To Live To Suffer
Waiting
It seemed so strange to be stood there, fear gripping his heart, while the rest of the institute slept peacefully. Scott couldn't help but feel this night was too unreal to have actually happened. He wished he could wake up and find himself in his bed, knowing it was a dream. But it wasn't. He wasn't going to walk down to the kitchen in the morning, with a greeting smile, and see Kurt loading up his breakfast plate with double the amount of everyone else's food; or to see him downing two glasses of orange juice before asking Kitty if he could finish hers. Was he even going to see Kurt's fanged, carefree smile again? After this trauma, it was probably going to be a long time until he, Scott, smiled. How he owed so much to Jean. If it wasn't for her abilities, Kurt would most likely by dead …
Shaking his head for thinking such thoughts, Scott looked up Kitty and Rogue. He was sat on the cool floor next to the only chair outside the infirmary. Both girls were half asleep, sharing the cushioned seat, having nodded off only a half hour ago.
It had been a long night, but early morning had arrived. Scott glanced at the clock on the wall to find he had been there for almost five hours, and still they had not been told anything. Professor X had appeared once in that time, to see if there was any news, and Logan had popped down for an hour in which time he was asked to come into the infirmary to make a blood transfusion. Scott was so tired he could barely remember the small conversations he had shared with them. His eyes lowered back to the floor as his lids drooped, but he refused to sleep. Kitty stirred next to him, her own eyelids fluttering. Her expression was not peaceful, and there was a small frown creasing her features.
Minutes must have passed as Scott sat there, fighting off sleep and locking away all the bad thoughts that kept entering his mind. This had to be one of the worst nights he had ever had, and he hoped he was never going to have to sit here again, fearing for someone's life.
"Scott?"
The voice had been soft, and his sleep-clogged brain made it seem as though it had been something from the back of his mind. But he knew the voice, and sensed movement in front of him. He forced his eyes open, lifted his head and looked up.
"Jean," he said at once, getting to his feet. He hadn't seen her, Hank or Ororo since they had run off the X-Jet. Scott found his feet, a little clumsily, and stumbled over to her, straightening himself out.
She was stood in front of the infirmary entrance, and in this light she looked as bad as he felt. Her expression didn't comfort him, as he hoped it would.
"W-what's the news," he stuttered, working his throat in his exhausted state.
"He's stable," she replied wearily, closing her eyes for a brief second. "We did everything we could, and he'll recover . . ." she looked into his eyes through his shades. "But it'll take time . . . some of his wounds have already caught infection, and his body is too weak . . ." She seemed to have lost the strength to finish. She swallowed and glanced at the floor. "Logan's blood gave him a small boost of strength, but it was used almost immediately on repairing his wounds, so we don't know when he could wake up."
Scott stared at her, feeling only slightly better. The news that Kurt was obviously unconscious now was – horrible as it sounded – good, because it meant he was no longer in pain. But it sounded as though it was going to take days for Kurt's body to regain enough strength to wake up. And when he did, he was not going to be his usual self . . .
Scott focused back on the redhead before him. "Jean, listen," he started softly, "if it wasn't for you – " he paused a beat, unsure how to say what he wanted. " . . . thank you . . ."
She smiled, though half of it was forced, he could tell, she was too tired. "Don't thank me, I couldn't have done anything else . . ." Don't thank me at all, I lied when I explained Kurt's situation . . . it was so much more serious than I made it out to be. Maybe if I had told you Kurt was being beaten to death you all wouldn't have paused to question me and we could have saved him frommost of those wounds.
"Jean . . . ?" asked the tired voice of Kitty from behind Scott. The girl blinked awake, looking all the more tired, and focused her blue eyes on the redhead. "Jean – what's happened? Is he okay?" Her movement and questions woke Rogue, who stirred and noticed the older mutant too.
Jean took in an audible breath to add a bit more volume to her voice. "He's going to be okay," she told them.
Scott turned his head away from the girls and into the infirmary as Kitty and Rogue climbed off the chair. Hank was still moving about, though less frantic, and Ororo was sat by Kurt's bedside, staring sadly at the teenager's face, stroking back a bit of hair. Kurt himself looked a bit better, but Scott couldn't see much from here.
"You can go in," Jean said quietly, noticing his and the girls' gaze.
Scott glanced back at her before he, Kitty and Rogue moved slowly into the infirmary. The lighting in here was considerably brighter, as it had to be for the teachers to see what they were doing. Scott's eyes adjusted behind his shades at the red light, and he could feel the temperature in this room was slightly warmer to the area outside.
Hank and Ororo looked up as Scott, Rogue and Kitty joined them, giving them a weak smile each. Ororo stood up.
"He'll be fine," she said comfortingly. "As long as we keep an eye on him."
The three turned their eyes down to the blue mutant sleeping on the bed before them. His fur was clean now, having been washed and clothed, probably by Hank. He was wearing only a pair of white boxers that the Beast had made Scott fetch from Kurt's room, so they could get to Kurt's wounds without a problem. The room was fairly warm, and there was a blanket folded at the end of the bed for when Hank was finished checking the dressings.
