The theme for Sports Center blared out of Dave's alarm clock promptly at 6am like always, and was met with his equally regular fist silencing the clock for a few more precious minutes. Like always, Hank Williams' rhetorical question: "Are you ready for some football?" shattered the silence of the early Monday morning fifteen minutes later. He groaned and covered his head with his pillow. Maybe if he pressed down hard enough he would suffocate and then he wouldn't have deal with either his alarm clock or school. He groaned even louder at the thought of school. The Day Back from Prom was supposed to be a day of triumph: guys would brag about how they 'scored in the hotel room' and girls would swoon over how gentle and charming their boyfriends were, and everyone would be working off a hangover three days later. It was supposed to be so awesome that not even teachers or actual schoolwork could bring it down.
But, Dave didn't get to go to the hotel. He didn't get to 'score'. And, he certainly didn't have anything to brag about. He was elected King of the Junior Prom. That was supposed to be his crowning moment of awesome; the proof that all the lies, all the sacrifice, all the bullying and the friends he'd alienated were worth it. Pretending to be someone else, hiding and giving away so much of his own life and personality that he didn't even know who he was or what he truly wanted out of life, was supposed to be worth it when he got that crown. He was supposed to come out on top. And, for one brief moment he was. For the few scant seconds that stood between his election and the announcement of his Prom Queen, he had believed that had succeeded. And then he ran like some pansy coward. If he had just done some fucking chicken dance with Kurt, or gone up and grabbed his fucking date, things would have been salvageable. If he'd just goofed off, he could have been a clown, or a brilliant romantic with Santana.
"I can't." The words thundered in his head louder than the Hank Williams call out to guys everywhere. Why did he have to fucking open his damned mouth? He could have just stayed quiet and walked off pissed. Hell, a 'rage quit' would have been better than running like a pansy. Instead, he all but screamed "I'm gay" when he ran with his tail between his legs. Or, at best, "I'm a fucking loser!" Either way, he was dead meat today.
He rolled out of bed, a yawn muffling another groan. He had no choice but to get up, suit up, and take the hits. He quickly showered and tried to ignore the massive blob that filled his bathroom mirror. He was chubby and sweat too much and would probably be bald by the time he was thirty. Small wonder he'd never had a... He gripped the sink, willing himself to say the words, or even think them.
Boy.
Friend.
Boyfriend.
There, he'd said them. He released an explosive breath he had not realized he'd held as he said the word again in his mind. Boyfriend. His arms barely shook that time, and he hadn't started to sweat or sick up like he used to. Soon, he could work up to saying the words aloud and not just thinking them. In private. In his room. With his parents gone and the lights all turned off.
Dave glared at his reflection and the disgusting chub around his cheeks, the slight puffiness to his neck, the rolls around his midsection, the zit forming just underneath his hairline. He was revolting. Santana would never want to be seen with him again. With her gone, his cover would be completely blown, if he hadn't screwed it up already. Santana liked pretty things and things that made her look pretty. Without his status as alpha male, he had nothing going for him. He seriously needed to spend more time in the gym if he even had a chance to convince her to keep up the act.
Besides, working out kept him out of the halls where it was a lot harder to dodge a slushee or a fist. Coach Beiste watched the locker room like a hawk. So, the normal shit that went down in the men's locker room never even entered the jocks' brains. They all knew what she would do to them if anything did happen that shouldn't. They had learned that the hard way when Strando put IcyHot in Hudson's jock: Beiste had made them do suicides, bear crawls, and mountain climbers in full pads until they barfed every practice for a whole week. No one had wanted to piss her off after that. Even Puck had toned his shit down. Beiste was hard, but she got results. Also, the locker room had stopped smelling like a nasty over-used jockstrap left sitting in a sweaty sneaker that someone had pissed in. That was always a good thing.
He wrapped a towel around his waist and darted back into the bedroom to quickly get dressed. His parents wouldn't be up for another hour, but it never paid to take his time heading back to his room. Small towels and a massive growth spurt in fifth grade had taught him a few sharp lessons about the importance for both speed and discretion when it came to changing These were lessons he quickly became thankful for when he started changing in the locker rooms during sixth grade. Dressed in his typical jeans and polo shirt, Dave quietly descended into the kitchen to devour his breakfast.
He picked at the oatmeal, boiled eggs, and fruit that his mom had left in the fridge for him the night before. He was getting low on eggs, but he knew she'd make another batch today before she went to work. Everything tasted bland today, worse than bland, and given his breakfast, that was saying something. It was like even his breakfast wanted him to avoid school today. He thought about dumping it all down the trash, but he needed the fuel for his workout today. He was really going to push himself and try and bench 290 today. He knew he could do it, he just needed to focus and eat right. Besides, facing McKinley on an empty stomach just made you uncomfortable and depressed. Santana might keep his pudgy ass around a bit longer if he looked like he was trying to lose the weight. He gulped his milk down with a grimace, slung his gym bag and backpack over his shoulders, and quietly trudged out the door to his truck. For once, he was thankful he didn't have practice until next year. Carrying three heavy bags filled with books, sports equipment, and clothes every day was not something he enjoyed.
