Nothing to Dave Karofsky fulfilled the dark sense eating within him. For a moment, as that rope had ended his breathing, the dark horse within him had reared its head, cackling as it finally reached that means to all ends.
But the final death hadn't happened, and now that animal within him was pawing deep against his initial instinct to live, growling and angry and always looking for another outlet. Cliché as it may be, the only time Karofsky could bear company was when Kurt visited. That image of his future self, the partner, the sports, the baby boy… thoughts like that made the horse angry, and it hurt Karofsky to try and think happily, to upset that horse to the point of actual pain, but he couldn't help it. He couldn't help his love for Kurt, and though it frustrated him that Blaine was in the picture, his thoughts threw themselves into a tizzy whenever Kurt was around.
It was impossible to appease the horse when Kurt was around, and it was impossible to order his thoughts to the point of sane and rational logic. The horse began stampeding through his mind, and countering that ran the unicorn of Kurtofsky, sending out happy sparks of futures that could have been and may still be. There was nothing that disheveled his internal monologue more than the presence of one Kurt Hummel.
After being released to the hospital, and placed into his old room, Karofsky stopped feeling hopeful that this horse could be tamed. In the hospital, everything was white, sanitary, happy. In his room, though stripped bare of anything that could play accomplice to a suicide attempt, there were filthy memories of himself having been happy. His McKinley Varsity jacket, in which he had first kissed Kurt. Leftover zombie make up haphazardly into the corner. Trophies of his past glory. These things made him feel the most excruciating pain of all—they reminded him of the horrible things he had done to Kurt, how he had treated the Glee club… and to have the Glee club be the only people who supported him through this horse-driven nightmare, even after the atrocities Karofsky had put them through… it was too much to bear. Sitting in his room, surrounded by these wonderful memories, he had never felt more alone.
His father knocked and opened the door when Karofsky didn't instantly call back. Still, his father's eyes were filled with trepidation as he quickly ran into the room, afraid to once again find a dead son. Karofsky smiled, and nodded to his dad's explanation of a visitor, how Karofsky didn't necessarily need to see them if he was nervous. No, Dad, send him up. It's okay, Dad. Yes, Dad, I'm fine. Yes, Dad, I put the lotion on the rope burn. Thanks, Dad. I love you too, Dad. The horse was neighing.
Designer black shoes clicked on the hardwood, and everything inside of Karofsky's mind shifted into true chaos. Text messages of condolences he had received, text messages of are you okay, and can I come over? But he never had actually expected Kurt to show up here, at the scene of his failed suicide, the pathetically empty room. The rope had been burned and then the ashes had been sifted through their compost pile, his dad's attempt at making something good quite literally grow from the bad.
At that moment, Karofsky smelled only rope and sweat and Marc Jacobs cologne. Kurt looked at him with his big heart through his big round eyes, looking at the big football player who had been reduced to nothing but a big horse of darkness. Kurt placed his purse on the ground next to the bed, looking around for somewhere to sit, before Karofsky pats the bed and nods. Kurt smiles, tears in his eyes as he sits next to the horse-ruled teenager. Pleasantries were exchanged. Karofsky couldn't say anything that wasn't fake. He couldn't talk. He couldn't speak. His mind was spinning, unicorn and Marc Jacobs and rope and horse and millions of things in his mind. He finds himself reaching for a fine-tipped permanent marker, turning over his own wrist and writing slowly. The itching pain of it was a relief, and so he showed this to Kurt. Kurt's eyes widened, the words showing this vulnerable man's inner thoughts.
In a moment, Kurt was without sweater, long sleeved tshirt, and tank top. He leans forward, taking that fine tipped marker to the inside of his elbow, helping communicate his desire to help through that ink. Ink was the key, wasn't it? Kurt guided Karofsky's hand to touch one of his hips, the other moving that pen over his collarbone. Kurt was now begging Karofsky to write.
The horse was screaming now, Karofsky's skin afire as he felt Kurt's for the first time. And then it wasn't Kurt anymore. This expanse of skin before represented his escape from the horse. It was the only way, and the unicorn nudged Dave to continue. David. That was the first thing he wrote, over the crevices and angles that formed the little bird's collarbone.
Anger. Betrayal. Love. Depression. Lost. Hopeless. Desperate scribbles down the chest, some words spiraling around a nipple, Dave's hot breath following the pen, and then the words started turning into phrases.
It started again on the other side of his chest now, reflecting downward as Karofsky's pen began to flow ink and he began to lose his sight. Tears blurred the lines between friends and lovers, words running as that porcelain skin allowed the ink to sink in. His every thought was now expressed, and it was unbelievable to imagine that all of these things were coming from him, mean bully David Karofsky. The Facebook posts were coming back now, and he lifted Kurt's arm, hiding them along his side, the left half of his rib cage serving as his canvas now. Try, try, try again.
