19: [Action] American Pie

[dashboardlite]

[ooc; Just for Dean and Dickface Karofsky, guys. c: ]

"A long, long time ago...'nd I can still remember, when that music used to make me smile..."

Dean is usually singing, or humming, something from his "headbanger repertoire", as Sam so aptly tends to put it.  Metallica isn't on his mind today, though - most of the mullet-rock isn't, as a matter of fact.  He's feeling rather Don McLean, and that tends to happen when Dean's hungry, just as a general rule.

Meandering down to the kitchen in search of the ever-elusive perfect slice of pie, he sidles into the empty room on a mission from God, Hellbent - Well, isn't that ironic? - to procure some quality comestibles to keep his stomach from digesting itself.  Deftly sliding open a drawer and whipping out a fork, he scrutinizes the majestically magical food-cabinet carefully, considering his options.  He usually gets apple.

Time to be adventurous.

Thinking really hard about a steamin' hot slice of peach pie, he's pleased to find as much when he opens the little door, and Dean leans up against the counter in the far corner of the kitchen, digging in.

Comments

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

As a rule, Dave avoids leaving his room. He has no desire to interact with any of the numerous assholes populating this freakshow of a mansion. All he wants to do is go home, which is pretty freaking weird considering how much he hated the place while he was there. But at least it was familiar. At least he knew who he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to be doing. This place? The few people he knows are his worst enemies, and there are more of them every week. And Hummel--

Hummel--

Fuck Hummel. Whatever. Dave's going to get a goddamn cheeseburger.

Except Dean Winchester is in the kitchen.

Maybe Dave can escape before he notices him.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

He's halfway through his pie when a familiar, lumbering figure manages to make its way into the kitchen. Dean stops eating abruptly, brow furrowing. Karofsky looks shifty. Nervous. What, is he afraid? Karma's a bitch; it's time to grow the Hell up. Perhaps it's mostly hilarious how the kid thinks he's being inconspicuous.

While Dean would like to give him props on his culinary selection, he can still remember the bitter, hateful sonuvabitch who was railing on Kurt in his first transmission. Even with the falling-out that (Dean thinks) has been forgiven by now, he still feels a twinge of brotherly instinct.

"'Sup, Dorothy."

He sets the plate and fork on the counter, folding his arms across his chest and looking very, very amused.

"Lose the Yellow-Brick Road, didja?"

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

What Dave intends to do is raise his hands, mumble I don't have a problem with you, man and back the hell out of the room before the guy goes crazy on him.

What he actually does is narrow his eyes, clench his fist, and say, "Excuse me?"

He might have a problem with his brain not working fast enough. But Dave's also pretty sure that Dean is making fucking fag jokes, and that shit just can't stand.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Oh, you've got to be kidding. The poster-boy for eating your Wheaties is really going to push his luck today.

"Did I friggin' stutter?"

Dean raises an eyebrow. Normally it's beneath him to pick fights with teenagers...though picking fights at all should be off his To-Do List. Dean's willing to make an exception this once. He's been chased by fucking Hellhounds, turned into a Christmas-drunk groper, and had the flesh flayed from his bones by the goddamn Operator. So maybe it's about time he let off a little steam.

"Don't think too hard, champ - You might strain a muscle."

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

Dave takes a step closer, fist still tightly clenched. Maybe he has a death wish. That would explain a lot.

Or maybe he wants people thinking that shit about him even less than he wants to have his legs broken and his skull bashed in.

"You calling me a fag?"

OH GOD ALL MY EDITS I'm sorryyyyy.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Dean also takes a step, for equal measure, drawing himself up to six feet and three inches. He lifts his chin in a challenge, smile still hovering on his lips.

"I could think of a lotta things to call you, Daphne, but fag ain't one of 'em. Why, you scared the word's contagious?"

If the spite from before hadn't been enough of a tip-off, this right here is the coup de grace. Karofsky isn't helping himself. He must be so far in the closet he can't see the light, if he's that opposed to any references. But the raised fist? Oh, that's cute.

Go ahead.

Make his day, punk.

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

Dave is no longer entirely sure whether or not Dean thinks he's gay, and he just stands there for a second, fist hovering in midair. It'd be nice to think he didn't just pick a fight with some kind of jacked up monster hunter dude for no reason, but it'd also be nice if no one thought he was into guys.

And that's about all the thinking there's time for.

"My name's David, douchebag."

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, David is jonesin' for an ass-kicking, and Dean is more than happy to oblige. He continues sporting the easy, carefree smile until he hears it. Douchebag. No one calls Dean Winchester a douchebag, especially not uppity little sonsabitches paddling along the Egyptian river. He pushes himself away from the counter lithely, cracking his knuckles, expression hard.

