Chapter Notes:

Hullo reader! I adore you. :D

Here is le chapter 2 of Handling It. It's less fluffy, but still not super srs bizz nizz yet. It's a shorter chapter - kind of a set up for stuff to come. Actually, it's like, kind of really important to the rest of the plot, so I'd read it if I were you. :) And if you feel the need to drop me a review, please feel free. I would never stifle one's desire to tell me how I'm doing on my writing. (HINTHINTHINT.)

Enjoy:

Chapter 2:

"David?" Kurt asked. He tried to say something else, but he faltered, and instead, just let his mouth gape stupidly at his guest until Karofsky finally just had to start talking.

He ran a hand through his dripping hair and looked at Kurt with his all-too familiar, nervous expression. But all he said was, "Hey, Kurt," in a voice that made it sound like him showing up on Kurt's front porch in the pouring rain was a normal, everyday occurrence.

"Um… not to be rude, but what are you doing here?" the other boy asked, clearly aware that it was not, in fact, normal.

Karofsky glanced around, looking like he had something to say but he didn't know how to say it. Another lightning bolt lit up the sky, highlighting various features on the jocks face like a candle would. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and shrugged. Kurt waited.

"I'm leaving town," he said finally.

"Like, on vacation, or something?" Kurt asked, confused as to why Karofsky felt it necessary to give him this information, but the jock shook his head.

"No. I mean, like, for good. I'm leaving Lima."

Still completely bewildered at not just the information he was receiving, but the entirety of the situation, Kurt merely shook his head and furrowed his eyebrows. "I don't understand, David. What's going on?"

To his surprise, Karofsky suddenly took his own hands and grabbed hold of his hair, tugged a little, and let out a disgruntled groan. He clinched his eyes shut tight, and said, in a strained voice, "They know about me, Kurt."

"Know about you? Who's 'they'?"

Karofsky relaxed his arms and face, and cast Kurt a look of total resignation. "Azimio. Azimio found out I'm gay, and now everyone knows. Or they will."

"What? How? I swear I didn't say anything…"

"I know. I know you didn't. It was…" he trailed off.

"It was?" Kurt prompted.

"It's embarrassing."

"You gotta give me something, here, David."

Sighing, Karofsky launched into an explanation. "Azimio and I were hanging out over at my place yesterday in like, the early afternoon, or something. I don't remember the time. Anyway, I like… I went to go get something to eat out of my kitchen, because I was really… really hungry. It wouldn't have been that big a deal, except… except Azimio thought he'd fuck around with my computer… like, he was trying to find something incriminating on my web history…"

It took a minute, but dawning realization hit Kurt, and he gasped, bringing his hands to his mouth. "Oh no," he moaned. "And he did, didn't he?"

"I don't know what I was thinking. I mean, I always clear my history after I… after… I mean, I just do. But this time I didn't, and this is the time he decided to look…"

"What happened?" Kurt asked, hands still over his mouth, his eyes wide.

"Well, like I said, I was in the kitchen, and when I came back he was standing up and looking at me like I was a cockroach or something, and I was like, 'hey man, what's up, why are you looking like that?', and he pointed to my computer, where my web history was open, and I realized what had happened, and…" he stopped to take a breath – he was talking really fast. "I tried to deny it, of course, but it was just too obvious, and I wasn't making up very good excuses. He didn't buy a single word of it."

"I take it his reaction wasn't ideal after that?" Kurt guessed, his voice small. Karofsky shook his head sadly.

"Nah. After he got over the shock of it, he went on about how he couldn't believe he had changed in the same room as me, and let me sleep over at his house, and just all this stuff… well, you know. Stuff he and I used to say to you." He added the last part with a sheepish, guilty shrug.

"I understand."

"It got even worse, though. He told me that he was going to tell all the guys, and make sure the whole school knew so they could steer clear of me if they had any sense. And then… then my Dad came home."

"He didn't tell him for you did he?"

"… Does telling him 'Mr. Karofsky, I hate to inform you that your son's a faggot' and then leaving the house count?"

"Oh David, he didn't, did he? What'd your dad say? Was he… did he take the news okay?"

