Note: Italicized quotes are from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land

april is the cruelest month breeding
lilacs out of the dead land mixing
memory and desire stirring
dull roots with spring rain

He is grabbed before he even realizes what has happened and pulled into the bathroom. The door slams shut and the lock clicks. Karofsky is staring him down, jaw clenched and eyes narrowed.

"What the hell, man?" Sam's eye still aches even though it's almost fully healed; only a soft blot of purple is left as a reminder. His left hand rubs at his forearm; his tongue flicks out to lick his lower lip.

"You stay the fuck out of this, Evans."

"Out of what? I was minding my own business when you fucking grabbed me."

"This shit with Kurt. You stay the fuck out." This is punctuated by a shove against the tiled wall, nails dig through his shirt and into the flesh of his shoulder; Sam shivers. "If you try a stunt like that again I'll kill you."

"Dude, he's my friend. I'm not going to let you treat my friend like that." He struggles against Karofsky's grip, tries to bring up a knee to the taller boy's crotch again, but Karofsky's learned from last time and shoves his body against Sam's so he can't struggle, can't move. For a second Sam thinks he feel something brush against his thigh, but Karofsky pulls away quickly and it's gone.

"Back. The. Fuck. Off. You and all of fucking Homo Explosion." He shoves him again, pulling him back to smash his shoulders against the tiled wall. Dave leaves without looking back.

"Fuck you," Sam hisses and straightens his shirt, fixes his hair, before leaving the empty bathroom.

winter kept us warm covering
earth in forgetful snow

Kurt has been gone for three weeks, but Dave still shoulder checks Sam whenever he walks by.

and the dead tree gives no shelter the cricket no relief
and the dry stone no sound of water

During a particularly vicious practice scrimmage Dave tackles Sam and pins him to the ground. He applies pressure on his chest with his knee and smacks Sam's helmet with his right hand.

"Stay down, bitch," he growls.

It takes what feels like an eternity for Sam to catch his breath again.

there is shadow under this red rock
(come in under the shadow of this red rock)

He waits fifteen minutes after that practice before he goes into the locker room to shower and change hoping for privacy. Hoping to not see Karofsky. Finn pokes his head in to ask if he needs a ride midway through his shower, but Sam tells him he's fine.

He's changing when Dave shoulder checks him against the metal door of his locker.

"What the fuck, Karofsky?" Sam screams and his voice echoes through the empty locker room. He reaches out and grabs on to the other boy's jacket and jerks him back.

"Don't touch me!" he yells back as he slam Sam against the locker. He places a a hand on his throat and shoves his body against Sam's.

"What the fuck is your problem?"

Dave raises an eyebrow when he feels Sam hard against his thigh.

"This shit gets you off, Evans?" Dave whispers in his ear, his hand applies more pressure to his neck.

"And you," Sam chokes out and reaches a hand for Dave's belt. Dave loosens his grip on Sam's neck, but doesn't swat away his hands as they undo the buckle, unbutton and unzip until he can reach him.

Dave kisses him, moves his own hands to tangle in Sam's blond hair. Teeth dig in to his lip splitting skin and drawing blood.

Sam groans.

The slats of the metal locker are digging into the flesh of his back leaving red welts for tomorrow.

Dave comes with a strangled gasp into Sam's mouth and Sam wipes his palm off on Dave's khakis. It takes a second for Dave to compose himself again, but he does.

"You tell anyone and I'll fucking kill you," Dave growls, "don't think I won't."

Sam spits blood on the floor, smiles.

"I'd like to see you try."

and I will show you something different from either

Dave stalks him across the linoleum expanses of the hallways, through the twists and turns until he grabs him by the back of his jacket and pulls him in to an empty classroom. The door slam shuts and the doorknob jams into Dave's back as Sam shoves his body against him.

He falls to his knees in front of Dave, hands immediately moving to the buckle on his belt.

Dave buries his hands in Sam's blond hair.

your shadow at morning striding behind you

One day after practice he follows Sam's black mustang through the streets of Lima until it pulls into the driveway of a large expensive looking house.

