Eight Days a Week-Chapter 2
Title: Eight Days a Week
Disclaimer: I don't own em, I if I did glee would probably have to be on a different channel.
Rating: Probably PG-13ish overall
Warnings: None for this chapter.
Word count: 1887
Summary: After Burt has a heart attack, Kurt finds himself stretched a little to thin.
A/N: OMG It's not a prompt! I know, I can hardly believe it either. Beta'd by gleeker13 Thank you dahl-ing!
Kurt loves his friends, and loves that they care. The fact that Mercedes brought him clothes, and Artie kept him well stocked with amusing stories and photos, was greatly appreciated. Most surprisingly, he’s grateful that Rachel comes by nearly ever day to sit with him while his dad drifts in and out. Sometimes he’s coherent and can hold a brief conversation; sometimes he talks about things Kurt doesn’t know about. Rachel will just link her fingers through his and wait for him to decide what to do. It takes two days for his dad to stop with the random babblings and he becomes more coherent of his surroundings. Kurt has never been so relieved in his life when that happens. He still sleeps a lot, but Kurt is always being reassured that it’s perfectly normal.
Burt slips in and out of sleep, but one thing he’s always aware of, is his son’s constant presence. He wishes Kurt would go home, but he knows he won’t. Nothing short of a full scale military invasion was going to dislodge his son from his bedside vigil for more than a few minutes at a time. Sometime there’s a girl in the seat next to Kurt, he finds out later it’s his doctors daughter. He doesn’t know if Kurt’s mentioned Rachel in passing before, but he’s sure she isn’t one of the girls that constantly frequents the house. No, she’s someone new, but by the way she would link her fingers through his sons, in gentle support, Burt had a feeling he would be seeing her around.
Once there was some kid with a mohawk, and Burt wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. All he knew was that he had been the only one thus far to successfully get Kurt out of that chair longer than a few minutes. The nurse said something about a checkup, and suddenly, mohawk kid was tugging his son out of his chair and towards the door informing Burt that he was taking Kurt to the cafeteria. He managed to keep him there for nearly an hour. Burt was grateful his son had people looking out for him, even if he wasn’t sure how he felt about the mohawk kid hanging around his son.
After a week, Burt thinks he’s put up enough of a fuss that the doctors are glad to be rid of him. Dr. Berry gives him a long list of instructions, and by the look on Kurt’s face, he knows his son plans to follow every last one of them, something that makes him cringe a little. The first week home however is rough, and he’s glad that Kurt was there with him, because Burt isn’t really sure if he could have handled it particularly well on his own. However after that week, he assures his son he’ll be fine and that he should go back to school.
Kurt returns to school to find the glee club waiting for him. He looks tired, but he smiles when he’s greeted enthusiastically by the other gleeks. They even watch a little surprised as he hugs Rachel back when she surges forward. The group is more than happy to help him catch up with what he’s missed, but they can’t help but be disappointed when he declines the invite to hang out with them after glee club.
“I can’t, I have to go down to the garage.” He explains and he doesn’t miss that Puck raises an eyebrow but remains silent. “With my dad out of commission right now I kind of need to keep an eye on things.” He shrugged and the others accept the explanation, it makes sense.
The days end up falling into a pattern. Kurt gets up a little after six, he makes the breakfast that the doctors recommend and then spends ten minutes arguing with his dad about how he doesn’t really care if he wants bacon and eggs, he isn’t getting it. It’s like dealing with a sullen teenager, and it kind of makes Kurt’s head hurt. He always accepts his father’s apology about his mood however, and assures him it’s really no problem. He does the dishes and gets ready for school and tries to pretend he doesn’t know his father will probably eat whatever he wants for lunch instead of what Kurt leaves for him. He goes to school and does the best he can, despite the fact that he’s exhausted. He attends Glee, then goes to the garage for a while to make sure everything‘s going the way it should be. He trusts the mechanics who work for his father, but he also needed to go over the books, and deal with some of the customers. He heads home around seven after the shop closes and has a reprised argument with his father about dinner. He does his homework, does some chores around the house, and showers, usually finally falling into bed around two.
Kurt knows he’s stretching himself rather thin, but he really doesn’t see any other choice. It isn’t like he can just stop doing something. He has to go to school, he needs to help keep up the shop, he has to take care of his dad, and he thinks Glee is the only thing that’s keeping him relatively sane, so he won’t give it up unless he has no other choice. The thing is other people are starting to notice that Kurt’s stretching himself to thin too. Ms. Pillsbury pulls him into her office a few times and hands him pamphlets about the aftermath of a heart attack. He accepts them, shoves them in his bag, but has stopped reading them.
