Bleeding Heart Ch. 10
I do not own Glee or any of its characters
He wondered if this was a dream. Around him, yellow taxis and white trucks blurred into dangerous stripes at the intersection, moving at warp speed but somehow caught in slow motion. There were so many people swirling around him collecting like fish against a dam, everyone's figure soft along the edges, everyone's but his own. He was wearing the bright red sweater Kurt loved, he felt clean, new.
Looking down, the toes of his shoes lined up with the edge of the curb, crisp, ready. He could feel the short hairs lift up on the back of his neck as he stood on the busy corner waiting for the lights to change. His ankles felt the same breeze as he rolled up onto the balls of his feet. He was stepping too early, too soon. His stomach flipped as he became weightless between the mass of people and the street, suspended before impact. Behind him, there was a sharp intake of breath and the ring of his name on the air.
"Blaine! Please baby stay with me-" Kurt begged, tear sodden gripping the hem of his lover's blood stained shirt.
In the ambulance, the paramedics worked like machines keeping Blaine's pieces from flying apart as his eyes rolled back and he seized again. It was torture, and Kurt could only keep himself from thinking that this all meant he was losing him. This was it.
As the ambulance jerked to a stop and the rear doors burst open, Kurt squeezed Blaine's hand one last time to no response. The bowels of the truck emptied immediately and Kurt was pulled at breakneck speed by an invisible tether following Blaine's stretcher. He was inside the hospital pacing alongside Blaine and the paramedics until one of the people in the puffy jackets turned around and put a hand on Kurt's chest to stop him as the rest of the team pushed Blaine through some double doors away from him. Kurt felt the invisible tether connecting him to Blaine stretch and snap as the doors swung shut.
He couldn't hear a word, he didn't even know if he was talking back to the person in front of him. He didn't know if any of this was real at all until suddenly all the sound in the room rushed back into his ears. He didn't remember the blood curdling scream that escaped his mouth or the many hands that were needed to restrain him or the shroud of blackness as he passed out in the hallway.
"Kurt?"
The room was grey in the foggy morning light. In the seats around him, almost everyone had cleared out through the night. The linoleum floors around his feet were etched into his eye sockets, memorized, burned. This day, this night, this never-ending time. White speckled linoleum around the shoes Blaine had picked out for him. Old torn Highlight magazines and sticky armrests, metal chairs. The smell of old paperwork and gauze. Babies crying. The woosh of sliding doors. The din of unwelcome despair.
"Kurt," Rachel started again, gently touching his shoulder, "I got you a coffee, here," easing it into his tired hands. "I grabbed you a fresh shirt from home."
Kurt blinked up at her, a silent thank you.
"Do you have any idea when he'll be out of surgery?" She asked quietly. He took a slow breath and rubbed his hands across his face to clear his eyes.
"Soon, I think? I'm not really sure. The lady came out and said they were going to put a pacemaker in after all, and I'm not sure how long that takes but that was… 3 and a half hours ago.. so.." he drifted off.
Rachel nodded soberly and sat down beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. "He's gonna be ok, Kurt. I know it."
Kurt nodded back silently. Rachel surveyed him. She had never seen Kurt look so drawn, broken.
"You feeling dizzy at all?"
"No, I'm fine, thanks," he replied weakly.
"Drink your coffee, babe. When he comes out of this, you're gonna wanna be awake for it," Rachel nudged.
"I know, thanks," he replied, managing a side smile.
Over the next two hours, the waiting room filled again with sick and injured patients and family members waiting for help, but also came Sebastian and Sam. Kurt told his dad to stay home because his dad showing up would mean this was more serious than it was, and Kurt wasn't ready for that yet. He held his breath. Rachel rubbed his back. The group sat more quietly than Kurt had ever known possible. Sebastian had tried to apologize to Kurt at first, but Sam quickly took him outside to diffuse the situation. None of it mattered. Nothing mattered without Blaine. And finally.
"Kurt Hummel?"
His eyes snapped up to the nurse with the clipboard and bolted upright as if someone had poured ice down his back.
"How is he?" he asked, memorizing the deep lines around the nurse's eyes. A worried look. A not good look.
"He's…He's asking for you."
(to be continued)