Disclaimer: I don't own Glee or any of these characters… if I did, Karofsky wouldn't exist anymore, Jesse wouldn't have been such an asshole (albeit one I believe legitimately fell for Rachel), and there would be a LOT more Blaine.
A/n: So yay, I managed to finish another chapter! I'm still working on the next chapter of "Broken" and I had an idea for another one-shot that I want to write up but things keep changing in my head so it's going to be a while. Anyway, hope you all enjoy!
Being in the hospital was beginning to get tedious, even if Blaine had only known he was there for a few days. The only good thing about the situation was that they had moved him out of the ICU that morning and into a regular room, which meant that Blaine was able to at least get up and sit in a real chair rather than being stuck in bed all the time. It hurt, given the number of broken bones he had and the fact that he had to actually put some weight on his broken leg in order to walk the few steps. He still hadn't worked up the courage to look at his face in a mirror and see all of the bruises.
Blaine had gotten a good look at the fading bruises on his chest, arms, and legs, although he had a strong suspicion that the casts on his arm and leg covered the worst of it. There were so many; in some places Blaine wasn't sure where one bruise ended and the next began. It was sickening, which was part of the reason Blaine had begged to be allowed to wear pajamas instead of the awful hospital gown. At least his pajamas covered most of his skin, hiding as many of the black and blue marks as possible. Even if his mother did have to help him change clothes because he couldn't get into any of his clothes by himself.
Blaine felt a hand on his shoulder and turned away from the window he had been staring at, forcing a smile as he saw one of the countless doctors he had seen since he'd woken up in the hospital. He vaguely remembered him as the doctor who had tried to test his hearing; the proper term for the man's specialty escaped him.
Paying attention to what was being said wasn't exactly an easy task, so Blaine didn't even bother to try. He didn't know how to read lips, and the man wasn't bothering with the whiteboard Claire had brought him, which Blaine knew his mother had gotten when he'd been moved into this new room. Blaine was looking out the window again when he felt someone touching his shoulder again and turned to find the doctor kneeling down beside him with two small electronic devices in one of his hands that Blaine couldn't quite make out without his glasses. Somehow those still hadn't found their way to the hospital. Blaine watched as the man picked one of them up and showed it to Blaine before moving it towards Blaine's right ear. He felt the doctor gently press one of the ends into his ear, hooking it behind his ear.
It felt awkward, like the weird headphones Wes always used. Blaine had tried them once, but he hadn't liked the weird combination of earbuds and the glasses he had worn when he was in elementary school. But at least these seemed to fit his ear better and weren't nearly as annoying to get on. Blaine was distracted enough that he didn't even notice the doctor putting the other aid into his left ear until he turned the device on, slowly dialing up the volume.
The noises startled Blaine; he had gotten so used to silence that even the small amount of noise that he could hear felt strange and wrong. The fact that only bits and pieces of what was going on around him actually came through didn't help that feeling.
"Blaine, can you hear me?" The words were soft, barely audible over the strange background noise of the hospital. Blaine instantly turned to his mother, recognizing her voice despite how soft it seemed to be.
"Barely," Blaine replied, reaching up towards his right ear and attempting to find the volume control. "Can it get louder? It's too quiet…" He felt the doctor's hand on top of his, guiding his fingers to the small dial and helping him turn it the tiny bit further the dial could go.
"Better?" the doctor asked, making the same adjustment on the other ear. Blaine nodded slightly.
"A little. It's still really quiet." Blaine saw the man sigh, but he didn't hear it even with the hearing aids. They weren't strong enough.
"We can try a more powerful aid…" the doctor began. Blaine wasn't really paying attention to the conversation very well; it took too much effort to keep focusing on the quiet conversation and it was making Blaine's head ache.
Blaine didn't even notice the doctor leaving the room until his mother ran a hand through his hair. He turned and smiled at her slightly. "Where are my glasses? I'm tired of not being able to see anything." Blaine didn't like the way he couldn't really understand his own voice. It sounded strange and garbled, nothing like he remembered it sounding.
"I'll have Wes bring them today. Do you need anything else?"
"No… I'm just kind of tired. I think I'm going to try and sleep until the pain meds wear off again," Blaine replied, reaching up and finding the dial on his hearing aid to turn it off. There was no point in wasting the batteries, and at least a nap would be a good excuse for taking them off. Blaine pulled the device out of his ear, placing it in his mother's outstretched hand before he quickly did the same with the other one. Blaine closed his eyes, drifting off fairly quickly.
Finn looked up quickly as he heard Coach Beiste's whistle in the locker room, surprised to see a man and a woman in suits standing behind her. "Listen up! This is Detective Browning and Detective Mitchell from Westerville. They've asked to talk to all of you for a few minutes." Finn raised an eyebrow. He wasn't always the quickest one on the uptake, but he knew that Kurt was in Westerville.
"We have reason to believe that some of you may have information regarding one of our cases… a student from Dalton Academy was attacked several days ago…" the female detective began. Finn watched as Puck shot to his feet, staring down Karofsky as Sam and Mike held onto his arms. Dave didn't seem the least bit fazed by Puck's threatening stance.
"What did you do to him? What did you do to Kurt?"
"Puck!" Finn yelled, standing up and getting the other boy's attention. "Don't you think you would have heard about it before now if it was Kurt?"
"How do you know? Have you talked to him lately?"
"Puck, Finn's his stepbrother… he lives with Kurt's dad. I think he would know whether he'd spoken to Kurt or not," Sam reasoned. That seemed to be enough to calm Puck down, or at least to get him to sit back down on the bench to hear the rest.
"Finn's right… it wasn't Kurt Hummel who was attacked. We're here because the security cameras caught several images of the attackers… we can't make out faces, but one of the boys was wearing a McKinley High letterman jacket. If any of you have any information, we will be in Miss Pillsbury's office until five."
"What was his name?" Finn asked.
"We can't release that information. He's a minor and his parents have asked that we not give out any identifying details for privacy reasons," the male detective replied.
"Why do you even care, Hudson? She already said it wasn't your fag of a brother. What, you got him to set you up with a rich boyfriend over there?" Finn turned sharply and glared at Azimio. He was already on his feet before he remembered that it would be a bad idea to get into anything with the other boy in front of both their coach and the detectives.
"Azimio! You just earned yourself a hundred push-ups," Coach Beiste called. "Hudson, sit down or you'll be joining him." Finn followed orders, but only because hitting Azimio Adams wasn't worth the torture of having to do extra push-ups. It wouldn't stop the other boy from being a jerk, anyway. "Get out of here. Except for you, Adams."
Finn got up from the bench, going straight to his locker and pulling out his cell phone to find out what the hell was going on. Whatever had happened, Kurt was sure to know.