Mr. Schue offers a listening ear should he want it, but Kurt really doesn’t think he needs it. He needs more hours in the day, and no one can really give him that. So he just smiles at the energetic and enthusiastic teacher and assures him that he’s fine. Things are just a bit crazy at the moment, it’s bound to get better, it’ll just take some time. That’s what he’s been telling himself since his father left the hospital. It’s only normal that after something like this his father would be kind of depressed and really who could blame him? It was just going to take some time to get things back to the way they were, he could be patient.
The problem with that is that things aren’t really getting any better.
The circles under Kurt’s eyes are getting darker, and his face seems to be getting paler. He assures his friends he’s fine, that really they shouldn’t worry because he’s ok. If he says it enough, maybe it will actually come true. Kurt is so tired most of the time now and things don’t seem to be getting any lighter; something he had hoped would come about by this point. He doesn’t complain though, he just soldiers on, doing what needs to be done. Really, what choice does he have? He might be having a rough time of it, but it’s nothing compared to what his father’s going through after all.
Burt is getting surly with being cooped up in the house all the time, and while he is always apologetic when he takes out his crappy mood on his son, it still happens more frequently than Burt would like. Kurt really can’t fault his dad for his mood, even though it hurts when his father snaps at him. He always forgives him, and plays it off like it isn’t a big deal and that it didn’t sting as much as it had. Sometimes Kurt finds himself wishing his mom was there, she would probably know how to handle this so much better. Kurt’s following the directions the doctors had given him, but he doesn’t really know what else he can do to make it any better for his father.
He’s only sixteen; he shouldn’t have to worry about this kind of thing. Most sixteen year olds are not worried about keeping their fathers on a healthy diet, and keeping a business afloat as well as trying to keep up with school and any extra curricular activities. It’s tiring and Kurt would like to think he’s handling it fairly well, given the circumstances. When Burt expresses concern about the garage, Kurt puts in an extra hour, though he has to give up time in glee to accomplish that.
Rachel comes by after he’s missed the second glee rehearsal in a row. Though they’ve been on friendly terms since the hospital, part of Kurt isn’t sure if he’s going to get bitched out. Instead, Rachel offers him a CD full of the songs they’ve been doing and offers to help him learn it. There’s suddenly a lump in Kurt’s throat and he hugs her when words fail him. It was nice to know they were still thinking about him.
“Are you ok?” Rachel asks softly when she pulls away and her face is so sincere that Kurt can’t help but look down at his feet, because as much as he wants to say he’s totally fine, he knows he’s not, and he doesn’t want to lie to her.
“Thank you for this.” Kurt says by way of reply.
“Of course.” Rachel isn’t dumb, she knows Kurt’s not ok, but she doesn’t want to push the boundaries of their newly founded friendship. So instead she settles down in the kitchen as Kurt bustles around her. Out of the corner of her eye she studies him and decides she doesn’t like what she sees. Kurt looks even more tired, if that was possible, and if she wasn’t mistaken he had lost some weight. She tunes back into what Kurt’s talking about.
“I like to eat healthy and all, but I can see why my dad hates it, really some of it really is absolutely tasteless.” Kurt shook his head and Rachel can’t help but smile slightly. “I’m hoping soon though some of the restriction on his diet will be lifted, because really he’s getting insufferable.” But it’s said so fondly; that Rachel doubts Kurt actually thinks that. He sits down across from her, wishing he had something better to offer as a snack than veggies, but he’d cleared out the house of anything that could be considered a snack food; his dad could not be trusted not to get into it when Kurt wasn’t around.
Rachel spent the rest of the afternoon with Kurt; barely managing to bite back asking if he was ok again, and wanting to tell him how tired he looked. Instead she helped him make dinner, spoke briefly with Kurt’s dad, and then made excuses for why she couldn’t join them for dinner, and it wasn’t just because it looked bland and tasteless.
Once she gets home, she calls the other glee club members, because really she’s pretty sure Kurt needs help. Strangely enough, Puck is the first to agree to help and offers to talk to Kurt the next day after school. While Mercedes and Finn don’t seemed thrilled at that idea, the group eventually decides to let Puck try, they were pretty sure Kurt wouldn’t respond well to the whole group ganging up on him, even if it was in his best interest.