Dave keeps driving. He does not look back.

or your shadow at evening rising to meet you

After practice he delays himself, skips out on food with Azimio. He waits and waits for Sam to come, to catch his eye. And when he does they find a place by themselves. When he doesn't, Dave shoves past him, tossing him against lockers over Hudson's shouted protests.

to carthage then I came
burning burning burning

And this is what they have, frantic and desperate between practices and classes when Sam doesn't have a Cheerio hanging off his arm and when Dave isn't busy throwing slushies in nerds' faces.

Dave watches him now, feels the same tug in his chest he used to get when he saw Hummel walk past. But it's even stronger than that.

He didn't think it could get this strong.

o lord thou pluckest me out
o lord thou pluckest

Then it happens one afternoon, Dave finds Sam leaning against his car arms crossed over his chest.

"You're coming home with me," he says and Dave can't speak, nods. In that moment he would follow him anywhere.

burning

Sam's house is large and cold, decorated immaculately with shining metal and black leather; it looks like a model home. He trudges up a staircase to Sam's room.

Dave strips off all of Sam's clothes in a painfully slow ritual and every time that Sam gets impatient and tries to rip them off himself, Dave grabs his wrists and pins them down on the bed. He kisses a bruise across Sam's shoulder that he left last week.

"Hurry the hell up."

"Shut your fucking mouth," Dave growls and flips Sam onto his back.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I want you looking at me," he spits back and leaves it at that.

Dave's read about this before, but it's actually happening. He is just happy his hands aren't shaking

He steadies himself with one arm, uses his free hand to help guide himself into position.

Here, there is a stutter in Dave's hips before he thrusts.

I will show you fear in a handful of dust

Sam comes, warm and sticky into Dave's left hand a half a minute before he follows. He brushes his hand on the sheet, pulls his pants back up on his hips.

"Fuck," he groans. He's still clothed and the fabric of his cotton shirt clings to his sweat-soaked body.

Lying next to Dave, still naked on the tiny bed, Sam lights a joint and inhales deeply.

"Why is your bed so fucking small?"

"Went to a boarding school for a few years. Outgrew this. Never got a new one."

Smoke curls up towards an alarm that has its batteries ripped out.

Dave doesn't know what to do with himself, so he rezips, rebuttons, and adjusts his belt buckle as he tries to keep himself from staring at the body next to him.

"What are you looking at?" Sam asks, raising an eyebrow that is two or three shades darker than his hair.

"Nothing." It's clear, no matter how hard he tries to hide it, Dave is staring at him, letting his eyes rake over Sam's cut body. His skin is pale and darted with only a few bruises. Sam offers him some weed and Dave takes it and responds without thinking, "You look perfect."

Sam sits up cross-legged on the bed and laughs. Dave scrambles up, rests his back against the wall; he doesn't know what to do with his hands so he presses them flat against his thighs. He tilts his head to look directly into Dave's eyes and calls him a fag; Dave slaps him across the face, which only makes Sam laugh harder.

yet when we came back late from the hyacinth garden
your arms full and your hair wet I could not speak
and my eyes failed I was neither
living nor dead and I knew nothing

That doesn't stop him. It happens again and again in Sam's cold house, abandoned classrooms, and in the back seat of their cars.

Dave watches as Quinn and Sam break up and get back together whenever it suits their needs. It's more of a mutually beneficial contractual agreement than a relationship.

But that's exactly what this is, isn't it?

There have been a few times when Dave has tried to be gentle, tried to make it a little different. Those were the times Sam insulted, scratched, kicked and bit until Dave couldn't remember why he had started in the first place.

you know nothing? do you see nothing? do you remember
nothing?
I remember

"You dye your hair?" Dave asks one of the days when they're panting in the backseat of Dave's car.

He lives for moments like this when Sam's too tired to push him away and he keeps his head pressed against Dave's chest.

"Yeah, so what?"

"Nothing," Dave says as he runs his hands through it glancing at the roots, "your natural color looks better."

Sam swats his hands away and the next day his roots are gone. Only the whiteblond remains.

