Kurt had hated hospitals for a long time, and now his room smelled like one; Burt Hummel had pulled out all the stops, hiring a cleaning company to help sterilize their house and paying to keep a personal nurse on call nearly twenty-four hours a day.
There was no way Kurt was staying at the hospital for the full week, and Burt had enough money to pay for home treatment. The four of them in the Hummel-Hudson household had gone to the hospital to learn how to clean Kurt's central line and what to do for various side effects, but he'd be receiving most of his treatment at home.
Dr. Cartell had given them a huge supply of plastic covering for the line, frowning a bit when she'd heard about their new puppy, and was currently bustling around his room. They'd set up the minimal equipment they would need for his chemotherapy, and it was already attached to the line. He watched the drugs–cytarabine and idarubicin, according to Cartell–drip down into the tubing, mesmerized; he could hear Burt and Carole talking to his doctor faintly.
He was sitting cross-legged at the top of his bed. Finn dominated the foot of the bed, flipping a hyper Fiyero upside down and wrestling gently with him; a particularly rough flip provoked a yelp from Fiyero, who turned around and climbed into Kurt's lap, nuzzling his hand and shooting a far-too-human glare back at Finn.
"So everyone knows what to do in case of emergency?" Burt and Carole were quick to reassure her, and Finn gave a mock salute, which made Kurt let out a tiny and embarrassing snort; Cartell shook her head at him and followed their parents up the stairs.
Kurt tugged on Fiyero's ears lightly; the puppy rolled over in the dip of his crossed legs and exposed his belly to Kurt, who scratched it, a small, pleased smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
"Kurt?"
Kurt's smile grew as Fiyero's leg started twitching against his belly, "Yes, Finn?"
"Are you going to be okay?"
Kurt lifted his head, his smile fading.
Sometimes, Kurt forgot that even with everything Finn had gone through with Quinn and Puck and then Rachel and Jesse, he was just a naïve teenager with disproportionately large dreams. Finn wasn't fragile–he'd taken more hits in the past football season than anyone else on the team–but seeing him look so pathetically sad and hopeful broke Kurt's heart; they were both kids and this–Kurt's illness disrupting their new family–was not fair, and it was definitely not fair that it fell to Kurt to reassure him.
Fiyero flipped back over in his lap and settled his head on his front paws, draped across Kurt's legs, "Finn, I–I'm going to be fine." Finn's face remained unsure, so he reached out and placed his hand over Finn's where it rested on his own leg. Kurt smiled; Finn's very mild homophobia seemed to have disappeared completely. "They caught it early and as I'm quite young, I have higher chances than most. Please, Finn, just… Don't worry, please."
Finn nodded, looking like he was about to cry, and then turned his hand up and wrapped it around Kurt's.
When Finn had given him the puppy, he'd said it was because he thought everybody would try and take care of him, but Kurt hadn't thought much of it.
Now, Kurt was propped up in bed, watching Quinn bustle around his room. It hurt to see her like this; as soon as she'd come over she'd started treating him like a fragile doll–a baby–and considering she'd given her own child up barely a month ago, he didn't have the heart to tell her to stop. He also didn't have the heart to tell her that he was exhausted and sore and he just wanted her to stop moving because it was giving him a headache.
Mercedes was sitting on the floor by his bed, flipping through a magazine and ignoring Quinn, who kept making small noises in the back of her throat and glancing at Mercedes as if she expected her to get up and join the ten-second tidy.
"So how's it going with you and Puck, Quinn?"
Quinn tittered from her place atop Kurt's desk chair, balanced precariously and dusting a picture on the wall, "We're off again. Puck and I bonded over the baby, sure, but we both knew we'd never work out. Maybe if I was still the bitch I used to be, we could make it work." She leapt down from the chair gracefully and sat down at the end of his bed, lifting his feet and dropping them back down into her lap, "Besides, I think he's crushing on someone else."
Kurt laughed as Mercedes whipped around, "Spill, girl."
Quinn just started rubbing Kurt's feet, smiling down at them, "I don't know who it is," she emphasized, "but I walked in on him and his yearbook, so I'm sure it's a real person and not a celebrity. That is all I know."
Mercedes frowned, mumbling, "For somebody who used to be queen bee, you suck at gossiping."
"I've never enjoyed gossiping," Quinn pointed out, "And now that I'm not queen bee, it's not expected."
A door slammed upstairs; Mercedes went back to her magazine and Kurt went back to detailing the events of musical theatre history for Quinn. Puck and Finn came downstairs, followed by Fiyero, who was dragging his leash behind him and kept lifting his paws too high to avoid stepping on it.
"Hello boys." Kurt smiled at them. Quinn wiggled her fingers distractedly as she reached across the bed to grab one of the magazines Mercedes had brought. Finn grumbled under his breath, stomping to the couch and collapsing on it. Puck laughed, leaning down to unclip the leash and run his hand over the puppy's head.
"Finn may have stepped in dog shit."
"Are you alright?" Rachel was sitting in the chair beside his bed, tilted back against the wall.
"Well, I could be better." He smiled at her and she laughed quietly, eyes darting about the room. He watched her for a little while, trying not to be offended by her cardigan, before muting the movie they were watching, "Rachel, is something wrong?"
