Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize.
A/N: Deleted scene from a Dave-centric fic I'm working on. This contains several characters expressing homophobic feelings through slurs, so be warned.
Dave found out what it meant to be gay in middle school, which is not-so-coincidentally when he joined junior tackle football and learned what it meant to have a jersey.
Suddenly, he was expected to hang out with the guys from the team on the weekend, playing video games and cracking jokes in the coolness of someone's basement. And that was no great sacrifice, except for the rare times when someone would sneak in beer and he'd make up an excuse for not drinking.
"My mom would kill me," Dave said, "She'd make me quit the team."
And the guys had let him off with a couple of insults about how only queers were afraid of their moms or about how his mom hadn't been so tough when they were plowing her the night before. The first time it happened, Dave had gone home and googled 'queer', feeling his stomach sink like a stone. His mom had mentioned those types of people to him, once, when they were on a vacation.
Dave was seven and they were at Disney World, waiting in line to get a picture with Donald Duck. His dad was buying them lunch, because the line was stupidly long. Dave remembered the humid heat of Florida and sunburn blooming on his face. He held his mom's hand, because he wasn't old enough to be ashamed of it yet and two men walked passed them. Dave doesn't know what made him look up at them.
One man was laughing, his head thrown back and the sound rich and full. The other guy was red, either from the sun or embarrassment, but still smiling. They stopped maybe three feet away from Dave and his mother, and he realized the guys were holding hands. The red-faced man leaned in toward the other one and they kissed, a quick peck like Dave had seen his mom give his dad every morning as she left for work.
He didn't get to see what happened to the two guys after that, because his mom pulled him away so hard that it felt like Dave's arm was going to fall off. Mom muttered under her breath, "Sick. This is a family place and they let queers make a scene like that."
This was the memory that hit Dave Karofsky full force as he sat in front of the family computer. Eventually, he heard the garage door opening and logged off, sprinting to his room and crawling under the covers. After a while, Dad came in and asked why he was in bed at four in the afternoon. Dave forced a cough and said that he doesn't feel well. Gently, his father leaned in to kiss his son's forehead, which is how he's always taken Dave's temperature. His son flinched away.
"You okay, kiddo?" Dad asked, eyes worried.
In the past two months on the football team, Dave has learned that crying is strictly for girls, fags, pussies, or some combination of the three. So, he swallowed the lump in his throat and said, "Yeah. Just. Could you use the real thermometer?"
His dad nodded but looked at Dave with concern for a long moment before going for the thermometer. When he returned, Dad informed him that his temperature was a perfectly normal 97.8. Dave still missed school the next day, because he wound up throwing up the dinner that night and wasn't able to explain why.