Disclaimer: I don't own em, I if I did glee would probably have to be on a different channel.
Rating: Probably PG-13ish overall
Warnings: None for this chapter.
Word count: 1887
Summary: After Burt has a heart attack, Kurt finds himself stretched a little to thin.
A/N: OMG It's not a prompt! I know, I can hardly believe it either. Beta'd by gleeker13 Thank you dahl-ing!
Kurt loves his friends, and loves that they care. The fact that Mercedes brought him clothes, and Artie kept him well stocked with amusing stories and photos, was greatly appreciated. Most surprisingly, he’s grateful that Rachel comes by nearly ever day to sit with him while his dad drifts in and out. Sometimes he’s coherent and can hold a brief conversation; sometimes he talks about things Kurt doesn’t know about. Rachel will just link her fingers through his and wait for him to decide what to do. It takes two days for his dad to stop with the random babblings and he becomes more coherent of his surroundings. Kurt has never been so relieved in his life when that happens. He still sleeps a lot, but Kurt is always being reassured that it’s perfectly normal.
Burt slips in and out of sleep, but one thing he’s always aware of, is his son’s constant presence. He wishes Kurt would go home, but he knows he won’t. Nothing short of a full scale military invasion was going to dislodge his son from his bedside vigil for more than a few minutes at a time. Sometime there’s a girl in the seat next to Kurt, he finds out later it’s his doctors daughter. He doesn’t know if Kurt’s mentioned Rachel in passing before, but he’s sure she isn’t one of the girls that constantly frequents the house. No, she’s someone new, but by the way she would link her fingers through his sons, in gentle support, Burt had a feeling he would be seeing her around.
Once there was some kid with a mohawk, and Burt wasn’t quite sure what to make of that. All he knew was that he had been the only one thus far to successfully get Kurt out of that chair longer than a few minutes. The nurse said something about a checkup, and suddenly, mohawk kid was tugging his son out of his chair and towards the door informing Burt that he was taking Kurt to the cafeteria. He managed to keep him there for nearly an hour. Burt was grateful his son had people looking out for him, even if he wasn’t sure how he felt about the mohawk kid hanging around his son.
After a week, Burt thinks he’s put up enough of a fuss that the doctors are glad to be rid of him. Dr. Berry gives him a long list of instructions, and by the look on Kurt’s face, he knows his son plans to follow every last one of them, something that makes him cringe a little. The first week home however is rough, and he’s glad that Kurt was there with him, because Burt isn’t really sure if he could have handled it particularly well on his own. However after that week, he assures his son he’ll be fine and that he should go back to school.
Kurt returns to school to find the glee club waiting for him. He looks tired, but he smiles when he’s greeted enthusiastically by the other gleeks. They even watch a little surprised as he hugs Rachel back when she surges forward. The group is more than happy to help him catch up with what he’s missed, but they can’t help but be disappointed when he declines the invite to hang out with them after glee club.
“I can’t, I have to go down to the garage.” He explains and he doesn’t miss that Puck raises an eyebrow but remains silent. “With my dad out of commission right now I kind of need to keep an eye on things.” He shrugged and the others accept the explanation, it makes sense.
The days end up falling into a pattern. Kurt gets up a little after six, he makes the breakfast that the doctors recommend and then spends ten minutes arguing with his dad about how he doesn’t really care if he wants bacon and eggs, he isn’t getting it. It’s like dealing with a sullen teenager, and it kind of makes Kurt’s head hurt. He always accepts his father’s apology about his mood however, and assures him it’s really no problem. He does the dishes and gets ready for school and tries to pretend he doesn’t know his father will probably eat whatever he wants for lunch instead of what Kurt leaves for him. He goes to school and does the best he can, despite the fact that he’s exhausted. He attends Glee, then goes to the garage for a while to make sure everything‘s going the way it should be. He trusts the mechanics who work for his father, but he also needed to go over the books, and deal with some of the customers. He heads home around seven after the shop closes and has a reprised argument with his father about dinner. He does his homework, does some chores around the house, and showers, usually finally falling into bed around two.
Kurt knows he’s stretching himself rather thin, but he really doesn’t see any other choice. It isn’t like he can just stop doing something. He has to go to school, he needs to help keep up the shop, he has to take care of his dad, and he thinks Glee is the only thing that’s keeping him relatively sane, so he won’t give it up unless he has no other choice. The thing is other people are starting to notice that Kurt’s stretching himself to thin too. Ms. Pillsbury pulls him into her office a few times and hands him pamphlets about the aftermath of a heart attack. He accepts them, shoves them in his bag, but has stopped reading them.
