Glee -- Third Time Lucky 4: Another One of Those Heartbreak Songs
Title: Third Time Lucky
Chapter: 4. Another One of Those Heartbreak Songs
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Karofsky/Kurt
Rating: R (for pRofanity)
Word Count: 6,390
Warnings: you know the drill
Summary: Somehow the dead heat of summer gives rise to the mother(fucker) of all second chances. The road to redemption is paved with fights, phone calls, false starts, and more than a few jokes at the expense of the lovable Finn Hudson.
Author's Note: Sorry this chapter is on the slightly shorter side, but I swear that twice as much stuff actually happens. XD Also, Rob Thomas obsession? I don't know what you mean Something to Be. Extra-super-special-awesome thanks to eltea for this installment; I don't know a damn thing about those newfangled Xboxes, so it's a good thing my bb is a geek. ♥ All remaining Halo-related errors are things I changed in stupid ways and didn't clear with her. XD
CHAPTER 4: ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE HEARTBREAK SONGS
The Karofsky household is somewhat small. Then again, the Hudson-Hummel clan’s home has to accommodate a teenaged boy with a wardrobe already the size of a small room and a teenaged boy with a full drumkit and half of a brain about when to practice on it, so Kurt’s perspective may be slightly skewed.
When he rings the bell, a female voice bids him to wait just a second, and then the door swings open to reveal the woman who must be Mrs. Karofsky.
Somehow he’d been expecting her to be taller and less pretty. He’d also sort of anticipated a plaid shirt instead of a nice, pale yellow blouse, which might mean that he is projecting Karofsky onto the man’s mother, which is a train of thought that Kurt is going to abandon immediately and never revisit again.
“Good afternoon,” he says. He wants to begin vituperating Karofsky in his head for leaving him here and putting him in this spot, but truthfully they’ve been so vague about same time tomorrow that it’s not really anyone’s fault. “I’m Kurt, from school. Is David in?”
Just like that, she gets that look that adults always do when they instantaneously fall in love with his soft-angled face and his flawless clothes. Obviously, Kurt’s entire life is predicated on the fact that he’s not like most high school kids, but the payoffs still always seem to come as a surprise.
“He’s just finishing up his chores,” Mrs. Karofsky says delightedly. “Come on in, Kurt; it’s so nice to meet you. Can I get you anything?”
He gives her one of his sunnier smiles. “I’m quite all right, but thank you.”
Hook, line, and sinker. “David’s room is just down the hall, dear. Holler if you need anything, okay?”
“Thank you, ma’am.” She would sell her soul to pet his hair right now. Damn, he’s good.
Buoyed by that uncontested victory, Kurt saunters down the hallway. The Karofsky household is kind of sparse, kind of neat, and kind of still somehow, which is the faintest bit unsettling. It definitely isn’t silent, however, as the roar of a vacuum is emanating from behind the furthest door down on the right.
The door in question is just an inch ajar. Kurt knows he’s playing with fire, but he can’t help peeking.
Karofsky is, unsurprisingly, vacuuming. Somewhat less predictable is the fact that he’s dancing with the machine-to Kurt’s terrible Queen choreography, no less.
Kurt’s stomach does something so weird that his inveterate hypochondria isn’t sure whether to scream ulcer or allergy or Spanish flu.
He steps back a little and knocks very loudly on the door.
The vacuum shuts off, and Karofsky yells, “What?”
“It’s me,” Kurt says.
There’s a pause, and then Karofsky comes to the door, opens it, and props it open with his foot while he winds the vacuum cord. “You met my mom?”
“Yes,” Kurt says.
“Shit,” Karofsky says.
“What?” Kurt asks, stepping in and pretending he isn’t looking everywhere. “She’s lovely. She looked like she would have made me lemonade from scratch if I had expressed the slightest hint of thirst.”
Karofsky glances at him and then moves past him to roll the vacuum cleaner out into the hall. “Whatever.”
Kurt seizes the opportunity to examine the room in a few swift, surveying glances. There’s a very plain bed against the opposite wall, with small windows on the left and the right and a poster of some football player wearing orange in the middle, above the headboard. The comforter is plain navy blue, which can’t exactly clash with the curtains when there are none; the Venetian blinds are the tacky, loud, white plastic kind, and there’s an action figure hanging from the pull-cord of the ones on the left. There’s a computer desk against that left wall and an open door to an adjoining bathroom; on the right, a bookshelf, a clothes hamper, and a door that presumably leads to a closet, although it could always be a passage to Narnia. Across from the bed, a small stand allows a modest television to cuddle up with an Xbox, the associated tangle of wires, and a precarious pile of games. There are movie posters on this wall-Independence Day, Blade Runner, I, Robot, and The Matrix.
“Sci-fi fan?” Kurt asks as Karofsky comes back in.
“Oh,” Karofsky says, noticing the direction of his gaze. “Yeah, I guess.”
Kurt takes a moment to appreciate the exquisite surreality of this moment. He is standing in David Karofsky’s bedroom. The bully-turned-closeted-almost-friend in question is shy, perhaps for the first time in his brief but eventful life. And Kurt’s father would probably evict him if he knew about this.
It’s rather a lot to take in.
“You want to play Call of Duty?” Karofsky asks.
“Not particularly,” Kurt says. He realizes he has his arms crossed, which is usually interpreted as a gesture of vulnerability or hostility, neither of which he wants to convey.
Karofsky rolls his eyes, and probably not because Kurt can’t figure out where to put his hands. “Well, we need to kill some time until my mom goes to lead Bible study in half an hour.”
A variety of items click into place in Kurt’s head. Karofsky looks slightly alarmed, which must mean Kurt has his Revelation Face on.
“Oh,” Kurt says. It’s not exactly powerful, but it’s better than gaping in silence. “Sure, then. Male bonding. Perfect. I think Finn has that one, but all the games with guns are kind of the same to me.”
Karofsky nods a little, moving over to the Xbox and digging up two controllers.
Kurt holds his hands up, palms out, when Karofsky tries to give him one. “That’s fine. I’ll just watch. Considering my hand-eye coordination when it comes to French braids, it’s really kind of amazing how bad I am at video games.”
Karofsky is staring at him, one controller in each hand.
It seems pointless to ask “What?” when Kurt knows exactly what. He decides to skip that part and goes to sit on the edge of the bed, folding his hands on his knee. “Explain the premise of this to me?”
“You shoot stuff,” Karofsky says.
Kurt pauses. “Come to think of it, that is all the context I need.”
Karofsky sits a bro-appropriate distance away on the foot of the bed, pressing the center button of the controller to bring the console whirring to life. “That’s what I thought.”
They pass the half-hour in companionable silence but for the overwrought sound effects as Karofsky wracks up what Kurt assumes is an impressive kill count, if the deft motions of his thumbs on the joysticks and the singular focus of his dark-eyed gaze are anything to judge by. Just before three-thirty, Mrs. Karofsky knocks and pokes her head into the room.
“I’m headed off,” she says, giving Kurt another warm smile. “Call my cell if you need anything.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Karofsky says without looking away from the screen. “Have a good time.”
“You, too, boys,” Mrs. Karofsky says, and then she slips off. Outside, an engine turns over and starts rumbling, and then the sound fades away.
Karofsky glances towards the door, executes another effortless headshot, and then abruptly quits the round and turns the machine off. He tosses the controller down on the bed behind him, crosses his arms, and looks at Kurt. “…so.”
“I,” Kurt says, “just thought of the perfect song. I was just talking to Mercedes about Rob Thomas the other day.” He pulls his phone out like a Western movie quickdraw and has zeroed in within moments. “Aha. Can I use your computer speakers?”
“If you want,” Karofsky says, watching him warily. “Who’s Rob Thomas?”
“He was the lead singer of Matchbox Twenty,” Kurt tells him, unplugging the speaker jack and fitting it into his phone instead. “He later started a solo career.” He looks up and raises his eyebrows and an index finger. “For the record, not gay-he has a wife. I haven’t seen her, but I’m fairly sure she’s quite something, because he’s gorgeous, and pretty people tend to congregate.”
Karofsky’s looking at him with a faint half-smirk, half-smile, like he said something a little too clever for his own good.
Kurt pauses and then decides there isn’t time to analyze. “Ready? The first time, I’m just going to sing it, and we’re both just going to dance. No steps, just music. Make it up.”