Still, it kept him busy and he actually enjoyed sports and working out and being physical, so it wasn't like he was forcing himself into doing something he didn't want to do. Besides, it had made his Dad proud.
That brought about a whole other mess of problems that he forced back down into whatever part of his brain stored 'Dave's repressions'. He'd probably get some kind of complex from everything he'd repressed, 'forgotten', rationalized, or just plain ignored. His parents expected so much of him-Hell, the world expected so much of him- and most of it made no sense at all: A Man was supposed to be big and strong and tough. They didn't talk about their feelings; they didn't sing; they didn't like other men or wear fancy clothes. They weren't even supposed to be all that good in school, since everyone who was smart anywhere was always picked on and laughed at. Even in the movies where the nerd is supposed to be the hero, the big dumb jock is the one that saves the day and the nerd is there for comic relief. Hell, even nerdy movies like the Matrix had a fucking computer hacker do kung-fu and be the fucking king of kickass. Neo didn't go around clacking into a computer to stop Agent Smith, he fucking beat the shit out of people until they gave in. The world said men were supposed to play sports and intimidate weaker guys and solve problems with their fists, not their brains. If they got hurt, they walked it off, they didn't go crying to their teachers. If someone pushed them into the lockers, they freaking pushed back. Real men pushed back. Just like girls were supposed to listen to men. Sure, they could be smart, Hell someone had to know stuff and guys were too busy laying it on the line on the field to care about crap like what an equilateral triangle was (he tried to ignore the definition, formula and uses for an equilateral triangle that instantly popped into his head. It wasn't manly knowing that stuff). But, they had to give their man respect. They weren't supposed to stand out, or make their man look weak or stupid, either. And, they had to dress hot. Because, women were there for men.
But, on top of all that, his parents, and high school, had drilled into him an even bigger rule: Don't Make Waves. You can intimidate the weaker kids, sure, but don't get caught. You're a jock and a guy, so you have to be dumb, just don't be too dumb to get kicked off the team, or let anyone important notice. Girls are there for men to use, but don't let anyone in on the secret (except it's freaking obvious from everything out there that everyone already knows the secret). So, talk about them, make 'conquests, sow those wild oats, but do that in private and respect them and love them in public. Men are violent and aggressive, women are there to calm them down and soften their edges, but men aren't supposed to be soft. But, you can't be too aggressive or violent, you need to channel all that fury into a pastime or a hobby. The hobby has to be rugged and manly and aggressive, though. Something like camping or sports was OK, gardening or painting wasn't.
Then, there was the biggest rule of all: Being Weird Was Wrong: People should be different, and express themselves and be unique, but you can't stand out too much or do anything that no one else does. Those people were laughed at just as much as the idiots who blindly followed the herd. You were supposed to be yourself, just like everyone else was. How can anyone possibly live up to that standard? Be unique, in exactly the same ways everyone else is unique. Be a big badass jock, and, if you're not, worship them and say that you wish you were one so no one will realize you're defective. Wear the same clothes as everyone else, but use them to help identify yourself as an individual.
These simple rules had been drilled into his head for so long that Dave feared they had come to define him. Those rules certainly defined high school.
The steering wheel creaked in protest from Dave's stranglehold on its sturdy plastic as a flash of uncontrolled rage burned deep in his brain. While he was so busy following all those rules to try and fit in and hide every part of of him that didn't quite match up, he had somehow forgotten who he was in the process. Did he really like sports? Or, did he just like them because he'd been doing them so long and he was good at them. Did he enjoy playing Modern Warfare? Or, was he playing it just because he knew Az would laugh at him for not giving a rip about his "Prestige" or his "kill count", or any of that other junk?
Ms. Peale from fourth period English would say some psychology crap about the Other (whatever that Other was... what the Hell is that supposed to mean anyways?) and high school being the time when the Other becomes identified as something outside of the self, and how most great literature is about people fighting against the Other or being threatened by it. The Other could be an external force acting on and threatening the Self, or an apparent division within the Self and the conflict is the resolution of those two great forces until either the Self is triumphant or a gestalt is achieved (whatever the Hell that meant). He didn't really know what the she had been talking about.. He was too busy trying to sneak a peek at Berry's boobs that day. She was a freak, sure, but she was a hot freak when she dressed up in that Brittany Spears outfit. Damn, he'd like to hit that baby one more time.
