Title: Never Change
Word Count: 4,979
Rating: 14A for mild goriness and some offensive language.
Character(s): Kurt, Karofsky; minor appearances from the Cheerios, Sue, and Azimio
Disclaimer: I own naught but my own imagination.
Trigger Warning: Violent Assault
Author's Notes: Written for this prompt on the Glee_Angst_Meme: http: / / community. livejournal. com/ glee_angst_meme/ 3065 . html ? thread=4124665#t4124665
Summary: "Because unlike you and your Neanderthal friends, I can't, on good conscious, leave someone alone bleeding out in a parking lot. Or let them wake up alone and scared in a hospital, for that matter."
Never Change
"You think this is hard? Try removing your own appendix with a sewing needle! That was hard!" Sue yelled into her infamous megaphone, her exclamation booming across the football field like the voice of an angry God. "That was positively sloppy! Run it again from the beginning! And if I see so much as a wobbling elbow, you'll do it another ten!"
Kurt rubbed his temples, groaning along with the rest of the squad as they obediently filed back into their starting positions. He was tired, his voice was nearly shot— this was the fourteenth time they'd run through the routine without so much as a five minute break— and the rest of the squad looked like they were fairing no better. One girl was in tears, having been berated by the others after causing the last 'fault' that Sue decided dictate that they run it again; she had stumbled in her pre-cartwheel steps and fumbled a little on the landing.
The music started again, and Kurt cleared his throat, filling his lungs to full capacity and flawlessly hitting the opening notes. Behind him, a complicated series of jumps, dance moves and spectacular throws were being performed, most of which could prove dangerous if botched.
The tired Cheerios plastered on their enthusiastic smiles, which at this point looked even faker than Santana's new breasts, and moved to the throbbing beat and Kurt's overlying rendition of Disturbia. He danced his way into the group, completing two high-kicks and a hurkey alongside them before moving forward again and doing a cartwheel (that took the entire summer to perfect) to start off the next part of the complicated choreography.
It started as just a tickle, a burning at the back of his throat, but it slowly built up until Kurt had tears in his eyes. He kept singing, though his notes were a little less sure, and he may have been off beat for a whole second and a half before he managed to catch his breath between choruses. It was inevitable, then, when his voice cracked on the next high note and he bent over double in a miserable, unstoppable coughing fit; the other performers stopped when he did, slowly climbing down from their half-formed pyramid and plopping ungracefully onto the grass.
"Get back up, you lazy babies, and run it again!"
Only Quinn and Santana stood back up from where the exhausted Cheerios were all sprawled on the freshly-mowed lawn, and even they looked ready to drop again as they glared at each other, the heated competition between them still thriving. Sue made a noise of disgust into the megaphone while Kurt continued to cough dryly, doubled over with his hands on his knees and his hair in his face. A bead of sweat at his hairline became heavy enough to trickle into his eyes, and he blinked rapidly to rid them of the salty burning it caused.
"Can't we go home now? It's almost nine," complained Lance, easily the biggest male Cheerio. His position in the back of the routine meant he was spared from most of the vigorous dancing, but lifting up the girls for their mid-air splits and high-kicks had worked even him into a state of expenditure.
The others nodded in agreement; only Becky had been allowed to leave, and those who weren't experiencing some form of hunger pain from missing dinner were panting or wheezing or rubbing at pulled muscles.
"Sectional level competition is in two weeks, and I expect this routine perfect before next Wednesday!"
"Coach Sylvester, may I respectfully point out that while practice makes perfect, we can't have a successful practice if no one has any energy," Quinn vocalised for all of them, her voice, while still pitch-perfect, a little wheezy from the last run-through. "We need rest to be our best. Isn't that what you've always told us?"
Sue looked annoyed at having been called out on her tactics, but eventually sighed into the megaphone. "Go home. Get some sleep. I expect you all to be back here at seven for practice. Dismissed!"
The group of teenagers all groaned as they stood on shaky legs, finally showing their discomfort as some hunched their shoulders in pain or limped off the field. Kurt went to his bag and fished out a bottle of water, quickly drinking the entire thing and sighing in relief as he quenched the burn that had slowly been building in his vocal chords.
