Kurt Hummel's so bright I gotta wear shades

Fic summary: An unlikely friendship forms among Dave, Blaine and Kurt. Or, Dave learns how to love himself, Blaine learns how to accept love, and Kurt learns that love is more complicated — and simpler — than he ever imagined.

Section summary: Flashback. Dave realizes he’s gay and doesn’t come to terms with it.

More notes: There is a reason this isn’t a numbered chapter. It takes a step out of the timeline and back a couple years. It can be read at any point – on its own, before you begin the story, or several chapters in. If you’re reading Fidelity as I post and don’t feel like going into Dave’s brain right now, save it for when you do.

Section warnings: If this chapter didn’t have homophobia, internalized homophobia, slurs, and misgendering, it would be a very inaccurate portrayal of Dave’s journey.
Pairings in this section: Dave/Brittany, massively unrequited Dave/Kurt
Rating: NC-17 overall

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2009
 

What Dave is has been written in his muscles and his heart as long as he can remember; it’s been plastered all over his wet dreams since puberty began. Still, he never let his waking brain clearly picture himself with a guy until he finally hooked up with someone for the first time.

Before that, the images were vague and inexplicit when he jerked off. Sometimes, he thought of the strange, warm feeling of safety he’d have sitting at the foot of Azimio’s bed, flipping through Sports Illustrated and sharing a bowl of popcorn while watching whatever was on ESPN. When he felt more daring, he’d remember details of the casual football scrimmages he played with his friends after school: the grip of another player's hands on his hips as he was being tackled, the heft of torso and pelvis on the back of his thighs, the shock of hitting the turf all tangled up in someone else's body. The best times were when he’d replay and expand upon backyard wrestling matches that he’d lost, pinned down to the ground by the weight of another guy, helpless and immobile, caged between their legs and arms and at the absolute mercy of anything they decided to do to him.