Karofsky shakes his head, but the smile part isn’t quite gone. “Whatever, Hummel. Show me what you got.”
Dangerous.
Kurt starts bopping a hip as soon as the bass kicks in.
“Hey, man,” he sings with Rob, bringing his shoulders in. “I don’t wanna hear about love no more-I don’t wanna talk about how I feel-I don’t really wanna be me, no, no more.”
Karofsky folds his arms and leans back against the foot of the bed, starting to grin despite himself.
“Dressed-down-”
Karofsky actually laughs.
“-now I look a little too boy-next-door-” Kurt flicks his hands down to indicate his skinny tie and slacks, and Karofsky laughs a little more. “Maybe I should try to find a downtown whore; that’ll make me look hardcore-I need you to tell me what to stand for.”
He moves into the open floor space and owns it, but only because he doesn’t care if he looks like an absolute twerp.
“I’ve been lookin’ for somethin’-” He gestures to Karofsky, who shakes his head, so only the track backs him up. “Something I’ve never seen-yeah, yeah, yeah… We’re all lookin’ for somethin’-somethin’ to be, yeah, yeah…”
“My money is you didn’t learn how to be ghetto from Mercedes,” Karofsky calls over the next verse.
“Get over here,” Kurt says, bouncing back over to the desk to start the song over again. “You’re going to help, and you’re going to like it.”
Inside of forty minutes, he has Karofsky rolling his shoulders and forgetting the possibility of someone walking in. Kurt sees him to the second verse and then lets him run away with it.
“Hey, man-” Karofsky snaps his heels together. “Play another one of those heartbreak songs; tell another story how things go wrong, and they never get back-my pain is a platinum stack; take that shit back-you don’t wanna be me when it all goes wrong. You don’t wanna see me with the house lights on; I’m a little too headstrong-stand tall, I don’t wanna get walked on…”
They start out together-“I’ve been lookin’ for somethin’…”
“No!” Kurt cries then, despite the fact that he’s grinning hard enough that it hurts. “Where are your hips, David? Do they even exist?”
Karofsky gives him the finger, but he’s grinning, too-and perhaps it’s that, perhaps it’s Rob and the beat pumping through the speakers and straight into Kurt’s blood, but he darts over and sets both hands where Karofsky’s hips ought to be.
“Here they are,” he announces, a little too loud, a little too high, with the bones beneath his fingertips, with all of the surrounding muscle going tense. “Now use them.”
Rob’s still going at it without them, reaching the bridge, suddenly far too loud-I can’t stand what I’m starting to be; no, I can’t stand the people that I’m starting to need; there’s so much now that can go wrong, and I don’t need nobody trying to help it along-
Kurt whips his hands away like he’s been burned, scrambles for his phone, and shuts the music off. It’s an impulse, and possibly a lunatic one, but he’d rather be staring at his shaking hand curled harmlessly on Karofsky’s desktop than at the boy he just had that hand all over.
“This is-” The frustration is audible; so are the slow-rising currents of anger underneath. “Seriously, Hummel, this is just-”
Kurt turns, leaning back against the desk, and sets his jaw. “Too gay?”
Karofsky’s glare is searing. “You know, some of us don’t enjoy it like you do.”
Oh, that is it.
“I’ve got three news flashes for you, David,” Kurt hisses, tightening his left hand into a fist and raising his right one to count them out, his fingers shaking still. “Number one-amazingly enough, I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to get persecuted and harassed and emasculated and abused every time I turn around, almost as often by people who mean well as by people who don’t. Number two-this is who you are, David, whether you like it or not, whether you want it or not. And you don’t have to advertise it in public, and I, for one, am never going to force you to approach it in any particular way, but this is you. This is the only you that you’re going to get. And you had sure as hell better get used to him, because when you deny it-when you push it down and explain it away and try to be anything other than what you know you’re seeing in the mirror-you lose your sense of yourself as a human being. And I know very well, David, that when your grasp on your own humanity starts to slip, you lose sight of the humanity of others, and you do everything you can to take it away from them trying to fill the space.”
Karofsky is dead silent and completely still, his arms folded across his chest, his fingers clenched white-knuckled in his sleeves. Kurt should stop-he should let up, let it go, let sleeping dogs lie-but Karofsky’s not looking at him, and he just can’t help himself.
“Number three-strangely enough, you seemed to be enjoying it when you kissed me, wouldn’t you say?”
Mistake.
Karofsky has always moved almost too fast for Kurt’s eye to register, and there’s a blur of pale colors and peach-skin before Karofsky’s shoved him up against the wall. Kurt blinks and gets in some portion of a breath, enough to realize that he clipped the corner of the desk when Karofsky grabbed him-there’s a bad bruise forming on his side-and that the tinny clang he thought the wall made was only in his head.
There it is-there’s the fire in Karofsky’s eyes, the blazing in him, the unthinking, compulsive desperation to pass the destruction along. Kurt can almost hear the whispers; if Karofsky just lights someone else-if he makes it move on-it’ll leave; it won’t spread-because that’s-isn’t that how fire works?
“Why did you kiss me, David?” Kurt asks, and he must be possessed by some formidable demon, because his voice sounds like iron when his knees are made of gelatin.
“It’s the only way in the universe to make you shut the fuck up,” Karofsky snarls.
Kurt leans in close-so close their breath mingles, so close that he can pick out the flecks of gold in David Karofsky’s burning eyes. “Then why were you going to kiss me again?”
Karofsky’s phone rings-an honest-to-goodness ring, which seems almost antiquated in this day and age.
“For fuck’s sake,” Karofsky mutters. All at once he drops his gaze, lowers his head, steps back, and starts fumbling in his right pocket. When he finds the phone, he flips it open with such a swift, furious flick of his thumb that Kurt expects the cover to snap off.
“What?” Karofsky asks into the mouthpiece.
He’s backed away a little further; Kurt hears only an indistinguishable mumble.
Karofsky’s voice remains sharp enough that Kurt thinks the phone will mutiny. “Who the hell has a party on a Tuesday night?” There’s a pause, and then the sharpness gracefully gives way to dripping sarcasm. “Oh, see, I hadn’t figured that ‘you do’ from the fact that you just said so. Thanks, asshole.”
Kurt maps the stark angles of Karofsky’s eyebrows and concludes that his life is in much less danger now that the surge of emotions has been projected upon the individual on the phone.
“Okay, fine; I’ll come. I know you’re all hopeless without me… She won’t care-I’ll just tell her I’m crashing at your place.” There’s another pause, and Karofsky’s narrow, flowerbud mouth tightens into a deeper frown. “I was just playing Call of Duty, not that it’s any of your fucking business.” A deeper one still. “That’s because I wasn’t online, dipshit. I hurt my hand this morning, and I didn’t want a bunch of fucking twelve-year-olds shanking me and fucking up my stats.” Kurt does not envy the caller in the least-less given the fairly foregone conclusion that it’s a member of the football team, since he can’t imagine Karofsky speaking to anyone else that way. “For your information, yeah, that is probably the reason I’m pissed at you, because it hurts like a bitch-and I would know, since you are one.”
Kurt decides to risk life and limb: he shifts just enough to make the movement catch Karofsky’s eye, clearly mouths Burn!, and follows up with the classic touch-a-fingertip-to-an-imaginary-flame-and-hiss routine.
He spends the next second and a half composing his own eulogy, but then Karofsky breaks out into a grin.
“Yeah-yeah, okay, you got your message across in the first three seconds. Yeah. Shut up. I’ll be there; shut the hell up already. Later, you douchebag.”
He hangs up and jams the phone back into his pocket. Kurt makes a concerted effort to look as innocent as humanly possible.
“Who has a party on a fucking Tuesday?” Karofsky asks again.
“Azimio?” Kurt hazards.
“You’re damn fucking right,” Karofsky says. “I think he’s been decked one too many times, and just to make sure, I’m going to do it again.”
Kurt shouldn’t take pleasure at the idea of Karofsky decking anyone, since he knows firsthand of the power of that threat, but the mental image is just a little too glorious.
“He always throws huge fucking house parties when his parents are gone,” Karofsky says. He’s left his hands in his pockets. “And his sister is one of those people who’d rather kids drink somewhere she can make sure they don’t die, so there’s always a shit-ton of booze.” He hesitates for a fraction of a moment. “You can probably come if you want. Nobody would notice. And if you showed up a little late, they’d all be so drunk they definitely wouldn’t know.”