The rest of the squad had already dispersed and left the school grounds by the time he had packed up his things and gradually made his way to the parking lot. Thanking whatever God was up there that his father had reinstated his car privileges, he trotted through the nearly-empty parking lot towards his hulking black SUV. There was only one other car in the parking lot, an older-model mid-sized Sedan that had probably been left behind when a handful of the Cheerios carpooled.
What he needed right now was a hot, relaxing bath and something to eat; after all that working out, he figured he'd burned enough calories to warrant treating himself to take-out on the way home.
Kurt fumbled with his keys in the dark as he tried to fit one into the lock, leaning his forehead against the cool glass of his window. He found it almost strange that he was so tired at only nine at night— it had only just become dark, and yet he felt ready to keel over at any moment.
His keys slipped from his fingers and hit the asphalt with a clink!, the sound echoing in the silent night air. As he bent over the pick them up, something caught his eye— the lone car a few spots away had something large hunched next to it, a dark shadow slumped next to the front wheel well. He wouldn't have seen it if he hadn't dropped his car keys; it was hidden behind the mass of the car, barely visible even from where Kurt was.
A lump formed in his throat as he slowly stood back up, his keys pressed so tightly into his palm that the sharp edge threatened to break the skin. His breathing had sped up involuntarily— wasn't this how most horror movies started? There was something just eerie about everything, and Kurt's couldn't explain it, but the shapeless lump on the pavement made the hairs on the back of his neck rise uncomfortably, and his heart race erratically. He didn't know what it was (for all he knew, it could be a pile of trash bags, or a dead animal of some kind that had curled up in the shade of the Sudan to die) but it was giving him the creeps.
He desperately wanted to turn around and pretend he hadn't seen the... whatever it was, but curiosity got the better of him. Loosening the grip he had on his car keys and slipping them into his bag, he slowly walked towards the mass of shadow. It only took a few steps in its direction before he heard the noise— a shallow, uneven wheeze of air being sucked between teeth. Kurt jogged over to it— him— then, and dropped to his knees beside what he now realised was a person, a person who needed help.
Kurt, who was always the kind of person to be calm in a crisis, began to check the guy over for injuries. There was a lot of blood. It was dark red and thick, gloppy— so different from the ketchup-red of horror movies, yet causing that same adrenaline rush to infiltrate his system, the tiredness from practice fading as his blood pumped rhythmically in his ears.
It took him much longer than it should have for him to recognise the kid as Karofsky, his long-time tormentor. Kurt had seen his face every day of high school, usually accompanied by a smirk and a Slushy-facial, and occasionally resulting in a trip to the dumpster. But here, he looked different— both of his eyes were swollen shut, and his nose was sluggishly leaking blood over his split lips as his laboured breathing caused tiny drops of it to be expelled with every exhale. A large gash across his forehead was bleeding profusely, matting in his hair and dripping down his ear, and yet... he had this calm look on his face, if it could be called that; it was surreal, like he was at peace, lying unconscious on the tarmac of the school parking lot.
Kurt was in shock, but his body acted without it telling him to— he became aware of his cell phone being pressed to his ear only by its shrill ringing; he had dialled 911 on autopilot. It seemed to ring for a long time, too long. Every moment wasted Karofsky could be dying, bleeding internally; Kurt had no idea what had happened to him, but the guy was seriously messed up.
"911, what is your emergency?" a serious but up-beat female voice finally answered, and Kurt felt his body slump a little in relief.
"My name is Kurt Hummel, and I'm at William McKinley High School," he relayed quickly, itching to touch Karofsky (wow, he never thought he'd think that), to make sure his heart was still beating. The fact that a guy could be dying right in front of him was not lost on Kurt— he was hyper aware of every little move he made, every breath Karofsky took, every sound in the darkness. "I need an ambulance right away."
"An ambulance has been dispatched to your location. What is the nature of the emergency?" the 911 dispatcher asked him carefully, her voice naturally soothing as she tried to calm him from his panic to get reliable information out of him. "Are you injured?"