I remember
those are pearls that were his eyes

And then it happens one day without warning, Dave grabs his wrist and pulls him in to the astronomy classroom. Figgins fired the teacher for budget reasons but hadn't reallocated it.

He's kissing the other boy and unzipping his jeans when Sam shoves his hands away.

"No."

Dave responds with a blank stare and a confused blink.

"I'm done," Sam rezips his jeans and walks out.

Dave does not know what to do with his hands so he crosses them over his chest.

are you alive or not? Is there nothing in your head?

The next few days flicker by in a daze. It's like watching something on mute or with the lights dimmed. A copy of a reflection from sixty six feet underwater.

He is not himself; he is not sure who he is.

"What the fuck is wrong with you, man?" Az asks in the handicap stall of the boy's bathroom as he hands him the lit joint.

"Nothing dude," Dave mumbles sucking angrily on the joint, he holds his breath, lets out the smoke so it curls slowly and towards the air vent, "Evans is a fag. That's all."

"Duh," Az rolls his eyes, "Give it back,"and slides it from Dave's shaking fingers, "You remember that episode of 30 Rock? WhenKenneth tries to not get promoted and he was all 'I'm gonna go smoke a drug cigarette.' Fucking funny, man."

"Yeah," Dave replies shoving his hands in to his pockets and feeling like any moment he's going to implode, "fucking funny."

here is the empty chapel only the wind's home
it has no windows and the door swings

Dave catches him by the shoulder and pulls him in to the bathroom. Their lips meet and Dave tangles his hands in Sam's hair, groans into the other boy's mouth.

dry bones can harm no one

"No," Sam pushes Dave's hand away from his belt buckle, "I told you. I'm done."

Dave lets himself be shoved off, stumbles until he has the wall to lean against for support.

"This," Sam repeats moving his hand between them his eyes locked with Dave, "this is done." He nods curtly before he leaves.

after the torchlight red on sweaty faces
after the frosty silence in the gardens
after the agony in the stony places
the shouting and the crying
prison and palace and reverberation
of thunder of spring over distant mountains
he who was living is now dead
we who are living are now dying

Dave chases him out of the classroom, feet pounding against the linoleum, "You'll regret this, Evans," Dave screams out and it echoes in the hallways though Dave can barely hear it over the pounding in his ears. People are staring but he doesn't pay any mind.

He finds himself in the bathroom five minutes later puking into the handicap toilet.

nam sibyllam quidem cumis ego ipse oculis meis
vidi in ampulla pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent
Σίβυλλα τί θέλεις respondebat illa ἀποθανεῖν θέλω

Dave walks by him in the hallway sidesteps him and keeps walking without looking back. Because if he looks back he'll collapse in on himself.

It's a burning biting thing in his stomach every time he sees her brush his dyed-blond hair out of his eyes. It gnaws through sinew and bone until his chest is exposed and his heart beats exposed for all to see.

Sometimes without thinking about it he presses his hand to his sternum and expects to see red.

a current under sea
picked his bones in whispers as he rose and fell

He watches him, tries to keep it hidden, does it pretty well. No one says anything and it goes on for weeks and weeks. Dave does not touch him, does not hit him. He watches and every time he feels a bigger part of him chip away.

But then one day Dave is tugged in to a bathroom and shoved up against the locked door.

"Fuck, Sam," he groans as he feels the boy sliding his hand under the waist band of his jeans. He almost says 'I missed you' but he kisses the boy to silence himself.

for I have seen with my own eyes
the sibyl at cumae hanging in a jar and when the boys said to her

Dave stumbles out a half minute after Sam who is already across the hallway chatting up Quinn by her locker. His right hand is in his back pocket and his left arm is against cool metal of the lockers. He is facing Dave, but he does not look at him. He looks down at the girl in front of him and smiles brightly, laughs at a joke she makes.

He watches as Quinn laughs in return and brushes Sam's hair out of his eyes.

sibyl what do you want? she replied I want to die

Dave bites down on his lip until he can taste blood in his mouth, but he does not look away.