Don't I Get A Dream For Myself? [Chapter Three]
Title: Don’t I Get A Dream For Myself [Chapter Three]
Author: niblettk
Rating: PG-13 to be safe
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Kurt Hummel, Noah Puckerman, Burt Hummel, Finn Hudson, ensemble / Puckurt, other couples are mostly canon (Finchel, Brittana, Wemma, Tartie, and Burt/Carole-whatever we’re calling that one)
Warning: This story does include medical themes and could possibly bring up cancer-related memories for some readers. Other than that, it’s possible some characters (Puck) could have a potty mouth.
Spoilers: Up to and including the season one finale.
Disclaimer: I do not own anything.
Author’s Note: I take credit for all my mistakes, but I also need to give credit to the amazing rainbowdocms for all her help.
Summary: Kurt is diagnosed with the same disease that killed his mother.
Word Count: 2100
Prologue | Chapter One | Chapter Two
Kurt squeezed his Dad’s hand.
Dr. Cartell, Kurt’s oncologist, held his right shoulder in her long fingers, inserting a needle into his skin just below his collarbone. He turned his head, grimacing and biting his lip as she pushed down on the plunger and anesthesia flowed into his vein.
“All good? I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Burt watched his son carefully, noting the barely-there quiver of his lip as he released it from beneath his teeth and the distinct sheen appearing in his eyes, “Kiddo, you doing okay?”
Kurt met his eyes then. He sniffed, smiling thinly, “I don’t know, Dad.”
When Cartell came back, Kurt laid down on the thin hospital bed. Burt watched his son’s chest rise smoothly, shudder slightly, and then fall. Burt despised everything about this situation, but the worst part was watching his son lose control when he was always so in command of himself. Kurt turned his head away as she brought out the scalpel, and Burt tightened his hold on Kurt’s hand.
It didn’t take very long and he couldn’t feel anything, but when she moved away and declared, “All finished,” he looked back and nearly burst into tears.
His hand clenched unconsciously around his Dad’s-Kurt didn’t notice the fleeting pain that flew across his Dad’s face-as he took in the central line. Cartell reached down to wipe away a small streak of blood on his collarbone, where she’d fed the line in, but Kurt was focused on the piece sticking out of his chest. She’d taped it firmly down and stitched up the opening, and now she was explaining how to clean it.
Burt felt like somebody had punched him in the gut when Kurt started to shake his head.
“Kurt, it’s all right. It’s-”
Kurt launched himself out of the bed, his voice tight and choked, “No. I can’t do this.” He made it to the door before his Dad caught his arm and pulled him back around.
“Kurt, look-”
“No!” It came out louder than he intended, and he felt color rising in his cheeks. When he spoke again, he kept his voice low enough that Dr. Cartell couldn’t hear from where she was watching them, “I don’t-I’m really scared, Dad.”
With all the craziness that had gone on in the past few months-coming out to his Dad, the jealousy over Finn, the fighting with Finn-Kurt had expected that he would never feel more exposed than he’d already felt, but this-standing in nothing but a pair of hospital pajama pants with tears flowing unchecked down his face and a little plastic tube sticking out of his chest-made him feel fragile. Breakable.
He felt like he could splinter into a million tiny pieces if he moved.
Burt moved his hand up to squeeze Kurt’s left shoulder, dipping his head to meet his son’s frantic eyes, “I know. I’m really scared, too, but I’m not letting you run away from this,” a few more tears spilt down Kurt’s thin face, “I love you, Kurt, and I’m not going to leave you, okay? I’m not going to let you fall apart.”
Kurt nodded feebly, swiping a hand across his eyes.
---
Kurt rubbed his shoulder, careful to avoid the line and massage around it. Cartell had warned him that the area would be sore for a few days. He reached into his locker and popped the cap off of the paracetamol she’d prescribed, slipping two into his mouth and swallowing sans water.
He closed his nearly empty locker-he’d been slowly moving his things home-and twirled the lock once to prevent jerks from breaking in and vandalizing or stealing his things, and turned down the hall, clutching his shoulder bag to his side.
He’d barely turned the next corner when Azimio appeared and slammed him into the row of lockers. Kurt couldn’t help it; he yelped, one hand coming up to grasp his shoulder again, and as Azimio turned to walk away, high-fiving Dave Karofsky, Kurt shouted after him, “Grow up, morons.”
They turned around slowly, and instead of shouting back at him, they simply stormed up to him. Kurt flinched back against the lockers as Karofsky reached out, inciting cruel laughter from both footballers.
Karofsky’s hand settled on the front of Kurt’s sweater and hauled him forward, the fabric slipping. He glanced down, and for a second Kurt was afraid that he’d somehow prompted a more violent response just by showing skin-and then Karofsky released him, flinging his hand up as if he’d been burned.
There was an unreadable expression on Dave’s face as he backed away, catching Azimio under the arm and dragging him down the hallway with him. Kurt glanced around at several onlookers, but they looked just as confused as he felt.
---
Kurt found out pretty quickly what had happened.
According to Mike, Karofsky’s aunt had died of cancer the year before and he’d spotted Kurt’s central line. According to Quinn, he’d punched Jacob Ben Israel in the face for asking her to confirm or deny anything about his cancer, and according to Rachel, it really wasn’t her fault this time that the whole school knew.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about the way his classmates were parting for him in the hallways, or the way his teachers were telling him it was okay if he didn’t get his homework done. Part of him wanted to dance and sing to celebrate the apparent end of the bullying, part of him wanted to take a bat to Azimio’s car for shouting about it in the cafeteria when Karofsky explained to him, but half of him wanted to crawl into his bed and cry to mourn the loss of normalcy.
Puck was the one who suggested he go home. He found Kurt sitting in the choir room, idly tapping keys on the piano and letting the notes fade away slowly.