“Can’t,” Kurt says smoothly. “Tomorrow morning I’m needed to corral children and sell them playthings they think they need. But tell me how it is.”
To be honest, he thinks he might prefer to watch the slow-motion replay of a literal train wreck than to hear about one of Azimio’s house parties, but expressing interest in the proceedings sounds like the right thing to do.
Karofsky nods, possibly with a smidgeon of relief. It was polite of him to offer, but Kurt can’t imagine he was looking forward to the prospect of reintroducing Kurt as a friend instead of a punching bag.
“Excellent,” Kurt says. “Do you want to run the song ag-”
“No.”
For all its firmness, it’s kind of good-natured-and given the way Karofsky apparently communicates with his “friends,” Kurt can’t complain.
“Fair enough,” he says. “Do you want to try to teach me how to play a shooting game?”
Karofsky’s eyebrows pop up and then swoop down. “I thought you sucked at video games.”
“I do,” Kurt says. “But since I just made you do a variety of things outside of your comfort zone, it only seems fair to offer to reciprocate.”
Karofsky tilts his head.
Then he smiles.
Then he destroys various virtual representations of Kurt in Halo for the better part of an hour.
“I can’t even get him to turn around; how am I supposed to convince him to kill someone?”
“You really do kind of suck, Hummel.”
“It’s not helping that you’ve got a tank.”
“Touché.”
“Not to mention manual dexterity.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty much cheating.”
“Someday I’m going to challenge you to put on mascara, and then we’ll see.”
“…I’m just gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.”
Similarly, Kurt is going to pretend he didn’t just imagine David Karofsky in stage makeup.
This has been a very equitable exchange.
Finn is engrossed in a very familiar-looking game when Kurt sidles back in fifteen minutes shy of five o’clock.
Kurt goes over to the couch and folds his arms on the back to watch. Apparently Finn is waging an extremely intense campaign against the Forces of Evil (or at least the Forces of Questionable Morals), because there is popcorn literally everywhere, possibly including inside of Finn’s clothing.
“Hey,” Finn says, voice slightly strained with concentration.
“Hey,” Kurt says.
There’s a semi-comfortable moment of quiet as Finn twiddles the twin joysticks and nails a few of the faceless enemies in their gleaming masks. They come in a rush, and then there is a stillness.
“Behind you,” Kurt says.
Finn doesn’t question: he just mashes the buttons, making Master Chief leap into the air so that the would-be assailant keeps running and passes underneath. Finn’s aerodynamic hero alights again, and Finn jams his finger against one of the buttons, calmly slashing his opponent from behind and flinging him to the ground.
No wonder Carole doesn’t like to watch this game.
“Good call,” Finn says, sounding both pleased and surprised.
Tracking Finn’s trains of logic by his transparent facial expressions has always been a favorite hobby of Kurt’s, so he permits himself another round. There’s a bit of puzzlement, because Kurt hasn’t ever been any good at-or even interested in-Halo. Then there’s a small lightbulb, because maybe it’s not the gameplay so much as the situation, and then there’s a larger light, which is harshly fluorescent and kind of sad. Kurt knows when he’s being followed because he’s been followed-and then attacked-so many times that it’s second nature to spend half his time looking over his shoulder.
The other advantage of watching Finn’s logic develop in real time is that it’s not a non sequitur when the boy pauses, turns, and blurts out, “Okay, so I get that Karofsky’s not a total dick a hundred percent of the time-just, like, ninety, maybe-but what I don’t get is why you’d hang out with him. I mean, no offense, Kurt, but it’s not like you guys have anything in common.”
Funny little world they live in. Taking “funny” to mean “sick.”
“I suppose not,” Kurt says. “But you and I didn’t have anything in common until New Directions.”
Finn makes a face and fiddles with the battery pack of the controller. “Okay, good point.” He glances up, shooting Kurt a look which, for Finn, qualifies as shrewd and searching. “But I’m only ever a total douchebag on accident.”
That… gives Kurt pause. In his way-in his cold, remorseless, quiet, invisible-when-he-wins-it way-Kurt can be almost as cruel as David Karofsky. He just uses his tongue like a knife instead of his fist like a bludgeon.
This sounds like an innuendo waiting to happen. Kurt does not plan to wait.
“Except for the fact that you both like shirts with collars,” Finn says. “Only I swear you once ranted for, like, half an hour about how polo shirts are the root of all evil.”
“It would certainly explain a lot,” Kurt says.
Briefly he considers the aesthetics of the pause screen, and then it occurs to him why Finn is sitting in the living room committing heinous acts of virtual violence. This looks like the perfect opportunity to change the subject.
“It’s Tuesday,” he says. “I’d forgotten-date night.” Carole and his father won’t be back until midnight if they go to a movie as well.
Finn nods, relaxing a little, and goes back to the game. “I don’t know who goes out on a Tuesday night, but whatever.”
“Well, it probably eliminates the need for a reservation,” Kurt says. “Can’t undervalue that. Unfortunately we’re on our own for dinner. Do you want me to make you a sandwich?”
“You don’t have to,” Finn says in the tone of one who would kill a thousand visored enemies in order not to have to do it himself. “You’re not my wife.”
Kurt’s surprised, and then he’s amused, and then he waits pointedly for it to sink in.
“Oh, my God,” Finn says. “Not that I mean you’re a chick. And holy shit, not that I mean that if you were, my wife should just make me a sandwich. Holy crap, Kurt, promise me you won’t tell any of the Glee girls? They’d put all of their drama aside so that they could kill me together. And then they’d probably ask you to kick my chopped-off head through the goalposts as a warning to all the other dudes.”
“I would never agree to that,” Kurt says, starting for the kitchen. “Your congealed blood would be murder to get off of my shoes. Turkey or roast beef?”
“Both,” Finn says. “You’re the best, man.”
Kurt smiles into the refrigerator. “Believe me, I know.”
After Finn inhales his abomination-sandwich, they watch another movie basically composed of a string of loosely-interrelated explosions. The male lead has such nice hands that Kurt doesn’t really mind. He’s considering seeing if Finn can get through four scenes of “Amélie” before falling asleep this time (“I’m sorry! It’s just-the music’s really good for sleeping to; I always have awesome dreams!”), but if he puts it on now, he’ll watch the whole thing, and he’s hoping to get a good night’s rest for tomorrow. At the least, preparing himself with as much sleep as possible is more reliable than hoping children will miraculously cease to be demonic overnight.
As he’s observing a little more of Finn’s ambitious Halo campaign, another placid silence ceases to be placid and then ceases to be a silence.
“I don’t want to keep bitching about it,” Finn says, “and I figure you know what you’re doing better than I do, but… could you not let Karofsky into the house? It’s just that he could, like….”
“Vandalize your bedroom?” Kurt suggests. “Use up all the soap by the kitchen sink? Eat your not-actually-Pop-Tarts?”
“That’s not what I mean,” Finn says. “Not that I wouldn’t be pissed if he vandalized my room, but my point is he could do anything he wanted, right? And this is supposed to be our safe place-yours, too. It’s supposed to be somewhere he can’t get to you. And if you let him in, he could do just about anything. Like, I’m sorry, Kurt, but it’s just physically impossible for you to overpower that guy. It’s, like, weight ratios. It’s like if Rachel tried to take on Lauren Zices in a cage match or something.”
“I hope you know how many hours of therapy it’s going to take to get that image out of my head,” Kurt says.
Finn looks slightly ill himself. “Yeah, sorry. I wasn’t thinki… wow. Okay, let’s do that therapy together.”
“Deal,” Kurt says. He pauses. “And now I think I’m going to go to bed, where I will almost certainly have horrible nightmares. Goodnight, Finn.”
“G’night, Kurt.”
He troops back down the stairs and duly begins the extensive process of his evening toilette, but something about the most recent conversation has gotten under his skin, where it’s scuttling with little needle-feet.
He’d like to think that-now, after all that’s been said, done, and not said in front of the guy’s father-that Karofsky would never hurt him. He’d like to think they’re past that, and they’re working together now, and it won’t be easy, but there’s sunlight at the end of the catacombs.
