"Hummel. Burt, though," the man offered with a warm smile, his arm still around his wife's shoulders.

"Right. Sorry. Blaine asked me tell you that he headed out with Kurt, driving him home." He did his best to sound cheerful about the idea and hoped that he succeeded.

Finn's forehead creased into a frown, and he felt a sizable lump develop in his throat. He found it more difficult hearing that Kurt had left with Blaine than he'd expected it to. His Mom noticed his distress and Finn quickly passed it off as being in pain. This gave Carol and Burt their cue to leave; Finn was certain he had not heard the last of what a complete idiot he had been. Alone with Damien, Finn glanced over at the morphine drip and asked, "Any way you can up the dosage?"

Damien gave a rueful shake of his head. "That's a kingdom they will not give me the keys to, m'man." He lifted a plastic tub with a washcloth and some soap inside. "I'm here to make sure you're not so disgusting that you give up on visitors altogether. Or so they don't give up on you. Y'know, one or the other." The young man stepped in closer and then flashed a smile at Finn. "Unless ya want me to see if I can drum up a nurse in a size double D for you. Puck always kinda insisted on that when he had pneumonia in middle school." Despite the offer, Damien continued to ready the area for giving Finn a sponge bath. "Met your brother. Cute, but kinda bitchy." Curious to see what kind of information it might get him, he added as casually as possible, "He's dating my ex, apparently."

Finn's eyes widened with surprise. "Really? You and Blaine?"

"Yeah, me and Blaine." Damien tried not to take offense at the other boy's surprise, but it stung just the same. He hated assumptions, hated stereotypes, and it killed him that people assumed the way he looked meant he was only interested in dating somebody who rode a Harley or something. "Guess it wasn't quite dating, but..." Damien shrugged and decided it made more sense to move on. He was overstepping his bounds as it was bringing Finn into the whole stupid thing. //What the hell does he care?//

Finn didn't really know all that much about Blaine to start with, but he’d always assumed that Kurt was his first boyfriend. //Wonder if Damien still wants him?// It was a crazy thought. Nothing and nobody could ever come between Kurt and Blaine. //And I've sure as hell tried.// Feeling woozy from the drugs pumping through his system, Finn nodded for Damien to go ahead with the bath. He really didn't care. "Kurt's great," he murmured, "he's just upset about me acting like an idiot again."

"We all fuck up, though. Fact of life. He probably gets that," Damien answered as sincerely as possible. Finn's fuck up had been a big one - but even big screw ups weren't insurmountable. "So how do you like McKinley? I've been kinda... well, my grades have sucked at Dalton." It was easier not to dance around the fact of the matter. "My parents figure maybe it was a bad idea throwing me into the deep end of the pool." Damien leaned over and reached behind Finn's neck to untie his hospital gown. "I just have no idea why they think putting me and Noah in the same school will be a good influence."

"McKinley's cool," Finn murmured, his eyes growing heavier. "And Puck's, well... he's different..." He couldn't believe he was about to say something nice about the guy. There would always be bad blood between them no matter what happened. "Ever since we both joined glee club, he isn't like he used to be." //Neither am I...// Not even aware of his hospital gown being lowered, Finn glanced up curiously at Damien. "I don't think you'll have anything to worry about if you transfer."

"Yeah? That's good. You're right about Noah," Damien agreed, reminding himself to stay all business no matter how nice the view was. Finn's athletic nature was more than obvious, but it would have been unprofessional and a little skeevy to enjoy the view too much. Once he'd managed to extricate Finn properly from the gown, Damien grabbed the tub full of warm water and set it a little closer on the room's moveable table. "He's grown up some. Still a horndog, but that's just him. Maybe I'll fit in better over there. I just... I'm not a blazers and acapella kinda guy."

"That's okay," Finn replied, hurting too badly to even shrug his shoulders. "I'm not recruiting. Last thing glee needs right now is someone else coming in and stealing all the male lead vocals." It stung knowing that his senior year would be filled with watching Blaine not only walk away with Kurt but also taking over glee. Depressed again, Finn glanced down and was taken aback by the scratches and bruises marring his bare torso. His worries over Blaine seemed trivial all of a sudden. "Something tells me I'm lucky to have gotten out of that crash alive," he murmured.

Damien nodded solemnly at that and continued cleaning Finn's arm up to the cuff of his cast. "Yeah... yeah, it kinda looks that way." Not wanting Finn to focus on the negative, he worked to keep up the stream of chatter. "I sing, but I've never actually been in a glee club. Blaine tried to get me to sign on with the Warblers, but it... like I said, bad fit. Seriously, can you picture me with those guys?" Damien arched an eyebrow as he met Finn's gaze. "But I'm not lookin' to take over the universe. So who's your competition for main man now? Cuz you're gonna have the sympathy vote for awhile lookin' like this."

"Erm," Finn hesitated, uncomfortable with his having to break the news to Damien. "Apparently, Blaine. He's transferring to McKinley. At least that's the plan." Unsure of how Damien might take the news, Finn tried not to dwell too much on Blaine Anderson. It made him desperate for something hard and strong to drink, and he found himself pressing the button for another shot of morphine. "It's either the medicine or you're very, very good at this," he commented, meeting Damien's gaze again. "I don't feel a thing."