"No. No, I'm in the parking lot and I— Karofsky, his name is Dave Karofsky, and I don't know what happened, but there's blood everywhere..." And it was everywhere, seeping into the knees of his Cheerios' uniform and all over the asphalt and all over Karofsky's limp body. The smell was coppery, like your hands after handling old coins, and it was overwhelming his senses with every breath he took.
"Is Mr. Karofsky conscious?"
"I don't think so. I don't think he can hear me." His voice broke and went up an octave in panic. Where was the freaking ambulance?
"Is he breathing? Does he have a head or neck injury?"
"He's wheezing," Kurt said, carefully reaching out to touch his neck. Karofsky's pulse was thready, but still strong enough to easily find, and his neck didn't look like it had any marks or discolouration. "And he's got a big gash on his head, but his neck looks okay. Should I lie him down or something? How long will the ambulance take?"
"Do not move him, Kurt. The ambulance is about four minutes out."
Four minutes. How long had it already been? It felt like hours.
Kurt shifted his weight from his knees a little uncomfortably, moving into a sitting position and gently, carefully moving Karofsky's arm a little, turning it over so that his inner wrist faced upwards. He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to the pulse there, counting heartbeats as he waited for help to arrive.
His eyes snapped open when the wrist under his fingers twitched spasmodically, jerking away from his touch. Kurt quickly retracted his hand, eyes wide as he watched Karofsky struggle to take a deep breath, a pained groan escaping his lips.
"I think he's waking up. Karofsky, can you hear me? I've called for help, okay?"
Karofsky once-calm face twisted into a look of pain, what was left of his nose scrunching up and his split lips parting to release a horrific moan. Kurt could hear the sirens of the ambulance— distant, but still audible over Karofsky's noises of pain and increased wheezing. He was trying to move, trying to... to what? Escape?
"Stop moving. Karofsky, stop moving. Stop, or you'll only hurt yourself more!" Kurt didn't know if this was true or not, but the noises the larger teen was making as he attempted to move him limbs was making him sick to his stomach. He sounded like a dying animal. "Karofsky? Dave!"
Karofsky stopped and stared at Kurt through one slitted eye, barely open and straining to stay that way against the swelling pushing it closed. His pupil was dilated, and he was panting in spasms, like he wasn't sure he'd be able to get his next breath.
"Dave," Kurt said again, because it seemed like the only thing Karofsky was responding to. "I've called for help. An ambulance is coming. Can you hear it? You're going to be okay."
Karofsky's arm rose from its sprawled position against the ground and swung towards Kurt, and Kurt flinched, almost expecting the bigger boy to hit him, even in the state he was in. But instead, the hand (with two swelling, purpling fingers, Kurt noticed) reached out and grabbed him by the sleeve of his Cheerio's uniform, clenching in the fabric and holding on like it was a lifeline. A trickle of blood escaped his mouth and slipped slowly down his chin as he opened his mouth as if to say something, but nothing but air escaped in a painful wheeze.
"Heh..." he spluttered, trying to say something, and Kurt put his hand over the one hanging onto his sleeve, trying to comfort Karofsky (Karofsky! of all people), avoiding the fingers that looked like they could be broken.
"I've called for help, Dave. An ambulance is coming for you, okay?" Kurt reassured him. Karofsky's one good eye fell closed, and he sort of sighed, his hand falling limp from Kurt's sleeve.
The wail of the ambulance grew steadily louder, until Kurt could see the flashing lights. The large vehicle sped right towards the two boys as they were caught in the light from the headlights and flashing red beacons. Two EMTs rushed towards them with a gurney, immediately going for Karofsky and checking him over for injury.
Kurt stood up from where he had been kneeling next to Karofsky and backed away slowly, absently picking up his bag and slinging it over his shoulder as he did so. Eyes wide as he watched the two EMTs do their work, he couldn't help but finally notice how strong the stench of blood was— tangy, coppery— and how it was making his stomach churn restlessly.