Karofsky stopped crying. He stopped crying and focused, his lips barely pressing a kiss into the expanse of preciously untouched skin beneath Kurt's bicep. Here he began to draw, and Kurt began to shiver. As his pen worked the image of the horse into and over Kurt's underarm, the rest of Dave pulled the little bird closer to him, snuggling him as the horse screamed its way out, onto that sweet skin.
The horse was not a horse. It was a monster of glares, fangs, coarse hair, angry squiggles and darkness, all of the darkness ever made possible through the eyes of a fine tipped marker. It was out of Karofsky, staring him back from the skin of the very Unicorn himself. Dave took a deep breath, shuddering in relief as he feels his lungs fill up completely for the first time since he stopped breathing. The horse was gone. But his thoughts about Kurt still remained, the conflicts caused by the horse still so deeply encoded within him that he looked up into Kurt's eyes. They were wide, an odd mix of lust and love and fear in them but their lips touched and then Dave brushed his fingers up his canvas's bare back. Kurt knew, and so he spun, sitting in the larger man's lap and leaning forward. Karofsky licked his lips, leaning down to trail his tongue from waistband to neck along that crevice of a backbone.
Kurt's moan was impossible. Karofsky's arousal had to be ignored. There was skin to fill, thoughts to expand, anything to develop his thoughts to the point where every single one was assigned a freckle, a dimple, a birthmark. The pen started to move again, first mapping out what their life together might be like. Next, a cursive signing of Dave Hummel. Kurt Karofsky. Kurtofsky. It was impossible not to have these high school games filter into this beautiful art form of a body. Backs of shoulders were now filled with reasons why not, Dave expressing his secrets to those pores and the ink penetrating them. Nothing else mattered but the heat of that room, the tight grip of his pen, and the heavy breathing of his opus. The horse was gone, but no sane reasoning had yet to rear its head.
A sharp intake of breath from beneath his pen made Dave stop, the tip poised over the sweet spot between shoulder blades, the dip that signified the end of shoulders and the beginning of back. Kurt shook his head, then nodding and just shivering in general. Dave leans down and nuzzles his head into the untouched neck, smiling as he inhaled the true scent of Kurt. It was perfect. His mind began to slow down, and Kurt just melted into a pile of moldable clay, the feeling of being someone's blank slate incredibly arousing. The pen paused and so Kurt's feelings were paused as well, the horse on his skin now representing all of his own feelings. Without it he felt useless, unable to help Dave, unable to help this man without the ink. Dave asked him if he was okay. He hiccupped yes.
Everything about this felt amazing. He loved Kurt. Dave loved Kurt. His love flowed onto his modern quill, the words now forming into sweet caresses, promises never to be broken, nothing left hidden within Dave's lightening mind. Everything was happening so quickly, the horse was not present, and Kurt was. Karofsky began to cry once again, now with a smile on his face as the tears smudged the ink trailing down the little bird's back. Unbelievable. I just needed to write it out. At the base of his spine, Dave etched a pile of dirty things, trying his best to sprinkle them with ashes. From these dirty things grew a tree. The branches of the tree didn't end. They ran over every word Karofsky had written, wrapping the smaller boy in its healthy black embrace, the leaves hiding the horse now. Birds perched over his heart, a flower blooming in late spring over a nipple. Karofsky forced Kurt to stand now, frantically turning him as he let that tree explode. That giant oak tree grew out of his pain, most of the skin dyed black now, with little distinction between tree and smeared depression.
The tree ran his every move, the final one scraped desperately into that now oddly colored skin. One singular branch ended beneath Kurt's ear, the heart that emptied that pen hidden behind his ear like a secret. Their secret. As he dropped the pen, panting heavily, Kurt lifted his arm, looking down at himself. He turned his head, trying to see down his back. He was not scared or worried of the things written upon him. Instead, he smiled at Dave, and slid his inkless fingers to rest on the taller man's cheek.
Their lips touched, and then they were in bed. Kurt tucked himself into Karofsky's embrace, murmuring soft questions that were actually answered on the skin he couldn't see. The answers were brushed into his hair, Dave's lips pressed just above the heart the entire time. Surrounded by the heat of one Dave Karofsky, Kurt began to sweat. Ink began to drip. The unicorn pranced, the horse stayed silent. The sheets were ruined, and the inklings of his own thoughts bled into Karofsky's arms as they desperately clung to that precious little bird.
The pen was empty, hiding its beauty in the carpet, completely emptied of dark ink.