So, I've never done fanfic before, and if I have bad author etiquette, that would explain it!
Thank you thank you to all who have reviewed or are following this story. I'm kind of floored by this whole experience.
And thanks to my Beta, but I can't thank her properly because I don't know her handle on here. I'll fix that...
"Kurt!" He called as loudly as he dared, but he didn't exactly want to draw the attention of the staff or student body.
Dave had no idea what was happening between Kurt and Blaine tonight, but he hated that he'd ended up in the middle of it somehow. He'd always been so careful to give their relationship a wide berth, not wanting to make anyone uncomfortable. Dave could handle whatever it cost him to keep things friendly and platonic with Kurt; he was never going to give Kurt a reason to bail on him because he'd asked for more than he had a right to expect. He'd done that twice before, and it had pretty much sucked both times.
"Kurt!"
He'd checked the locker rooms — girls' and boys' — because they were closest to the auditorium, but Kurt was nowhere to be found. Likewise, he hadn't been lurking in the choir room, or the bathrooms — girls' or boys' — anywhere in between. Dave didn't have a clue where to look after that, so he was just generally wandering around like an idiot until he heard a muffled sound from down the corridor. He stuck his head around a wall of lockers and saw Kurt sitting on the floor with his back against a classroom door, staring up at the ceiling. Dave huffed out a breath and walked over to Kurt.
"Dude, you're sitting on the floor. I've got to admit, that's both gross and unexpected."
Kurt kept his head still, but rolled his eyes over to meet Dave's. "It's a rental."
"Liar." Dave dropped down to the floor as well, making sure to keep a bit of distance between them. He couldn't draw his knees up to his chest the way Kurt had — not under the best of circumstances, and sure as hell not with this suit on — so he kicked his feet out in front of him, putting both hands flat on his thighs to keep from reaching for Kurt's hand.
"I'm kind of confused about what's going on tonight, Kurt. I don't really get the point of baring my soul when it's the same old soul I've always had, and we've done a pretty good job ignoring it so far. Ignoring it is totally working for us."
Kurt smiled up at the ceiling. "You think so?"
"Oh yeah." He laughed softly. "Is this why you've been weird the past few weeks? Because you didn't want to, like, encourage me or whatever?"
"Blaine said it was unfair for me to keep being your sex-free boyfriend."
Dave's head whipped to the side. "My what?"
Kurt turned to look at Dave. "That was my reaction, too. But then he explained it, and it made sense in that weird, because-Blaine-says-so kind of way."
Dave grinned and nodded at him. "I know that one. I fear the day that man holds power over a nation."
The overhead lights in the hallway were dimmed after hours, and it was hard for Dave to read much of what was going on under the surface of Kurt's pale face. They sat in silence for a full minute, just looking at one another. Dave's voice was quiet when he spoke again. "Nothing has to change, you know. We're good. We're in the same boat we've always been in."
Kurt shook his head, looking miserable. "I'm not sure what's changed, but it happened before whatever just happened, happened." At Dave's raised eyebrows, Kurt waved his hand in the air. "Oh, shut up. I'm too overwrought to be eloquent." His hand fluttered down to the floor between them and Dave's left hand jerked a little, wanting to reach for it.
"I don't want to fuck things up for you and Blaine. Not that I could, ever. I'm not saying that there's anything going on that would be a problem for you and him, in terms of your feelings. I just mean—"
Kurt looked at Dave and shook his head again. "Don't you ever get tired of coming in last place, David? Because I have never seen you go for pole position."
His laughter was louder than he'd intended, and he was surprised at how it reverberated around them. "Did you just make a racing reference? That's kind of like sports, you know."
"My father fixes cars. Do you think I escaped childhood without watching NASCAR? Besides, racing isn't a sport. It's traffic. Meanwhile, you're avoiding the question." Kurt's fingers moved slowly back and forth on the linoleum. Dave swallowed hard and kept his hands as still as possible.
"Kurt, I kissed you before I could even put a name on what I was feeling."
"That doesn't count—"
"Why not? Because you don't like to think about what a prick I can be? I think about it all the time. I think about how I'm the kind of prick who kisses a guy he's been pushing around for months. The kind of prick who sent cards and flowers and heart-shaped boxes of candy to another dude's boyfriend. I don't know what you want me to say here. You know how I feel and I know how you feel—"
"How do I feel, David?"
"What?"
He shrugged. "How do I feel? You seem more certain about this than I am, right now. So how do I feel?" The words were casual, flippant even, but Dave could hear the desperation in Kurt's voice.
"You like me, Kurt, but just as friends."
"That was months ago. I didn't even know you."
"Well, let's see: my talents include stringing myself up by the rafters and otherwise being a useless fucking—"
The blue eyes that searched his were suddenly shining with tears. Dave thought Kurt was feeling sorry for him as usual, so he was taken aback when the next words out of the boy's mouth weren't pitying but furious.
"That's all such bullshit," he hissed, the tears falling now. "The morbid jokes, the references to every mistake you've ever made, the self-loathing. It's a front. It's like you take every opportunity to remind me of all that so I'll have a reason to feel nothing for you but pity. You hide behind all of that crap so that you never have to do anything, never risk anything."
"Kurt—"
"God forbid you admit that you're worth something, or look in the mirror and see the smart, compassionate person I see. Charming. Hilarious." Kurt's voice broke. "Beautiful."