They EMTs loaded Karofsky's limp body onto a gurney and then unclasped it, and the clink of the metal bars fitting into place makes Kurt flinch, just imagining how much pain the jump might have caused Karofsky, if he was still conscious enough to feel it. They had fitted a plastic apparatus over his face and one of them was squeezing it to aid with his breathing, and the over was pulling the gurney into the back of the ambulance. The entire sequence— from them arriving to them putting Karofsky into the ambulance— had taken about three minutes, but for Kurt, it was like a flash, barely a second.
"Ya coming, kid?" the EMT that was squeezing the breathing mask asked him impatiently.
For a second, Kurt was frozen. This was Karofsky, the guy who had tortured him for the greater part of his high school career. He'd done the right thing, gotten him help for his injuries— why should he need to do more? But something akin to guilt gnawed at him, and he slowly climbed into the back of the ambulance on the other side of the gurney.
Everything seemed to be moving so fast, too fast, like an action movie where you don't really know what's going on anymore because you missed half a second. One second Kurt was mechanically loading himself in next to the gurney, and the next the doors at the back of the ambulance were slamming shut and the vehicle lurched to life, sirens wailing as they made the five minute drive to Lima General.
Kurt closed his eyes and gently laid a hand on Karofsky's arm. Even though he didn't like the guy (not by a long shot), leaving him alone through something like this seemed like a terrible thing to do. When they reached the hospital (with Kurt wondering how the hell it felt like it took days for the ambulance to get to the school, but how it only felt like a minute to get back to the hospital), they were torn apart, and Kurt was left standing alone in a waiting room covered in Karofsky's blood.
He sank into a hard, plastic chair, his face pale as what happened really started to process. He'd probably just saved Karofsky's life, assuming he made it out of this okay now that he could get the proper medical attention. The blood on his pants and the sleeve of his uniform was slowly becoming tacky, already drying as he sat numbly in the waiting room. He wanted to leave, to call his dad to come pick him up since he'd left the Navigator at school, but there was something in him that he just... couldn't.
Maybe it was the fact that he knew what it was like to be in a hospital, at least from a visitor's standpoint. When his mother had been sick, he and his father had been here near-constantly, so that she was never alone with the white walls and antiseptic smell of hospital that was so discomforting. Kurt decided that he'd wait until Karofsky's parents showed up before he left, just so that he knew for sure the larger boy wouldn't be completely alone when he woke up. Because waking up alone was something Kurt knew a lot about too, especially after his mother had died and he woke up frightened, alone in the dark— he wasn't about to shove that feeling onto anyone else.
It might have been a few minutes or it might have been hours that Kurt sat there on the uncomfortable chair, the buzz of a dying fluorescent light above him eating away at his brain like ravenous termites. He hadn't gone to the bathroom to wash the blood off, though he supposed that he would have to eventually. It had already dried, encrusting into the beds of his nails and in the wrinkles of his uniform, but at least now the smell was muted. Or maybe he'd just gotten used to it.
A doctor came out of the swinging double doors looking at a clipboard, and then asked if there was anyone waiting for David Karofsky. Kurt stood shakily, wondering why no one else had arrived yet. He felt a weight of responsibility on his shoulders that he couldn't explain when he approached the stoic doctor, who had a look of pity on his face when he saw the blood-speckled teen.
"Have you been able to reach Kar— Dave's parents?" Kurt asked him quietly, and the doctor shook his head, leading Kurt to a more private area of the hallway, where there were less people milling around.
"No. Are you related to him?" Kurt shook his head 'no,' and the doctor sighed, looking back down at his chart and flipping back a page.
"I'm really only supposed to let family in to see him, but he will be awake soon, and it's usually best if there is someone in the room that he'll recognise when he wakes up," the doctor explained, and Kurt's stomach twisted a little— he was supposed to sit with Karofsky? What if he got punched in the face for all his good efforts? "And the police will want to talk to him, since he seems to have acquired his injuries from a violent assault."