"I guess so. I mean, I had no choice but to tell him after what Azimio said to him. He took the news pretty well. He told me that he loved me no matter what, and stuff like that."

"At least that's something."

"Yeah, but… but he told me that he wants us to go and stay with his sister in Cleveland for a year. He wants me to go to school there next fall, because he's afraid of what I did to you will happen to me at McKinley now that everyone knows I'm… now that they all know. He said he's going to rent the house out, and we're going to go as soon as we can, and when I go off to college, he'll come back. He says it's for my own protection."

Kurt's hands still had not dropped. "Jesus, David, I am so, so sorry."

"Yeah, well," the jock sniffled a little, and he looked away stubbornly, even at this stage of vulnerability, not wanting to show weakness. "I actually didn't come here just to tell you that."

"Oh?"

Karofsky dared to look at him again, trying hard to keep his emotions at bay. "Yeah. I... I came to warn you."

Finally, Kurt moved his hands from his mouth, and crossed his arms in front of his chest instead. "Warn me of what, David?"

"Azimio. He's mad. I mean, he's like, really mad. I know how he thinks, Kurt, and I know he's going to have to take this out on someone, and with me gone, I'm pretty sure he's going to go after you. He yelled about it a little, actually, about how you were probably the reason I'm like this. That I caught your disease or something stupid like that… I dunno, it's just… be careful, okay? Promise me you'll be careful. The stuff we've done to you and the Glee club… it hasn't been nice by any stretch, but it's not even close to what I think Azimio and some of the other guys are capable of.

"I don't want to scare you, but I don't like, want you to put your guard down or anything. Just… just promise me you'll remember that, when I was tormenting you, I was doing it because I was scared and confused. But when Azimio and the other guys do it, they aren't confused about a thing. They're doing it out of hate. Plain and simple hate. And they have plenty of it."

Kurt didn't know what to say. The wind rushed through the air, and the tree branches swayed to and fro almost menacingly. The clouds only seemed to be getting darker, and the rain pelting down only got harder. Finally, he nodded.

"Okay. Thanks for telling me."

"Hopefully they won't do anything," Karofsky said, sort of as an afterthought. "But just in case…"

"Just in case."

That was the last time Kurt saw Karofsky while the jock was still living in Lima. He heard later that he and his father had found someone to rent their place fairly quickly, and had sped off toward Karofsky's aunt's house soon thereafter. Kurt decided to only tell his father snippets of the conversation, and may have added a few of his own, telling his father that Karofsky was leaving town (but not telling him why), and he wanted to stop by to apologize one more time before he left. (Not entirely true, but Burt had believed it.) Kurt wasn't actively scared of what Karofsky had told him about his old, jock friends, but he knew his father would be, and after causing him so much grief, after him skipping out on his honeymoon to make sure he was safe, Kurt couldn't bring himself to worry his father anymore. Vowing to keep quiet, maybe even if something did happen, Kurt had went back to his room to continue scribbling notes into his notebook, Karofsky's warning not far from his mind, but not at the top of it either.

But that night, while outside the storm still wailed on, and the rain still hit the windows and roof so forcefully Kurt was afraid they'd shatter and cave in, was the night the first letter was delivered.

Slipped into the mailbox in the shadows of the streetlamps and storm clouds, while everyone was fast asleep, gloved hands – mostly just for effect – slid the white envelope, kept dry as dirt despite the weather outside, into the Hummel-Hudson mailbox, without a return address in the corner. Kurt would be the one to get the mail the next day in early afternoon, and he would find the letter without anything but "KURT" scribbled on the front.

The contents would read "WATCH YOUR BACK, FAGGOT. IT ONLY GETS WORSE FROM HERE." printed boldly in red magic marker, as if to simulate what it would be like if it were written in blood.

Kurt would fold the letter back up discreetly, and put it back in its envelope, shoving it away in his bedside table drawer, so that his family, and Blaine, need not know about it. He would keep it to himself, hoping that it was just a onetime thing, done out anger and ignorance.

What he didn't know, however, was that it was just the beginning.