"Is it?"

Dean growls, all traces of joking completely gone. "'Cause I was pretty sure your name was 'Asshole'."

Or 'Denial'. His mind helpfully supplies.

"You lift your fist at anyone who stands up to you, or just the ones too weak to fight back?"

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

To be perfectly honest, Dave doesn't do a lot of actual asskicking. Oh, he has, sure, but most days a threat is more than enough to send McKinley's loser population scurrying right back into the holes they crawled out of. Dave likes it that way. It's safe. No challenges to his position in the school hierarchy.

Now, don't get him wrong. It's hella satisfying to clock someone in the face. It's just that you never really know when those skinny little nothings might get lucky or might turn out to be hiding something. 'Cause when Kurt Hummel can turn out to be the best placekicker in McKinley history, pretty much anything is possible.

Dave's really glad that Hummel never got it in his head to try to kick him in the balls.

Yeah. So Dave's not really in to getting into actual scuffles, at least not outside of hockey. But it's not like Dean's making it out to be, okay? It's not because he's scared. There's just no point taking the risk when you don't have to. It's totally smart and logical, unlike what he's doing right now. "You saying you're too weak to fight back?"

Dave really, really wishes.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Dean's been called a "loose cannon" before. He's been called a lot of things, and most of them don't bother him - and most of them are true, to some extent. Seeing as they're true, he doesn't bother to hide just how accurately these things describe him.

Being a particularly volatile person, Dean finds it difficult to refuse the challenge of a fight, no matter the circumstances. Generally a hot-headed individual, he curbs his temper on the rare off-day.

Today is not a rare "off-day".

"Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?" Dean growls, taking another step. "Y'know, I've seen a lotta kids like you. Cocky little sonsabitches who got somethin' to hide. Spend all their damn time givin' shit to the people they think are different."

People like me.
And Sammy.
And Kurt.

Dean snorts, "You think you're all that and a bag of goddamn chips 'cause you play football, 'cause you're big and tough? Y'know they got a sayin' where I'm from? Don't bullshit a bullshitter." He steps in, wrapping a hand around one half of the kid's letter-jacket and tightening it in his fist.

"So go ahead," He barks. "Take a hit, hotshot. Unless you're scared."

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

Dave is scared, all right. Scratch that; he's terrified. It's just that the terror over his 'somethin' to hide' outweighs the terror over being beaten to pulp. He plays hockey, for God's sake. He's acquainted with pain. What he's not acquainted with is people talking all casual about how he's a fag. Because he's not.

Dean doesn't seem to get that, though. Dean seems to think he knows shit, and Dave doesn't even know why. That's probably the scariest fucking part of it. He doesn't know how what he did to come off that way. Who else is gonna start in on him?

There's no way he's going to win this fight. Even as Dave rears back, fist clenched, he knows that. But he has to try. He can't have people talking about him like that. He can't have them even thinking it.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

To be honest, Dean doesn't really know what Karofsky's problem is. Whether or not the kid is secretly a fairy doesn't really bother him. People being gay doesn't bother him, either, because in all fairness - it doesn't really matter, and the Bible's full of shit anyway. Even Castiel seems to imply that much, just by the way he talks about his superiors.

God probably doesn't care, if He really exists.

Taking the opportunity to beat some sense into someone who's clearly got it out for someone else just because of the way they are...this is Dean's idea of a party. He's in his comfort-zone: the place where the only way you can do wrong is to walk out of the fight under the pretense of being 'the bigger person'. Dean's never liked that idea.

So when Karofsky's fist pulls back, Dean punches first, clocking him in the jaw and not pulling an ounce of the power he puts behind it.

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

Okay, well, all that threatening shit was definitely not an act. Dean knows how to punch. Dean probably knows how to rip people from limb to limb.

Dave grunts -- which, if you really have to make pained noises, is at least the manliest in the arsenal -- and clutches at his jaw with one hand. The other is still curled into a fist, and he swings it at Dean without much hope of actually connecting.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Damn, that feels good. He boxes the kid's ear for good measure before leaning back as Karofsky's fist sails around in an attempt to connect with his nose.

Dean likes his nose. It's slightly crooked, courtesy of having been broken and reset a couple of times before, but he doesn't want it hit again. Leaning back, he catches the kid's fist in his own hand, wrenching it back not far enough to break, but enough to really hurt.

Pivoting, Dean slams Dave against the nearest wall and clenches the jacket in his left hand tighter, twisting it in a silent threat of Don't you fucking move.