But if they are alike-if the primary difference is that Kurt fights and wounds with words; if the distinction is just the verbal versus the physical-Kurt’s said all kinds of things in the heat of the moment. He’s lost count of all of the comebacks he later regretted, but words don’t leave bruises, so he’s never been the cause of an intervention. If that’s all that separates them, what’s to say Karofsky won’t, despite the best of intentions, find himself doing the physical equivalent of blurting something out? What’s to say Kurt won’t be the reason, and what’s to say he won’t get something broken for his trouble this time?
Kurt closes one jar, opens another, and realizes he’s forgotten where he is in the sequence. The thought of washing his face and starting over is odious; he’ll just… keep going. It’ll be fine.
The thing is… Karofsky snapped this afternoon. Obviously hypotheticals are hopeless, so there’s no way of predicting what might or might not have resulted if Azimio hadn’t called when he did, but for all Kurt knows, things could have gone so far south from there that Antarctica would have been jealous. Finn could be right; Burt, too, at least to a degree. Maybe good intentions-Kurt’s, Karofsky’s, anyone’s-wouldn’t be enough.
Kurt’s forgotten where he was again. The hell with it; it’s not like the children are going to notice if he’s not quite as exquisitely moisturized as usual, given that they’ll be far too busy puking on the train table and destroying all of the stuffed animal displays.
Just as he’s lying down and then promptly burying his face in the pillow-yes, moisturizing at all was probably pointless-his phone vibrates once from the nightstand. Automatically he picks it up.
It’s a text from Blaine, and it reads: Calling you in five!
“No, you’re not,” Kurt says.
He turns off the phone, sets it down, rolls over, and tries very hard not to think of Rachel and Lauren in a cage fight.
Everything looks better in the morning, including Kurt’s slipshod moisturizing job, so perhaps miracles do exist. He’s almost decided between the pale-gray-and-celadon-striped T-shirt (shorter sleeves; slightly lighter fabric) and the dusky blue (brings out his eyes; coordinates with the cream-colored slacks marginally better) when he realizes that he left his phone off and probably has an indignant message from Blaine.
Better to get it over with now and begin offering song suggestions for the Warblers in exchange for forgiveness. Kurt rouses the phone again, sucking absently on his lip as it collects its little silicon thoughts, and then discovers that he actually has two voicemails.
Oh, shit. Did-except Dad would have called the home phone, and if he’d been desperate, he would have tried Finn’s cell and sent Finn to fetch Kurt. Maybe he realized that leaving a message was the easiest way to give Kurt a shopping list or something, since Finn can’t usually be trusted with those.
He taps in to the list. One message is from Blaine, and one is from a number he’s never seen before.
He shuts down the part of his brain that’s trying to speculate-just slams the door in its proverbial face-and plays the first one first.
“Hey, Kurt,” Blaine’s voice says with characteristic warmth and an uncharacteristic hint of worry. “I don’t think you’ve had your phone off for as long as I’ve known you. Your voicemail message is cute, by the way.”
Kurt vaguely remembers something to the effect of You’ve reached the extremely stylish phone of Kurt Hummel. Apparently I’m doing something more enjoyable than picking up right now, so if it’s important, leave your number and a short message, and my people will call yours. Thank you!
“Anyway,” Blaine continues cheerfully, “I just wanted to check in and see how you were doing and whether I need to hit the books to get you to owe me a drink. For now I’m going to assume that your battery died or something, but… well, just humor me in my paranoia and drop me a line, okay? Have a good one, Kurt. I mean it.”
Blaine is like an attractive-boy-shaped ball of unfairness with a dazzling smile for a bow. Kurt can never figure out whether his indefatigable faith in humanity is pitiable or inspiring.
The message ends. Kurt draws a deep breath, selects the second one, and holds the phone up to his ear.
“Yo, Hummel.”
Holy shit how-
“Bet you’re wondering how I got your number.”
Kurt grits his teeth. “Fuck you, Dav-”
“Okay, I mean, I know it’s, like, creepy or whatever.” What’s more unsettling is the lagging cadence of his voice and the way each word runs blurrily into the next. “I just saw it on the door of the fridge when we were at your house and sort of remembered. That just happens to me sometimes with numbers. Like, license plates? I can tell you half the license plates I saw on the way here; I don’t even know why. They just stick. But anyway.”
Kurt prefers Blaine’s version of that segue-light, measured, courteous. Like a conductor’s baton shifting its trajectory. Karofsky’s is like an anvil.
“Anyway… Christ, I seriously should not be calling you. I’m pretty fucking wasted, and I’m going to say something stupid, and then you’re gonna, like, cold-shoulder me for a week.”
There’s a frantic pounding somewhere in the background, and Kurt holds the phone away from his ear as Karofsky roars, “I’m throwing up; leave me the fuck alone!”
There is a long pause, and the pounding stops.
“God damn it,” Karofsky says at a relatively normal volume. Then his voice drops a few decibels. “It’s just-God fucking damn it, Hummel. What you were saying earlier… ’cause I was going to kiss you again.” There’s an edge of anger, and Karofsky seems to be struggling to keep his voice low. “You wanna know why? Because you’re fucking gorgeousangel or something, which is really fucking confusing when everybody says God hates homos. But it’s just-you’re so… fucking… perfect. I guess a lot of people want it to seem like they’re perfect naturally, but you always look like you tried really damn hard to look as good as you do-and you’re proud of it. You worked really fucking hard, and it succeeded, so everybody should know.”
There is a long silence. Kurt dares to hope it’s ov-
“Fuck, I hate you. I hate the way you dress, and the way you talk, like you have nothing to hide-like you don’t give a shit what people think of you, even though you must care a little. I fucking hate those sweaters that make you look like a girl, except so not, and that’s the part that’s so fucking sexy. Dude, I hate your fucking cheekbones. Like, who does that? Who even notices that? But it’s like-between the clothes and the looks and the hard work and the goddamn motherfucking cheekbones-you’re just… clean, somehow, I dunno. Sharp. Fine. Not, like-” He puts on an overstated gangsta voice that would be hilarious under any other circumstances. “-‘Damn, that girl is fine,’ but like-fine china, you know? Shit, that’s what Sylvester said, yeah-porcelain. You’re like that. You’re so fucking pretty, and you’ve got this-this value to people, even people who think you’re a total bitch, and the worst part is that you know it. ’Cause you value yourself.”
The silence stretches even longer this time. Kurt doesn’t breathe. Distantly he hears whooping from some other portion of the party.
“The worst thing,” Karofsky says slowly, “was when you had that fucking Cheerio uniform. You looked like a piece of candy-like fucking peppermint, or strawberry, or whatever. And then that assembly-it wasn’t the other day; that was the first time I’d ever heard you sing, ’cause even when friggin’ Glee Club did stuff, it was always just Rachel pretending she was on Broadway, so I’d never heard you. And you were dancing and shit, and it was just like-Jesus fucking Christ. It wasn’t fucking fair, okay? What the hell was I supposed to do after that?”
“Shut up, David,” Kurt says. “Just shut up.”
Karofsky heaves a sigh. “So there you go. I fucking hate you. I would have kissed you a million times, and it’s not my fucking fault. It’s just you.”
Kurt seems to have un-learned how lungs work.
“Uh…” Karofsky says. “…shit.”
Kurt’s thoughts exactly.
The message ends.
Kurt stands still with the phone in his hand for a lengthy moment of indecision. He should delete it and pretend it never existed-for the sake of his sanity, and for the sake of their something-like-a-friendship. By the sound of it, Karofsky might not even remember having called, and Kurt’s carried heavier things in his head to protect people who need it.
On the other hand-on a charred, wizened hand against a backdrop of melodramatic orange flames-if Karofsky ever pulls any shit that crosses one too many lines, You looked like a piece of candy is the best blackmail material Kurt has ever had the dubious privilege of listening to.
So he leaves it.
He puts on the blue shirt because it’s softer, and then he texts Blaine. If the ringer wakes him up, it serves him right.
Good morning, Blaine (& Paranoia). I’m fine; just went to bed early, working today. I’ve read about five pages, so don’t panic yet.
It is not a good morning, Kurt is not fine (except-nope, not thinking about that rambling thread of drunken logic), and he’s read half of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. But Blaine and his paranoia will probably know that Kurt’s lying, and Blaine, at least, won’t particularly mind.
Kurt closes his eyes, clenches his hand around the phone, and puts on the first forced smile of the day. It’s all in the muscle memory. Smiling when you don’t mean it makes your brain think you’re happier.
It also makes your face hurt.
