I do NOT own any of the following characters, nor the show.

'XXXXX' denotes passing of time.

'_' denotes character's thoughts or quoting another in one's dialogue.

Welcome the Fxck Back

He walked quickly and put his hand on the door's cold handle. Swinging wildly, the wooden board made way for him. The bag landed with a thud and the tired boy grabbed his right shoulder, groaning. Staring at the big, red, metal door before him, he sensed a sudden movement to his left. Snapping his head to the direction, his eyes widened. With a hitched breath, the jock quickly turned his head forward. He pulled the red door open and dropped to the ground to fiddle with the zipper of his hockey bag. Every sound reverberated throughout the room's musty air.

Karofsky hunched his shoulders and began rummaging through his belongings. What the hell was he looking for?

'Fuck it,' Karofsky declared to himself as he stood up and grabbed the white tee shirt off the hook and threw it behind him. The hockey player took hold of his sneakers and stared into the back of the cupboard. The figure at the left hadn't yet moved. Out of the corner of his eye, the jock could see that the boy was still searching for something within the space ahead. Was that his locker? Did that mean he was back? He blinked and let the sneakers drop behind him. The locker was now empty. Softly shutting the door, he turned his attention to the bag and threw the three articles inside. He toyed with the zipper and gripped of the worn straps.

"Good game," the voice mumbled. Karofsky froze. Moving his eyes to the other boy, the athlete searched his head for a reply. He wasn't that original.

Scowling, he hoisted the lumbering weight onto his shoulder and walked to the exit. He halted when he met the heavy door. His tongue habitually darted out but he reined it in and clamped his teeth tightly on it.

'How about the truth just this once, Karofsky?' that noble voice calmly asked. The boy let out a light scoff. 'You can't handle the truth,' he announced with a sneer. Just then, a prickle settled behind his eyes. He shut them tightly. 'No. You can't handle the truth,' the voice responded. He leaned forward to touch his forehead to the slab of wood.

Could he talk about it? His face suddenly skewed into a grimace. Talk about what? 'Talk about it all.' Wasn't that too much? He remembered the red-haired lady saying something about how unhealthy it was to keep everything inside while pacing the stage at a ninth-grade assembly.

The jock seized a waft of air through his nose. Talk. He remembered sitting on the couch, listening to his father jabber on the phone. The Buffalo Sabres were trailing by one. "Talk about it!" his father yelled. "Listen, I- Jason. You've got to talk about it," the man said forcefully into the receiver as he marched back and forth in front of the television.

Biting his lip, the boy slowly lowered his bag. His bicep throbbed and he grabbed it with the other hand. Slowly turning around, Karofsky eyed the cement floor. Fuck it: somebody had to talk.

"I'm tired," he muttered to the floor. Shoving his big hands into the pockets of his jeans, he rolled his overworked shoulders. "I'm tired all the time," he quietly spoke. Backing away from the door, his heavy feet carried him to the middle isle of the room again. His hands began to fidget and dig deeper into his pockets. He suddenly felt exposed.

Talking without being seen was easier. It was easier in the dark cupboard at Confession. Dave wasn't religious but he had started going to church. Every Sunday, he'd attend service at a different church in town. The boy recalled the dark leer of that black girl from that stupid club when she eyed him in the back row last week. After each service, he'd ceremoniously implore the priest or minister to fix him. Their postures would stiffen and they'd slowly make their way toward convenient conversations.

'Talk about it? Talk about what?' There was too much to talk about. David then studied the last four months of his life. He had fucked the other boy up, he had laughed at his best friend's AIDS joke, he had prayed for that car driving by to run him over, he had stopped talking to his father, he had spent several nights staring at the wall behind his desk, he had downloaded some pictures of nude women, he had squirmed when a teammate asked what he'd do in bed with one, he had flinched when that name was uttered by that Asian girl from that group of losers, he had begun to stare longer and longer into the liquor cabinet upstairs, he had gaped for several seconds when that girl asked him out to dinner, he had walked by that bridge but then stopped and stared, he had muttered the word "sorry" over and over in the shower, he had considered trying that one bar he looked up, and he had wondered if he could ask his neighbor to borrow his gun.