This is probably too close to home. It's too personal. Kurt is like a little brother, and Dean had never gotten the chance to beat up Sam's bullies in high school - they always moved on too quickly, skipped town to another Midwestern-style Pleasantville.

"What the Hell is your problem?" Dean snarls, jerking him forcefully. "What the Hell gives you the right to mess with someone like Kurt? I heard about some of the shit you do, Karofsky, so don't pull an excuse outta your ass."

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

Between the fear and the pain, it's kind of hard to think. Still, Dave's not going to give in. He's not going to be anyone's bitch. Dean can beat him unconscious before that'll ever happen, because all Dave has, all he's ever really had, is the idea of the guy he wants to be. Tough. Untouchable. "Fuck you," he spits out. "Fuck you! Little fag's got it coming to him and he always has!"

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

That idea that Dave has? Yeah, it might be what Dean stands for. Invulnerability. Being dangerous. Strong. Feared.

It comes with a price, though.

Emptiness.

Dean feels something in him snap at Karofsky's words, and by God he is close to breaking this kid's neck. He controls himself enough to manage a sickening punch in between each word, punctuating what he's trying to get into Dave's skull. "You stupid-"

CRACK

"-stunted-"

CRUNCH

"-selfish little sonuvabitch!"

He holds his punch on the last mark, sneering at the blood on his knuckles and grinding the hand in Karofsky's jacket into the kid's collarbone. Teeth bared, absolutely livid - Dean can't remember the last time he was this pissed - he growls in the teenager's face.

"What the fuck are you afraid of, huh?" Dean grips the other side of Dave's collar and hefts the kid upright, shoving him into the wall again. "What the fuck did he ever do to you?"

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

Dave's arms flail in a useless attempt to hit something, but Dean is too strong and too fast, too experienced. Nothing like the students at McKinley and exactly like Dave expected.

There isn't a part of him that doesn't hurt. He can't even use the pain as a distraction to focus on something that isn't Hummel, because Dean won't shut up about him. "It's his fault! He won't leave me alone! He won't stop!"

It's not particularly coherent, but Dave's brain is fuzzy with pain and Cheerios uniforms and bowties and glittery ten inch heels and he wants nothing other than for all of it to just go away. That's pretty much all he's ever wanted.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"It's his fault! He won't leave me alone! He won't stop!"

Dean stares, fingers still tight, jaw still clenched. Every nerve in his body is crackling with the need to just knock the kid out and have done with it, but the sheer desperation in Karofsky's voice...even Dean can recognize that. He shakes his head slowly, tongue-in-cheek, still frowning. "Kid, you are nine kinds of fucked-up. You-"

Dean considers his words, taking a deep breath and huffing. Kurt is the reason, is he? For Karofsky's "confusion"? It sounds like he's up shit creek without a paddle, floundering in deep water and freaking out about contact he can't understand.

Dean tries to ignore the fact that he's been feeling similarly about someone else in his life.

But Dean can relate. His voice is low, dangerous, and very clearly a warning: "...you listen to me, you arrogant little dick. I know - I know what you're dealing with, and- shut the fuck up, don't say a word 'til I'm done - I know exactly what you're dealing with, and I know how it feels, and it fucking sucks. Yeah. Life is pain, get over it. I'm the goddamn poster-boy for bad choices, so don't even begin to think that your life is Hell. You don't know what Hell is like. But if you keep bein' a friggin' smartass...if you keep playing tough...it ain't worth it, Karofsky. You're gonna end up with nothing."

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

Dave wants to ask what exactly Dean thinks he has now, in this place that he can't escape from, this place where the guy who made fun of him in fifth grade is the closest thing he has to a friend. And even at McKinley, yeah, he was a jock and he had friends, but all of it was based on--

Not a lie. Not a lie.

Dave had plenty, goddammit, and as soon as he escapes from this place he's going to have it again.

"Shut up!" Dave tries and fails to wrench himself free, but that doesn't stop the frantic stream of words pouring out of his mouth. "Shut the hell up! You don't know anything! Just do whatever you're going to do and get out of my face!"

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

The flailing Dean could do without. He jerks Karofsky again, if only to shut him the Hell up, because now the kid is panicking and getting this irritating whine at the back of his throat.

Dean wants to scream at him.

He wants to tell him that there are far worse things out there than coming to grips with yourself.

But Dean distantly recalls that David Karofsky is still in high school, and subject to the constant presence of peer pressure, and stupidity, and bigotry, and that he'd just sound like a broken record no matter what he said.

