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Brothers and Bandages
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Summary: Five times that Kurt had to patch Finn up and one time Finn returned the favor.
Rating: PG-13 (or the site equivalent), for some extremely slight gore in some parts… really, it's nothing.
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, Family, Friendship
Disclaimer: I do not own Glee, not even a little. Just playing.
Timeline: Pretty random. I'm somewhat careful to keep from mentioning anything that might date it too much. After the Hudmel joining though, and before Kurt left McKinley.
Chapter Count: 1/6 – I had intended to make this a oneshot, but it was getting kind of long. I also felt that the entries could pretty much stand as their own chapters, so I decided to go ahead and post each of the five and one by themselves. I'll post roughly a chapter a week, maybe a little sooner, because they're all written – they just need editing.
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Chapter One: Skull on Wood
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Sometimes, Kurt almost envied Finn's height. Well, maybe not his exact height, because Finn was bordering on Godzilla proportions and Kurt had seen firsthand how hard it was to get used to that. Still, six feet would be nice.
He got occasionally jealous when Finn grabbed something that Kurt had failed to reach even on his tippy toes as though it were nothing.
He was not, however, the least bit jealous of all of Finn's difficulties finding clothes that don't expose wrist or ankle, his growing pains or his gawky, uncoordinated issues that keep him from walking, dancing or really moving without knocking things over more often than not.
Even his Dad had noticed Finn's limbs of destruction and he'd discreetly moved a few of his mother's things to safer shelves with little more than a raised eyebrow. He warned Finn that the ceilings in the attic were pretty short and he'd better be careful if he didn't want to crack his head on an exposed beam.
Dad warned Finn and Finn nodded and even made eye-contact, which would indicate that he had both heard and understood Dad's message.
Which was why, two minutes into looking in the attic for some box of Carole's, Kurt was sadly not surprised to hear the wince-inducing sound of skull on wood and the now familiar sound of Finn grunting in surprise and falling on his ass.
In another situation with another person, Kurt might have laughed and made a sarcastic comment, but it was Finn and that really had sounded painful. It would be so like Finn to give himself a concussion (again, from what Carole had hinted at).
"Ow." Finn said, laying flat on his back with dust flying all around him.
Kurt dropped to his knees next to Finn with barely a thought to his pants getting covered in dust and, Gaga forbid, mouse droppings – a testament to how concerned he was. "Finn?"
"I didn't mean to do that." Finn groaned, hand on his forehead. He was thankfully not slurring his words, which worked in their favor.
"Of course you didn't." Kurt agreed, having noticed that Finn rarely meant half of what he did. If he could somehow get Finn to put even a little bit of thought into day to day things, their health insurance provider would probably send him a fruit basket. "How hard did you hit your head?"
"Hard." Finn replied, which Kurt probably deserved for being so vague.
"Hard enough that you might pass out?" Kurt asked, trying to pull Finn's hand away from his forehead. "Let me see." He muttered.
Reluctantly, Finn dropped his hand away, "I don't think I will?"
That sounded way too much like a question to Kurt. "That's not exactly confidence boosting, Finn."
"Give the spots a minute to go away, then I'll be sure." Finn answered.
That sounded like a plan, but there was still a pretty bad looking cut on Finn's forehead that Kurt didn't want to mention. Panic was nobody's friend. He looked around the limited space to see if he could find something to press to the cut to keep the bleeding to a minimum, but he didn't really trust the cleanliness of anything in the attic, even though things had only recently been put there. He wasn't taking any chances. The button-down Finn was wearing over a t-shirt was a marginally better bet, but Kurt was still a little iffy. They didn't have much choice though, not if he didn't want Finn to get his own blood in his eyes.
"What're you doing?" Finn asked when Kurt put his shirt to his forehead.
"Don't worry about it." Kurt advised before quickly adding, "How are the spots?"
Finn blinked a few times, "Better."
"Good enough to sit up?" Kurt asked.
Finn was familiar enough with head injuries to know not to nod. He just shifted so he could get his arms under himself, pushing off the ground before Kurt had a chance to tell him to take it slow.
"Whoa, Finn." He said, putting a hand on his step brother's back, as if that would stop him from falling flat on his back if sitting upright didn't go so hot.
Finn's eyes fluttered, but after a few seconds he seemed to get better.
"Think you can make it down the stairs?" Kurt asked, eyeing him warily. There's not a whole lot he can do if Finn didn't think he could. Sit there, pretty much, until someone came home to help or Finn's head stopped spinning long enough to let him move. He wouldn't make Finn move if he didn't think he could do it, if for no other reason than falling again could take a simple bump on the head right into concussion territory.
Luckily, Finn seemed to be seriously considering the question. "Yeah, I think so."
Which was how, about five minutes later, they had managed to make it down to Kurt's room. He completely was not willing to go down the next set of stairs to make it to the living room. It was much easier to sit Finn down somewhere padded, namely his bed, and get their supplies.
He briefly considered calling Carole, but really, it was nothing he couldn't handle and she would probably enjoy someone else she could trust patching Finn up for once. He was sure that the school nurse had done so through the years, but there was only so much trust to be placed on that particular position…
Kurt carefully loaded his arms up and went back to his room.
"Spots are gone." Finn said, sounding a little better. He'd definitely noticed the cut through. He had one of Kurt's many, many hand mirrors in front of his face, checking out the cut in his hairline that had thankfully stopped bleeding. Finn noticed Kurt's glance, "At least it's in my hair where you can't really see it, you know, if it scars."
"Unless you fall prey to a receding hairline." Kurt pointed out, opening up a sterile wipe. He pushed Finn's hand away and started to clean the cut.
"Ouch, shit," Finn swore, though he was obviously trying to sit still and not pull away. "No fair throwing out stuff like that when you're pouring bleach in my cut."
Kurt rolled his eyes, "I'm assuming you know that this isn't really bleach?"
Shooting Kurt a look that might have possibly made him feel a little silly, because really, they had pretty much stumbled into one of Finn's areas of expertise, Finn returned the rolled eyes. "Yeah, I know that. Still feels like it though."
Sailing right passed that, Kurt asked, "Are you going to tell everything with a skirt that you saved a litter of cuddly kittens from a burning building or something?"
"No point." Finn said, a little miserable but still sounding pretty used to it. "People see a guy my size and a smack on the head like that and it's pretty obvious what happened. Especially if that guy is me."
Kurt nodded sympathetically as he opened some gauze to tape over the spot, since there wasn't a bandage that would do the job with Finn's hair in the way. "Well, at least you didn't need an emergency room visit."
Finn brightened considerably, "Yeah, this is way better than going to the hospital, or even if Mom was here. You don't fuss as much. I'm totally coming to you from now on."
Kurt froze and closed his eyes, letting out a short, resigned sigh. Why did that sound way more ominous and prophetic than it needed to be?
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