Kurt moved over on the piano bench and let Puck sit down next to him.
“How’re you feeling?”
Kurt shrugged one dainty shoulder, “Fine, I guess.”
Puck nodded absently, hitting a high key on the piano to match the lower note Kurt was drawing out, “Why are you hiding out in the choir room, then?”
They let the notes die in the unusual quiet of their rehearsal space. For a long time, Puck wasn’t sure Kurt was even going to answer him.
“I’ve imagined this,” Puck stayed as still as possible beside him, “Not the cancer, I-I’d envisioned it: people clearing the hallways for me, nobody spitting insults at me. Now that I have it, I don’t know if I want it.”
“Not like this, at least.”
Kurt shook his head, “No. Not like this.”
Puck swallowed. He’d never been great at comforting people-he usually made some excuse and vacated the house when his mom or his sister were over-emotional-and he seemed to be the one finding Kurt at his most vulnerable. He was almost positive that Kurt had told everybody else before him-he wasn’t going to think about why that hurt, because he couldn’t explain that even to himself-and that he’d still managed to comfort most of his friends when he’d told them. Puck wasn’t sure why he’d been the one left to comfort Kurt, but he didn’t want to get stuck with the role permanently.
“Why don’t you go home?”
Kurt laughed, dry and forced, “Can’t drive on these painkillers. I have to wait for Finn.”
“Come on,” Puck stood, hooking a hand under Kurt’s elbow and tugging him to his feet, “I’ll drive you home.”
“Don’t you have class?” Puck snorted loudly, and Kurt laughed again. Puck felt something similar to how he felt running a touchdown rise in his chest as Kurt’s laugh came out natural-high and free-this time. Kurt grinned at him, completely genuine, and Puck tried not to notice how little color Kurt had in his cheeks. “Right, you’re a badass. My apologies, I forgot.”
Puck slung an arm over Kurt’s shoulder as they walked, “Just don’t do it again, Hummel.”
---
Puck stayed with Kurt for a little while, watching mediocre daytime television, until Kurt passed out on the couch. Puck grabbed the throw from the brown recliner, which he recognized as the one from Finn’s house, and tossed it over Kurt.
When he stepped outside of the house, he stopped in his tracks; Finn was standing at the end of the driveway, just about to close the door to Kurt’s Navigator.
“What are you doing here?” Finn kept his voice flat, trying not to convey emotion, but Puck could read the tense shoulders and barely narrowed eyes better than he thought he deserved.
“Kurt wasn’t feeling great, so I drove him home.” Finn’s expression didn’t change, so Puck started down the walk, “Whatever, man, I was just helping out a friend.”
Finn grabbed his shoulder as he tried to pass, “Dude. I don’t want to hate you anymore.” Puck kept his eyes focused on the bright yellow car across the street, not daring to get his hopes up, “I mean, what you did was totally not cool, and I still haven’t forgiven you, but I think you’ve paid enough for it.”
“So we’re cool?” Finn nodded, and he pulled Puck into a half-hug and they patted each other’s backs roughly, because they’d never really been the touchy-feely type of friends, and then Puck stepped back and shoved his hands into the pockets of his letterman jacket.
Finn twirled the keys around his finger, “Hey, so Kurt’s Dad said I could do something for him. Want to come with?”
---
Kurt rubbed the pink eraser over his homework; he rested a hand on his head and dropped the pencil, sighing.
Puck had found him in the beginning of the first class after lunch to take him home and Kurt was thankful: Jacob Ben Israel was dogging the entire glee club for confirmation; Karofsky had punched a boy who’d been about to throw a slushy at Kurt and Mercedes; Principal Figgins had stopped him in the hallway to announce that he was praying for him; and Ken Tanaka had given Kurt a disgustingly sweaty bear hug.
Fleeing had turned out to be the best thing for him: after his nap, he’d taken a long shower that had eliminated the faint dizziness that had been developing since Azimio slammed him against the lockers, and his homework had been piling up since he’d been diagnosed.
The stairs creaked behind him and he swiveled.
“Don’t look!” Kurt spotted Finn’s feet retreating back up the stairs, “Close your eyes or I won’t come down.”
Kurt stood up, taking a step towards the stairs, “Finn, what are you doing?”
Finn’s voice cracked as he shouted, “Close your eyes!”
Kurt sat down on the edge of his bed, letting his eyelids fall shut, “Okay, okay, they’re shut.” Finn’s footsteps came slowly down the stairs and then towards him, “Why are they shut?” Something heavy dropped into his lap: a soft, moving, heavy something. His eyes flew open and he gaped down at his lap, “Sweet Versace, tell me he’s full grown.”
He pulled the puppy up to his face and it licked him; he moved away, laughing slightly, and then looked up at Finn with his eyebrow raised.
“Nope, he’s eight weeks.”
“What kind of dog is he?” Kurt lifted the puppy, holding it in front of him-with a bit of effort-and examining the fur. The puppy was primarily black, with white on his paws, chest, and face and chestnut brown on his legs as well; the chestnut brown rose on his legs slightly and disappeared into the black. The puppy swiped a paw at Kurt’s face as Kurt brought him closer to hold against his chest. There was a small patch of the chestnut brown on his chest that seemed out of place, and two small circles sat above the puppy’s eyes like tiny eyebrows. He was also impossibly fluffy.
“He’s a… uhm, a Bernese mountain dog.” The puppy started licking his face and he fell backwards onto his bed to avoid it, “I figured it might be good for you to have something to take care of, since everybody is going to try and take care of you, you know? Do you… Do you like him?”
Kurt moved the puppy off his chest and sat up, “Of course I do. He’s adorable.”
Finn grinned at him as he stood, “What’re you going to call him?”
Chapter Two | Chapter Four