Online and Anonymous - Part 17

[sunmontue]

Title: Online and Anonymous

Pairing: Kurt Hummel/David Karofsky
Rating: PG18
Word count: ~1,800/85,000 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.

Author’s note: Another chapter which I know many people have been waiting for. This is LONG. And the ending might make you want to hunt me down… I don’t know how many more chapters, but I seem to have a thing for the number 21 with my longer fics, so… maybe?

IMPORTANT: My eternal thanks to caliena for helping out with this. She’s fantastic for putting up with me.

Dave writing

Kurt writing

PART 1   PART 2   PART 3  PART 4   PART 5   PART 6   PART 7   PART 8    PART 9   PART 10   PART 11
PART 12   PART 13  PART 14  PART 15   PART 16

Okay, so he’s left Kurt in the lurch, but yelling at his dad kind of takes precedence right now. He walks through the house, calling out before heading out into the yard, and sure enough his dad can’t hear him over the engine of the mower.

“Dad!”

“David… “ his dad replies, and shuts off the engine. He’s covered in grass clippings already and his hat is drooping over his eyes.

“You’ve been talking to Burt Hummel about me?”

“Ah… maybe? Why?”

“I… why did you need to talk to him?” He scares the shit out of me. I’m in love with his son. I am so so so screwed.

“Well… first I went and apologized. Said I didn’t know where I’d gone wrong…”

He feel a stab of guilt and remorse, knows now how long his dad must have wondered and , fuck, if he’d just had the balls a year ago to tell his dad he wouldn’t have immersed himself online with his friends there to cope with his life. Of course, he wouldn’t have started writing fanfiction and started conversing with FruitLover/Kurt, so maybe it’s for the best, and the friends he has made online are people he now can’t do without.

“Oh. Right.”

“I haven’t told him by the way. Although I think he’s guessed, because Kurt drove past yesterday eight times before I went out and invited him in. And Burt rang and told me he was on his way over.”

“Really? Eight times?”

“Mmm.”

“Oh shit, Kurt!”

“We really need to talk about your language!” His dad calls after him as he runs back inside, and he’s kind of glad to know Kurt didn’t just drive around yesterday and stride up to his front door, because he’d looked so calm and composed, like they haven’t been sharing their deepest secrets and fears with each other for the last few weeks. He gets back to three e-mails saying he has a private message from FruitLover and he refreshes the conversation.

You there?

David?

Hello?

Oh shit. This is why he sucks in real life. He could have talked to his dad later. Idiot.

Sorry. I had to go yell at my dad. You still here?

I’m here. You yelled at him. Why?

Okay, so I didn’t yell exactly. I just freaked out a bit at him. I mean, your dad kind of scares me.

My dad? Why? My dad’s a marshmallow. And he didn’t exactly seem worried when I asked for your address or that I was coming to see you.

Fuck. He knows where I live.

I doubt very much that he’s going to hunt you down. I think they’ve been talking since last year.

I -know- they have. Man, my dad hordes secrets like Imelda Marcos horded shoes.

You know who Imelda Marcos is?

Yes. Let me guess, you want a shoe collection like hers.

I would need the mansion first. But when I’m a big name star? Definitely.

This is kind of weird.

Yeah.

Good weird though.

He grins so wide that his cheeks twinge and can’t help but feel ecstatic. He’s chatting with Kurt Hummel. Rather, Kurt Hummel’s chatting with him, knowingly, and the world isn’t falling down around his ears.

OAA

He thought it would feel odd, chatting to Dave, but it’s the opposite, and he kind of wants to spread the feeling around. They’ve signed off for now, lunch beckoning both of them, and he finds himself grinning at the oddest times. Blaine’s meant to be coming around so they can run through his date last night and decide whether it’s a rinse or repeat type deal, although judging from Blain’s previous rhapsodizing about Luke he’s pretty sure it’s a foregone conclusion.

Of course he now has some fairly big news himself to share, but he’s torn whether to tell Blaine or not. It’s not like they’re together, and Blaine knows about the Valentine’s Day week-long gift showering extravaganza, and like he’d said to his dad about not caring that Blaine hadn’t gotten him anything. The fact that Blaine hadn’t cared that another guy had been paying him attention had been another sign to the both of them that their relationship was sliding back into friendship-land at a furious pace.

