Notes: Don't let the tags fool you - we're limited to two, but this is complete Klainofsky. As in...all three of them. Also, for anyone who read this when it first came up, I'll explain next chapter but the warnings regarding death that were here are moot now. No death will be had here.
This is my first attempt at anything Klainish. I am a spinning disco chicken: I regret nothing.
When Blaine Anderson was younger, he had some pretty deeply set expectations about what love was and how it would feel, and look. When he was younger he believed in the big Love, the orchestral sweep of it. Love At First Sight, the meeting of glances across a room, the racing of hearts.
The notion that it was possible to learn to love someone struck him as utterly ridiculous. Love was love, after all. There is nothing more overwhelming and grand and intrinsic as love. How in the world could someone simply stumble into it by accident, or blink one day and realize that they've felt it all along?
Love didn't sneak up on you. That's what Blaine would have informed anyone who asked him even a year ago. Love was Everything. Love was meeting a boy across a counter at the Gap and needing even less than that first coffee date to realize that this was everything he was ever meant for.
Blaine Anderson has since had reason to change his opinion on the matter.
Even setting aside that Gap fiasco that first tarnished his belief that true love was instant and unchangeable, Blaine has had a couple of very big reasons to completely alter his thinking in terms of what love is and isn't.
Love can absolutely sneak up. Love can stand beside you in line for coffee, draped in scarves and chirping cheerfully about a thousand endless topics that you have no real interest in. Love can be a mystery one instant and then, in the blink of an eye, can reveal itself in the face of a friend you've known for weeks.
It's not grand or orchestral or the solution to all of life's problems, the way he used to think when he was a naïve kid listening to his parents fight and dreaming of a distant future full of happiness. It's possible to love someone and still be annoyed with them a dozen times a day. That doesn't make the love any less meaningful. It just makes it more real.
Blaine thought he had a good bead on things a year ago, looking out at the world with bright eyes and waiting to spot the man who would instantly take his breath away. By last week his viewpoint had entirely changed, but he would have been just as confident that in his relationship with Kurt Hummel he had truly found what love must be.
Lately he is starting to realize that he ought to stop assuming he knows anything about it at all. Because with one smile and one conversation, he's started to realize that the only sure thing about love is that he has been consistently wrong about it.
The smile and the conversation happen between Blaine and, of all people, David Karofsky. That in itself should have been a siren of warning that something disturbing was about to happen: Blaine simply doesn't have anything to say to Karofsky any normal time.
But it's Karofsky who starts the conversation, and he comes over while Blaine is still sitting in stunned silence watching Kurt's back as he stalks angrily away.
It's not a new fight that Kurt's stalking away from. It's becoming disturbingly common. Kurt can't understand why Blaine is hesitant to flaunt himself and his boyfriend and their relationship in the open in the middle of McKinley. He comes up to Blaine again and again, grabbing his hand or kissing his cheek or any of a dozen tokens of his enthusiastic affection that Blaine would treasure any other time and place.
Blaine pulls away. Every time.
It's hard to explain why, but Kurt demands an answer every single time. Kurt is appalled by Blaine asking him to please tone it down, to please not put a spotlight on them. He doesn't accept that Blaine is simply worried about what might happen.
Kurt isn't worried. Kurt is the most bafflingly brave person Blaine has ever met, and since Kurt isn't scared he can't seem to understand why anyone else would be. He reads too much into it, he guesses at Blaine's real reasons since he doesn't believe the reasons Blaine gives.
"You're embarrassed by me," Kurt accuses. "You're hoping you won't be looked at as just another glee geek if people don't know we're together." Or, even more absurd, "You think you might meet someone else here, someone better than me."
Ridiculous, of course, both of those accusations. Blaine argues, but it's hard to argue with Kurt when he's heated, and he gets heated so quickly these days.
"I joined the glee club," Blaine says, over and over. "I'm a glee geek enough on my own, and you know I don't care if I'm popular or not. Anyway, everyone already knows we're together."
"Then what?" Kurt asks, always, just as he asked today. "What possible reason do you have for pushing me away whenever we're in public?"
It's there that Blaine falters.
Kurt is losing patience with him. It's obvious. He gets more and more angry during these arguments, and he stays angry longer.
Blaine is losing him, all because he can't face his brave, beautiful boyfriend and simply confess the truth.
"You're scared."
This is where Karofsky appears, while Blaine watches Kurt storm off and deals with the sinking, almost constant press in his chest that comes from knowing that sooner or later Kurt is simply not going to come back.
Blaine looks over (he's still listening to Kurt's parting words echo through his head, he didn't hear Karofsky approach). He sees Karofsky standing there, leaning against the little dividing wall in the senior parking lot where Kurt decided to have the argument today.