[Chapter 3] [Chapter 5]
Chapter: 4. Another One of Those Heartbreak Songs
Fandom: Glee
Pairing: Karofsky/Kurt
Rating: R (for pRofanity)
Word Count: 6,390
Warnings: you know the drill
Summary: Somehow the dead heat of summer gives rise to the mother(fucker) of all second chances. The road to redemption is paved with fights, phone calls, false starts, and more than a few jokes at the expense of the lovable Finn Hudson.
Author's Note: Sorry this chapter is on the slightly shorter side, but I swear that twice as much stuff actually happens. XD Also, Rob Thomas obsession? I don't know what you mean Something to Be. Extra-super-special-awesome thanks to eltea for this installment; I don't know a damn thing about those newfangled Xboxes, so it's a good thing my bb is a geek. ♥ All remaining Halo-related errors are things I changed in stupid ways and didn't clear with her. XD
CHAPTER 4: ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE HEARTBREAK SONGS
The Karofsky household is somewhat small. Then again, the Hudson-Hummel clan’s home has to accommodate a teenaged boy with a wardrobe already the size of a small room and a teenaged boy with a full drumkit and half of a brain about when to practice on it, so Kurt’s perspective may be slightly skewed.
When he rings the bell, a female voice bids him to wait just a second, and then the door swings open to reveal the woman who must be Mrs. Karofsky.
Somehow he’d been expecting her to be taller and less pretty. He’d also sort of anticipated a plaid shirt instead of a nice, pale yellow blouse, which might mean that he is projecting Karofsky onto the man’s mother, which is a train of thought that Kurt is going to abandon immediately and never revisit again.
“Good afternoon,” he says. He wants to begin vituperating Karofsky in his head for leaving him here and putting him in this spot, but truthfully they’ve been so vague about same time tomorrow that it’s not really anyone’s fault. “I’m Kurt, from school. Is David in?”
Just like that, she gets that look that adults always do when they instantaneously fall in love with his soft-angled face and his flawless clothes. Obviously, Kurt’s entire life is predicated on the fact that he’s not like most high school kids, but the payoffs still always seem to come as a surprise.
“He’s just finishing up his chores,” Mrs. Karofsky says delightedly. “Come on in, Kurt; it’s so nice to meet you. Can I get you anything?”
He gives her one of his sunnier smiles. “I’m quite all right, but thank you.”
Hook, line, and sinker. “David’s room is just down the hall, dear. Holler if you need anything, okay?”
“Thank you, ma’am.” She would sell her soul to pet his hair right now. Damn, he’s good.
Buoyed by that uncontested victory, Kurt saunters down the hallway. The Karofsky household is kind of sparse, kind of neat, and kind of still somehow, which is the faintest bit unsettling. It definitely isn’t silent, however, as the roar of a vacuum is emanating from behind the furthest door down on the right.
The door in question is just an inch ajar. Kurt knows he’s playing with fire, but he can’t help peeking.
Karofsky is, unsurprisingly, vacuuming. Somewhat less predictable is the fact that he’s dancing with the machine-to Kurt’s terrible Queen choreography, no less.
Kurt’s stomach does something so weird that his inveterate hypochondria isn’t sure whether to scream ulcer or allergy or Spanish flu.
He steps back a little and knocks very loudly on the door.
The vacuum shuts off, and Karofsky yells, “What?”
“It’s me,” Kurt says.
There’s a pause, and then Karofsky comes to the door, opens it, and props it open with his foot while he winds the vacuum cord. “You met my mom?”
“Yes,” Kurt says.
“Shit,” Karofsky says.
“What?” Kurt asks, stepping in and pretending he isn’t looking everywhere. “She’s lovely. She looked like she would have made me lemonade from scratch if I had expressed the slightest hint of thirst.”
Karofsky glances at him and then moves past him to roll the vacuum cleaner out into the hall. “Whatever.”
Kurt seizes the opportunity to examine the room in a few swift, surveying glances. There’s a very plain bed against the opposite wall, with small windows on the left and the right and a poster of some football player wearing orange in the middle, above the headboard. The comforter is plain navy blue, which can’t exactly clash with the curtains when there are none; the Venetian blinds are the tacky, loud, white plastic kind, and there’s an action figure hanging from the pull-cord of the ones on the left. There’s a computer desk against that left wall and an open door to an adjoining bathroom; on the right, a bookshelf, a clothes hamper, and a door that presumably leads to a closet, although it could always be a passage to Narnia. Across from the bed, a small stand allows a modest television to cuddle up with an Xbox, the associated tangle of wires, and a precarious pile of games. There are movie posters on this wall-Independence Day, Blade Runner, I, Robot, and The Matrix.
“Sci-fi fan?” Kurt asks as Karofsky comes back in.
“Oh,” Karofsky says, noticing the direction of his gaze. “Yeah, I guess.”
Kurt takes a moment to appreciate the exquisite surreality of this moment. He is standing in David Karofsky’s bedroom. The bully-turned-closeted-almost-friend in question is shy, perhaps for the first time in his brief but eventful life. And Kurt’s father would probably evict him if he knew about this.
It’s rather a lot to take in.
“You want to play Call of Duty?” Karofsky asks.
“Not particularly,” Kurt says. He realizes he has his arms crossed, which is usually interpreted as a gesture of vulnerability or hostility, neither of which he wants to convey.
Karofsky rolls his eyes, and probably not because Kurt can’t figure out where to put his hands. “Well, we need to kill some time until my mom goes to lead Bible study in half an hour.”
A variety of items click into place in Kurt’s head. Karofsky looks slightly alarmed, which must mean Kurt has his Revelation Face on.
“Oh,” Kurt says. It’s not exactly powerful, but it’s better than gaping in silence. “Sure, then. Male bonding. Perfect. I think Finn has that one, but all the games with guns are kind of the same to me.”
Karofsky nods a little, moving over to the Xbox and digging up two controllers.
Kurt holds his hands up, palms out, when Karofsky tries to give him one. “That’s fine. I’ll just watch. Considering my hand-eye coordination when it comes to French braids, it’s really kind of amazing how bad I am at video games.”
Karofsky is staring at him, one controller in each hand.
It seems pointless to ask “What?” when Kurt knows exactly what. He decides to skip that part and goes to sit on the edge of the bed, folding his hands on his knee. “Explain the premise of this to me?”
“You shoot stuff,” Karofsky says.
Kurt pauses. “Come to think of it, that is all the context I need.”
Karofsky sits a bro-appropriate distance away on the foot of the bed, pressing the center button of the controller to bring the console whirring to life. “That’s what I thought.”
They pass the half-hour in companionable silence but for the overwrought sound effects as Karofsky wracks up what Kurt assumes is an impressive kill count, if the deft motions of his thumbs on the joysticks and the singular focus of his dark-eyed gaze are anything to judge by. Just before three-thirty, Mrs. Karofsky knocks and pokes her head into the room.
“I’m headed off,” she says, giving Kurt another warm smile. “Call my cell if you need anything.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Karofsky says without looking away from the screen. “Have a good time.”
“You, too, boys,” Mrs. Karofsky says, and then she slips off. Outside, an engine turns over and starts rumbling, and then the sound fades away.
Karofsky glances towards the door, executes another effortless headshot, and then abruptly quits the round and turns the machine off. He tosses the controller down on the bed behind him, crosses his arms, and looks at Kurt. “…so.”
“I,” Kurt says, “just thought of the perfect song. I was just talking to Mercedes about Rob Thomas the other day.” He pulls his phone out like a Western movie quickdraw and has zeroed in within moments. “Aha. Can I use your computer speakers?”
“If you want,” Karofsky says, watching him warily. “Who’s Rob Thomas?”
“He was the lead singer of Matchbox Twenty,” Kurt tells him, unplugging the speaker jack and fitting it into his phone instead. “He later started a solo career.” He looks up and raises his eyebrows and an index finger. “For the record, not gay-he has a wife. I haven’t seen her, but I’m fairly sure she’s quite something, because he’s gorgeous, and pretty people tend to congregate.”
Karofsky’s looking at him with a faint half-smirk, half-smile, like he said something a little too clever for his own good.
Kurt pauses and then decides there isn’t time to analyze. “Ready? The first time, I’m just going to sing it, and we’re both just going to dance. No steps, just music. Make it up.”
Karofsky shakes his head, but the smile part isn’t quite gone. “Whatever, Hummel. Show me what you got.”
