He only vaguely remembered going down.
One minute, Kurt was up, prancing towards the football to score the extra point. Then, the wind was knocked out of him, and he was on the ground.
The world was blurry for a few minutes. Kurt could see the stadium lights, and heard voices surrounding him. It sounded like he was underwater.
Was he drowning? No, he couldn't have been. He was lying on the ground.
He wanted to sit up, but he couldn't. He couldn't even move his head, since his helmet felt like it weighed a thousand pounds. It was pinning him down to the ground.
Kurt gathered all his strength to try and sit up. But even then, it was like his body was working against him. His neck felt like he had slept without a pillow, but in a more painful way.
He felt hot tears form in his eyes. Kurt had no idea what was going on, and he was alone. His vision finally adjusted, and he could see the coach, and head trainer sitting over him, shining a light in his eyes, trying to get him to respond somehow.
"It hurts," he choked. Just those two little words were exhausting for him.
"Don't try to move," he heard the trainer tell him. "You're going to be okay."
Kurt heard a familiar, deep voice, and for a second he thought it was his dad's. But then he remembered; his dad had to work late that night. It was the first game that he had missed, and the one where he had to get hurt.
The voice belonged to Finn. Kurt didn't dare try to turn his head, but he could see the quarterback out of the corner of his eye. He sat right next to Kurt's head, looking dazed and shocked.
"Dude…" he trailed off.
Kurt tried not to break down and cry. Finn was a familiar face, and that was all Kurt needed. Finn took his hand and squeezed it. Kurt remembered noticing how cold his fingers were.
"Don't go," Kurt choked. "Finn!"
Finn shushed him. "I'm not gonna leave. Where are your parents? Are they here?"
Kurt went to shake his head, until he remembered. His vision went a little fuzzy, and he felt lightheaded, like he could pass out any second. "Dad…at work."
He saw Finn nod. It was getting awfully hard for Kurt to hold his eyes open. The trainer nudged Finn out of the way so she could talk to Kurt, but he didn't remember any of her words. He just held onto Finn's hand, trying not to move or talk or cry.
Then more people showed up. They moved him around, strapped him onto a board and pulled off his helmet. A thick brace was wrapped around his neck, and two tiny tubes were shoved up his nostrils.
"Finn," Kurt pleaded when he realized no one was holding his hand anymore. He wasn't sure if anyone heard him. "Finn!"
"Who's Finn?" one of the paramedics, a young African-American woman, asked him.
Kurt was too busy crying to answer, but he heard someone else come up next to him as they began to put him inside an ambulance.
"I'm Finn," the voice said, sounding out of breath. "I'm his best friend. Can I go with him? His dad isn't here. He needs someone to go with him."
Kurt reached his fingers out to the quarterback, and Finn grabbed his hand again.
"You can ride along," the paramedic confirmed. "Just sit by his head and stay out of the way."
Kurt felt like a weight had been lifted. He was no longer alone. Finn was there. It would be okay.
The ride was hell. Every bump, turn, and stop only added to the pounding feeling that was building in his head. Kurt tried not to cry, since Finn was there after all, but there was one particular dip they took, perhaps a pothole, that was too much.
Kurt felt himself slipping into unconsciousness. He heard a monitor beep and voices beginning to rise as he shut his eyes.
He awoke to dim lights and a steady beeping. At first, Kurt thought he was in his room, until he looked down and saw the plain white blankets covering him.
He glanced around, confused and quickly growing panicked, when he noticed his dad, quietly sitting next to him, watching his every move.
"Dad," he croaked. His throat hurt.
"Hey, buddy," his dad said softly. Kurt tried to shift himself to get more comfortable; he hated sleeping on his back. "No, don't try to move. We can get a nurse to help you if you're uncomfortable."
Kurt moaned as he recalled the previous events of the evening. The kick that went wrong. His headache. Finn.
"Where's Finn?" he peeped.
"Kiddo, it's two-thirty in the morning. I got a phone call from a nurse here saying you had been hurt in your football game. When I got here, Finn was sitting in the waiting room in all his pads and helmet and everything. You were in an MRI. He told me some beast from the other school snapped your neck like a twig, but he said he stayed with you until you passed out in the ambulance. You broke your neck, and they said it's a miracle you don't have any spinal cord damage. Finn was here until about midnight, when only family could stay after that. His mom is a nurse here, actually. I told them they could come back later, and I'd give them a call when you woke up."
It took Kurt several moments to process everything. Some kid broke his neck. Finn had stayed at the hospital with him for several hours. He was going to be okay, apparently?
Kurt's initial relief quickly turned to panic. "Am I paralyzed?" he asked. "Am I going to wind up like Artie?"
His dad quickly shushed him, and pulled the covers back from Kurt's feet. "You're just fine, buddy. See? Try moving your toes."
Kurt twitched his ankle, and drew his legs back up under the blankets when he realized how cold he was. His dad covered him back up, and wiped the tears from his son's face when he started to cry.
Kurt wanted nothing more than for his dad to wrap his arms around him and tell him it would all be okay, but he knew better than to try and sit up again. He felt choked by the brace that remained around his neck.
"Take it off," he pleaded, fingers picking at the brace. "I want to go home, Dad. I hate the hospital."
Kurt's dad took his hand and stroked his hair, letting Kurt cry until he had nothing left in him. "We're going home soon," he promised. "The doctor said you don't need to stay here very long at all. Just close your eyes and sleep for right now. In the morning you can see Finn again when he comes to visit you, and you'll feel better, and we'll talk to the doctor about going home, okay? But you can't do any of that if you don't get some sleep."
Kurt didn't realize how tired he was. His whole body still felt sort of numb, but his eyelids alone felt like they weighed fifty pounds.
He closed his eyes, feeling his dad's hand continue to brush his hair back as he slipped into a weary, dreamless night.
Author's Notes:
I got this prompt a loooooong time ago so please don't hate me for taking 37 years. School is out for Christmas and I desperately need to write. So yes send me prompts because I have a big load of nothing planned for the next two weeks. Merry Christmas, friends!