The boy in the letterman jacket let out a jittery exhalation. He noticed that his arms had crossed over his chest sometime through his foray into who the fuck he was. In the silence, curiosity got the better of him and pulled his eyes onto the other boy. Kurt Hummel was leaning against the now-closed locker door and peering at him with his own arms crossed. Karofsky furrowed his brow, agog as to why the trademark 'You'll be working for me one day, little child' look had yet to settle on his face.

Then, out of bravery or stupidity, his eyes found the other's. The jock's throat constricted and he whipped his face to the ceiling with a frown.

'Fucking eyes,' he considered for the first (or seventh) time. The jock recalled the moment he cornered the singer against a locker for wearing that god-damned retarded outfit. The green eyes flashed boldly with every word the boy in silver spat. With bated breath, the hockey player battled every nerve not to run away. What was it that set him off? He remembered the day when Mr. James asked the class if they noticed how women had big eyes while men's were usually smaller. The students responded by looking at each other and laughing when that fact turned out to be true. Kurt Hummel's eyes were big. They were very big and very green. And God, they were fucking… Some days, curiosity would grip him and Dave would look into the eyes of a girl in the next seat. They were always so plain. He hated his own brown eyes. There wasn't one vibrant thing about them.

"Are you going to say something or are you just going to waddle around all night? I haven't got the time, Karofsky."

Shaken from his contemplations, the athlete found the unamused singer. Thinking on it, he shrugged in reply.

"Well, then, I guess we've both said our piece," the other stated in a flat tone. The jock watched the boy step by. He eyed the glass window of the small office at the back of the room.

"Wait," he called into the stale air. Straining to hear the swishing of the door, his shoulders relaxed when he was met with complete silence. 'Now or never!' the voice mocked a determined attitude. 'Shut the fuck up,' he told himself.

"Alright," he muttered as his hands found the large, worn-in pockets of his jacket. He exhaled. "I won't say I'm sorry because I fucked you up too much for it to mean anything," he mumbled. "But I will say this," he said as he looked at the ground and lifted his shoulders. "I won't fuck you up again." The prickle returned to his eyes. He waited in the silence.

"Why the hell did you do it, Karofsky?" the other finally asked.

The jock's muscle's tightened. If he had a tail, it'd jump straight between his legs.

"Do what?" he asked under his breath.

"Everything. Shoving me into lockers, taking what you did from me, scaring the fucking wits out of me," the boy uttered. "Kissing me."

Karofsky shuddered and shut his eyes. He tightened his jaw and shook his head. Within the perturbing stillness, his heart began to slow.

"You mean why I fucked you over?" Why did he do it? Sure, the singer was… He shook the thought away. Finding a crack running from underneath his shoe, he lowered his brow. 'Because it wasn't about him,' he admitted to himself. 'Not really.'

"I don't know, Hummel. I guess I'm just fucked up." He was, wasn't he? He didn't understand the reason for his friend's catcalls when a girl in a tight, black skirt hurried by their lockers in eighth grade. What the fuck was amazing about her thighs? He never could think up the perfect size of a woman's breasts when asked. The boy promised himself it would all make sense eventually. 'Figures,' he spat to himself as he took as seat in math class. 'First with pubes, last with an erection.'

Then, on day one of high school, a girl in his peripherals had finally forced his heart to jolt. He snapped his dilated pupils towards the figure walking out of an empty homeroom only to find that the dark hair was curiously short and that the shoulders (beneath a teal tee shirt) were just a touch broad. Puzzled, he craned his neck to watch the student strut away in tight, black jeans - wasn't that how a woman walked? But the hips were too narrow and the person walked in boys' shoes. The figure soon disappeared into the mass of humanity in the corridor leaving Karofsky with a mouth agape and a thumping heart.

Opening the torn book on his desk in fourth period, the student heard the bell ring. "Come on in," the teacher said lightly and Karofsky lifted his eyes to find that very person enter with a sheepish smile and reddened cheeks. He peered around a bulky football player at the right to find the figure sitting with a leg crossed over the other. 'Woman,' the boy declared in triumph. Drumming his fingers rapidly on the desk, he then waited for the girl with the pale and unblemished skin to raise her hand for roll call. The figure answered to the name of 'Kurt Hummel.' Karofsky's lungs became rigid. As the teacher rambled on about a particular Thomas Jefferson quote, he lay his head on the desk and focused on battling the rising ache in his stomach. It had taken forty minutes for the boy with his head on the desk to calmly determine that this was all one, big, happy mistake. After all, it was just one boy. 'Who looks like a girl!' he had sensibly exclaimed to himself. "Jesus fuck," he let out softly with a scowl. 'Great fucking start. Gotta find a fucking girl who looks like him,' he thought with a clenched fist. 'What a fucking loser, Karofsky.'

