"Hello, my name is Blaine Anderson, I was called in to see Kurt Hummel."
"Oh good, you came. I'm the nurse that called you earlier. He's right down that hall on the right side. Room 415." She pointed to the hall to Blaine's left. He nodded, sighed deeply, then started to walk down the glossy, linoleum lined hallway.
Blaine never liked being in hospitals. He swore he could smell diseases being inhaled into his lungs just by walking through these corridors. Though the sterile atmosphere reassured him that everything was at least mostly clean, it still give him the creeps.
He slowed down his pace as he walked. 409, 411... He was getting close. 413...415. The door to the room was ajar, just enough for Blaine to see the wall plastered in a terrible wallpaper. The door next door to Kurt's room was wide open and an elderly man was lying in his sleep, snoring loudly, and the TV blasting Drew Carey's voice with cheesy music from an episode of The Price is Right.
Loud dinging and cheers sounded from the distant television as Blaine finally built up the courage to knock on the fake wooden door. He waited a moment, then heard an unfamiliar voice answer.
"Come in," the voice called quietly.
Blaine gripped the door handle and slowly swung open the door. An older male doctor stood in the center of the room, blocking most Blaine's view of Kurt. The doctor turned around and smiled at the young curly haired man.
"You came at a good time. He's asleep right now, and I need to go over some things with you while he's sleeping." The doctor gave him a half smile. "I know you're not in any way related to him in his family, but since he's so far away from home and any relatives, we gave him the option to think of anyone in the area that may come for support." Blaine nodded. "He's claiming he was a hit-and-run car accident, which may be a part of it, but I believe there's a part of the story he's not telling us. There's no way he could have been this banged up just from a car hitting him. It's not adding up. What I need you to do, son," he walked over to Blaine and put his hand on his shoulder while staying at arm's length. "We need you to see if you can pry the whole story out of him. If there was any violence involved in this, we need to report it." The doctor patted him on the shoulder he had been gripping, then turned to walk out of the room.
"He should be waking up soon from his surgery, so I'd stay put if I were you," and with that, he was gone, off to tend to another patient. Blaine stood there stunned, unsure of what to think of the situation. Finally, he turned to get a good look at his ex-boyfriend lying in the hospital bed. His face had several large bruises and welts, including a black eye and a swollen, blood encrusted lip. He couldn't see what kind of damage was underneath his hospital gown, but his arms were severely bruised as well, not to mention a cast on his left arm. Blaine sighed heavily at the heart-breaking sight. He slowly approached the man in the bed, gently reaching out for his face. Blaine softly stroked Kurt's cheek, feeling a tear fall from his face. Afraid of waking up in this awkward moment, Blaine quickly walked over to a padded bench in the window of the hospital room, and stared at the floor for what seemed like hours.
After about 30 minutes, Kurt stirred. A low groan came from him, and Blaine lifted his head with wide anxious eyes. He watched as Kurt slowly began to move his body, his eyes still closed.
"Ughhh... my head..." moaned Kurt in a low voice. As Kurt began to hoist his body into an upright position, he held his forehead in the palm of his cast free hand. Kurt finally opened his eyes, only to close them tight again instantly from the blaring hospital florescent lights. He blinked quickly, then began to keep his eyes open by squinting. Still clutching his forehead, he turned toward the direction of the windows, where Blaine happened to be sitting. He seemed slightly startled by Blaine's presence in the room.
"Oh. Hi." Kurt said groggily, now using the ball of his hand to rub one of his eyes. Blaine looked down again, this time as an automatic shy reaction. He then slowly stood up, and after finally locking eyes with his ex, he responded.
"Hey." Kurt made a small smile while Blaine stood by the window seat, completely dumb-founded that this was happening.
There was an awkward silence for a few seconds, and their stare broke when Kurt turned his head in the opposite direction, looking at the IV he was hooked up to. Blaine, for a third time, looked at the ground in awkwardness.
"Glad you came. No one else I know in the area. Wasn't sure if you still had the same phone number. Sorry it's so early in the day." Kurt spoke in quick, soft spoken sentences, trying to avoid eye-contact with Blaine as much as possible. Blaine dared not move any closer to the man's bed, in fear of intruding their already awkward boundaries and personal space.
"Yeah. I was out for a run when I got the call." Blaine said, nodding. Again, another long awkward silence. Kurt broke the silence once more.
"You still go to Emerson or..." he broke off, trying to make an effort to keep a conversation going, but failing miserably.
"I graduated just last year." Blaine finally looked up and kept his stare. "I heard you're still working on Broadway. Saw you had a whole article about you in a magazine recently." Kurt nodded, also making eye contact with Blaine finally.
"Yeah, it was a pretty big deal. This magazine doesn't really cover gay guys in musicals very often," he said with a slight chuckle, then suddenly breaking into a coughing fit. Blaine's eyes grew wide with concern.
"Are you ok? Did you need some water or anything?" Kurt shook his head, continuing to cough into the crook of his elbow. Blaine noticed that small splatters of red were flying from Kurt's mouth and onto the sleeve of his hospital gown. He suddenly realized Kurt was coughing up blood. This was NOT a good sign.
"Kurt, you're coughing up blood. I don't like the look of this. I'm going to go get a nurse." Blaine started to make his way for the door.
"No!" He managed to shout between coughs. "I'm-" another string of coughs. "I'm fine." The more he coughed, the more blood he was bringing up onto his arm.
"No, I'm going to find a nurse." He ran out of the room and stopped short in the middle of the hallway. Looking around in both directions, he saw no one in sight that could help him. He suddenly thought of the kind nurse he had spoken to earlier on the phone and in person, and sprinted down the hallway to towards the head nurses desk. The nurse had been jotting notes into a binder, her back turned to Blaine. When he ran into the edge of the counter with a loud thud, she turned around in surprise.
"Kurt...he's coughing up blood," he said quickly, breathing heavily. The nurse grabbed her clipboard on the counter and walked fast with Blaine in tow back down the hallway he had come from. When they entered the room, Kurt had a large patch of blood on the sleeve of his gown, and was still coughing furiously. His whole face had gone red from coughing so much.
"He shouldn't have sat up in his bed this early. He tore the seal we just made to his punctured lung." Blaine's jaw dropped slightly.
"He- he had a punctured lung?" Blaine asked, flabbergasted.
"Yeah. He's going to need to go back into surgery so we can fix this again." The nurse quickly made a call for some more nurses to get into room 415 to wheel the patient back into surgery. In no time, a group of people came in with a gurney to place Kurt onto. They gently but quickly rolled the boy onto the other bed and quickly wheeled him out the door. Blaine tried to follow him out, but the first nurse grabbed his arm with a slightly firm grip. As the gurney rounded the corner into the hallway, speeding off to god-knows-where, Blaine raised his other arm as if he were reaching out for Kurt. He felt tears welling up in his eyes. After the nurse let go of him, he dropped his arm in defeat. She patted him on the back in sympathy.
"Don't worry, honey. He'll be ok," said said kindly as she walked out of the room. Blaine was left in the middle of room 415, feeling small and helpless. He may still be mad at Kurt for what he had down those few years ago, but a huge part of his heart was still deeply in love with him. As he continued to stand in the middle of the room, hanging his head low once again, he could still heard the blaring of The Price is Right next door in 413, almost as an ironic mocking of his internal pain.
(Just so you all know, I have NO education in the medical field expect I know how to do CPR and some First Aid care because of a class in my school, but I'm assuming most of what I wrote for this is probably wrong in some way, shape or form. If any of you DO have any form of medical knowledge, don't be hatin' on me. xD)