Karofsky leans against the wall and regards him, eyebrows raised, arms folded over his chest.
"I'm not..." Blaine looks away again.
Karofsky has been a constant presence since the school year began. Of course Blaine knew all about the Bullywhips last year – Kurt used the little club as a primary argument in getting Blaine to transfer to McKinley in the first place – and though the club doesn't officially exist anymore Karofsky seems to think the duties are still his.
He met them the very first day of school in this same parking lot. Kurt, who hadn't mentioned the guy all summer long, smiled at him like a long lost friend and asked if he was really planning to play bodyguard all year. Karofsky just shrugged and said it couldn't hurt, but he really does stick to his duties faithfully.
Blaine and Kurt have three classes in common, and whenever they meet in the halls Karofsky is always there to meet with them. When they don't walk together Dave sticks with Kurt, but Blaine has occasionally noticed Karofsky watching him in the halls. Nothing threatening, nothing angry. Just watching, like he feels his duties need to extend to Blaine whenever they can.
The strangest thing about it is that it doesn't really bother Blaine all that much. It did at first, of course, but what Blaine knew about David Karofsky at the start of the year has shifted into a more complex and grey-shaded picture by now.
He isn't out, and that seems to be Kurt's biggest problem with him. He goes to pflag meetings with Kurt and Blaine, but Kurt admitted to Blaine after the first one that he kind of blackmailed Karofsky into it and didn't leave him much choice. Still, he goes. He doesn't lash out in the hallways, he hasn't made any homophobic cracks that Blaine or Kurt have heard about. But he isn't out, either.
He seems pretty withdrawn, given what Blaine expected of someone like him. He seems to keep to himself when he isn't on duty with Kurt. He still plays football but he doesn't seem to spend time with any of the other football players outside of practices.
He doesn't talk much: once Blaine realized that he can't think of Karofsky as the cartoon villain anymore he hasn't been able to replace it with an alternate image. He simply knows nothing about Karofsky if 'bully' is suddenly no longer in the picture.
Karofsky comes over to him now while he's musing, chasing his thoughts around in a useless circle. He sits on the wall beside Blaine and looks out at the parking lot as the dwindling students break from their chatting groups and head out for the day.
"I'm not making fun of you or whatever. I'm just saying."
"I'm not scared," Blaine answers flatly. A blatant lie, but then this is really none of Karofsky's business.
Still. He looks after Kurt – though he's long gone by now – and he feels a swell of annoyance. Towards Kurt, towards Karofsky, it really doesn't matter. Karofsky is the one who's here.
"I can't be scared," he says, tense, not looking back at Karofsky in case there really is some kind of mockery there. "He already thinks I'm a coward."
"Yeah. Kurt's kind of a dumbass."
Blaine's spine straightens. His hands curl into fists on his lap. "Look, Karof-"
Karofsky snorts. "Oh, put the fucking claws away, lady. I'm not taking a shot at your boyfriend. I'm saying flat out – Kurt can be a huge dumbass about a lot of things."
Blaine twists and glares up at him.
Karofsky smirks back. "Look. Kurt thinks he's seen the worst of the world. He's been thrown into dumpsters and had slushies dumped on him, he dealt with my psycho bullshit last year and what happened at the prom. He figures he's a hard core survivor, and if he can get through it without even denting his hairdo, anyone can. And that is utter bullshit."
Blaine frowns, but thinks about that.
Karofsky nods at him. "You're scared, and you've got every right to be."
"What could you possibly know about me?" Blaine asks, quiet, not arguing with his words but dismissing them all the same. It's a little defeatist of him, but God, he's just so frustrated lately. He loves Kurt, shouldn't that be enough? Should he really have to fight a hundred battles a day over proving it?
He's ready to dive back into his wallow, but Dave actually answers him.
"Well. I know you're a complete girl about Hummel, all sighs and stares and shit. I know if he thinks you're embarrassed or looking to make the idiots here think you're available, then he's either blind or he's being deliberately obtuse." Karofsky leans over and nudges him, and it's an oddly friendly gesture. "Here's what else I know: I know what it's like to have to worry constantly over how you're coming across. You're not fighting him, or yourself. You want to hold his fucking hand, but you can't stop thinking about who's watching or what they might be thinking. I sure as fuck know something about that."
Blaine swallows and looks over at him.
Karofsky regards him back, solemn. "I know that anybody as scared as you are has to have been through some shit, so. Yeah, maybe I don't really know anything about you, but I know I'm right when I say you're scared. And you should be."
Blaine has the rather unkind thought as he watches Karofsky that it's like hearing a baboon suddenly speaking perfect French, listening to Karofsky try to dissect him.