He smirked at the thought of plowing Rachel Berry on the lockers. No dinner, no foreplay, no pretending that he was something other than a red-blooded all-American jock with a massive boner and she wasn't just begging for a real man (not that quarterback fag Finn Hudson-what kind of fruit lets his mom date a guy who's got a queer for a son? Didn't he know that he could catch fag?) to treat her good. A small voice in the back of his head that sounded disturbingly like Santana's reminded him that he wasn't really all that interested in Berry's boobs, but Sam and his rock-hard abs that were directly behind and just to the side of Berry's rack and if that freak hadn't insisted on moving away from her boyfriend (what kind of spazz doesn't want to sit next to their boyfriend in school?) he wouldn't have had the opportunity to pretend to drool over her rack while he was really drooling over Sam's body and imagining he was the one he was ploughing. He hated that voice. It was always there, nagging him, reminding him that he wasn't normal. It wasn't normal for a guy to be good at school. And it certainly wasn't normal for a jock. But, he was. School was too easy. Not in a Steven Hawking or Albert Einstein kind of way, but in a "as long as I show up, do my work, and study, I'm going to get an A" kind of way. At least, that's how it was with math and science. Anything with patterns was a snap. History and English and all that other useless stuff, ya, they were more difficult. There weren't any patterns to follow, so he had to work for those B's and A's. Which, if you asked him ware still to high to fit in, even if he did fake having to get help, or, rather, "help". Even then, most of his teachers just sort of winked and grinned when they gave him back his papers, like they fucking knew he hadn't cheated. His math teacher had all but called him out on it in class in Eighth grade. Now, he was in fucking Calculus as a Junior, and prepped to take fucking AP Calc next year. What kind of geek is in a college-level math class with braniac Seniors, as a Junior and is a key player on two sports teams?
Freaky math-genius jocks, that's who.
An even bigger question reared its ugly head, thanks to the Santana in his mind constantly nagging him: what kind of freak likes guys? Ya, he was sorry he fucked with Kurt's head. He really didn't mean to threaten to kill the guy, truth be told, he actually respected him and his bravery. But he couldn't... he wasn't like that. He was just curious, that's all. Just curious. And, it could go away. He could wait it out, and it could go away. That's what they said in church, after all. If you pray and wait and trust in God, you can get better. So, he needed to avoid Hummel and temptation and the whole thing would blow over. He didn't need to hate fags, but he could just avoid them. That was why he'd tried to scare Hummel away, because he needed to protect himself and his secret. Because he was … weird. With Hummel gone, he could be normal again.
That same nagging voice reminded him that he had wanted to dance with Kurt at Prom. And, until Kurt had mentioned that doing so would have been like shouting out he was gay, Karofsky had been primed to do so. Then, of course, he ran like a fucking coward. That kind of behavior certainly didn't help to keep his status as duke stud at McKinley. Not only was he 'a gay' but he was a coward.
Dave sighed as he pulled himself out of his truck and trudged towards school with both bags slung over his shoulders. There really wasn't a resolution in sight. He could pretend like nothing was wrong, and he would end up hating himself forever. Or, face his problems and deal with the fallout. Neither option worked. If he waited, hoping that he could change in college, he wouldn't change a damned thing, and he knew it. He'd end up with three kids and married to some poor woman he'd met through church who was convinced that she was doing the right thing by marrying someone who wouldn't be able to touch her without popping a pill or getting so shitfaced he couldn't tell which hole he was stuffing. He'd be trapped in a life he hated and would take it out on her until they both couldn't stand to look at each other and it all would blow up in their faces when he finally broke down and got caught 'knocking boots with some intern'. Hell, he'd probably fuck things up so badly that his kids would end up just like him. That was a horrifying thought. He couldn't do that to his kids, future or otherwise. He'd sooner die than put anyone else through what he was going through now.
On the other hand, if he faced his problems, possibly, hopefully, one day he could have it all. He could have the three kids and the loving husband and the successful career and he could be finally, totally happy. He just needed to survive a year of high school in Middle America. He'd lose his friends, definitely. Az wouldn't think twice about slamming him into a locker (granted, Az was probably the only other jock big enough to slam him into a locker). Hell, he'd probably throw the first slushee. Every other jock in school would be on him like flies on shit. Even the Gleeks and the other nerds would take their pot shots at him. He quailed as the image of his face and the words 'Big Gay Dave and His Big Gay Secret' splattered across Jacob Ben Israel's blog filled his mind. Even if Beiste didn't throw him off the teams for being … like that... and, he doubted she would, his teammates would make his life so miserable he'd have to quit. He'd lose everything. Worse, what guy would want to end up with a former gay-bashing bully? He didn't have the stats on hand, but he was sure the answer was pretty close to zilch. No, he'd still be hiding, just in a different way.
Either way, he was screwed.