Kurt woke from a deep, comfortable sleep to his dad gently shaking his shoulder and calling his name. His mind was blissfully blank, cloud pillows obscuring distant thoughts and worries until the question floated to the front of his mind; why would his dad be waking him up?
Was he late for school?
No panic made it's way to the front of Kurt's mind like he'd expected at the thought. He simply felt that, as long as he didn't move or speak or think, he could stay in this hazy bubble of comfort forever.
The room was full of people.
A pair of women in scrubs moved around one side of the room setting up and fiddling with equiptment, and an older man in a white coat stood at the end of Kurt's bed, watching him. Kurt felt his throat tighten at the sight of him, and quickly looked back at his dad.
Burt was crying.
"What happened, Kurt?" he was suddenly asking. He'd been gripping his son's hand in both of his, Kurt realized, gripping it hard. But it didn't hurt.
"What happened?" Kurt repeated. Things were moving too fast, the nurses were whipping back and forth, pushing trays of instruments up against his bed, and his father kept talking to him.
The man kept watching him, waiting for something. Kurt felt like he should shift away, toward his father.
Burt touched his shoulder, and suddenly Kurt remembered Finn touching his shoulder and holding him.
"Finn?" he asks, that fluffy comfortable cloud slowly dispersing.
"Finn's fine, buddy. He's outside with his mom," Burt assured him. Kurt nodded, knowing that he'd been worried about Finn, but he wasn't sure why. "What happened?" Burt asked again. "Back in the basement?"
Right, the basement, Kurt thought. The cloud was almost gone now. His head ached distantly, along with the hand that his dad wasn't gripping. The basement brought cold and darkness to Kurt's mind.
They were so spotty, his memories, but he told his dad the pieces that came to him.
"There was a man," he began, trying not to look at the man in the white coat. "I woke up and there was a man in the room." Burt nodded and Kurt turned to the ceiling as more images came back to him.
"He said he was going to kill us. Both of us. Me and Finn." From the corner of his eye, Kurt saw his father drop his head to his hands.
"He kept touching me," Kurt recalled, seeing the flashes of rough hands on the white ceiling. He could almost feel them on his skin, knew that if he thought too hard about it he would be back under that man. "And hitting me." The man in white was scribbling on his clipboard. Kurt squeezed his dad's hand.
After a few moments of silence, Burt's head raised. Kurt looked at him and felt a twinge of guilt at the wet streaks across his father's face. "What else?" Burt asked. Kurt shook his head, confused.
"Were you raped?"
Kurt jerked his head to meet the gaze of the man in white. He felt his dad's hands on his shoulder and neck and turned back to him.
"We need to know, Kurt. You could be hurt, so we just need you to tell us," Burt said, eyes red rimmed but voice strong as he held his son's neck in his large hand.
The cloud was gone now. Kurt's head was pounding, his muscles all sore and stiff. It was so hard to think, because any attempt to delve further than those flashes of memory made his head feel as though it would explode. He could only conjure fuzzy images of his time on the stairs, of his hands being held over his head and his pants being unbuttoned...
"I don't know," he finally answers.
Both nurses and his father and the man in white are all looking at him now, all quiet and waiting and expecting him to know what's happened to his own body, how he was hurt, but he honestly didn't know. And suddenly he was terrified.
"I don't know," he repeats, his breath hitching and his eyes burning with tears. Because how could he not know? It's his body, his skin, his self, and he couldn't even remember whether or not that man had raped him?
Huge breaths suddenly turned into huge sobs as Kurt tried to push it out of his mind. His dad was closer now, arms wrapped around his shoulders as best they could with Kurt half laying down; he could feel his own fingers gripping the frabric on the back of Burt's jacket.
He pushed it all away, called back the clouds.
They were darker now, but the images retreated with the question of what had happened to him. His dad was kissing his forehead, running his hands through the hair on the back of his head, below a tight bandage.
The man in white began speaking again, and Kurt kept his eyes fixed on the top of the doorframe across the room.
"We're going to run a rape kit to make sure you're not hurt. You can have your dad stay if you want, Kurt. It's completely up to you."
Calmness settled over his mind again, a numb blankness that was no longer comfortable, but so much better than the panic and pain and hurt from before. He simply lay quietly, trying not to feel.
"This is Nurse Carter," the man continued, presumably introducing one of the woman in the room. "She'll be conducting the exam, and she'll explain what's happening every step of the way. If you have any questions, just let her know, or she can come get me for you. Okay?"
Kurt nodded, aknowledging that he heard what was being said.
"Do you want your dad to stay?"
His eyes flickered over to his dad, who was watching him, expression determined, and Kurt's resolve slipped a little at the thought of him leaving.
"You don't have to," he decided, turning back to face the door.
The doctor said a few more things and left with one of the nurses. Burt's hand never left Kurt's.
A/N: Stupid, I wrote this whole chapter, then finished the last line, clicked save, and started crying.
