Oh hey, remember when I went completely out of my comfort zone and started a Glee fic? Holy shit, I'm nervous. I really love this ship (Dave/Kurt) and I just want to do the ship justice because the Pirates are, like, the best people and they have high standards... So, yeah, here's this thing that I started...
They are broken up into Kurt's POV and Dave's POV.
Four weeks. That was how long it had been since he was forced out of the closet by a homophobic, inbred of a jock who had, at one time, claimed to be his friend. And, just as he had feared, people reacted how he thought they would; with ignorant hatred, homophobic slurs, and violent threats. Now, thanks to one stupid Neanderthal and his big mouth, David's life had completely and utterly been flipped upside down.
In the past month, he had elected to forgo finishing out the semester at Thurston High School and, instead, decided to finish it out at home – under the ever watchful eye of his father, who, since his suicide attempt, had been more than slightly over protective about who he hung out with and what he did with them.
Not that his father need be concerned about him getting into trouble. Since he returned home, he had very rarely left his house – either out of shame at his brush with death or continued fear of ignorance in Lima. And, as if his self-imposed hermitage wasn't enough to keep him safe, the only people who had visited him were Santana (which shocked him, initially) and Brittany.
The two, who were now – to his surprise – dating openly, stopped by his house bi-weekly to make sure he wasn't "doing anything stupid." Their visits, though brief, were the only real social contact he experienced, thereby insuring that there was no way for him to get into any real trouble.
The only reason I know any of this about David Karofsky is because Santana Lopez told a group of us at the Lima Bean about half an hour ago.
In that time between him being discharged from the hospital and Santana's admittance of her visits to check on him, my own number of visits to the Karofsky household had totaled to zero.
After finding out that the only visitors that David had received since he had returned home had been the Teen Lesbians, the guilt I felt was stifling. After all, I had promised him when he was in that hospital bed that I would help him – that everyone who cared for him would.
And now it seemed that the only people who cared were Brittany, Santana, and his father.
Ashamed of my inability to think of anything other than myself, NYADA, and Blaine, I forced myself to sit through the rest of Santana's gossip, Mercedes' discussion of Sam, and Brittany's story of Lord Tubbington's triumph in his fight against his addiction to ecstasy before excusing myself to return home.
The instant I walked into my room, I walked over to my desk and opened up my laptop, grateful to be home alone.
In the next instant, the soundtrack from Wicked was filling my ears… Grateful for Idina Menzel's voice and range, I began to sing along as I opened up a tab for Facebook.
Finding his profile took less time than I had thought it would. Moving my fingers across the mousepad, I moved it over his name and clicked, waiting patiently for his page to load.
As it did, I instantly wished I hadn't looked. In the last month, not much had changed on his page. People still left derogatory comments about him and there were more than a few wall posts spouting cries of indignation that his suicide hadn't been successful.
It was more than I could handle. Scrolling back up, I looked at his picture and felt the guilt return tenfold before I clicked out of the tab.
How could I have left him to deal with this alone?
Frowning, I reached for my cell phone and thumbed through my address book before finding his number. When I finally found it, my finger rested at the bottom of the screen as I looked back and forth from the message option to the call option.
Calling would be quicker and it would allow me to check up on him and apologize profusely for my absence… but I wasn't sure either of us would've handled that well.
After another few moments of deliberation, I pressed the message option and began to type out a lengthy message filled with encouragement. Shortly after beginning the message; however, I knew there was no way I could send it. Not because David didn't deserve the encouragement and well wishes, but because it was too impersonal.
Instead, I sighed and typed out a quick 'Hello,' hoping that David would see it as a friendly gesture and not hold it against me that I hadn't contacted him until now.
Staring at the message for a few moments more, I took a breath before sending it.
Now all I could do was wait and see.
"Dave?" Dad opened the door with a slight creek and stuck his head into my room. Without looking, I knew his gaze was immediately drawn to me, sitting in front of my bed, a video game controller in hand.
"Yeah, dad?" I paused the game, looking back over my shoulder and tried not to notice the relief on my dad's face as he saw me, alive and more-or-less well.
"Just wanted to see if chicken was alright for dinner tonight," dad replied, trying, yet again, to play off his concern.
I nodded and tried to give him a smile to assure him I was fine. He didn't seem convinced, but he nodded in return.
"Alright then. You'll be okay? I just need to run to the store." His hesitance was palpable.
"Yeah, I'll be fine." I motioned to the television, which was paused on a snowy, mountainous scene. "Just trying to get to Solitude to find a flute…"
Dad smiled at that and I felt a relief of my own. It's good to know that he finds me playing video games to be a reassuring thing since it's virtually all I've done outside of school work.
"I'll be back in a bit then," he replied before pulling the door to. There was a pause before I heard his footsteps leading away from my room.
When I was finally sure he was gone, I made to unpause the game. Before I could, though, I heard the tone of my cell phone that meant I had a message.
Brow furrowed, I climbed to my feet and walked over to my desk, where my phone lay half-dead.
Aside from Santana, who only texted on days when she and Brittany planned to visit, I had received no communication from the outside world. In fact, I avoided it and preferred it this way.
In spite of this, I clicked the 'New Message' button and waited for my cell phone to remind me to charge it before it showed me who the new message was from.
When I finally saw the name of the sender, my brow furrowed all the more in confusion. 'Kurt Hummel.'
Why was he messaging me? I hadn't heard from him since that day at the hospital and, to be honest, I hadn't expected to hear anything else from him ever again.
After all, I got what I deserved, right?
Frowning slightly, my finger hesitated over the 'open' option. Did I really want to read whatever Kurt had to say?
The message opened with the brief contact of my thumb and the screen. Of course I did.
'Hello.'
Kurt waited a month to tell me hello.
To be honest, I wasn't sure what exactly to do with that. Did I say hello back? Would it be better to just ignore that it happened at all? And why was he trying to talk to me anyway? He was probably still with pretty boy.
I felt my stomach turn at that. I was being stupid. Kurt had promised to be my friend – nothing more – and even though I still had all these weird, fucked up feelings for him, Kurt had done nothing wrong. In fact, he had been incredibly nice considering…
Looking back down at the message, I sighed before deciding upon what I felt was the most appropriate response.
After sending the text to David, I left my phone on my bed as I went to shower.
When I returned two hours later, I had three new text messages awaiting me. The first two, from Blaine and Rachel, were anticipated. The third; however, was a complete surprise.
'David Karofsky.'
I hadn't anticipated that he would actually respond – particularly not so quickly. But there it was, his reply… sitting in my inbox just waiting to be opened.
After briefly skimming through Rachel's text and responding to Blaine's inquiry about lunch the next day, I opened David's message.
'Hi.'
In spite of myself, I smiled. David was a man of many words.
Pleased that he at least seemed open to trying to be friends, I replied again, this time sitting with my phone until he replied.
'How've you been, David?'
It only took five minutes before I got a reply.
'Alive.'
My lips pursed at that, trying to determine if this was his idea of humor or if the past few weeks had just been that difficult to get through. From what Santana had said, he had almost no contact with the outside world recently, but if he had looked at his Facebook, then he definitely would be having a hard time of it.
Still unsure, I replied and took my phone with me downstairs as I started dinner.
'Well, I, for one, am glad for that.'
Yup. There it is.