Glee Fic: Blank Pages
Title: Blank Pages
rating: pg-13
pairing: none. kurtofsky if you squint. (rather, kurtofsky in the sequel...)
characters: David Karofsky
Disclaimer: I wish Glee was mine. It'd cause a lot less anger.
Summary: Karofsy discovers postsecret. Change is in the wind.
Notes: takes place at the end of season two, from "Furt" to "Prom."
“What else, David?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Look, I’m an open book, dude.”
“You’re only showing blank pages.”
“...”
*sigh* “Whatever it is you’re hiding, David, whatever secret--”
“I don’t have any secrets.”
“Oh, David. Everyone has secrets. And until you tell someone yours, it will continue to rot and fester.”
Dave dropped into his computer chair with a heavy sigh, pressing the power button and wiping his eyes with his free hand. Another Sunday, another anger management session with Dr. Banks-call-me-George. It had been weeks, and all they had established as that Dave was lashing out because of “reasons”.
“Whatever,” Dave muttered as his computer finished booting. These meetings meant he got to stay in school and on the team. He could bite his tongue and keep his fists to himself for an hour if it meant he got to keep himself above water.
He opened his browser and typed in the url. If there was one good thing to come of these meetings, it was this website: postsecret.com. When Dr. Banks-call-me-George had first realized Dave’s “hidden depths”, he had suggested several websites, including this one. Of all of them, this was the one Dave kept returning to. Each Sunday they would post a new batch of postcards decorated with people’s secrets. Dave read all kinds of shit here, mostly about sex. This one’s cheating, that one cheated. This one likes that kink. There were some sad ones (i’ve cut myself for years. Nobody noticed. You were supposed to be my dad. I’ll never forgive what you did to me.), and some happy ones (today is the 6th anniversary of the day I didn’t kill myself. I love him! I finally did it and the world didn’t end!), but the ones that Dave liked best were the closet ones, the ones that sounded like him. I don’t know how to tell my Dad that I’m gay. I’m not out, scared to be, but sometimes I feel like everyone knows and is judging me. I just want to be normal. It was comforting to know that he wasn’t the only one who felt that way, even if the feeling faded through the week.
The page finished loading and Dave started scrolling, waving the mouse over each one, looking for the ones that would change. Halfway down the page, he saw it.
It looked like a Lost Puppy poster. Instead of a picture of a puppy, though, it was a picture of a very familiar locker room. The text read. “Stolen: First Kiss. If found, please return...” complete with a fake telephone number and reward.
David felt his heart drop in his chest. As if he didn’t feel bad enough.
He didn’t know how everything had gotten so far out of control. He was fine, had been fine, then--he just had to talk back, didn’t he? He just had to push! David slammed his fist on the computer desk and the impact shocked him out of it. He sniffed, and realized his cheeks were wet. He was--why the fuck was he crying? He didn’t cry, he couldn’t--
He had to do something.
It took him nearly half an hour to figure out how to copy the image, save it to a file and open it in Photoshop. To crop away the poster until only the locker room was left. To find the right font in the right color to write the words: I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to scare you. And smaller, underneath, almost hidden against the white of the benches: It was my first kiss too. And then it was printing and he dug out an old postcard from the Grand Canyon that he had accidentally bought two of on vacation three years ago, and found glue in the recesses of his desk. He glued the picture to the postcard, wondering if he should put it in an envelope, just to make sure. But in the end, he just wrote the address on the back, snuck a stamp from his dad’s desk, and yelled out that he was going to the library to work on a paper as he walked out the door, postcard hot in his hands.
He felt like he was carrying something illegal, like he wasn’t safe until it was out of his hands. He got in his truck, and drove one handed to the library, the other in his pocket, checking and double-checking that the card wasn’t bent.
There was a mailbox outside the library. In a move that made him feel a little like James Bond (the Connery one, not that Brosnan asshole), he slipped the card into the mailbox without breaking his stride. Once inside the lobby of the library he paused, and breathed deep.
Huh. Maybe Dr. Banks-call-me-George was right. He did feel better.
***
The card didn’t show up the next Sunday. Or the Sunday after that. Just as Dave worried that he had sent it for nothing, it appeared, nearly a month after. Dave stared at the image on the screen for a long time.
***
I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.
Dave shut his bedroom door behind him, pressing against it like he was trying to hold back the flood. He tipped his head back to lean against the wood and knocked his Prom King crown askew. He ripped it from his head and threw it. It landed at the bottom of his closet, in the shadow, out of sight.
He was breathing heavy, he knew, just shy of hyperventilating. He couldn’t breathe; it had never been this bad, not even the last time Az tackled him, and that fucker was heavy. How could they, why would they?
And he knew, Dave knew it was to get at Kurt. It had nothing to do with him at all. They didn’t know they had voted on McKinley’s resident queers as their prom court. It was just circumstance that the schmuck voted to be Kurt’s king was so deep in the closet he was having tea with Mr. Tumnus.
Dave laughed at the turn his thoughts were taking, aware he sounded like a crazy person, but it didn’t matter. He had ran. He had turned tail and fucking ran like the scared little boy he was. Fuck.
I can’t.
Dave didn’t remember taking his suit off, but when he woke the next day it was bunched at the bottom of his closet. He crawled from bed to take a piss, and on the way back, firmly closed his closet door.
***
Dave sat at his computer in his Flyers boxers and an old McKinley tee-shirt that had ripped under his left arm the last time he was at the weight room. His mother had shaken her head at the hole, but whatever. The shirt was soft and Dave was ready to admit he wanted a little comfort right now. He hadn’t left his room the day before, save to scrounge for food when he was pretty sure no one else was around. He spent the day sleeping, or dicking around on the internet, trying to ignore his Facebook. He had turned his cell off.
He scratched his chin. He hadn’t shaved since right before prom, and already he had a good showing of stubble. Fuckin' hairy bastard, he thought. The computer dinged its hello and Dave scowled at it. No reason to be that fucking happy, computer.
Opening his browser, Dave typed in postsecret’s url, wondering why he didn’t just bookmark it, already, and waited for the pictures to load. He needed a new computer. Seriously. Especially since he wasn’t planning on leaving his room again. Ever. He’d need a more reliable way to communicate with the outside world. And order army rations, because he was sure that was recluses ate and, at the moment, being a recluse was sounding pretty damn good.
He started to scroll, and stopped, feeling himself choke on air. The postcard. His postcard. Kurt’s postcard. Because that was obviously the card he had sent. Only when he sent it, it hadn’t had that large white square in the middle, nor the word written in such perfect black script.
Dave raised a hand to the screen, gently running his fingers over the text. He smiled.
Forgiven.