"Karofsky!"

The jock whipped his head to peer over his shoulder. The figure walked toward him.

"I asked you a question."

"Um," the hockey player slowly turned. "What was it again?"

The counter tenor quickly glanced at the ceiling, sighed, and crossed his lean arms.

"Have you talked about this with someone?"

"Whatdya mean? Talk about what?" Karofsky asked.

The singer audibly exhaled once more and the athlete winced.

"I'm not stupid!" he yelled abruptly. "You can quit with that fucking pejorative attitude!"

The other's eyebrows shot to the sky and his big eyes became bigger.

"You don't need to…fucking…treat me like a I'm a little kid or something," Dave let out. "Stop it with…the fucking…" The hockey player slammed his lips together and lowered his shoulders. He dug his hands deeper into the pockets of his jacket. 'Who told the little bitch he knew more than everyone on the fucking planet?'

"Okay," the other replied flatly, giving a quick bite to his bottom lip as he paused and put on a calm demeanor. "But have you tried talking to someone about this?"

"About what?" Karofsky responded.

"I don't know!" the boy snapped. "You're anger issues! Your self hatred! Your 'shoot first, forget about the questions' attitude! Your unorthodox suppression of emotions! Take your pick, Karofsky," he spat and threw his arms upward.

The jock bristled. How-the-fuck obvious was he?

"Like with who?" he muttered quickly.

"Speak up, Kar-."

"Like with who?" the jock called out.

"Anyone, Karofsky," the other replied as if the athlete had asked the sum of four and two. "A teacher. Your parents. A therapist, even. Hell. Have you even tried Ms. Pillsbury?"

The hockey player blinked.

The other quirked an eyebrow.

"Okay, maybe not her. But what about Ohio State? That's where I went."

Dave's throat suddenly tightened and the back of his neck became warm. 'You?' he silently snarled. That's what-the-fuck this was about? His eyes shot about the room. 'Fuck no!' His hands balled into fists.

"I ain't got no fucking problem!" he spat at the ground and swallowed hard. He could feel the other flinch.

"Then I can't help you, Karofsky," the other said quietly. The boy in the letterman jacket watched the singer make for the door. But he then paused with his palm against the wood and turned around. The jock suddenly felt the urge to back into a corner as he saw the other move toward him with eyes of stone.

"Oh. But I will give you this one gem of advice," he uttered with a flat but simmering tone that made Karofsky's spine stiffen. "If you touch me or approach me in any way that even resembles a threatening manner…" the boy paused and lightly scoffed, leering into the jock's unsteady eyes, "because you're too much of a despicable coward to deal with the fact that you might just be a little, 'fucked up,' as you so eloquently put it…" He took a slow step forward. Karofsky stifled a twitch. "You will be out of this school faster than your head can meet the boards, Karofsky. Both Sylvester and Figgins promise that."

The singer left the athlete stunned and alone as he turned about face. The more Karofsky thought on it, the tighter his jaw became.

"Fuck you!" he screamed at the closing door.

XXXXX

"Good game." Dave Karofsky halted. He looked into the doorway and found his father at the bar with a newspaper in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. He eyed the cabinet below the countertop.

"Thanks," he said quietly. Picking up from where he began, the boy walked to the end of the hallway and hung a left. He fell back onto the bed and stared at the angry man in the textured ceiling. Where was the dog again?

Looking back on the night, Karofsky held back a grimace. God, that little fucker could be so… Creasing his brow, the boy wondered if he had labeled him correctly. Pushing himself up from the bed, he walked to his bare desk. On it was an open, well-used vocabulary book. The way that haughty little bitch sighed and rolled his eyes… He flipped a page and peered closely. 'Having a disparaging, derogatory, or belittling effect or force…' The athlete didn't know whether to smirk or scowl.

Regardless, David Karofsky discovered a simple truth in the world that night: there was surely no moment in existence in which one couldn't accuse Kurt Hummel of being 'pejorative.'