Kurt flinched, imagining how much force it would have taken to cause Karofsky's injuries. "If he hasn't got anyone else, I'll wait with him," he agreed quietly, because for all the hate he harboured for Karofsky, he wasn't about to leave him alone to relive the experience to the police.
The doctor led him down the hallway to Karofsky's room, his face grave as they stopped at the door. "I have to warn you, some of his injuries are at this point, rather... gruesome." Kurt nodded. He'd already seen them.
"He also acquired a few broken ribs and several broken fingers, as well as the obvious facial injuries, so he might not be awake for very long when he does regain consciousness. There's a page button next to his bed— if he asks for anything or seems to be in pain, press that and it will send a nurse for your assistance. I'll be in to check on him soon."
Kurt nodded along to the doctor's little speech and was a little surprised when the doctor's hand landed on his shoulder, giving it a little squeeze before opening the door for him.
It wasn't until he'd been sitting vigil at Karofsky's bedside for a good ten minutes before he realised that the doctor had probably thought that they were together— since he was so obviously flamboyant, and Karofsky's... attack?... could have been consistent with a hate crime of some kind. He thought it was kind of comforting that the doctor hadn't seemed disgusted or asked about it outright, even while the thought of he and Karofsky being romantically involved was both hilarious and disturbing.
The swelling around Karofsky's eyes had gotten better, even as their colour had gone from red-and-blue to angry dark purple and almost black in places. The doctors had had to shave a chunk of his hair away to stitch up the laceration on the side of his head, but there was a bandage covering most of the bald spot so Kurt could barely see it. His nose had definitely been broken, and it had been set and taped up to aid healing.
But Kurt didn't notice any of these things until Karofsky's left eye, the same one as before, opened slowly, blinking sluggishly so that his pupil could adjust to the light. When his eye's quick survey of the room got to Kurt, he shifted uncomfortably, but there was no anger behind it as the hazel eye stared at him.
Karofsky slowly shut it again, a long exhale escaping his lips as he shifted a little, moving his arms to the outside of the scratchy hospital blanket he was covered with. "What're... you doin' here?" he asked slowly, the words a slurred mixture of sleepiness and pain-killers.
"I found you in the parking lot," Kurt said, as it that explained why he was still there.
It didn't, but Karofsky seemed to take the answer at face value, answering with, "T'wasn't a dream, then?"
"No."
There was a long silence, and Kurt was almost sure that Karofsky had fallen back asleep before he heard him whisper, "My parents are gonna kill me," to no one in particular.
"It's not like it's your fault you got beat up," Kurt pointed out just as quietly, although something in him kept saying, He probably deserved it.
"Yeah, t'was," Karofsky groaned, not even bothering to open his eyes as he laid as still as he could on the uncomfortable hospital mattress. "I... Slushied the kid. How was I s'posed to know he had a big brother on the baseball team?"
He almost snorted, because that little voice at the back of his head had kind of been right. Karofsky had just gotten his comeuppance— although, this did seem like a bit of an extreme retaliation, considering he'd only given the kid a Slushie-facial.
"Fucker came at me with a bat," Karofsky said slowly, and Kurt was drawn from his thoughts only to be shoved into a new mindset— whatever Karofsky had done to the guy's kid brother, smashing his face in with a baseball bat was obviously morethan a little extreme. "...Came at me from behind and conked me out."
Kurt shivered, trying to imagine something like that happening to him. How scared he'd be, how painful it might have been— broken ribs, broken fingers, broken nose. He wouldn't have wished it on his worst enemy... but it had happened to him anyway.
"Where are your parents?" Kurt asked his tormentor instead, scratching absently at a patch of dried blood on his knee. If he had been in the hospital, his father would have broken every traffic law out there to get to him. The fact that someone could have absentee parents was foreign to him. What kind of parent wouldn't drop everything if their kid was in the hospital?
"Second honeymoon in Florida," Karofsky wheezed, groaning afterwards. Kurt sat up a little straighter, apprehensive.
"Are you in pain? Should I call a nurse?"
"M'okay," Karofsky mumbled, curling up upon himself a little. It was incredibly pathetic— and it made Kurt feel sorry for him, despite all the things that Karofsky had done to him. None of that deserved... this.
