Author's Notes: BLAINE’S POV

“Is it normal that he’s asleep all the time?” I asked when Kurt’s breathing steadied and his fingers, laced within mine, had stopped twitching.

“Normal for his condition, yes,” Carole answered.

“What’s going to happen now?” I asked. Burt spoke up from the chair by the TV.

“Once he’s released, he’s going to an eating disorder clinic in Columbus. He’ll probably stay more than a month.”

“How did you hear about it?”

“The doctor recommended it. Luckily, Burt’s insurance covers a lot,” Carole answered me.

“School ends in two months. How will he finish the year?”

“The clinic will help him with online schooling.”

“When is he clear to leave the hospital?”

“They said that they are certain levels he needs to reach to-“

A knock on the door disrupted Burt’s reply. Kurt shifted in his sleep, twitching his fingers again.

“Come in,” Carole allowed. The doctor scuttled in with a sad look on his face.

“Hello, family. I have some bad news,” he prefaced.

“Kidney failure?” Carole sighed. The doctor pulled a stool over by the hospital bed that I had only just realized I was sitting on, still holding Kurt’s frail body while he slept. The doctor was kind to let me be though.

“Unfortunately, yes. The tests show that Kurt’s kidneys are failing probably due to his severe dehydration. His condition is considered critical because of the anorexia, and he’s in need of dialysis. Basically, the procedure will function for his kidneys while we pump more fluids into him.”

I looked down astonished at my boyfriend. He slept so peacefully despite the machines attached to him and the failing organs within.

Nobody said anything for a while, and I felt awkward, like I was intruding on some big family decision.

“How long will you do the dialysis?” Burt questioned.

“I estimate at least a week,” the doctor replied. Carole, with her medical knowledge from being a nurse, piped up.

“What are the chances that he’ll need a kidney transplant?” The doctor flipped through Kurt’s chart and read silently.

“I’d say 40%.”

The light shone through the hospital window as it passed from behind a cloud. I took a shuddery breath. I really couldn’t believe I was in this situation with Kurt. It had me wondering if.... maybe I did something that, I guess, triggered him to diet so harshly. The silence in the room stretched on.

“Do you have any more questions for me?” the doctor asked.

“I don’t think so. Thank you.”

“I’ll be in later to set up the dialysis machine and to answer any questions that do come up.”

The doctor left the room. I couldn’t stop the words bubbling out of my mouth.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking, but did you see this coming? Was he really that secretive?”

Burt looked away, and Carole put a hand over his. Immediately, I felt guilty.

“I’m so sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to accuse you of-“

“No, kid,” he interrupted me. “That wasn’t accusing me of anything. Both Carole and I were unaware that he was this bad. I look at him now without the layers he would always wear, and it scares me. I’m more scared now than I was when his mom got sick. If Kurt can’t get better, I’ll feel like I failed her,” Burt finished, looking straight up to the hospital rooms ceiling tiles.

“He was secretive at school, too,” I added. “I tried everything. I went to the nurse. All of the Warblers knew something was up. I tried to intervene, but I… I just couldn’t do it on my own, you know?”

“No one should ever be solely responsible for the life of a person. It takes a village to raise a child,” Carole comforted me.

Suddenly, Kurt began coughing in his sleep. I got off the bed to be on his bedside in case anything happened to come up. His body shook with the coughs until his eyes opened blearily, and he tried to sit up in bed. Carole and I helped him, wary of the wires and tubes.

“He’s gonna throw up,” Burt predicted at the foot of the bed. I guess parents know their kids well because Kurt nodded his hair and scrunched up his face, breathing heavily. Carole got a bin and held it under his face. Immediately, my poor boyfriend vomited blood. A fountain of blood.

A spike of adrenaline hit me, and my response was to press the “call for nurse” button on Kurt’s hospital bed.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” Kurt mumbled through a mouthful of blood.

“No, honey. Don’t apologize. Shhhh,” Carole was quick to console him.Burt had gotten a paper towel to clean Kurt’s face up.

In a short while, a nurse came in to see what we needed. Once she saw the blood, she stuck her head out into the hallway and called for the doctor who came rushing in.

“I didn’t want to. Oh my god,” Kurt was crying. The machines beeped to the rapid pace of Kurt’s heart rate.