Kitty lowered to her knees by Kurt's side near his head, studying him with a sad expression. This was the boy who had a never-ending source of energy that always kept him bouncing around, making people laugh. Now, as they all looked at him, he was fighting for just a bit of that energy to recover. There was a gauze bandage taped to his forehead near his left temple, half hidden by his hair, which was the only serious wound on his face. A small red scar nicked his right cheek and another across his nose. Ororo, Hank and Jean had done a very good job at cleaning him up. His face looked ten times better than when Scott had last seen him . . . but still, it wasn't what anyone liked to see on Kurt's features.
Most of his chest was dressed in a larger, more padded bandage, taped around his torso. There was the faintest stain on blood in the center that had managed to soak through. Scott's own chest seemed to ache as he imagined a wound like that on him. He remembered the long shard of glass Hank had took out, and wondered if perhaps there was deeper damage than they were being told. Obviously his ribs had been cracked, having seen how deep the glass had been wedged, but no one had told him that. Scott's eyes wandered from the large bandage to the rest covering the blue furred body, his eyebrows rose up slowly in aching pain. His right arm was pretty much half white with two wrappings, one on his upper arm, another on his lower, and yet there was still a scar or two uncovered; his left arm wore a small band just under his shoulder. And there was still more bandages: a thicker one on his left thigh, and another on his right shin, along with the unwrapped scars. It was one of the saddest sights any of them had seen.
And apart from the bandages, there was the necessary medical equipment. Drips, tubes, an oxygen mask and aheart monitorwere attached to him,helping Kurt to pull through. Rogue's heart wrenched. God, who could do this to someone? Just why had Kurt let them? His teleporting abilities would have saved in a second from this; was he caught by surprised? Unable to muster the strength to teleport? Questions that begged to be answered were queuing up, but Rogue, being a master at shutting out thoughts, ignored them. She had always waved Kurt away when he tried to talk to her, but now, she was wishing she could hear his voice, just to tease her about how pale she looked, like he did when he had nothing else to say. Things were going to be horribly quiet at the institute for a while . . .
Hank had moved over to Ororo, quite silent for a man his size. He placed a gentle hand on hers and drew the attention of her eyes.
"Go get some rest," he suggested softly. "He'll be fine now, with us here."
Ororo nodded. "Yes, I think I will. Make sure you get some sleep, Hank," she said, and with a wordless nod to the younger mutants, took another look at the sleeping elf, and walked out of the infirmary. Hank himself looked exhausted more so than anyone else, but he seemed determined to stay in the room. Scott noticed for the first time he still had the faintest color of blood stained on the fur on his hands.
"Mr. McCoy," Scott spoke up as Rogue sat down carefully on the bed, staring at her adoptive brother, "you should get some rest too –" he gestured to himself, Kitty and Rogue " – we can stay here and looked over Kurt."
Hank shook his head. "Thank you, but I can't . . ." he suddenly looked wearier than ever, his eyelids lowered to look at the floor instead of at Scott. "I don't think Kurt is out of the woods yet . . . I'd rather stay here, just in case . . ." Hank felt unsure about his work on Kurt. After all he wasn't a doctor, he only had some knowledge of medical treatment, and he was afraid something would happen that he wouldn't be able to help with. Kurt's life was in his hands, and it scared him to think he might let the boy down.
Everyone was silent for what seemed like minutes. It was ten seconds later when Scott broke the silence again.
"There won't be . . anypermenent damage, will there?" He asked, a hopeful note in his tone.
Hank's expression remained the same. "I'm not sure . . . his thigh muscle was pretty bad, I don't know if he'll suffer a limp . . ."
A limp? Kurt was so active, he loved to let out his energy – a limp would totally break his heart. He would be warned by everyone to take it easy, and Scott had come to know that Kurt would not like to hear that warning in his direction, nor would he listen to it. He was the athletic member of the team, having that title taken away because of a ripped muscle would causegreat hurt on the guy . . . Scott prayed his muscle repaired properly.
The heart monitor let out an irregular beeping pattern for two seconds before returning to normal. Everyone stared at it, and then back at Kurt. Scott swallowed, realizing that this day, he would have to be watched carefully.
A:N: umm… I'm not sure I want to leave it there… but I already have the next chapter figured. I'm gonna go ahead and thank y'all individually, since I've seen it a lot in the evo section:
Carol J: Thank you for not suing me, lol, ah try mah best with reactions, be sure to tell me if anything seems off ;)
DemonRogue13: Thank you
Snitter: Danke, lol, yeah, I just realized I haven't seen much leader-to-leader talk either. And gotta start with the fun things first, pain and all, it's pretty fun to write – of course, I don't mean I like writing Kurt in pain, oh, well, I do, but, ah, I'm shutting up.
TheDudeLordOfFantasy: heh, thanks for the enthusiastic review, another Kurt angsty addict, eh? That's good to hear, lol. Thanks for the fav ;)
ToiletDuck85: lol, 90 of sympathy for poor Kurt, I think the other 10 should go to the others for the bearing with it. Yeah, why waste an opportunity to throw them all in hell, ;) Thanks too much
Kurrtygirl: Yeah, I wanted it to be sad, a fic that forces you to feel bad for the characters, lol
Anonymous: Thanks, and don't worry, Kurt will live, I'd never dream of killing him off… well, maybe if I had another plot to bring him back, love the tension everyone feels with stories like that, mwaha, evil is good.