Redemption (Kurt, Kurofsky) - NC-17

Story: Redemption – Part 3b/?: Riding Lessons (part 2)
Fandom: Glee
Author: ibshafer
Rating: PG-13 now
Character/Pairing: Kurt/Karofsky
Disclaimer: I don't own these people, they own themselves and are just nice enough to let me spin them around the page now and then.
Summary: Because everyone deserves a shot at it, even Dave Karofsky
Warnings: none
A/N: The author does not in any way condone bullying or any form of aggression towards homosexuals, or anyone else, for that matter.

“Thank you,” Dave said, which was the way he always greeted Kurt when he arrived at the diner; not ‘good morning’ or ‘hey, how’re you doing?’ or even ‘nice outfit, sweet cheeks,’ but ‘thank you,’ as in, ‘thank you, again, for not hating me though you have every reason to and for meeting me here again, and for just being you.’

Kurt damned his fair skin for once again giving him away; he was blushing like a school girl and Karofsky was taking it as a sign, which he most certainly should not be. No sir.

“Come on, I told you to stop that,” Kurt groused, while Dave’s face colored pink and his expression said that he had clearly, once again, mistaken Kurt’s blushing for something he should not have. “It’s just breakfast. Or rather, it’s my weekly allotment of fat and salt, with nary a mochachino to balance things out in sight.” He sighed, inspecting the table top before laying his soft brown riding gloves down on it. “I agreed to meet with you because I understand what it’s like to have no one else to talk to who gets what you’re going through.” He looked up briefly, met the expectant eyes across from him, then back down at the stained menu that he looked at every week, though he knew he wouldn’t find anything appetizing on it. “And stop looking at me like that.”

“How am I looking at you, Hummel?” Karofsky growled, a hint of Kurt’s former tormentor at the edges of his voice, but then his face colored, eyes softening. “Sorry, sorry, I know,” he said quietly. “I’m still getting used to this.”

“Used to what,” Kurt asked before he could stop himself.

He knew where this was going and he didn’t want to go there, wasn’t ready to go there. He was pretty sure this wasn’t the There he wanted to go.

Why not? said that annoying little voice in his head that always chimed in when he needed stupid questions asked.

Karofsky looked embarrassed as he went on, leaning forward, his voice so low only Kurt could have heard it. “I’m still getting used to being able to look at you without having to hit you or say something mean to cover it up.”

And Kurt was blushing full on because though he thought he could read Dave Karofsky’s every thought, and deflect and counter or at least, for Liza’s sake, turn away, that one had taken him by surprise.  

Taking a deep breath, he counted to five, willing the blood in his cheeks to find some where better to be.

“Well, you should know better than to do that here,” he said under his breath, surveying the diner’s patrons, a motley collection of truck drivers and dairy farmers. “Just because we’re far enough outside of Lima that we won’t see anyone we know, doesn’t mean this place is safe.”

“Then why do we meet here every week?”

It was a simple enough question and the response, sitting like vinegar on his tongue, was almost out of his mouth before he stopped it.

Because it’s a public place and if you tried anything, tried to hurt me, I know these guys here would protect me.

That was the reason he’d chosen the diner in Cridersville more than a month ago when he’d first contacted Karofsky.

He’d agreed to give the guy a chance to explain himself.

That didn’t mean he trusted him.

But that was a month ago.

Was he still scared of Dave Karofsky?

Looking over at that chubby face and bemused smile, it was hard to remember that this was the same guy who had tormented him and threatened his life, who had made his life at McKinley a living hell.

Away from that place, outside of his life, face-to-face with Kurt, Dave Karofsky had been liberated; freed to talk, talk he did.

Karofsky said done all of those things because he’d realized something about himself that he just couldn’t accept – it scared him, challenged his view of himself, and ran counter to everything he knew. And in the middle of that, as he struggled with it, fought with it, tried to hide it from others, in waltzed – literally – out-and-proud, Kurt Hummel, rubbing his face in it, reminding him with every expression, every outfit, that he, Dave Karofsky, was not going to have the life he’d been expecting, that he was not going to carry on the family name, that more than that, he was going to be picked on and beaten up and treated like a freak and…

The first time Dave Karofsky had cried it had broken Kurt’s heart and as much as he wanted to stop him, to stop it, he knew his former tormentor needed to get it out, needed to let it go, and so he’d talked him through it, encouraged him to say it, all the while curbing his natural tendency to be blunt, to tell him what he really needed to do. Screw the hockey team and screw your family duty. You have to do what’s right for you. Listening to the big guy talk like that, so vulnerable, so open, so grateful to Kurt for letting him do it, he had to fight the urge to touch him, had to stop himself from smiling too much, because Kurt was getting something out of these talks, too. Even though he was Out and Burt was great about it, even his step-brother was great about it now, it was still validating to talk with someone else who understood.

And so they talked, Dave poured out his heart, Kurt listened, sometimes pouring out a little himself. And though there was one thing in particular that they didn’t talk about – a shouted confession in a darkened parking lot – sometimes they even talked about other things, like school or movies or the things they liked to do.

The truth was it had stopped being a therapy session a long time ago.

And so now instead of stammering something stupid, about the diner’s ambience or about it being out of the way, which was true, Kurt just smiled, blushing full-on.

“Force of habit, I guess. Why don’t we pick someplace else for next week?” Karofsky’s big face broke into a grin now. Trying to sound nonchalant, Kurt continued. “And can we make it a little later, like dinner, maybe? Getting up this early on a Saturday should be against the law…”

~*~*~*~

So maybe he could be forgiven, a few minutes later, for not pulling away when Karofsky grabbed Kurt’s riding glove-clad hand and pulled him behind that big delivery truck next to the diner. And for not giving him a hard time when Dave’s usual joking half-kiss lasted longer than a second.

And when he’d let Dave slide his hands into Kurt’s hair, holding him close and kissing him slowly and completely and in a way that made his knees more than a little weak, he could definitely be forgiven for that.