"Don't lie," He snarls, giving the kid one last shove against the wall before stepping back and appraising his knuckles. Dean casts another look at Karofsky, lips twisted in a frown. He's still blocking the exit; there's no way Dean's letting him leave so quickly. "You are so full of crap, man. What the Hell are you gonna do with yourself? 'Cause if you got plans to live the apple-pie life, you better grow the fuck up, first."

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

"You don't know anything!" Dave repeats, beyond desperate now. His voice is cracking; he sounds like a girl. He sounds like Hummel.

He wishes Dean would just knock him out, because that would sure as hell be better than this.

It doesn't even matter what he thinks -- what Hummel makes him think -- when he's got his hand on his dick. He lives in fucking Wonderland. People spy on him in his mirror. Sometimes they're in outer space, and sometimes people turn into dolls. Nothing about Dave's life is ever going to be apple pie, but it's not his fault. If he could go home again, back to his nice, safe high school halls free of Kurt Hummel and psychotic queens and monster hunters, he could be normal. He could have the life he wants to have, the life he needs to have. He knows it.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Dean wants to explain, in great detail, every facet of his life to David Karofsky: To tell the kid about malevolent ghosts, about demons that wear your body like a meatsuit, about werewolves tearing open people's chests and eating the hearts. About Hell. About how everything that goes bump in the night is real.

Dean knows a helluva lot of things. The question is whether or not Karofsky really wants to hear it.

"You're pathetic, dude," Dean spits, rolling his shoulders. It's been a while since he last broke someone's nose. He's hoping the kid'll have a couple of real nice bruises tomorrow. "You still got a chance of fixing what you broke."

I don't.

"Don't screw it up," He warns testily. "I know where to find you, and I got the Wrath of God on my side. Capisce?"

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

Dean sounds more than a little crazy, in Dave's opinion, which is a pretty bad combination with the way he can fight. He seems like someone who has maybe killed people.

Maybe. Who is he kidding? This dude has definitely killed people.

"Fuck you," he says again, but whatever small amount of menace he may have once had is completely gone now. "I didn't do anything to you. I don't want anything to do with you." But it's not about Dean, of course. It's about Hummel. Of course it is. Everything is always about Hummel. "Just leave me alone. Both of you. Leave me alone!"

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"You're damn straight you don't want anything to do with me," Dean grinds back out through grit teeth, crouching in front of the slumped, cowering student. Elbows propped on his knees, he considers Karofsky carefully. Bullies respond to gratuitous shows of bravado, of fear-mongering. Karofsky isn't mistaken - Dean's killed plenty. Not necessarily people, but he's still killed.

"I'm gonna leave you alone, but you gotta do me a favor first."

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

"Why the fuck would I do anything for you?"

The answer to that is pretty blindingly obvious. Even Dave knows that. Do a favor for Dean and maybe this little incident won't be repeated. But Dave knew what he was getting into when he first swung his fist, and his feelings haven't changed. He's still not going to be anyone's bitch. Dean can just keep beating the shit out of him. It's better than looking weak. It's better than letting people think he's a coward or a fag.

And if Dean manages to kill him, well, it's not like Dave has a hell of a lot to lose.

1/2

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Dean actually laughs, rubbing the back of his neck, "I ain't gonna lie, Chuckles, I was sorta hopin' you'd say that."

2/2

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

He fixes the other with a stare, smile filtering off of his face slowly. "You're gonna do me a favor, Karofsky, because you don't know what I'm capable of. Your face might disagree, but we know better, right?" Dean offers a wry smirk before continuing.

"Once upon a time," Dean began, "There was a kid named Dean Winchester from a world just like yours - Hell, it might even be yours. Everything was sunshine and unicorns until he learned that demons exist. You're a God-fearing little sonuvabitch, aren'tcha? You've heard the Scripture. Demons, and monsters, and ghosts - and this ain't The X-Files. This is real." Dean's expression flattens a little, but he barrels on.

"Dean and his little brother traveled across the U.S. with their ex-Marine dad, looking for the thing that gutted their mother, plastered her to the ceiling, and set her on fire."

This isn't easy to talk about. And if David thinks he's crazy, so be it, but at least he'll know what kind of madman he's dealing with.

"I wasn't shootin' the shit with you when I said I hunted things, Karofsky," Idly, as he talks, Dean pulls the Desert Eagle out of the back of his jeans, checking the bullet cartridge like it's nothing before replacing the firearm.

"I still hunt things, and I'm the best there is. So you're gonna do me a fucking favor, shut your cakehole, and shape the Hell up before I go Rambo on your lily-white, pansy-ass and show you what a real horror movie is like."