Dangerous.
Kurt starts bopping a hip as soon as the bass kicks in.
“Hey, man,” he sings with Rob, bringing his shoulders in. “I don’t wanna hear about love no more-I don’t wanna talk about how I feel-I don’t really wanna be me, no, no more.”
Karofsky folds his arms and leans back against the foot of the bed, starting to grin despite himself.
“Dressed-down-”
Karofsky actually laughs.
“-now I look a little too boy-next-door-” Kurt flicks his hands down to indicate his skinny tie and slacks, and Karofsky laughs a little more. “Maybe I should try to find a downtown whore; that’ll make me look hardcore-I need you to tell me what to stand for.”
He moves into the open floor space and owns it, but only because he doesn’t care if he looks like an absolute twerp.
“I’ve been lookin’ for somethin’-” He gestures to Karofsky, who shakes his head, so only the track backs him up. “Something I’ve never seen-yeah, yeah, yeah… We’re all lookin’ for somethin’-somethin’ to be, yeah, yeah…”
“My money is you didn’t learn how to be ghetto from Mercedes,” Karofsky calls over the next verse.
“Get over here,” Kurt says, bouncing back over to the desk to start the song over again. “You’re going to help, and you’re going to like it.”
Inside of forty minutes, he has Karofsky rolling his shoulders and forgetting the possibility of someone walking in. Kurt sees him to the second verse and then lets him run away with it.
“Hey, man-” Karofsky snaps his heels together. “Play another one of those heartbreak songs; tell another story how things go wrong, and they never get back-my pain is a platinum stack; take that shit back-you don’t wanna be me when it all goes wrong. You don’t wanna see me with the house lights on; I’m a little too headstrong-stand tall, I don’t wanna get walked on…”
They start out together-“I’ve been lookin’ for somethin’…”
“No!” Kurt cries then, despite the fact that he’s grinning hard enough that it hurts. “Where are your hips, David? Do they even exist?”
Karofsky gives him the finger, but he’s grinning, too-and perhaps it’s that, perhaps it’s Rob and the beat pumping through the speakers and straight into Kurt’s blood, but he darts over and sets both hands where Karofsky’s hips ought to be.
“Here they are,” he announces, a little too loud, a little too high, with the bones beneath his fingertips, with all of the surrounding muscle going tense. “Now use them.”
Rob’s still going at it without them, reaching the bridge, suddenly far too loud-I can’t stand what I’m starting to be; no, I can’t stand the people that I’m starting to need; there’s so much now that can go wrong, and I don’t need nobody trying to help it along-
Kurt whips his hands away like he’s been burned, scrambles for his phone, and shuts the music off. It’s an impulse, and possibly a lunatic one, but he’d rather be staring at his shaking hand curled harmlessly on Karofsky’s desktop than at the boy he just had that hand all over.
“This is-” The frustration is audible; so are the slow-rising currents of anger underneath. “Seriously, Hummel, this is just-”
Kurt turns, leaning back against the desk, and sets his jaw. “Too gay?”
Karofsky’s glare is searing. “You know, some of us don’t enjoy it like you do.”
Oh, that is it.
“I’ve got three news flashes for you, David,” Kurt hisses, tightening his left hand into a fist and raising his right one to count them out, his fingers shaking still. “Number one-amazingly enough, I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to get persecuted and harassed and emasculated and abused every time I turn around, almost as often by people who mean well as by people who don’t. Number two-this is who you are, David, whether you like it or not, whether you want it or not. And you don’t have to advertise it in public, and I, for one, am never going to force you to approach it in any particular way, but this is you. This is the only you that you’re going to get. And you had sure as hell better get used to him, because when you deny it-when you push it down and explain it away and try to be anything other than what you know you’re seeing in the mirror-you lose your sense of yourself as a human being. And I know very well, David, that when your grasp on your own humanity starts to slip, you lose sight of the humanity of others, and you do everything you can to take it away from them trying to fill the space.”
Karofsky is dead silent and completely still, his arms folded across his chest, his fingers clenched white-knuckled in his sleeves. Kurt should stop-he should let up, let it go, let sleeping dogs lie-but Karofsky’s not looking at him, and he just can’t help himself.
“Number three-strangely enough, you seemed to be enjoying it when you kissed me, wouldn’t you say?”
Mistake.
Karofsky has always moved almost too fast for Kurt’s eye to register, and there’s a blur of pale colors and peach-skin before Karofsky’s shoved him up against the wall. Kurt blinks and gets in some portion of a breath, enough to realize that he clipped the corner of the desk when Karofsky grabbed him-there’s a bad bruise forming on his side-and that the tinny clang he thought the wall made was only in his head.
There it is-there’s the fire in Karofsky’s eyes, the blazing in him, the unthinking, compulsive desperation to pass the destruction along. Kurt can almost hear the whispers; if Karofsky just lights someone else-if he makes it move on-it’ll leave; it won’t spread-because that’s-isn’t that how fire works?
“Why did you kiss me, David?” Kurt asks, and he must be possessed by some formidable demon, because his voice sounds like iron when his knees are made of gelatin.
“It’s the only way in the universe to make you shut the fuck up,” Karofsky snarls.
Kurt leans in close-so close their breath mingles, so close that he can pick out the flecks of gold in David Karofsky’s burning eyes. “Then why were you going to kiss me again?”
Karofsky’s phone rings-an honest-to-goodness ring, which seems almost antiquated in this day and age.
“For fuck’s sake,” Karofsky mutters. All at once he drops his gaze, lowers his head, steps back, and starts fumbling in his right pocket. When he finds the phone, he flips it open with such a swift, furious flick of his thumb that Kurt expects the cover to snap off.
“What?” Karofsky asks into the mouthpiece.
He’s backed away a little further; Kurt hears only an indistinguishable mumble.
Karofsky’s voice remains sharp enough that Kurt thinks the phone will mutiny. “Who the hell has a party on a Tuesday night?” There’s a pause, and then the sharpness gracefully gives way to dripping sarcasm. “Oh, see, I hadn’t figured that ‘you do’ from the fact that you just said so. Thanks, asshole.”
Kurt maps the stark angles of Karofsky’s eyebrows and concludes that his life is in much less danger now that the surge of emotions has been projected upon the individual on the phone.
“Okay, fine; I’ll come. I know you’re all hopeless without me… She won’t care-I’ll just tell her I’m crashing at your place.” There’s another pause, and Karofsky’s narrow, flowerbud mouth tightens into a deeper frown. “I was just playing Call of Duty, not that it’s any of your fucking business.” A deeper one still. “That’s because I wasn’t online, dipshit. I hurt my hand this morning, and I didn’t want a bunch of fucking twelve-year-olds shanking me and fucking up my stats.” Kurt does not envy the caller in the least-less given the fairly foregone conclusion that it’s a member of the football team, since he can’t imagine Karofsky speaking to anyone else that way. “For your information, yeah, that is probably the reason I’m pissed at you, because it hurts like a bitch-and I would know, since you are one.”
Kurt decides to risk life and limb: he shifts just enough to make the movement catch Karofsky’s eye, clearly mouths Burn!, and follows up with the classic touch-a-fingertip-to-an-imaginary-flame-and-hiss routine.
He spends the next second and a half composing his own eulogy, but then Karofsky breaks out into a grin.
“Yeah-yeah, okay, you got your message across in the first three seconds. Yeah. Shut up. I’ll be there; shut the hell up already. Later, you douchebag.”
He hangs up and jams the phone back into his pocket. Kurt makes a concerted effort to look as innocent as humanly possible.
“Who has a party on a fucking Tuesday?” Karofsky asks again.
“Azimio?” Kurt hazards.
“You’re damn fucking right,” Karofsky says. “I think he’s been decked one too many times, and just to make sure, I’m going to do it again.”
Kurt shouldn’t take pleasure at the idea of Karofsky decking anyone, since he knows firsthand of the power of that threat, but the mental image is just a little too glorious.
“He always throws huge fucking house parties when his parents are gone,” Karofsky says. He’s left his hands in his pockets. “And his sister is one of those people who’d rather kids drink somewhere she can make sure they don’t die, so there’s always a shit-ton of booze.” He hesitates for a fraction of a moment. “You can probably come if you want. Nobody would notice. And if you showed up a little late, they’d all be so drunk they definitely wouldn’t know.”