Unkind and unfair. Because he can't deny that Karofsky is absolutely right.
Karosky meets his eyes and flashes a sudden smile, faint and sheepish. "You realize how much time I spend with you guys every day? Not hard to notice things when you both go on like I'm not there anyway."
Blaine opens his mouth to offer some...what? Some platitude? Some cool honesty about how Karofsky isn't his friend, he has no obligation to acknowledge him? He ends up sighing out a breath and leaning back, his palms digging into the edge of the wall on either side of him.
"Even if you're right-"
"I am."
Blaine frowns over at him, but the frown wavers when Karofsky grins back. "Even if you are, I don't see what good your pointing it out to me does. If you have any solutions, I'd be glad to hear them. Otherwise..." He raises an eyebrow at Karofsky, and looks away.
"Christ, you could out-gay Fancypants himself."
Blaine rolls his eyes and stands up, dusting his hands off. "As pleasant as this has been-"
"Sit down, man. Christ. I only meant you're even better at that thing he does than he is. That 'I'm gonna trail off here but look at you so you can all but hear me dismissing you from my presence' shit."
Blaine turns to him, but doesn't sit. "I don't need to have my faults pointed out to me by someone like you, Karofsky. No offense."
"What happened?"
Blaine's mouth shut, and he frowns.
Karofsky sits where he is, looking out at him with raised eyebrows. Vague curiosity, nothing else.
"I don't like talking about it."
Karofsky waits silently.
Blaine frowns and looks towards the parking lot. He slowly moves back to the wall and sits. "I got hurt once. There's no point in going over details, is there?"
"Bad?"
He sighs in irritation, but he answers. "I don't know, compared to what? The guy I was with was in the hospital for a few days. I got out with just a cracked rib and some..."
Something inside of him cracks a little as he gives even those details to Karofsky. He trails off and doesn't pick up again, and Karofsky doesn't probe.
It doesn't take him long to figure out what's so strange about talking about it. He laughs, all breath and a surprising flash of bitterness.
"I told him once. Kurt." He shakes his head. "Before the prom. I told him that the last time I tried to go to a dance with a guy we were both bashed. You know what he said?" He looks over, though he doesn't wait for an answer. "He said...perfect, that's the word he used. 'This is perfect.' I tell him I was hurt and he thinks it's great. He thinks I'll get some kind of...of growth or something out of facing it down. And..." Blaine shakes his head, smiling wryly. "I thought he was right. It's hard, when he's excited about something...it's hard not to get excited about it too."
Karofsky nods faintly, and Blaine tries not to read too much into that.
"But that was all he said. That was his only reaction, like this thing I just told him only mattered in the context of his prom invitation. I mean...I just told you more about what happened than I've ever told him." Blaine shakes his head, amazed. "There's something strange about that, isn't there?"
"You don't like talking about it, you said," Karofsky answers.
"Yeah, but...he's never asked."
Karofsky doesn't have an answer for that.
Blaine knows Kurt well by now. They've been dating for months. He knows the good and the bad in his boyfriend, but sometimes one of those good or bad things can catch him off guard even now. The prom was a hectic night, joy and tears all right on top of each other. Blaine was worried about Kurt after the prom queen prank, and of course that's the memory that remains strongest.
But suddenly he can't stop thinking about the night Kurt asked Blaine to go with him. He thinks about telling Kurt this thing that he doesn't voluntarily tell people about, and how Kurt seemed to forget about it instantly as soon as he got what he wanted.
He has no doubt that Kurt loves him. He has no doubt that Kurt cares, he just doesn't think that Kurt thinks about it.
"Kurt's a dumbass, dude." Karofsky says after a pause.
Blaine looks over at him.
Karofsky shrugs with a slight smile. "Just saying."
"He can be. About some things." Blaine moves back to the wall and sits heavily. "Which still doesn't give me the slightest idea how to fix things. I am in love with the dumbass, after all."
"Fucking girl." Karofsky rolls his eyes, but his smile fades. "Look, man. Here's the thing. You can't keep stuff from him and then get mad when he doesn't understand where you're coming from. Right? So get over yourself for ten minutes, sit him down and tell him all the gory details about the shit you went through. I mean, all the details. Tell him how bad it hurts to crack a rib – happened to me in ninth grade playing hockey, but Kurt's not gonna have a clue what kind of pain that is. Hell, did the cops get involved? Did they take pictures? Show him. Make him understand, and if he still doesn't give a shit, then you've got problems."
"I don't..."
"What, man?"