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

Demons and monsters and ghosts. Dave would have laughed at him once, but now he's in Wonderland, and what the hell isn't possible? Sure. The monster hunter hunts literal monsters. Which somehow isn't nearly as scary as goddamn handgun he pulls out of nowhere.

Dean Winchester is going to kill him.

Oh, not right now. Right now he's being nice, or his version of it. He's giving Dave a chance to make things right. But Dave knows, with the same sort of hopeless dread he gets when he thinks too hard about Hummel, that he will never make things right. Dean wants him to leave Hummel alone, and Dave won't. He can't.

He probably ought to be feeling more panic over the realization that the guy he's talking to is going to end up spraying his brains all over the wall. But when it comes right down to it, Dave has always been fucked. When it comes right down to it, this changes nothing.

The certainty of what will happen to him is almost a relief. It's a way out. It's a way to make everything finally stop.

"Okay," he says, because he has to say something.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

"Nah, see...I don't believe you."

Dean states conversationally, clasping his hands together and shaking his head with a wry smile. "You don't exactly have a good track record so far, buddy, and I'm a little disinclined to believe anything that comes outta your thick skull. So here's what I'm gonna do, since you don't appear to respond to anything but threats."

He stands, wiping his hands off on his jeans and finding himself strangely comforted by the presence of of blood on denim. He really needs to start hunting again, if this is the sort of thing that grounds him. Letting loose on every dumb teenager isn't going to quell the urge to do his job.

"I'm gonna keep an eye on you. Y'know you get five deaths here before you disappear, right? You keep this shit up, one of those is gonna belong to me. And the next time I hear somethin' bad, you and me'll have long talk about what the fuck your problem really is. Don't think you can hide it from me, kid, 'cause I'll find out sooner or later."

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

And all that newfound peace immediately dissipates. "Five deaths? What do you mean, five deaths?" That's--

Not really any more impossible than anything else that happens here.

But what's the use of death if it doesn't make anything stop? If it's just like being knocked out, only with more pain and blood and gore? How does that even count?

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

He notices the shock on Karofsky's face and breaks out into laughter, throwing his head back. "You're serious? No one filled you in on that shit? Sonuvabitch." Dean's chuckles fade out a little, and he shakes his head at the kid.

"You ever play video games? S'like having five lives. You re-spawn every time, but it takes a whole day. And lemme tell you, dyin' ain't fun. Hell, I've lost one life already."

Go on. Ask what it was for.

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

Dave doesn't ask. He doesn't do anything but stare at Dean, horrified and miserable and afraid. He's going to get shot. He's going to die, and then he's going to come right back to keep taking more, and none of it will ever fucking end.

He and Azimio thought they were badasses once. The memory feels like it belongs to someone else's life.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Dean stares back.

"...what, you think I'm gonna shoot you?" Dean huffs a sigh, running a hand through his cropped hair. He wets his lips for a moment, taking another deep breath and lowering the volume of his voice.

He's not really planning on keeping tabs on Karofsky. He's not really planning on shooting the kid, though he probably deserves it.

Dean's killed enough of humanity already, and some things deserve a second chance, assholes or not.

"You were tough shit back home, I get it. It ain't so easy in the real world, is it?"

If this is anything close to the real world.

He can tell that the kid tends to withdraw into his little, fragile shell when he gets scared, and this is no exception. Dean isn't normally aware of how terrifying he can get unless he's really pissed, but he guesses that clocking Karofsky a few times probably helped with that.

"I'm not gonna shoot you. I'm going to Hell already, and I don't want your ass on my conscience. Man up and stop being such a dick. You're in the gutter, kid. The way I see it, the only place you got left to go is up."

If only Dean could make himself believe that.

[pieceofthefury.livejournal.com]

Man up. That still stings, somehow, even through the haze of Dave's pain and misery. One last thing he's failed at: not being a little bitch. No wonder Dean saw right through him. Everyone will. Dave Karofsky -- fag.

"Okay," he says again. There's no intent behind the word, no meaning at all, but again, he has to say something.

[dashboardlite.livejournal.com]

Dave doesn't believe him.

Dave doesn't appear to believe anything, though, so that doesn't particularly surprise Dean. The hunter leans back on the kitchen table and surveys his handiwork: Busted lip, reddened ear, black eye. The blood is starting to pool under Dave's skin, and Dean knows that shiner's gonna last at least a few weeks.

That oughta knock him off his high horse.

"...I'll see you around, Dave," Dean finally replies gruffly after a few beats, using the kid's real name for the first time. He pushes away from the table, turns, and walks - calmly - out of the kitchen, without looking back.

And whistles the riff to "Only the Good Die Young".