InsaneJournal

"I'll be your buddy back," Chloe offers, as if being without a buddy is the worst rule they've all broken today. She takes his elbow to lead him, like he's in shock or something, and holds her umbrella over both of them, despite the fact that they're both soaked.

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Kurt nodded (he should have a headache by now considering how many times he’d been doing that) and followed Chloe obediently. He bent down to pick up his hoodie on the way out and shrugged it on as they walked. It was just as soaked and muddy as the rest of him but at least it provided a little more protection from the late October elements than just his t-shirt.

He felt like he should say something and started to open his mouth, but promptly closed it. What could he say? His right hand still hurt from punching Sy and it was a sour reminder of his grand plans to grow as a person, which ‘awry’ couldn’t even begin to describe.

If Kurt was in shock, Chloe was too. She wasn’t a gambling kind of person, but even if she had been, she never would have put money on Kurt challenging Sy, even if it was just to a “playful” mud wrestle (that hadn’t ended so playfully, anyway). “I can’t believe you fought him,” she said, shaking her head, “I can’t believe you punched him.”

Then she seemed to notice that he wasn’t talking, so she turned to him. “Are you okay? How hard did he hit you?”

“Yeah, um, I’m fine.” Kurt replied quietly. “It wasn’t–” She paused, turned to him, and yanked up his shirt, leaning over to look at his stomach. “He walloped you pretty good, but it doesn’t look like it’s bruising yet.”

Kurt blushed furiously because Chloe or not, girls looking up his shirt were still CAUSE FOR ALARM. “R-reid got it worse.” he said, looking away so she hopefully couldn’t see his face. Which was very red.

She dropped his shirt and stood up straight, then took his elbow and started walking again. “That was,” she began again. “That was… kinda cool.”

He bit his bottom lip, thinking. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d decided to do any of it; ‘I wanted to try new things’ is why you put Sriracha on apples, not why you enter a stupid wrestling match. “It didn’t feel cool.” He scratched his head with his free arm, and he turned to see if there was anybody within earshot. Although the ‘party’ had been broken up, they were (mercifully) relatively alone for now. “It felt– I felt…” Kurt paused, trying to think of the right word. He snuck a hesitant sidelong glance to see her expression. “Angry.”

Chloe had played Mass Effect more times than she had cared to count, but she had never done a Renegade run through. In any game with moral choices, Chloe nearly always chose the Good options. IRL, her choices weren’t much different. The last person that had yelled at her and made her cry? She’d befriended him. Most days, she was okay with that - there was nothing wrong with Paragon! Sometimes, though, she wished she was more… heroic. The protagonists in her books and games and comics didn’t stick to the “kill ‘em with kindness” method. They didn’t just meekly accept what they were dealt. She wished she was more like the Commander Chloe Shepard she drew and wrote for her tumblr, who strove to do no harm, but take no shit. That had never been her, though. Never been either of them. Until today.

“I mean, you’ve got reason to be angry. He’s an asshole,” she said, intentionally using the word that had caused Kurt so much heartache. Because Sy was an asshole. She hadn’t been at this school nearly as long as Kurt, but she had seen enough to know it was true. “He pretended to be a serial killer for fun,” she reminded him, “And what trouble did he really even get in? People like him just do whatever they want, and people like us just take it.”

Kurt sucked his teeth at the obviously deliberate use of ‘asshole.’ “Yeah, I think that was what… set me off, or whatever.” He shrugged a small shrug, more along the lines of an ‘I guess’ than an ‘I don’t care.’

“I mean, don’t make a habit of it,” she said, playfully patting the spot on his stomach where he’d been hit, “But maybe, just this once… Well, I think you were brave.”

It hurt a tiny bit but not enough to elicit an honest response — instead, Kurt grimaced dramatically and pretended to double over. He straightened back up (oh, that’s when it hurts). He could feel her hand on his arm again, and it was nice; it was warm, it was grounding, and after his brief foray into violence, it was comforting to know that he wasn’t considered a Total Monster by the entire Gooseberry populace.

Kurt wasn’t sure if he should be considered ‘brave’ for turning a wrestling match into a fist-fight, but if anybody could convince him that the world wasn’t going to end, it would be Chloe. His reply was a quiet “Thanks,” accompanied by an affectionate bump into her side in lieu of a muddy hug. He stayed close to her side, walking near enough to feel her arm (and army jacket) against his very, very muddy sweater.

It didn't matter if he was dirty, she was dirty too. Even though she'd said mud was gross, she had knelt down beside him after the fight, and she was covered from the waist down. She wouldn't get dirty for just anyone, but Kurt wasn't just anyone, so she gave him a quick, tight hug. “Welcome,” she said, then grabbed his arm again and held her now pointless umbrella over them. They walked back to camp shoulder to shoulder.