Blaine glances over, smiling faintly to think that Karofsky's probably the only person he knows who calls him 'man' or 'dude' like he's just one of the guys. "I don't want him to think of me that way. When we first met...I preached to him about courage, and standing up for himself. From Dalton it was easy to talk like that. Dalton was safe."
"And you think when he realizes you don't practice what you preach he's gonna drop you? You're a fucking dumbass, too."
Blaine frowns at him, chastising.
Dave grins back, but shrugs. "He can't see what a girl you are over him, and you can't see how he fucking trails after you like he's just glad to be part of your wake. You two are idiots and you deserve each other. And stop with the fucking offended bambi eyes, Christ."
Blaine smiles faintly.
"I'm serious about talking to him about what happened. Kurt thinks there's nothing to be scared of around here because I'm the worst monster around and I'm not a fucking issue anymore. So make him understand that there're actually worse people than me out there, and they will do fucking damage."
Blaine shakes his head even as Karofsky talks. "What use is that? To scare Kurt into being afraid like I am? I don't want that either."
"Jesus Christ, man. Then keep sitting here like someone pissed in your fucking hair gel as he storms off again and again. Whatever. I don't give a shit."
Blaine glares over at him, but something about the way Karofsky is looking so studiously out at the parking lot instead of at Blaine makes his retort die unspoken in his throat.
Of course it's occurred to Blaine that David might have some sort of feelings for Kurt. If that kiss last year didn't prove it, this obsessive bodyguard act of Karofsky's certainly does. Blaine has never considered Karofsky any sort of rival for Kurt's affections. Far from it.
From the way Karofksy is clumsily talking about this with Blaine tells Blaine that he doesn't consider himself a rival either. If he thought he had a chance he wouldn't have sat behind with Blaine while Kurt was on his own, irritated and maybe a little susceptible to someone trying to convince him that Blaine is no good for him.
Karofsky looks over. His cheeks tint with color but he frowns at Blaine without much embarrassment. "Fine, I'm a big dumb jock who has no idea how a couple of prissy little loverboys act. But I can tell you what I do know: I know that the kind of guys who would jump you and your date on the way to some dance don't need to see you holding hands or kissing or whatever. If anyone like them is hanging around at McKinley, they aren't gonna wait until you actually hold Fancy's hand before they jump you. They already know what you guys are, that's enough of an excuse."
Blaine swallows, looking over Karofsky's shoulder at the empty school building.
Karofsky nudges his arm, drawing Blaine's eyes back to him. "I'm telling you, man, if Kurt wants you to hold his hand then fucking do it. Those things you get scared of, yeah, they might happen. But they'd happen either way. That's why you need to explain to him about what happened to you, in detail. Because he's gonna get what he wants in the end either way, you already know that. He should at least appreciate how much you're working through to give it to him."
He's kind of coarse, more vulgar than Blaine thinks anyone needs to be, but there's something intent and earnest in Karofsky's face, and that keeps Blaine from answering at once. Surprise makes him study Karofsky more carefully. He really has noticed a lot, and that's a little unnerving.
Blaine has never felt any need to talk to him, to pay him any mind. He made the choice to follow Kurt around, why should it affect Blaine's behavior? But this is...it's unexpected. To think that Karofsky not only kept his eyes on them but actually paid attention, actually noticed things and bothered to consider what lay beneath them.
Karofky said something a few minutes back about how much time he spends with them every day, and Blaine is surprised to realize that he's right. He meets them before school, he walks to and from class with Kurt. He stays near them at lunch, though the glee club surrounds them pretty effectively. He hangs around if they've got glee after school.
There's an awful lot he probably sees and hears. It's disconcerting to think that this guy that Blaine has considered a nonentity has understood so much.
Karofsky smiles, but it's faint and it doesn't touch his eyes. "I'm around, you know. I got my eye on you guys. You're gonna get elbowed in the halls, and you'll probably take a slushie or two when I can't stop it. But if he wants you to hold his hand I'm around to make sure nothing major goes down because of it. So...when you do give in, keep that in mind. Might make you feel better, at least."
Blaine shakes his head, startled, meeting surprisingly clear hazel eyes. "...you hate me."
Karofsky laughs, sharp, like it's startled out of him. "Only sometimes," he says with a shrug. "And those times I hate the rest of the world just as much. You're a douche, don't get me wrong. But you're good for him, right?"
"You're the one protecting him." It only occurs to him after the words are spoken that they might not be the most tactful to say to a guy who's all but confessed a crush on his boyfriend.
Dave just shrugs. "You protect him in your own way. And I'll watch out for you too." He smiles, and it's small and crooked and sincere. "I've got some karmic debt to pay back, right? And someone probably owes you some for the shit you went through, so. Works out."
