Online and Anonymous - Part 3

[sunmontue]

Title: Online and Anonymous

Pairing: Kurt Hummel/David Karofsky
Rating: PG13
Word count: ~1,700/>75,000 words
Warnings: None. 
Summary: By day Dave is a quiet attentive school student, but by night he's a smut-writing fanfic-writer who ships Johnlock. Kurt's never heard of fanfiction before Blaine tells him about it but he's about to be exposed to a whole new world.

PART ONE   PART TWO


His mom hates it when he reads his phone at the table, and his step-father is snapping his newspaper in annoyance. If the conversation or atmosphere were a bit more friendly he wouldn’t mind taking part, but the silence is frosty, and he doesn’t really like the days he has to spend with his mom, and he supposes he’s old enough now that he could just spend all his time at his dad’s, but he’s pretty sure his mom would get all hurt and cry at him. He waits for update, muffling the vibration against his leg so that the sound doesn’t bother Eric more than necessary.

He would check his e-mails on his laptop, but he’s learnt that turning that on in the morning always makes him late, and it’s best if he just leave it until he has a moment at school to plug it in. He feels the minute vibration and he holds it up so he can read while he shovels cereal into his mouth and almost chokes. 53 new e-mails. Holy shit. He normally gets about twenty new e-mails when he posts a new chapter, but that was 24 hours ago. 53? Crazy. He scans quickly, and then realizes that 42 of them are alert from the same person. Someone who has apparently marked all his stories as a favorite, as well as him, and put an alert on everything incomplete and author alert as well. It’s a bit of an overkill, but he still thrills a bit at it.

It puts him in a good mood for the rest of the morning and even his mother’s worried glance doesn’t get him down like it usually does. He heads to school and he has a free period for fourth, and he knows he’ll use it to reply to his reviews and maybe finish up the next chapter. He has two logins for his computer. It had taken a while, but after some research he’d managed to create his account, and what he considers his dummy account. His dummy account has nothing incriminating on it and is the default log in when his computer turns on. His other account has more interesting things on it. Like research.

He settles in at a corner table, moving it slightly so the wall is behind him. He’s not risking people seeing what he’s writing.. He answers the reviews quickly, efficiently, some with a single word, and others more drawn out. He’s got friends online, crazy bunch that they all seem to be. He’s tempted to message Fruitlover, and what the hell is that for a name anyway? The profile is completely blank, like his own, and his stories are the only ones listed there under favorites.  It’s most likely some teenage girl. Or worse, someone like his mom, which is a whole other level of terrifying. Although judging from the friends he’s made online, if his mom was even as half as amazing and accepting he wouldn’t feel the need to tiptoe around and lie about what he’s doing with his time.

He gets out his phone and sets an alarm for the end of the period and put his headphones on. It helps to block out the noise and also stops people coming up and interrupting him. He types fast, he knows what’s got to happen, and fortunately it isn’t a sex scene, because he’s learnt that he needs to write those in private. His chapter starts out as scattered paragraphs that he slowly pieces together, discarding some, moving others, until he’s happy with the flow. He normally posts three chapters a week, on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. Last night had been a no-go because of the church dinner he’d gone to. He’d skipped out on church in the morning, and his mom’s eyes had been so pleading he couldn’t say no. So now he just has the finishing touches, adds an apology for it being a bit late, does a quick read through, checking for errors and then uploads it.

OAA

Kurt doesn’t think he’s obsessive about his phone, but he has it in his pocket, turned to silent, despite the request at the start of each class. One of the few times he’d had it turned off his dad had had a heart attack, so what if he’s a little paranoid now. He feels the little buzz, just once, and he knows it’s a new e-mail. He’s got a longer sequence of buzzes for a text, and a continuous one for a call. He waits for the teacher to turn their back and pulls it out.

New chapter – Chapter 11 of story, 24 hour protection, by HookedonHope.

Oh god. It’s the one with John being the bodyguard. He wants to read it immediately and he glances around the class. It’s English, the teacher has just instructed them to read pages 120-140 and he takes it as a sign. He manages to slip his phone onto his desk, tilt the book he’s meant to be reading on two of his other books and voila! He bows his head, one hand on the book to turn the page occasionally and also ready to slip it down to cover his phone if necessary. He reads fast. Too fast to really enjoy it, but he’s dying to know if the sexual tension that’s been mounting between them is going to come to anything and then he hopes like hell it doesn’t, because getting a hard-on in the middle of English Literature would be humiliating. There isn’t anything more than snappy conversation and inner-monologuing and god, it’s going to be good when they finally get down to it and he feels a little shocked that he even just had that thought.

 At lunch he can’t meet Blaine’s eyes, knows he’s probably blushing given their last conversation and his Facebook status which he changed to Busy reading, thanks for the recommendation Blaine, and Blaine knows him too well, sitting beside him and chuckling quietly.

“So, you enjoy the rest of your weekend?” Blaine asks, and he sucks at pretending innocence and Kurt pokes him in the arm.

“It was… enlightening. And educational. And… God Blaine, it’s… “

“Pretty freaking fantastic?”

“Yeah. Pretty much.” He can feel the heat in his cheeks and Blaine is snickering under his breath, and he can’t believe he’s talking about this with him. Not in detail of course, but still… they’ve never really talked about it, just done. Which is probably where he’s gone wrong, considering the effect the written word apparently has on him.

“What are you guys talking about?” Mercedes asks.

“Nothing!” He and Blaine respond automatically and she raises her eyebrows and gives them a look, as if she doesn’t believe it.

“You guys look… guilty. You slip up or something in the weekend?”

“No!” Kurt replies, unable to believe she’s asking about his sex life in the cafeteria at lunch.

“We were just discussing our recent love of romance novels. There’s been an increase in the publication of gay-romances,” Blaine says, and Kurt looks at him gratefully.

“Well, Kurt’s always liked romance…” Mercedes says, although she still looks skeptical.

“Oh yes, Kurt definitely likes romance,” Blaine states, and the inflection he puts on the last word makes Kurt want to bang his head onto the table.

He rereads it later in his study period and enjoys it even more, now that the fear of the teacher  spying him is removed. He gets to the end and the Review this Chapter mocks him. He has no idea what to say, too embarrassed really, but… he taps it anyway and types out something.

This was a brilliant chapter. The tension you are creating between John and Sherlock is intense. I can’t wait to read more. Does it bother you that some people might use your writing for illicit purposes?

He stares at the last sentence, wondering if he should delete it. Wondering if the writer will know that he falls into the whole ‘some people’ category. Screw it. He sends it. It’s not like he knows the person, or they know him. And despite Blaine informing him that the author is probably female, he has to admire the descriptive nature of the writing. And the creative plotlines of course. He’s not really paying attention to the book he’s trying to read, the part he was meant to read earlier in English Lit, and he startles when his phone vibrates again with a new e-mail.

Thanks for the review, and unless you’re a guy I’m really not interested in hearing details of what use you put my fic to. ;)

They know! He glances around the library, trying to swallow his nerves. Oh god. He didn’t expect a response. Except he has one now, and the guy… it’s a guy? Or is it a girl wanting to know about a guy jerking off to their fic? He feels a little panicky and takes a deep breath. He’s anonymous. It doesn’t matter. He’s out and proud. He can be out and proud online as well. He swallows again, gathers up every flirty little bit he has in him and types back his answer.

I am a guy. But I don’t share those details with just anyone. You’re welcome for the review, I’d write more but I’m not as good with words as you are. ;)

PART FOUR