David lost his battle with himself. He reached out for Kurt's hand, but Kurt batted him away.
"Don't you touch me, I'm not finished yelling at you!"
"I'm sorry—"
"You shouldn't be sorry, you should be happy. You should be over the freaking moon right now, but you're so stupid you can't even see it. People like you. People love you. There's nothing you can do about it; no amount of smart-assed comments will change it: people love you."
This time when David reached for Kurt's hand, Kurt let him take it. With his free hand, Dave brushed the tears off of Kurt's cheeks.
Kurt twisted until his whole body faced Dave, his knee pressing against Dave's thigh as he leaned forward, whispering. "People love you, David Karofsky."
"Yeah? And look how happy 'people' seem to be about that."
When Kurt brought their joined hands up to his lips and kissed Dave's fingertips, and then his wrist, Dave felt something painful burst into life in his chest and squeeze. He drew a ragged breath, keeping his eyes locked on Kurt's. He looked at the young man who had been his nemesis and his mentor, his friend and the object of all his desire and he felt like he would never stop looking. "It still doesn't have to change anything."
"See? That's just exactly the type of thing you'd say." Kurt hung his head, looking down at their entwined fingers. Dave slid over the wall slightly so that their foreheads nearly touched.
"I don't want to be this thing you regret tomorrow."
"David," Kurt whispered — and Dave swore he could feel his name as it left Kurt's lips — "that's kind of the point I'm trying to make, here."
They were near enough to be breathing the same air. Dave thought the excess carbon dioxide was probably to blame for the way his heart was thumping and his eyes kept wanting to close. And it was affecting Kurt as well, because his eyes were closing, too.
He had imagined kissing Kurt Hummel about six hundred thousand times. It was kind of a hobby of his. Screw that: it was pretty much his career. He had pictured every possible scenario, every permutation: the motive, pressure, wetness, duration. After everything that had happened between them, he knew he would never be the one to initiate that kind of contact, so it was always Kurt who leaned in and changed the rules. He had it all mapped out in his head. And yet. And yet.
The touch of Kurt's mouth to his was the most surprising thing in the world. He had imagined Kurt hesitant, chaste: but of course Dave was the one with no experience; Dave was the one who didn't know the first thing about kissing someone, much less a guy, much less the guy. Kurt's lips closed slowly over Dave's bottom lip, sucking gently, giving it the softest brush of his tongue from below. Like an ice cream cone, Dave thought wildly, too shocked to respond. Kurt moved his head slightly, inhaling, dragging his bottom lip back and forth against the wetness he'd left behind. Dave was still frozen, but it didn't seem to bother Kurt: he alternated small, wet kisses and light nips of his teeth from the middle of David's lower lip over to the corner of his mouth. He ran his tongue along the smooth skin there, teasing Dave's mouth open and flicking his tongue against Dave's teeth before pulling back a fraction of an inch and pressing their cheeks together.
Kurt's voice was a low growl that Dave would never have believed possible when he demanded, "Kiss me."
And somehow it finally got through his addled mind that this was Kurt's beautiful, red, smart mouth making those sounds, doing these things. Dave untangled his fingers and brought both hands up to Kurt's face, holding him at a distance so that he could see him clearly. "I don't want to hurt you."
Kurt groaned and put one of his hands in Dave's hair and pulled, hard. "Stupid."
"That—" Kurt didn't give Dave a chance to finish, because the second he opened his mouth to argue, Kurt was kissing him again. Dave kissed back, finally, his hands touching Kurt's face in wonder so that sometimes Kurt was kissing his lips and sometimes pulling a finger into his mouth to suck and bite. Dave followed Kurt's lead, letting the smaller boy set the pace; Kurt raised his chin, letting Dave trail kisses along his jaw and down his neck, pulling them together so that they had as much contact as their awkward position on the floor would allow.
At every sucking sound that came from Kurt's mouth, every whimper, Dave had to struggle harder for control of himself. "Jesus, Kurt, the noises you're making, you should hear yourself."
Kurt bit down on Dave's earlobe and then licked it, exhaling against the wet skin and making Dave shiver. "Are you seriously making fun of me right now?"
Dave jerked his head to the side and found Kurt's mouth, tracing the scowl there with his lips. "Not making fun. Not making fun."
"Good." Kurt kissed Dave hard, pushed himself off the floor and moved so that he was kneeling over Dave. At the feel of Kurt's thighs on either side of his own, Dave swore and put his hands on Kurt's hips, guiding him down so that he was sitting on Dave's legs and not his lap. Kurt looked down at him mischievously, and tried to shift forward, but Dave's hands held him firmly in place. Kurt put his hands against Dave's shoulders, keeping him at bay as Kurt came close enough to tease with breathy almost-kisses just out of Dave's reach. In frustration, Dave pulled Kurt onto his lap; Kurt, looking at Dave's flushed face, wrapped his arms around Dave's neck and leaned down so that he could kiss the other boy again. They remained like that, twined together, until Dave pulled back with a grin.
"You're going to wish you'd rented that suit."
Kurt arched his back, making Dave close his eyes tightly. "That sounds filthy, David."
"I meant because of getting your knees all dirty."
"That sounds even filthier. Do go on."
A deep voice from the end of the corridor interrupted their reverie. "As much as it kills me to break this up, I think we should probably go.