"Both," Damien answered automatically. He was less than thrilled by the news that Blaine had transferred too. //Shouldn't matter. He obviously doesn't care, why the hell should I?// "I'd just be careful with the little happy button. You only get so many shots in a certain time frame. Then you're fucked with no painkillers but aspirin or whatever." He moved on to carefully dabbing off the scrapes covering Finn's chest with the warm water. The bruises from his seatbelt were just beginning to form. "Good thing you're not a total moron. You probably would've gone through the windshield without that." He ran a finger over the obvious bruise pattern.

The touch of Damien's finger on his sensitive skin made Finn's throat catch. Before Kurt, he had never thought of another guy touching him; he'd never even imagined being with another guy in that way. //Oh God, what am I doing?// "I... don't remember," he murmured nervously. "I think I wanted something bad to happen. Really messed things up with Kurt." //Why am I telling this total stranger all of this?// Maybe because Damien seemed like a cool guy, or the drugs were affecting his brain?

Damien considered that as he rinsed the cloth again. "How? I mean, he seemed worried, not pissed." //With you, anyway.// Finn also didn't strike him as the type to intentionally hurt anybody. //Then again, maybe that's just me being a sucker for a guy with puppy dog eyes.//

"I just... really messed things up with him, that's all." //Found out I'm in love with my stepbrother, and I can't do a damn thing about it.// Finn now understood how Kurt must have felt last year, and that only made the ache in his heart worsen. "Erm, if you do end up at McKinley, are you gonna be alright with Blaine and Kurt dating?"

"Yeah. I mean, no real choice," Damien answered, his tone declaring rather clearly that he was less than thrilled with the idea of it. "Blaine made his call already, so..." He shrugged and averted his gaze from Finn's face. "Uh, not everybody's cool with the full monty, but it's probably better to..." He gave a gentle tweak to the blanket that covered Finn from the waist down. "Mind?" The last thing he wanted was the guy reporting him for sexual harassment or something.

"It's fine," Finn replied, again unable to even shrug his shoulders thanks to his current state. How many times had he'd been naked in front of other guys in the locker room? This wasn't any different, right? "Are you... still interested in Blaine?" he asked, trying to sound casual. Was it too much to hope that Damien could steal Blaine away? Finn didn't want his stepbrother hurt more than he'd already done himself, but if Blaine was no longer in the picture...

Damien thought that over as he drew the blanket down. The upside of the painful conversation is that it did make it a lot easier to keep things professional. "I... it's... complicated. We clicked, really liked each other, messed around some, and... it kinda... after awhile, I realized that he never seemed to want to see me around his friends or go out or anything, really. I thought maybe he was just in the closet or whatever at first, but he wasn't." The warm cloth traced its way over Finn's skin, and Damien reminded himself to keep talking. "Long story short, I was nuts about him, and he was just kind of, like, having fun. Which is fine, but only if everybody's in on it. Anyway, I don't think it matters whether I’m interested. He stopped calling, stopped talking, stopped making eye contact. I tried to say hi today because I figured it's been awhile, y'know? But... yeah. Not so much."

"Oh..." Finn visibly deflated. Any hope of possibly getting Kurt away from Blaine vanished, crashing and burning in a burst of despair. He caught his breath as the warm cloth brushed over his skin and, for the first time in what seemed like forever, Finn was distracted from his incessant thoughts of Kurt. His body, having a mind of its own, responded to Damien's touch in kind. Blushing fiercely, Finn murmured apologetically, "Sorry about that... No control over myself... at all..."

Damien smirked in response, finding the blush rather charming. "I'm definitely taking it as a compliment, no worries. And, hey, if you're worried about your brother," Damien added as he drew his gaze away from Finn's rather obvious reaction, "don't be. Blaine's a good guy. The problem between him and me was him and me. Guys like you and Blaine don't go for guys like me, so it was kinda bound to fail."

"Yeah, well, I'm not gay," Finn started, only to feel the specter of Kurt's knowing gaze burning through him. "I'm not sure what I am anymore," he amended softly. It was especially true, Finn decided, when he was sporting a raging hard on and the dude giving him a bath wasn't Kurt. His head feeling heavier, the room seemed to wobble before Finn's eyes. "Never really doubted myself until recently..." Again, he was finding it deceptively easy talking to Damien. "...Kurt had a crush on me, and I wish I'd figured things out sooner..."

Damien had been on the verge of apologizing for making assumptions when Finn proceeded past his initial protest. He was stopped from telling Finn that there was nothing wrong with being bi when he forged ahead yet again to confess something even more interesting. "So... is that what you said you screwed up? Waiting too long?" As he spoke, Damien began re-situating the covers and Finn's hospital gown. //Shame to lose the view.//

"Pretty much," Finn sighed, his expression one of pure misery again. "I never thought anything like this would happen. Kurt and me, we've come a long way together." //Brothers from another mother,// he remembered saying a whole ago. "It's like... I don't know, I just started looking at him differently and... wanting him..." Finn glanced up at Damien, his eyes smoky as the effect of the drugs began to hit him harder than before. "Why am I telling you all this?" he wondered groggily.

“Because you're stoned out of your mind," Damien answered simply. He patted Finn companionably on the shoulder. "Tomorrow you probably won't remember my name, m'man. Probably about time for you to get some sleep. You need anything before I head out?"

//Kurt,// Finn very nearly mumbled. He was so out of it his head lolled and his chin bumped his chest. "No, I'm fine... thanks," he said, unable to keep his eyes open a second longer. Finn slept like a log, not stirring until the wee hours of morning, and then only falling right back to sleep. When he finally managed to crawl his way out of the drug-induced fog, Finn didn't feel rested at all. Instead, he was in a hell of a lot of pain.