But to actively seek out a romantic relationship with David Karofsky? He’s not sure what Blaine’s take would be on that, and he’s curious to know. They’re best friends and Blaine is fairly level headed most of the time. His dad’s complete lack of reaction is reassuring, although he wonders if his dad has any inkling that he might be bringing David home as his boyfriend rather than just a friend. He stops short. Boyfriend. He hadn’t really thought that before, but oh… It opens a whole other realm of possibilities and the idea of actually being able to do those things with David that he’d said originally. He really wants to be the guy he does them with. Just the thought of it has his cheeks warm and he opens his bedroom window, because it’s not cooler outside, but there is at least a slight breeze.

“Kurt! Blaine’s here!”

He hears the thuds of Blaine coming up the stairs and he hopes his cheeks aren’t tell-tale red, although with what he’s about to tell Blaine they’re likely to become even redder. He goes through the routine of listening to Blaine talk about his date, and it sounds nice, dinner and a show, and he realizes, while listening, that h can’t date David. Not openly like Blaine and Luke are dating. David isn’t out. Not fully. Although he knows he intends to be out at college. Not immediately, but eventually, and okay, so maybe he’ll have to eat his words about never dating a guy who isn’t out, because he suspects that for David he will make a few exceptions.

Blaine is talking about caramel, and he’s not sure how the conversation went from being about Luke’s hair (maybe it could be described as caramel colored?) to being about a type of flavoring, and the fact that he instantly thinks about using caramel sauce during sex makes him think that maybe he’s been overdoing reading fanfiction, because it appears that his mind has taken up a sub-let in the gutter. He wonders what things he’s been saying to contribute to the conversation, because Blaine hasn’t noticed anything amiss. He waits for a lull, and he knows it’s a rapid subject change, but he needs to bring it up now before he either chickens out or thinks about it too hard.

“You know how I was telling you about HookedonHope?”

“Yeah. What?”

“Have you read his latest story?”

“Uh… is that the odd kind of one-shot that he wrote for some reader called FruitLover? What kind of name is FruitLover anyway?”

“Mine. What’s yours?” Kurt bites back, because he’s kind of attached to his user name now, although StarFruitLover he could kind of do without.

“What on earth made you choose that? I’m WarblerNumber9.”

“Of course you are…” Kurt mutters, and he’s thankful again that he never knew that, or that his username never made David suspect his identity earlier than yesterday in the bookshop.

“So, he wrote that for you? What does it mean?”

“Well, he’s John and I’m Sherlock… And I know who he is. He figured it out yesterday and wrote that to tell me he’d figured it out…  We saw each other this morning.”

“What! Oh my god! Who is it?”

“David Karofsky.”

Blaine stares at him in what he can only describe as shock. He blinks rapidly and then stares at him some more.

“I… what? Karofsky writes those stories? Karofsky? Really?”

He nods.

“Holy shit Kurt… you mean you had cybersex with him?” Blaine’s eyes bug out of his head, and okay, maybe he shouldn’t have told Blaine, because he’s not using a quiet voice moderated for indoor use and he leans forward and shoves a hand over his mouth.

“God Blaine! Quiet! At least I know his name now!”

He can feel Blaine smile under his hand and he pulls away, slowly, and sure enough Blaine cracks up laughing. Okay, sure, it is kind of funny, but David is so much more than just cybersex.

“You really like him…”

“I…yeah. I do. Do you think that’s weird?”

Blaine shrugs, lays back on his bed and stares up at the ceiling.

“No. I mean… the internet is kind of like a curtain, or a notice board. You can say things with a sense of detachment, but at the same time be really attached, and the reply you get can mean nothing or everything. I take it you’ve gotten to see a side of Karofsky that I haven’t…”

“Yes. Definitely. He’s smart and funny, scared and shy… I would have never known any of this. He puts on this big act for the world, and I’ve gotten to see a behind the scenes tape.”

“Good then. I’m glad.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Why would I mind? I just sat here for twenty minutes and told you about my date with Luke…”

“No, not that bit. That he used to bully me.”

“Do you mind?”

“No.”

“Then no one else’s opinion matters. If you’re over it, and he’s come to terms with his sexuality, and I mean… he’s writing slash fanfiction, I’m pretty sure he’s definitely on the path to acceptance. I think you guys should go for it. If that’s what you both want.”

Then it hits him, because he’d been thinking very selfishly again, and David has made no overtures or indications that he’d like to translate what they had online into something more tangible in the real world. Even before they knew who the other was David didn’t show any desire to meet him in person, and the story… the JohnLock story he’d written to effectively come out and tell him that he knew Kurt’s identity doesn’t have John and Sherlock in a romantic relationship, just as friends, and it hits him. Maybe that’s all David wants.

PART 18