It's remarkably easy to return his smile. Blaine can be as self-absorbed as Kurt – he's aware of that, it's one reason they work so well together – but he's still startled to think that Karofsky is actually...human. Perceptive and honest and blunt in a way Blaine never would have credited any closet-case with before now. It's surprising that this is the person who has been shadowing him and Kurt for the first two months of school.
It's a little bit embarrassing, moreover, to realize that this person has devoted all this time to watching out for Kurt, and by default Blaine, and Blaine has barely even looked his way in return.
It feels like something big has happened here. Blaine lets Karofsky...Dave...walk him to his car, just in case, and it feels like the very start of something important.
The trouble is, once Blaine starts looking Dave Karofsky's way, it's difficult to stop.
The very next day after that first quiet conversation, he greets Dave when they meet outside the school with a smile and a 'good morning', and between Dave and Kurt he isn't sure who's more thrown off by it. Dave smiles back after a moment, though, and they head inside.
Blaine never noticed Dave before, at least never made it a point to focus on him. Suddenly, once he starts greeting him, paying attention, he realizes just how often Dave is there. Closeted, withdrawn, quiet more often than not, and he spends more time watching the students around them than focusing on Kurt and Blaine (which may be deceptive, given how much he's noticed up until now), but he's always there.
Blaine finds out, slowly, drawing him into conversation little by little, that Dave's mother lives in California with his older sister, that his parents' divorce was ugly and Dave Doesn't Talk About It the way Blaine doesn't talk about the Sadie Hawkins dance.
He learns that Dave can solve some pretty complex calc equations in his head, and he's obsessed with one of those top-chef reality cooking shows. He texts using full words and sentences, and quietly judges those who don't. He is, surprisingly, a fan of R&B music, and one day when Kurt is home sick and Blaine and Dave take their time getting from class to class he confesses that he can play the piano.
"My mom made me take lessons for years and if you ever tell Kurt I will fucking strangle you." It's all spoken in one breath and it says something about how far they've come so fast that Blaine laughs at the threat without hesitation.
He notices more that Dave doesn't tell him. He notices that Dave, though he's still on the football team, doesn't wear that letterman jacket in the halls anymore. He notices that Dave's shoulders get a little more tense whenever those jackets pass by in the halls. He notices that the jocks don't seem to count him as one of their own anymore, they don't slap hands when they pass him or say anything at all. They don't seem to dislike him, either. He seems to be invisible to them.
Blaine also sees how Dave watches Kurt when they're all together.
It's nothing overt, nothing blatant, but there's usually a little light in his eyes, and more often than not his mouth will curl up as Kurt goes off on whatever diva tangent he's on that day. Kurt is oblivious, but Blaine notices.
It's still hard to feel threatened by him, though. Maybe because Kurt is so oblivious. Or maybe because Dave is quick to greet Blaine with a grin these days, now that he's used to Blaine actually paying him some attention. And when Blaine's listening to Kurt talk, he'll glance over at Dave and half the time it's Blaine he's got his eye on, not Kurt.
Dave walks with them now, not trailing behind. He still doesn't talk much, but Blaine credits that to him and Kurt being such chatty bastards that no one can get a word in edgewise. But he's by their side, and it happens in this natural progression that doesn't even feel awkward.
It feels normal to have him there.
Kurt Hummel may be self absorbed at times, but he is not completely oblivious.
He understands that Blaine is nervous at McKinley. He does. When they fight, when Kurt gets angry and hurt when he just wants to hold his hand and Blaine acts like it's a crime, of course he barks out accusations and ridiculous statements about Blaine being ashamed or whatever.
They're fighting, they're supposed to say things they don't mean. That's the point.
Blaine isn't a helpless victim, anyway. He comes back at Kurt just as hard. Accuses him of wanting a performance piece instead of a boyfriend. Of thinking that if something doesn't happen in front of an audience than it doesn't actually count. And that's wrong, too. That is entirely unfair.
Kurt spent his first three years of high school alone, watching the couples around him laughing together, and sneaking kisses at their lockers, and passing notes in class. Kurt has spent miserable, lonely days truly believing that he will never have things like that, because he's different.
Is it so unforgivable that he wants those things now that he can have them? He isn't asking Blaine to strip naked and ravish him in the hallways, he's asking to be able to greet him with a kiss on the cheek at lunch, or to hold his hand when they walk to class. Blaine's his boyfriend, he should want to do those things. Right?
He isn't oblivious to Blaine's nervousness, he just can't figure out why Blaine doesn't see that holding his hand in the halls is the very way to face that fear and beat it.