“Son, you’re his boyfriend, correct?” the doctor asked for clarification. I nodded.

“Okay. Listen, Kurt. Look at your boyfriend. Study his breathing and match it.” As Kurt stared at my chest with teary eyes, the doctor checked his IV bags and ordered off some more medicines to the nurses who waited with pen in hand.

“Kurt, have you ever thrown blood up before?” the doctor asked.

“Just once,” he responded shakily. Actually, he was trembling all over.

“Well, I believe that the blood is coming from his esophagus. The bulimia erodes the lining of the esophagus. The seizures may have opened some cuts on it. We call that Mallory-Weiss tears,” the doctor informed us.

“What’s the treatment like?” asked Burt.

“There is no treatment that I recommend right now. If he continues to vomit, the cuts will only get worse. I ordered some more anti-nausea medicine for his IV.”

“If it does continue?” Caroled added.

“There is a surgical repair that could be done, but-“ the doctor trailed off and read over some papers. “Kurt’s body is just too frail right now. Putting him under for surgery would be very risky. Waking him back up might be impossible. However, I have confidence that we can nip the nausea in the bud and skirt the surgery.”

“Okay. Thank you,” Burt said gruffly. We all became very aware of the pressing situation. Kurt just hung his head in his hands.

The doctor left, a nurse came in. She pushed some medicine into Kurt’s IV bag.

“This may make him sleepy,” she said.

Because of Kurt’s low weight, it took no time to make him heavy-lidded. Rest was what he needed, and the medicine allowed that for him. I gently lowered him to lie down on the pillow. He was asleep before I could pull the blanket up to cover his chest.

“I’ll see you soon, my angel. Don’t go anywhere,” I plead in a whisper next to his ear.

“I have to head back to Dalton. Can I come back tomorrow?” I stood and asked his parents.

“Absolutely,” Carole replied immediately. “Thank you for supporting him through this,” she hugged me.

“Yeah, we’re indebted to you for keeping a caring eye out for him at school,” Burt gave me a one-armed hug.

I took the bus to Dalton, lost in my thoughts. Had I really helped?




KURT’S POV

This damned hospital has the worst blinds in the world. The morning light woke me up. I looked at the clock to see that it was 6:30 in the morning. Too damn early.

I lied in the bed and looked at the ceiling, the wall, my sleeping dad, then the bags that were feeding liquid into various tubes stuck into me. Bored as I was, I began tracing them to their origins. The one on my hand went to a bag with saline something. The bag was filled with clear liquid. The one from the inside of my elbow went to another clear liquid bag. An anti-emetic. Okay then…

The one from my nose led to a bag with disgustingly beige-coloured liquid. It had a brand name, but I was more focused on the “30,000 cals” it boasted of.

It was like another being infiltrated my body as my hand began fervently tugging at the feeding tube.

Or maybe it was just me- who I had become.

“Out. Out. Get out,” I fumbled with the thin line. Tears sprang into my eyes. I didn’t want food. I didn’t want calories. They were fattening me up.

I let out a strangled cry of confusion and despair. My thoughts were whirring and uncontrollable and this is not how I wanted today to start out.

“Whoa, buddy,” my dad had woken up and watched as I fumbled with the tube. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I need- I need THIS,” I tugged harder and gagged, “out!” My dad grabbed my wrists.

“Dad, stop! Let me go!”

“Kurt, don’t argue with me.”

I began to thrash around, and, wow, everything hurt. I was sore like I just worked out for five hours yesterday, but I needed freedom. I needed my dad to get off of me.

“NURSE!” he bellowed. “NUUUURSE!”

When the nurse came in, she must’ve interpreted my red face and my dad with his hands around my wrists as something very wrong because she dashed right out.

“Dad, get off of me. I n-need to do this,” I growled.

“Why? Why do you need it out?” he argued back.

“It’s making me fat!” I cried.

“It’s keeping you alive,” he said sternly.

The nurse came back in holding what looked with belts.

“What the FUCK?” I yelled. “You c-can’t restrain me. You can’t tie me up against my will.”

“You are not in a position to make rational decisions for yourself, Mr. Hummel,” the fucking nurse said. “You can seriously hurt yourself if you pull that out.” My dad helped her to push my struggling arms down. It didn’t take much of his strength as mine was waning. They strapped me down to the bed with four belts.

