Chapter 2.
Dave returns to school with a splint around his middle and ring fingers; metal, with blue foamy, spongy material around the digits, and medical tape wrapped around it to keep it sandwiched together. He can't play any of his hands-on sports for two weeks, until his fingers are perfectly mended again. And it sucks, because hockey and football are the only things that keep Dave mostly sane, since they relieve all of his tension.
Now what is he going to do?
It pisses him off, actually. Life is never fair for David Karofsky, it seems. And he fucking hates that fact. Why can't things be the way they used to, surrounded in childhood bliss? Why can't he go back to the days when sports didn't matter, name-calling was easily dusted off his shoulders, and he was still able to look Kurt in the eye and touch him and be his friend, free of ridicule?
Dave groans to himself, putting his face in his hands where he sits at his desk in the back of the room. How he wishes he could go back and time and change things: never become friends with Azimio; never listen to his mother or take any heed of her speeches; never leave Kurt's side…
It pains him in ways no one can see or know whenever he has to endure watching Kurt get harassed. Dave had said once that hearing people call Kurt names would make him 'so mad and so sad' and it's still true. He grinds his teeth and stands back and clenches his fists each and every time. But can he do anything?
No, he can't, because he's a fucking weak coward who should just learn to keep out of everything and disappear.
Sighing, Dave gets up out of his seat and doesn't say a word to the teacher, even when they ask him what he's doing and where he's going and even threatens to give him a detention. So what? It's not like Dave has ever cared much about high school anyway. He stopped getting good grades the year he chose to leave Kurt behind.
Dave's heart clenches in his chest. He's such a fuck-up for that.
But Kurt had reached out to him again, even after all these years. Maybe there was hope yet. Maybe… if Dave just changed…
No, Dave assured himself. He shook his head. He couldn't do it. He had to be the all-American heterosexual young man his mommy wants him to be. The all-American heterosexual jock his "friends" want him to be.
Because if he doesn't, what would his life be? This is all he's known for years…
But he's known Kurt longer. So why does he resist?
Dave doesn't know. He doesn't want to figure it out. It crushes him to do so.
Meanwhile, Kurt is fuming, snapping at his friends and then apologizing constantly, because he can't stop thinking about how, for a split second, he saw the old Dave again, the one that gazed down at him with so much love and care.
Kurt wanted the old Dave back.
And suddenly, his mood brightened from pissy to cheerful as an idea occurs to him, and when Mercedes questions why he's grinning, he replies simply, "Oh, nothing. I just love my brain sometimes, that's all."
Kurt decides to worm his way back into Dave's life. It'll help them both in the end, and Kurt knows it. A little seduction is going to assist Kurt, too. Just the usual stuff: dancing, singing, wriggling his hips and wearing tight clothes. Kurt knows it'll work. It just has to. After seeing it once again after so long… Kurt realizes precisely how much he craves seeing Dave look at him – and only him – like that.