Karofsky opened his eyes sluggishly— both of them, this time— and stared at Kurt piercingly. "You don' have to stay, y'know. I'm okay."
"What kind of person would I be if I left you alone in the hospital?" Kurt replied, although he was tired and felt gross and wanted to go home. If Karofsky told him to leave, he would— he didn't owe the guy any favours.
"S'not gonna change anythin', y'know," Karofsky said, and Kurt frowned. "I mean, I'm not gonna... stop pickin' on you jus' 'cause you saved my life, or anythin'."
Kurt snorted. "I hadn't expected you to."
Karofsky's face scrunched up, like he was trying to frown or look confused or something, but all it accomplished was a whine of pain at the back of his throat. "Then... why do it?"
"Because unlike you and your Neanderthal friends, I can't, on good conscious, leave someone alone bleeding out in a parking lot. Or let them wake up alone and scared in a hospital, for that matter."
"But... you hate me."
Kurt shrugged. "So?" At Karofsky's still bewildered (if it could be called that, considering the bruising and swelling made it nearly impossible to tell) expression, Kurt sighed and sat up a little straighter in his hard, plastic chair to look him in the eyes. "If I had been beaten up and left for dead, I can only hope that someone who hated me would still be kind enough to call 911."
"You have too much faith in people," Karofsky said, his voice finally gaining some real clarity as the throbbing in his head eased off a little. "I'm still gonna let Azimio throw you in a dumpster on Monday, you know that."
"Yes," Kurt agreed, "And I wouldn't expect anything less." He stood up and pressed the call button for the nurse. "Since you're lucid, the police are going to want to talk to you."
When a nurse bustled in shortly later and Kurt picked up his bag off the floor to leave, a bandaged hand reached out and grabbed onto his arm weakly. Kurt turned to look at Karofsky, his eyes finally betraying how tried he was, how physically and emotionally exhausted he felt.
"Will you wait with me? I don't... want to be alone."
Kurt sat back down as the nurse rushed off again to get the waiting officers to interview him.
"Alright."
Karofsky doesn't come back to school until two weeks later, and even then he looked like a mess. By then, everyone had already heard various versions of how the bully had been hospitalized, but among the rumours one thing seemed clear: he had deserved it. He had pissed off the wrong kid, and he had gotten his comeuppance. It was karma, everyone agreed; his own damn fault.
Azimio acted like a barrier between him and everyone else. His arm was in a sling and he walked a little funny, curled in upon himself because of the broken ribs. He still managed to sneer at the losers he would usually be shoving into their lockers right about now, but they looked him in the eyes now, convinced he couldn't do anything to him in his weakened state.
Azimio was making up for Karofsky, though, shoving and Slushying and doling out swirlies if anyone so much as looked at his best friend wrong. Kurt stayed out of the Destructive Duo's way for the most part, knowing he would not be looked over just because he had done something altruistic.
Except that the one time that Karofsky and Azimio passed him in the hallway, Slushie in hand, his clothes remained dry. Jacob, who was standing down the hall at his locker, got Slushied instead, flattening his Jewfro and drenching his white dress shirt in Blueberry-flavoured corn syrup.
Kurt frowned slightly, because he had sworn that Slushie had been heading for him. He's seen the whites of Azimio's eyes as he approached, saw the arm movement preparing the drink for its toss, and had clamped his eyes shut accordingly, only to hear the splash of it hitting someone else and the shriek of Jacob's terror.
If Kurt had kept his eyes open, he might have seen Karofsky put a hand on Azimio's arm and shake his head. He might have seen Azimio frown before tossing the Slushie on Jacob. He might have seen the little self-satisfied smile Karofsky had as he walked away.
He didn't. But it didn't matter, because he knew anyway.
The next week, once Karofsky's sling was off and he was once again throwing Slushies, Kurt found himself, once again, in the dumpster. And if one of the jocks stayed behind and handed his bag back to him after he had pulled himself out of the trash, well... no one had to know.