"I just don't understand," he says, harping, obsessive, but whatever. If Dave is going to insist on walking him to every class than he can listen to Kurt's gripes. "If he even acted like he was interested in getting past it, that would be different. Why can't he even try?"
Dave doesn't answer, of course, just frowns out at the halls around them like Kurt's not even speaking.
Which is what he's done all year, but Kurt is angry and suddenly Dave and Blaine are best of friends so, honestly. This quiet act is just insulting.
"Hey." He stops in the middle of the hall when Dave doesn't answer. "I asked you a question."
Dave looks back after another few steps when he realizes Kurt isn't with him. He frowns. "What?"
"I said, I asked you a question. Are you even listening to me at all?" Kurt folds his arms across his chest, glaring at Dave.
Dave's eyebrows fly up – it says something about how far he's come since last year that he doesn't look around to see who's within earshot before he answers. "Since when do you want my opinion about any of this shit?"
"Since you started giving it to Blaine."
Dave blinks.
Kurt scowls, but starts moving. He catches up to Dave and keeps going, slowly, down the hall.
Of course it's irritating that Blaine is suddenly joking around with Dave like they're friends or something. It bothers him that sometimes Dave hurries him to class because he wants to get upstairs to make sure Blaine's okay. It bothers him that when he hangs back after glee to talk to Mercedes or Rachel, he'll suddenly always find Blaine and Dave waiting outside the choir room together, chatting.
It annoys him, naturally, that when he and Blaine are fighting, Blaine can still smile at Dave. Dave can appear in the middle of a strained silence and suddenly Blaine is talking and grinning and joking with him. Like Kurt is getting painted as the bad guy, and Dave – who is only around because of what happened between him and Kurt – is suddenly on Blaine's side.
They're nearing the art room when Dave suddenly grabs Kurt's arm. "Come on."
Kurt scowls. "What?"
"We're gonna skip."
"I don't skip clas—"
"You're a senior and it's art." Dave turns to him, serious. "You really want some help or you want me to nod and smile and agree with your shit?"
Kurt frowns – he actually likes art class, why can't he skip pre-calculus or something? - but he tugs his arm from Dave's hand and walks past the art room with his head held high.
Dave snorts behind him, but catches up after a moment.
They end up in the library. There are enough silent corners to allow for privacy, and Mrs. Watson hasn't been able to stay awake through a day all year, so she won't be asking any question.
Dave drops his books on one of the low bookshelves and leans back against the wall, staring at Kurt.
Kurt sighs and lets his bookbag rest on the floor against the shelf. "I can't wait to hear what you have to say," he says. Snippy, yes, but Kurt is who he is.
"Okay, your highness, here you go: I think you're right."
Kurt blinks.
Dave smirks.
Kurt's eyes narrow. "Right about what?"
Dave shrugs his broad shoulders. "That if he wants to get over himself, he needs to suck it up and face the shit he's scared of."
"Exactly!" Kurt throws up his hands. "See, if you can see that from behind the closet door, why can't he just-"
"Here's what else I think," Dave says without missing a beat. "I think you're a selfish dickhead."
"What?"
Dave regards him. "I think Dapper Dan needs to face his shit, sure. I also think that facing up to the things that really scare you is fucking hard, and it sucks that you're not even trying to help him."
"Of course I-"
"Yeah? You help? You don't just ambush him with some kind of stealth kiss-attack and bitch him out when he pulls away from you?" Dave doesn't want an answer, obviously, because he goes on without much of a pause. "You know what I think? I think you know what you want, and you tell yourself that him giving it to you would be good for him, and that's all you care about."
Kurt frowns. "Why is it a bad thing to want him to do something that's good for him?"
"Because that's not why you want it, it's just why you think he's an idiot for not doing it. You want it because you want to strut around with your man and show off to all the smug little straight kids."
He opens his mouth to snap at Dave, to ask what the difference is. But he hesitates.
Dave watches him, eyes dark and serious in the muted fluorescent library lighting. "Look, Kurt. I'm nobody to you guys, but I see a lot, okay? That guy would throw himself into traffic for you. Dude got his ass kicked for being queer, and that fucks a person's head up. He was at that prep school of his and he was safe there, but he gave that up and came to this hellhole because you wanted him to. So you obsessing over how he's not as good at being arm candy as you want him to be seems like selfish bullshit to me."
Kurt lets out a breath, and looks away from Dave. "You make me sound..."
"Oh, Christ. Fancy, come on. Nobody's trying to make you a bad guy here. I am the last guy in the world who has any right to call anybody else out for their attitude. Just..."
Kurt glances back during the pause, oddly nervous.
Dave is frowning, brow furrowed. Serious, and thinking, and trying to get right whatever it is he's trying to say.
