurt, with his extensive vocabulary, could find to describe him.
He always smiled when he saw him, took his hat off before walking into someone’s house and was careful not to dirty the floors with mud.
He wasn’t particularly bright, but Kurt would take all the company he could get. Besides, he was a farm boy from Kentucky and Kurt missed home, even if he’d never admit it.
The other reason was that the isolation was taking its toll on him. He was made to be around people, even if he couldn’t stand them. There was too much silence.
Kurt and Dave didn’t speak, not really. The important things were swept under the rug and there were only banalities left. But Dave didn’t say anything when Kurt gets twitchier and twitchier and Kurt didn’t say that he knows Dave goes out and shoots some poor bastard because Noah Puckerman told him to.
~
Sam stopped coming around and when Kurt asked Dave the reason, the taller man looked down and didn’t answer.
Kurt didn’t speak either. Someone had once told him he spoke like a poet.
Rhymes were no use for poor Sam Evans. Not anymore.
~
Kurt and Dave still didn’t speak about anything that mattered. One day, Kurt Hummel snapped.
~
It was still the best it had ever been, so of course it wouldn’t last.
One day, Dave came home to find Kurt in a robe, swaying on the table to the gramophone and griping a wine bottle. When he saw him, he let the bottle fall, rolling off the table with a clunk. Dave approached carefully and Kurt jumped in his arms once he was close enough and kissed like he wanted to kill him.
Later that evening, when they were both lying on the floor, their clothes strewn around them, Dave kissed the back of Kurt’s neck. The salty sweat burned his chapped lips and he thought it tasted like goodbye.
The next day, Dave drove him to the train station. They shook hands and Dave let his fingers drift over Kurt’s wrist, who gave him a tight smile and got on the train.
It was the first time Kurt was the one leaving. He didn’t feel any sort of accomplishment as the train vibrated around him. Chapter Three ~ Notes The Pearl is loosely based on The Clam House, a famous New York speakeasy that catered to gay and lesbian clientele. "The woman who spoke seven languages" is a personal reference. My great-grandfather was a WWI veteran and he used to say that he met the aforementioned woman in France. The choice to set the latter part of the story in Atlantic City is a nod to one of my favourite TV shows, HBO's Boardwalk Empire, set during the prohibition. St. Louis, on the other hand, was a reference to the web comic, Lackadaisy Cats, also set during the 1920s, this time in St. Louis.