“Can’t,” Kurt says smoothly. “Tomorrow morning I’m needed to corral children and sell them playthings they think they need. But tell me how it is.”
To be honest, he thinks he might prefer to watch the slow-motion replay of a literal train wreck than to hear about one of Azimio’s house parties, but expressing interest in the proceedings sounds like the right thing to do.
Karofsky nods, possibly with a smidgeon of relief. It was polite of him to offer, but Kurt can’t imagine he was looking forward to the prospect of reintroducing Kurt as a friend instead of a punching bag.
“Excellent,” Kurt says. “Do you want to run the song ag-”
“No.”
For all its firmness, it’s kind of good-natured-and given the way Karofsky apparently communicates with his “friends,” Kurt can’t complain.
“Fair enough,” he says. “Do you want to try to teach me how to play a shooting game?”
Karofsky’s eyebrows pop up and then swoop down. “I thought you sucked at video games.”
“I do,” Kurt says. “But since I just made you do a variety of things outside of your comfort zone, it only seems fair to offer to reciprocate.”
Karofsky tilts his head.
Then he smiles.
Then he destroys various virtual representations of Kurt in Halo for the better part of an hour.
“I can’t even get him to turn around; how am I supposed to convince him to kill someone?”
“You really do kind of suck, Hummel.”
“It’s not helping that you’ve got a tank.”
“Touché.”
“Not to mention manual dexterity.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty much cheating.”
“Someday I’m going to challenge you to put on mascara, and then we’ll see.”
“…I’m just gonna pretend I didn’t hear that.”
Similarly, Kurt is going to pretend he didn’t just imagine David Karofsky in stage makeup.
This has been a very equitable exchange.
Finn is engrossed in a very familiar-looking game when Kurt sidles back in fifteen minutes shy of five o’clock.
Kurt goes over to the couch and folds his arms on the back to watch. Apparently Finn is waging an extremely intense campaign against the Forces of Evil (or at least the Forces of Questionable Morals), because there is popcorn literally everywhere, possibly including inside of Finn’s clothing.
“Hey,” Finn says, voice slightly strained with concentration.
“Hey,” Kurt says.
There’s a semi-comfortable moment of quiet as Finn twiddles the twin joysticks and nails a few of the faceless enemies in their gleaming masks. They come in a rush, and then there is a stillness.
“Behind you,” Kurt says.
Finn doesn’t question: he just mashes the buttons, making Master Chief leap into the air so that the would-be assailant keeps running and passes underneath. Finn’s aerodynamic hero alights again, and Finn jams his finger against one of the buttons, calmly slashing his opponent from behind and flinging him to the ground.
No wonder Carole doesn’t like to watch this game.
“Good call,” Finn says, sounding both pleased and surprised.
Tracking Finn’s trains of logic by his transparent facial expressions has always been a favorite hobby of Kurt’s, so he permits himself another round. There’s a bit of puzzlement, because Kurt hasn’t ever been any good at-or even interested in-Halo. Then there’s a small lightbulb, because maybe it’s not the gameplay so much as the situation, and then there’s a larger light, which is harshly fluorescent and kind of sad. Kurt knows when he’s being followed because he’s been followed-and then attacked-so many times that it’s second nature to spend half his time looking over his shoulder.
The other advantage of watching Finn’s logic develop in real time is that it’s not a non sequitur when the boy pauses, turns, and blurts out, “Okay, so I get that Karofsky’s not a total dick a hundred percent of the time-just, like, ninety, maybe-but what I don’t get is why you’d hang out with him. I mean, no offense, Kurt, but it’s not like you guys have anything in common.”
Funny little world they live in. Taking “funny” to mean “sick.”
“I suppose not,” Kurt says. “But you and I didn’t have anything in common until New Directions.”
Finn makes a face and fiddles with the battery pack of the controller. “Okay, good point.” He glances up, shooting Kurt a look which, for Finn, qualifies as shrewd and searching. “But I’m only ever a total douchebag on accident.”
That… gives Kurt pause. In his way-in his cold, remorseless, quiet, invisible-when-he-wins-it way-Kurt can be almost as cruel as David Karofsky. He just uses his tongue like a knife instead of his fist like a bludgeon.
This sounds like an innuendo waiting to happen. Kurt does not plan to wait.
“Except for the fact that you both like shirts with collars,” Finn says. “Only I swear you once ranted for, like, half an hour about how polo shirts are the root of all evil.”
“It would certainly explain a lot,” Kurt says.
Briefly he considers the aesthetics of the pause screen, and then it occurs to him why Finn is sitting in the living room committing heinous acts of virtual violence. This looks like the perfect opportunity to change the subject.
“It’s Tuesday,” he says. “I’d forgotten-date night.” Carole and his father won’t be back until midnight if they go to a movie as well.
Finn nods, relaxing a little, and goes back to the game. “I don’t know who goes out on a Tuesday night, but whatever.”
“Well, it probably eliminates the need for a reservation,” Kurt says. “Can’t undervalue that. Unfortunately we’re on our own for dinner. Do you want me to make you a sandwich?”
“You don’t have to,” Finn says in the tone of one who would kill a thousand visored enemies in order not to have to do it himself. “You’re not my wife.”
Kurt’s surprised, and then he’s amused, and then he waits pointedly for it to sink in.
“Oh, my God,” Finn says. “Not that I mean you’re a chick. And holy shit, not that I mean that if you were, my wife should just make me a sandwich. Holy crap, Kurt, promise me you won’t tell any of the Glee girls? They’d put all of their drama aside so that they could kill me together. And then they’d probably ask you to kick my chopped-off head through the goalposts as a warning to all the other dudes.”
“I would never agree to that,” Kurt says, starting for the kitchen. “Your congealed blood would be murder to get off of my shoes. Turkey or roast beef?”
“Both,” Finn says. “You’re the best, man.”
Kurt smiles into the refrigerator. “Believe me, I know.”
After Finn inhales his abomination-sandwich, they watch another movie basically composed of a string of loosely-interrelated explosions. The male lead has such nice hands that Kurt doesn’t really mind. He’s considering seeing if Finn can get through four scenes of “Amélie” before falling asleep this time (“I’m sorry! It’s just-the music’s really good for sleeping to; I always have awesome dreams!”), but if he puts it on now, he’ll watch the whole thing, and he’s hoping to get a good night’s rest for tomorrow. At the least, preparing himself with as much sleep as possible is more reliable than hoping children will miraculously cease to be demonic overnight.
As he’s observing a little more of Finn’s ambitious Halo campaign, another placid silence ceases to be placid and then ceases to be a silence.
“I don’t want to keep bitching about it,” Finn says, “and I figure you know what you’re doing better than I do, but… could you not let Karofsky into the house? It’s just that he could, like….”
“Vandalize your bedroom?” Kurt suggests. “Use up all the soap by the kitchen sink? Eat your not-actually-Pop-Tarts?”
“That’s not what I mean,” Finn says. “Not that I wouldn’t be pissed if he vandalized my room, but my point is he could do anything he wanted, right? And this is supposed to be our safe place-yours, too. It’s supposed to be somewhere he can’t get to you. And if you let him in, he could do just about anything. Like, I’m sorry, Kurt, but it’s just physically impossible for you to overpower that guy. It’s, like, weight ratios. It’s like if Rachel tried to take on Lauren Zices in a cage match or something.”
“I hope you know how many hours of therapy it’s going to take to get that image out of my head,” Kurt says.
Finn looks slightly ill himself. “Yeah, sorry. I wasn’t thinki… wow. Okay, let’s do that therapy together.”
“Deal,” Kurt says. He pauses. “And now I think I’m going to go to bed, where I will almost certainly have horrible nightmares. Goodnight, Finn.”
“G’night, Kurt.”
He troops back down the stairs and duly begins the extensive process of his evening toilette, but something about the most recent conversation has gotten under his skin, where it’s scuttling with little needle-feet.
He’d like to think that-now, after all that’s been said, done, and not said in front of the guy’s father-that Karofsky would never hurt him. He’d like to think they’re past that, and they’re working together now, and it won’t be easy, but there’s sunlight at the end of the catacombs.
