Freshman Year (2010)

Like most of the last four months, Dave wasn't drunk—he was obliterated. And, like most of the parties over the last four months, he'd been subjected to an ungodly amount of Jason Derulo, Pitbull, and David Guetta. If he had to hear some dude say his own name five times in one song for one more second, he was gonna—

Well, he'd already done four shots about it, so he didn't actually care that much when Who's That Chick? started pounding out of the sound system. He glanced around the room as he leaned over to chuck the bottle over towards the trash can, missing by three feet since he could barely stay on his own.

Hey, who was that chick?

Dave half-stumbled his way towards the kitchen where he'd watched the girl wearing the black scrunchy dress disappear. She was leaning against the counter on her phone by the time he made his way past a couple of the guys from the team to catch up with her.

"Hey," he half slurred, elbows landing heavily on the counter as he sidled in close.

"Hey," she said, dismissively. It took her a couple of seconds to bother looking up from her phone. "Oh hey, you're the new guy on the team, huh?"

"Uh huh," Dave agreed. "Karof—Karofshky. Number sixty-nine, baby!" he laughed, holding his hand up for a high five like he would have if she'd been one of the guys from the team.

"Very mature," the girl said, rolling her eyes as she left him hanging, but she still smirked a little as if to say, oh well, boys will be boys. "I'm Shae. You killed it at the last home game."

"Fuckin'... yeah, fuckin' right I did," he agreed, a little too loudly. He grinned proudly. Maybe he was fresh meat, but he was fresh meat who was saving OSU's hockey team—and that was carrying him a lot. "Hey, you wanna make out?"

Shae laughed, shaking her head a little. "Ballsy. Sorry, I don't make out with freshmen."

"Not even the super hot new power forward?" Dave joked. The room tilted a little, but even he was impressed that he'd managed to get all the words out in the right order without it sounding like mush.

"I don't know about hot," she teased.

"Daaamn, ouch!"

"But very adorable," she assured. "And very drunk. Please don't puke on me, I just bought this dress."

"Don'worry, I never puke," Dave said, waving it off with a heavy hand.

"Yeah, that's what they all say." Shae smirked, then glanced past Dave towards the living room when she heard people starting the countdown. A couple of people jumped the gun with their noisemakers, the sound shrill and annoying. She leaned over when they made it to 'one' and gave Dave a small kiss on the corner of his mouth.

"Wassat for?" Dave asked, looking pleased.

"It's New Year's, dummy," Shae laughed. "I'll see you around, new guy. You better win us the next game."

---

Sophomore Year (2011)

"So anyway, and then she was saying like— Davey, are you listening to me?"

"Uh huh," Dave said, but he didn't look up from his phone.

"Ohmigod, you better be. This is the good part. So then Aimee was saying like, 'uh, she wasn't even there that day'..."

"Yeah," Dave said, not really hearing her. He wasn't even doing anything on his phone; he just... didn't want to look up and see them again. He'd just been sitting there for the last five minutes staring at the highlight reel from their last game, the video paused on the Cooke slamming McMillen into the boards, because scrolling Facebook had gotten boring after like thirty seconds once he realized that basically everyone he knew was literally there at the house.

He sank further down into the couch and drained the rest of his beer.

It was Cooke's fault, Dave decided. It was Cooke's girlfriend who'd brought her friends to the party, after all. And if he hadn't brought her, she wouldn't have brought them, and if they hadn't come—

"David Karofsky!" Codie snapped, slapping his arm. "You so aren't even listening!"

Dave's head jerked up and, before he could look over at her, he was stuck looking at them again. He didn't remember their fucking names, but Jennifer's homo butt buddies hadn't wanted to wait for midnight. They'd been ramming their tongues down each other's throats for the last half hour.

"Sorry," he muttered, tearing his eyes away and looking down at Codie. "Fuckin' drunk. What'd you say?"

Codie just looked at him for a second, and it made Dave feel kind of like when his mom knew he was lying about something and was just waiting for him to mess up and catch himself in it. But then Codie rolled her eyes and waved it off.

"I said—"

A loud countdown started from where a large group of people were hanging out waiting to see the ball drop and Codie squealed, clapping her hands. "Nevermind, nevermind!" she said dismissively before she started counting down with the rest of the room.

When the clock struck midnight, a few of the guys started unleashing ropy sprays of silly string, chasing some of the cheerleaders around the living room with the cans while they laughed and screamed.

Jennifer's friends had stopped trying to suffocate each other; they were just looking at each other now. They leaned into each other slowly for another kiss, and this time it was soft and lingering. Dave tore his gaze away, only just remembering to lean down and press a kiss against Codie's forehead, his arm going around her narrow shoulders to pull her into a half hug. Codie kissed him on the cheek.

"Happy New Year's," she said, flashing him her usual brilliant, pageant-trained smile.

"Yeah," Dave said, glancing up again, but Jennifer's friends were gone. "You too..."