“We’ll be checking on you to see how you’re doing later,” the bitch said and left.

“Fuck you,” I said through my teeth to my dad.

“What else were we supposed to do?”

“Leave m-me alone!”

“Look where you are, Kurt!” he snapped, face immediately becoming red.

“Did you think I wanted this?” I blew up. As I did, a machine in the room began an alarm sound. It seemed to come form the machine which I had been told was the dialysis machine. The nurse paged the doctor who came in in half a minute. They turned it off and took my vital signs.

“What’s going on?” my dad asked, yearning for answers. I just laid back and breathed. I had this pent-up rage in me that still ached to be let out.

“The situation was a bit too much for Kurt’s heart. His heartbeat became irregular,” the doctor explained. "The dialysis had ceased for a second."

“Is this a set-back?” my dad asked dejectedly.

“No. It will only really affect him if this keeps up. For right now, we press on with treatment."

I closed my eyes as a sign of “I give up.”

“Hey, Kurt. I need you to keep your eyes open for just a little longer,” the doctor nudged me a bit. I had to fight myself to not nudge him back a little harder. “I would like to speak with you alone.”

“But I’m his parent,” my dad stupidly said. No duh, Dad!

“In order for me to best treat him, I would like to understand him a bit better without the pressure of having a parent nearby.”

“Oh. Well, okay,” he mumbled and shuffled out the door followed by the nurse.

The doctor pushed a stool up to me and sat, pressing a few buttons on the machines around me.

“I have a sister who went through an eating disorder similar to yours. No eating, excessive exercise, throwing up food, et cetera,” the doctor began.

“I don’t excessively exercise,” I replied.

“You exercise simply to burn off calories,” he assumed. Correctly, I might add. “The experience she went through affected me in the way that I feel drawn to care for those who are going through the same thing. I want to ask,” he scooted closer, “When did you first start doing this to yourself?”

“A year ago,” I answered, remembering the exact day, the exact meal that I pushed away.

“So, a year ago, you decided to skip a meal or make yourself throw up?”

“I had had a… run-in with some not-so-nice people at school,” I skirted around the issue.

“Did they say something about how you looked?” he asked.

“They said I weighed a lot,” I said lowly.

“How would they know?” he pressed further.

“They w-were holding me.”

“Why were they holding you?” I held my tongue.

Silence.

“I’m legally prohibited from telling anything you say now to your dad unless it’s suicidal or intentional harm to you,” the doctor said probably to get the answer out of me.

‘They… they tossed me in the dupster.”

“You’re bullied?”

“Yes.”

“Have they ever seriously hurt or threatened you?”

A flash of Dave Karofsky’s face, and I was reduced to tears.

“Yeah, which is why I left schools.”

“Did they follow you? Are there bullies at this new school?”

“No, b-but… I just… have these flashbacks that… feel so r-real,” I sniffled.

“Have you ever told anyone about this?”

“No. N-not about the flashbacks.”

“How does starving yourself help?” the doctor’s face scrunched up in confusion.

“It just… feels like I have at least some control in my l-life.”

“Do you ever use it as punishment for yourself?” he wanted to know.

“Yeah,” I hesitated to say.

“What did you do that deserves punishment?”

“I’m not as good-looking as other guys, and I don’t know what I’m doing with my life because I’ll never be talented enough to make it big time, and I’d rather just be dead than face another homophobic bully,” I blabbed and blubbered.

“Tell me, Kurt. Are you suicidal?”

“No,” I sighed. It was the truth. My mom’s words echoed in my head.

“What’s keeping you alive?” he prodded further.

“My boyfriend.”

“You two are a very cute couple.”

“Thanks,” I gave a side-smile.

“Well, Kurt, thank you for letting me ask you a couple of questions. By the way, your speech is improving. I have no reason to believe that it will be a long-lasting issue,” he made to leave.

“Wait!”

“Yes?” the doctor turned around again.

“When can I get out of the restraints?” I asked.

“I’ll be sending in a psychologist to talk to you, and she has my permission to take them off.”

“Oh,” I mumbled, lying back onto the pillows.

Great. A fucking shrink.