But if they are alike-if the primary difference is that Kurt fights and wounds with words; if the distinction is just the verbal versus the physical-Kurt’s said all kinds of things in the heat of the moment. He’s lost count of all of the comebacks he later regretted, but words don’t leave bruises, so he’s never been the cause of an intervention. If that’s all that separates them, what’s to say Karofsky won’t, despite the best of intentions, find himself doing the physical equivalent of blurting something out? What’s to say Kurt won’t be the reason, and what’s to say he won’t get something broken for his trouble this time?
Kurt closes one jar, opens another, and realizes he’s forgotten where he is in the sequence. The thought of washing his face and starting over is odious; he’ll just… keep going. It’ll be fine.
The thing is… Karofsky snapped this afternoon. Obviously hypotheticals are hopeless, so there’s no way of predicting what might or might not have resulted if Azimio hadn’t called when he did, but for all Kurt knows, things could have gone so far south from there that Antarctica would have been jealous. Finn could be right; Burt, too, at least to a degree. Maybe good intentions-Kurt’s, Karofsky’s, anyone’s-wouldn’t be enough.
Kurt’s forgotten where he was again. The hell with it; it’s not like the children are going to notice if he’s not quite as exquisitely moisturized as usual, given that they’ll be far too busy puking on the train table and destroying all of the stuffed animal displays.
Just as he’s lying down and then promptly burying his face in the pillow-yes, moisturizing at all was probably pointless-his phone vibrates once from the nightstand. Automatically he picks it up.
It’s a text from Blaine, and it reads: Calling you in five!
“No, you’re not,” Kurt says.
He turns off the phone, sets it down, rolls over, and tries very hard not to think of Rachel and Lauren in a cage fight.
Everything looks better in the morning, including Kurt’s slipshod moisturizing job, so perhaps miracles do exist. He’s almost decided between the pale-gray-and-celadon-striped T-shirt (shorter sleeves; slightly lighter fabric) and the dusky blue (brings out his eyes; coordinates with the cream-colored slacks marginally better) when he realizes that he left his phone off and probably has an indignant message from Blaine.
Better to get it over with now and begin offering song suggestions for the Warblers in exchange for forgiveness. Kurt rouses the phone again, sucking absently on his lip as it collects its little silicon thoughts, and then discovers that he actually has two voicemails.
Oh, shit. Did-except Dad would have called the home phone, and if he’d been desperate, he would have tried Finn’s cell and sent Finn to fetch Kurt. Maybe he realized that leaving a message was the easiest way to give Kurt a shopping list or something, since Finn can’t usually be trusted with those.
He taps in to the list. One message is from Blaine, and one is from a number he’s never seen before.
He shuts down the part of his brain that’s trying to speculate-just slams the door in its proverbial face-and plays the first one first.
“Hey, Kurt,” Blaine’s voice says with characteristic warmth and an uncharacteristic hint of worry. “I don’t think you’ve had your phone off for as long as I’ve known you. Your voicemail message is cute, by the way.”
Kurt vaguely remembers something to the effect of You’ve reached the extremely stylish phone of Kurt Hummel. Apparently I’m doing something more enjoyable than picking up right now, so if it’s important, leave your number and a short message, and my people will call yours. Thank you!
“Anyway,” Blaine continues cheerfully, “I just wanted to check in and see how you were doing and whether I need to hit the books to get you to owe me a drink. For now I’m going to assume that your battery died or something, but… well, just humor me in my paranoia and drop me a line, okay? Have a good one, Kurt. I mean it.”
Blaine is like an attractive-boy-shaped ball of unfairness with a dazzling smile for a bow. Kurt can never figure out whether his indefatigable faith in humanity is pitiable or inspiring.
The message ends. Kurt draws a deep breath, selects the second one, and holds the phone up to his ear.
“Yo, Hummel.”
Holy shit how-
“Bet you’re wondering how I got your number.”
Kurt grits his teeth. “Fuck you, Dav-”
“Okay, I mean, I know it’s, like, creepy or whatever.” What’s more unsettling is the lagging cadence of his voice and the way each word runs blurrily into the next. “I just saw it on the door of the fridge when we were at your house and sort of remembered. That just happens to me sometimes with numbers. Like, license plates? I can tell you half the license plates I saw on the way here; I don’t even know why. They just stick. But anyway.”
Kurt prefers Blaine’s version of that segue-light, measured, courteous. Like a conductor’s baton shifting its trajectory. Karofsky’s is like an anvil.
“Anyway… Christ, I seriously should not be calling you. I’m pretty fucking wasted, and I’m going to say something stupid, and then you’re gonna, like, cold-shoulder me for a week.”
There’s a frantic pounding somewhere in the background, and Kurt holds the phone away from his ear as Karofsky roars, “I’m throwing up; leave me the fuck alone!”
There is a long pause, and the pounding stops.
“God damn it,” Karofsky says at a relatively normal volume. Then his voice drops a few decibels. “It’s just-God fucking damn it, Hummel. What you were saying earlier… ’cause I was going to kiss you again.” There’s an edge of anger, and Karofsky seems to be struggling to keep his voice low. “You wanna know why? Because you’re fucking gorgeousangel or something, which is really fucking confusing when everybody says God hates homos. But it’s just-you’re so… fucking… perfect. I guess a lot of people want it to seem like they’re perfect naturally, but you always look like you tried really damn hard to look as good as you do-and you’re proud of it. You worked really fucking hard, and it succeeded, so everybody should know.”
There is a long silence. Kurt dares to hope it’s ov-
“Fuck, I hate you. I hate the way you dress, and the way you talk, like you have nothing to hide-like you don’t give a shit what people think of you, even though you must care a little. I fucking hate those sweaters that make you look like a girl, except so not, and that’s the part that’s so fucking sexy. Dude, I hate your fucking cheekbones. Like, who does that? Who even notices that? But it’s like-between the clothes and the looks and the hard work and the goddamn motherfucking cheekbones-you’re just… clean, somehow, I dunno. Sharp. Fine. Not, like-” He puts on an overstated gangsta voice that would be hilarious under any other circumstances. “-‘Damn, that girl is fine,’ but like-fine china, you know? Shit, that’s what Sylvester said, yeah-porcelain. You’re like that. You’re so fucking pretty, and you’ve got this-this value to people, even people who think you’re a total bitch, and the worst part is that you know it. ’Cause you value yourself.”
The silence stretches even longer this time. Kurt doesn’t breathe. Distantly he hears whooping from some other portion of the party.
“The worst thing,” Karofsky says slowly, “was when you had that fucking Cheerio uniform. You looked like a piece of candy-like fucking peppermint, or strawberry, or whatever. And then that assembly-it wasn’t the other day; that was the first time I’d ever heard you sing, ’cause even when friggin’ Glee Club did stuff, it was always just Rachel pretending she was on Broadway, so I’d never heard you. And you were dancing and shit, and it was just like-Jesus fucking Christ. It wasn’t fucking fair, okay? What the hell was I supposed to do after that?”
“Shut up, David,” Kurt says. “Just shut up.”
Karofsky heaves a sigh. “So there you go. I fucking hate you. I would have kissed you a million times, and it’s not my fucking fault. It’s just you.”
Kurt seems to have un-learned how lungs work.
“Uh…” Karofsky says. “…shit.”
Kurt’s thoughts exactly.
The message ends.
Kurt stands still with the phone in his hand for a lengthy moment of indecision. He should delete it and pretend it never existed-for the sake of his sanity, and for the sake of their something-like-a-friendship. By the sound of it, Karofsky might not even remember having called, and Kurt’s carried heavier things in his head to protect people who need it.
On the other hand-on a charred, wizened hand against a backdrop of melodramatic orange flames-if Karofsky ever pulls any shit that crosses one too many lines, You looked like a piece of candy is the best blackmail material Kurt has ever had the dubious privilege of listening to.
So he leaves it.
He puts on the blue shirt because it’s softer, and then he texts Blaine. If the ringer wakes him up, it serves him right.
Good morning, Blaine (& Paranoia). I’m fine; just went to bed early, working today. I’ve read about five pages, so don’t panic yet.
It is not a good morning, Kurt is not fine (except-nope, not thinking about that rambling thread of drunken logic), and he’s read half of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. But Blaine and his paranoia will probably know that Kurt’s lying, and Blaine, at least, won’t particularly mind.
Kurt closes his eyes, clenches his hand around the phone, and puts on the first forced smile of the day. It’s all in the muscle memory. Smiling when you don’t mean it makes your brain think you’re happier.
It also makes your face hurt.
[Chapter 3] [Chapter 5]