---

Junior Year (2012)

Hummel was hanging out with that smug pretty boy from the theater department. The one with the eyebrows. That guy was so lame, and Dave loved the look Hummel got on his face when he called him Groucho Marx when the dude wasn't around.

Wait, what was his name? Something like you'd hear on some dumbass soap opera, he was pretty sure. Dave bit back a laugh when he realized he actually couldn't remember, then went back to refilling his cup from the keg. Hummel and Eyebrows were talking close, and Eyebrows made Hummel laugh.

Dave felt like he'd gotten caught doing something wrong when Hummel looked over at him. Before he could pretend he hadn't already been looking at Hummel first, he smiled a little at Dave and nodded his head to the side for him to come over.

He hesitated for a second. He talked to Hummel all the time without it being weird (and sometimes with it being weird), but never around another g—a guy from theater. But what else was he fucking doing, holding up the wall?

"What up, dorks," Dave teased. A little bit because he didn't want to be expected to say General Hospital's name, which he hadn't suddenly remembered in the last sixty seconds.

Hummel gave him a dry look and Dave grinned, the tip of his tongue between his teeth.

"I was trying to tell Blaine about that play from the first home game last month, but I'm definitely not explaining it right," he admitted with an embarrassed laugh. "Care to take over and save me from myself?"

Thaaat was his name. Fucking Blaine. What a dumbshit name. Wait.

"The one I made?" he asked, feeling like a moron when it came out a little confused sounding. Kurt talked about him...? Like... on purpose?

"Mhmm."

Eyebrows was looking at him expecta—nah, he'd used that one up for at least the next ten minutes. Helmet hair was looking at him expectantly with a small, polite smile. "I told him I wouldn't understand either way, but it's worth a shot," he offered with a small shrug.

"Oh, uh. Sure..." For the first time in his life, David Karofsky had no clue what to say about hockey. He tried to shake it off. "Uh, so I'm coming down the boards and defense thinks they've got me boxed in, right? 'cept he steps up too early and tries to pin me there. I roll off him, keep my feet moving—they think I'm gonna dump it, right?" he explained, but he could tell the dude was barely following. Didn't matter; he was into it now.

"Weak-side winger's already cheating and the goalie's waiting for the pass, and—"

"And David always waits until the goalie commits before he shoots. He doesn't rush it, and they're expecting him to pass," Kurt interrupted eagerly.

Dave nodded along like his fucking brain hadn't just skidded sideways. Like he hadn't just realized that Kurt hadn't just learned about hockey... he'd learned him.

---

Senior Year (2013)

Dave had realized something about ten minutes into the house's annual New Year's Eve party: House parties were getting kind of... boring. He should have been enjoying them since this year was kind of the end of an era in a lot of ways, but all he kept thinking was that it was all the same people drinking the same drinks, having the same conversations with the same people. The only thing that really changed every year was who was sucking face with who.

Combine points A and D, and that was really the only justification he needed for why he was abandoning his own party, barely looking where he was even steering Kurt because he was too busy kissing him. He'd bet he could get them upstairs in one piece without having to pull away.

Kurt grunted quietly when Dave accidentally pushed him against the bannister after miscalculating the distance from the first step. Okay, maybe he'd been a little too confident on that one.

"Sorry," he laughed quietly. He broke away, but couldn't make himself stop pawing at Kurt the whole way up; the stairs took twice as long as they would have otherwise, and he didn't have enough bloodflow to his brain to realize that if he'd stopped for a second, they would have been in their room faster.

Which he proved again when he pushed Kurt against the wall the second they'd cleared the landing, kissing him hard and deep as he ground up against him. Kurt moaned against his lips, hips rolling in a desperate need for friction.

That was what finally pulled Dave out of his sex-stupid haze long enough to realize that they needed to be in their room. Now.

When they finally got through the door, Dave kicked it shut. Hard.

×

"I think we missed midnight. By... a lot," Kurt laughed under his breath, burrowing in closer against Dave's chest as he instinctively settled his arm more firmly over Kurt's shoulder.

"Psh, no we didn't," Dave said with a smirk. "Pretty sure I was kissing something at midnight."

"Wh—David!" Kurt made the face he always did when he pretended to be horrified by some of the things Dave said. "Don't be crude."

"Hey, that was romantic as fuck! Anyway, you sure weren't complaining," Dave snickered. He glanced past Kurt to his alarm clock, then leaned up onto one arm, using his weight to shift Kurt onto his back. "Guess we'll just have to go by central time," he murmured.

Kurt tilted his chin up when Dave leaned in, but the kiss he was expecting didn't come. He looked at Dave questioningly, but a little annoyed too. He gave a whiny huff as Dave pulled back when he tried to lean up for a kiss, just out of reach.

"You're such a brat," Dave laughed, glancing at the clock again. 12:58. "Close enough," he decided, finally leaning back in to kiss Kurt. He almost always gave in to the little shit. "Happy New Year's, gorgeous."