Kurt is angry, sure, but he's not unreasonable. It's clear enough by this point that Dave actually kind of understands the problem Kurt and Blaine are having, and that he's got himself an opinion on the matter. Kurt and Dave are...friends, sort of, but Kurt's never given much thought to Dave's opinions about anything before now.
Dave shifts under his gaze, frowning. "Look...as hard as this is to admit, I actually like the guy. He's sort of a dick, sure, but whatever. He could say worse about me. I understand where he's coming from, and I don't think you do, so. Feel free to tell me to mind my own business, but you asked me what I thought."
"What do you understand about Blaine that I don't?" Kurt asks, and the haughtiness is out of his voice without his fighting too hard to get it back.
He wants to resolve this. He wants to get through this hump he and Blaine are stuck behind, and he wants to stop resenting Dave for the fact that he and Blaine suddenly don't hate each other.
He wants to stop feeling like a bad person for wanting something he thought he would never be able to have.
Dave sighs finally. "Shit. Okay. I'm gonna say this wrong. Whatever. Here's the problem: you see something you're scared of, and it kinda makes you stumble for a minute, and then you face that shit down and plow through it. You're brave, Kurt. You're stronger than most people. What you don't get is that most of us can't do it that way. Me? Like you love pointing out every fucking time we talk about anything, I'm stuck in my closet. I'm fucking paralyzed because of something that you would just stomp all over if it was you. And Blaine? He sat in a hospital with a cracked rib thanks to homophobic shitheads, and he's scared of that. He's scared of it happening again. He's not as bad as me, he's not paralyzed, but he's too scared to just pretend everything's fine.
"And that's the thing," he goes on, hesitant, like he's waiting for Kurt to cut in and explode.
Kurt doesn't try to cut him off or shut him up. Kurt's too busy thinking about those words, about Blaine in a hospital after an attack and the cold realization that David Karofsky has given that part of Blaine's past more thought than Kurt has.
"It's good to be as brave as you are, Kurt, until you stop allowing other people their own fear. Then you're just as intolerant as any of the people you ever had to stand up to." Dave shrugs, a heave of his broad shoulders. "He left a place he knew was safe to come here. He went to that prom with you despite the fact that it's the same thing that got his ass beat the first time. He's trying, hard. You can't keep losing patience for the fact that he's not able to get past shit as fast as you would, when he's trying as hard as he is."
Kurt nods, silent. He looks away from Dave, wondering where Blaine is now. Wondering if he can go find him, and at least make it clear to him that even if he's not as far along as Kurt wants, Kurt does actually appreciate how far he's come.
Has he really never said that to Blaine?
He offers a faint, thin smile when he realizes Dave's fallen silent and is watching him. "At least if I am flawed it's because I'm just too awesome."
Dave snorts, but his mouth curls up. "I didn't say that was your only problem, dude."
Kurt raises his eyebrows, but he finds a smile somewhere – maybe because this whole thing has at least given him a clearer image of things than he had before, and like Dave says, when he sees a problem he plows through it. He'll plow through this.
"Oh, by all means," he says, almost cheerful compared to how he felt when he first walked in to the library. "Don't hold back now."
Dave smirks. "You want the whole list?"
"There's a list?" Kurt laughs. "Never mind, maybe we should work up to that some other time. I'm a little..." He hesitates, realizing that the words are true even as he says them. "I'm a little scared of what else you might have noticed about me."
That realization steers his thoughts away to Blaine and onto Dave instead. He studies him, the pink cheeks and softened smirk on his face, and has this weird feeling like he's never really met the guy before. Dave has noticed and put together all this stuff about Kurt, about Blaine, but Kurt's hardly spared him a thought beyond the shared history they both drag behind them.
"You're not the same guy you used to be," he says, and that's not a revelation of course but maybe he hasn't given Dave enough credit for that before now.
Dave shrugs. "I used to be a bully, now I'm a closet. That's all you see. I'm still the same guy behind those things, though."
Kurt blinks at that, the simpleness of it. "...is that one of the things on your list about me?"
"What, that since last year you've seen me as a closeted queer first and a person second? Maybe. But we're not friends, not really fair for me to expect anything else. Especially not after what I did to-"
Kurt holds up a hand. He smiles, and it's sincere and it feels good. "You've made up for what you did. If you've gotten past it enough to become this person, I should get past it too. I accept your listing it as a fault of mine. I'll work on it, okay?"
Dave hesitates like he's waiting for the punchline, then his cheeks color in with pink and he drops his eyes, smiling faintly.
Kurt grins – it's oddly empowering to cause that look, that blush, on a guy like Dave. "Well. We've solved all our problems in ten minutes, what are we supposed to do the rest of the period? I don't skip classes, I don't know the etiquette."