Her eyes widened minutely and she smiled, reaching down to straighten the hem of her shirt, "Yes, actually. I thought that… maybe… you might need somebody to talk to?" She trailed off, looking confused and unsure of herself.
"Not that I don't want to talk to you, but I do have Mercedes and my dad and even Finn is capable of listening." He leaned back against his pillows and she followed his movement, scooting to the side of her seat and angling her body towards him.
"Yeah, but all of them are just as devastated as you."
"And you're not." Kurt raised his eyebrow swiftly, watching her lean back in surprise.
"That's not what I meant. I just meant that those people are closer to you than I am, but if you need somebody to talk to that can listen objectively and give you opinions without breaking down, I feel like I have sufficient life experience to be the type of friend you really need during this traumatic and frightening time for you."
"Rachel, I'm fine."
She reached out and closed her fingers around his wrist, which was reaching for the remote again, "Kurt, you shouldn't have to be strong for them. You should be able to break down and cry and scream at the unfairness of this."
"Rachel, I–" He broke off, trying to summon words to convince her he was okay, "I… I think I'm going to be sick."
If he wasn't about to puke, he might have laughed at the horror that dawned in her features. Terrified, she lunged, grabbing the bin that was meant for this purpose and pushing it in front of him. She moved so she was sitting on the side of his bed and rubbed his back while he threw up. When he'd finished, she brought his toothbrush out and held the bin away from his face until he was ready to spit; she took it into the bathroom and washed it out while he settled back into his pillows and closed his eyes.
The water turned off and he heard her come back.
"That's it. Move over." She kept her hands on her hips while he gaped at her and crossed his arms; finally, he sighed and moved over. She situated herself beside him and dug her arm in behind him even though he pressed his body backwards to make it difficult for her. She turned the volume back on and the soft guitar strumming of "One Song Glory" resumed.
Kurt fought the urge to lean against her for a long time, finally resting his head on her shoulder as "Take Me or Leave Me" started. She kept her arm firm around him as his whole body crumpled and wetness flooded from under his closed eyelids.
"I'm sorry. I just–I have to be strong for my dad and for Finn." He let out an abrupt sob, sounding mildly hysterical, "It's not fair that Finn's such a baby."
Rachel laughed, smiling down at him, "You don't have to tell me about Finn's less-than-ideal maturity level." She squeezed his shoulders tightly; Kurt didn't seem to mind when she pressed a quick kiss against the side of his head.
Kurt had told his dad to turn away most of his friends because he'd been throwing up at least twice an hour, but Quinn and Mercedes were refusing to leave. Mercedes had not moved from his side all day, wiping the sweat off his forehead and supplying fresh sticks of gum that didn't make him gag; Quinn was braving the task of cleaning out the bin every time he felt he could go without it for a while.
"Stop apologizing, Kurt, you have a visitor."
Kurt looked up from the bin, dodging Mercedes hand, which was trying to force a thermometer into his mouth.
"Hi, Mr. Schue," It sounded like Kurt had been chewing on gravel. He tried to smile at his teacher, grimacing and pulling the bin towards him again. He waited a moment for it to subside and then glanced back at Schue, "You didn't pick a great day to come, but it's nice to see you."
Quinn pulled a chair over for Schue to sit down and grabbed the thermometer from Mercedes. She grabbed Kurt's chin in her hand and turned it up to face her, "Open up, you stubborn boy." He groaned but obeyed anyway, letting her slide the thermometer under his tongue.
Their teacher watched, amused, as Quinn held his mouth closed around the device. He glared at Quinn, looking considerably unthreatening with his washed out skin and sweat-drenched hair. He could feel Mercedes twining her fingers around his clammy hand.
The thermometer beeped and Quinn removed it, allowing Kurt to fall back against the pillows with a moan, "98, Kurt. If you increase 2.5 degrees we're taking you to the hospital. We'll take it again in fifteen minutes."
Kurt rolled his eyes, "Yes, mom." Quinn had sat down on the end of his bed, pulling her feet up and sitting Indian style at the very end; she stiffened noticeably at the nickname, her face tight. Kurt turned to Mr. Schue, his voice forcibly cheerful, "Thanks for coming, Mr. Schue!"
He glanced sideways at Quinn, who twisted her thumbs together in her lap, before he spoke, "I wanted to see how you were doing."
Kurt didn't answer, falling over the bin and emptying the little amount of water he'd managed to swallow into the bin. Mercedes squeezed his hand, reaching up to brush the hair back from his eyes, "He's not doing so great today, but I'm pretty sure this is the worst it's been all week."
"How much longer is…" Schue trailed off as Kurt's heaving transformed into a coughing fit, "How long is the treatment?"
Quinn grabbed the bin from him and left to clean it. Her voice drifted out from the bathroom over the sound of running water, "He started on Monday morning and this therapy is a week straight, so he's got three days left and then a couple weeks off before he's back on."
Kurt groaned, dropping a hand dramatically over his eyes, "Please, can we talk about Glee or school? Anything besides how much longer my body must continue being destroyed by chemicals?"
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