Mr. Schue offers a listening ear should he want it, but Kurt really doesn’t think he needs it. He needs more hours in the day, and no one can really give him that. So he just smiles at the energetic and enthusiastic teacher and assures him that he’s fine. Things are just a bit crazy at the moment, it’s bound to get better, it’ll just take some time. That’s what he’s been telling himself since his father left the hospital. It’s only normal that after something like this his father would be kind of depressed and really who could blame him? It was just going to take some time to get things back to the way they were, he could be patient.
The problem with that is that things aren’t really getting any better.
The circles under Kurt’s eyes are getting darker, and his face seems to be getting paler. He assures his friends he’s fine, that really they shouldn’t worry because he’s ok. If he says it enough, maybe it will actually come true. Kurt is so tired most of the time now and things don’t seem to be getting any lighter; something he had hoped would come about by this point. He doesn’t complain though, he just soldiers on, doing what needs to be done. Really, what choice does he have? He might be having a rough time of it, but it’s nothing compared to what his father’s going through after all.
Burt is getting surly with being cooped up in the house all the time, and while he is always apologetic when he takes out his crappy mood on his son, it still happens more frequently than Burt would like. Kurt really can’t fault his dad for his mood, even though it hurts when his father snaps at him. He always forgives him, and plays it off like it isn’t a big deal and that it didn’t sting as much as it had. Sometimes Kurt finds himself wishing his mom was there, she would probably know how to handle this so much better. Kurt’s following the directions the doctors had given him, but he doesn’t really know what else he can do to make it any better for his father.
He’s only sixteen; he shouldn’t have to worry about this kind of thing. Most sixteen year olds are not worried about keeping their fathers on a healthy diet, and keeping a business afloat as well as trying to keep up with school and any extra curricular activities. It’s tiring and Kurt would like to think he’s handling it fairly well, given the circumstances. When Burt expresses concern about the garage, Kurt puts in an extra hour, though he has to give up time in glee to accomplish that.
Rachel comes by after he’s missed the second glee rehearsal in a row. Though they’ve been on friendly terms since the hospital, part of Kurt isn’t sure if he’s going to get bitched out. Instead, Rachel offers him a CD full of the songs they’ve been doing and offers to help him learn it. There’s suddenly a lump in Kurt’s throat and he hugs her when words fail him. It was nice to know they were still thinking about him.
“Are you ok?” Rachel asks softly when she pulls away and her face is so sincere that Kurt can’t help but look down at his feet, because as much as he wants to say he’s totally fine, he knows he’s not, and he doesn’t want to lie to her.
“Thank you for this.” Kurt says by way of reply.
“Of course.” Rachel isn’t dumb, she knows Kurt’s not ok, but she doesn’t want to push the boundaries of their newly founded friendship. So instead she settles down in the kitchen as Kurt bustles around her. Out of the corner of her eye she studies him and decides she doesn’t like what she sees. Kurt looks even more tired, if that was possible, and if she wasn’t mistaken he had lost some weight. She tunes back into what Kurt’s talking about.
“I like to eat healthy and all, but I can see why my dad hates it, really some of it really is absolutely tasteless.” Kurt shook his head and Rachel can’t help but smile slightly. “I’m hoping soon though some of the restriction on his diet will be lifted, because really he’s getting insufferable.” But it’s said so fondly; that Rachel doubts Kurt actually thinks that. He sits down across from her, wishing he had something better to offer as a snack than veggies, but he’d cleared out the house of anything that could be considered a snack food; his dad could not be trusted not to get into it when Kurt wasn’t around.
Rachel spent the rest of the afternoon with Kurt; barely managing to bite back asking if he was ok again, and wanting to tell him how tired he looked. Instead she helped him make dinner, spoke briefly with Kurt’s dad, and then made excuses for why she couldn’t join them for dinner, and it wasn’t just because it looked bland and tasteless.
Once she gets home, she calls the other glee club members, because really she’s pretty sure Kurt needs help. Strangely enough, Puck is the first to agree to help and offers to talk to Kurt the next day after school. While Mercedes and Finn don’t seemed thrilled at that idea, the group eventually decides to let Puck try, they were pretty sure Kurt wouldn’t respond well to the whole group ganging up on him, even if it was in his best interest.