Dave chuckles. "We could go smoke in the senior parking lot, or tag the walls behind the gym. I hear those are popular."
In the end they spread out at a table towards the back of the library, and Dave kind of helps Kurt study for his upcoming calculus test, but they mostly talk quietly about random things.
Dave admits to Kurt in a soft voice that the Bullywhips pissed off most of his friends on the football team, that Azimio hasn't called him since the beginning of summer because he's become a narc. He's still playing, and Beiste won't handle any kind of hazing bullshit, but they stole his letterman from his locker the first day of school and he's made no attempt to get it back.
Kurt's first instinct is to ask why Dave doesn't just come out if he's already lost his friends. But he swallows down the urge to see him as a closet first, and he contents himself with speaking a few unkind words about the idiots on the football team.
It feels like progress. By the time the bell rings and they grab their things so Dave can walk him to his next class, it feels like Kurt has made a hell of a lot of progress compared to where he was that morning.
Kurt pulls Blaine aside after school – there's no glee rehearsal to distract them, and he waves Dave off of bodyguard duty with a meaningful look that Dave shoots him a thumbs-up for before angling off and heading towards the parking lot on his own.
Blaine walks with him, side by side, arms brushing together as they go, and Kurt for the life of him can't understand how just this in itself wasn't enough for him.
"You know what my biggest complaint in the world is right now?" he asks when their stroll takes them around the back of the gym (and he can't help but grin and think about Dave and the library when he sees the sloppy graffiti on the wall).
Blaine's smile dims a little. "Do tell."
"My amazing boyfriend won't hold my hand at school." He holds up a hand before Blaine can react. "Do you know what my boyfriend'sbiggest problem is?"
Blaine is generous enough to stay silent and not use the opportunity to mutter an answer that would no doubt involve Kurt and his nagging.
Kurt meets his eyes. "He was badly hurt once, and he's terrified of it happening again."
Blaine blinks in surprise.
"One of those problems is worse than the other," Kurt points out. "And I'm sorry I didn't see it before."
Blaine's gaze stays on him, searching his face, and after a moment he braves a smile. "Kurt..."
"You're trying. I know. You love me, I know." Kurt reaches out – they're alone behind the gym, so Blaine takes his hand without hesitation. "I'm sorry."
"Me, too." Blaine shrugs at Kurt's instantly chastising look. "I want to be everything you want. I'm allowed to be sorry that something's holding me back."
Kurt tugs him closer and leans in, smiling as their mouths brush together lightly. Blaine sighs against his face, a breeze of warm air that makes Kurt grin and shiver.
He pulls back enough to meet Blaine's eyes. "You are everything I want. I'm just..I'm like one of those spoiled kids who gets everything handed to them so they can't do anything but make up more things to demand. But I'm telling you, seriously. I am the luckiest guy at this school. In this whole city. And that's enough for me. I don't need everyone to see it to make it more true."
Blaine grins, and the smile is sincere but there's such a glow of relief in his eyes that Kurt can't help but feel guilty. "You talked to Dave," he says simply.
Kurt laughs and nods. "Did he get really smart overnight or have I just been oblivious?"
"Probably both." Blaine smiles innocently and squeezes Kurt's hand. "Come on, let's go to your place and...study." He grins.
Kurt laughs and flushes, and as they turn the corner towards the parking lot he drops Blaine's hand without hesitation.
They still walk closely enough for their arms to brush.
He was sincere when he said that Blaine is everything he needs. Everything he wants.
He's sincere about that, but he can't help but notice the next morning, when Blaine picks him up and they drive in together and head towards the school side by side like always, that it feels like something is missing.
He loves Blaine. He understands that teenagers are supposed to claim themselves madly in love in every relationship until they're older and more world-weary and understand what love is. But what he and Blaine have is real, and deep. He loves watching him, listening to him. He loves the way Blaine speaks with his eyebrows, and the big goofy grins he breaks into when they're alone and he's not trying to be overly charming. He loves the way Blaine watches him as if he's the only thing in the entire universe.
Kurt Hummel understands love. He feels it, it's the thing that makes his chest swell and his stomach twist every time Blaine smiles his way. This is love. He knows it. He knows.
So when he realizes that something is missing he isn't sure what to make of it.
And when Dave Karofsky jogs up from behind, huffing and breathless and muttering about his 'fucking piece of shit alarm', that niggle of something being out of place resolves itself instantly.
He loves Blaine, but the morning doesn't feel right until there are three of them, side by side by side, heading for the halls of McKinley together and ready to face whatever crap anyone can throw.
Kurt is definitely not sure what to make of that.
tbc