FIC: Water Break
Title: Water Break
Pair: Klaine
Includes: mpreg, character deaths
Word count: ~1960
Summary: It’s the zombie apocalypse, ya’ll! Kurt and Blaine get derailed on their trip and stop for water.
The road so far...
The Conception of Hope -> Human Kindness -> No Home Left to Run From -> Chasing Ghosts
“We should take a break,” Blaine suggested.
Kurt shot him a look, hitched the bag he was carrying higher on his shoulder, and kept walking. There was little hiding that Kurt had been sick for almost two weeks now. Keeping food down was a chore, and he was just exhausted constantly. He kept telling Blaine that it was a persistent flu but both of them had moments of terror that he would develop the fever at any moment, and what little Blaine had left to hold onto would be gone.
Lately, Kurt had been having cramps in his stomach, too, and once he’d just sunk into Blaine’s arms, out for the count for a harrowing moment. Harrowing for Blaine, anyway. Kurt didn’t remember it.
He just sighed as Blaine pulled him to the side of the road and made him sit down, which was just as well, since he was starting to feel lightheaded. He was thirsty and hungry and tired and frustrated. And lost. They were freaking lost.
Getting a flat tire wasn’t an issue when Triple A could come fix you up, or if you had a place you could go get a tire. Kurt could put a new one on easily. But when the whole world had gone to hell, there wasn’t much help to be had anywhere. No tools, for starters, and no guarantee that they could find the right tire and come back (without taking the risk of trailing walkers behind them and heading back into a nice group attracted to the smell left in their car of escaped prey).
For now, it was press on, press on, press on.
Blaine knelt in front of Kurt and cupped his face with both hands. “How do you feel?”
“I’m having one of the best times of my life,” Kurt replied coolly.
Blaine looked down at the ground. “We need some water.”
“I need some...” Kurt leaned back against the fence post and rubbed his stomach. “Midol.”
That caused Blaine to lick his lips and hide a smile.
“Go on, laugh.” Kurt rolled his eyes at his own snippy tone. “You can laugh at that.” He closed his eyes and felt the summer heat bearing down on him.
“No better, hm?”
Kurt shrugged. “No worse. I’m hot-wiring the next car we see. I don’t give a frick about the gas mileage.”
“I haven’t seen one,” Blaine said. “Well, none that looked like they could still run.”
“There’s no way my dad set out, with his wife and stepson in the car, without a spare tire. He’d be ashamed of me.”
Blaine responded with a light kiss, then he rose, pick-axe in hand, and waited. A few minutes later, Kurt pushed himself up.
“That’s not long enough,” Blaine complained.
“We can’t wait around for nightfall,” Kurt argued. “Unless you want to arrive unfashionably early for our dinner date with the dead.”
“And we can’t keep walking like this. You need some sleep, or... or...”
“Or?” Kurt readjusted his crossbow and picked up the bag with their rapidly dwindling food supplies. “How about a map?”
“A map would be good. I miss my GPS. I really relied on that thing.” Blaine pushed back his shaggy curls and looked around. “We could just walk down the next exit. See if there’s a gas station, or something.”
“Or drooly, decaying fucked-up monsters,” Kurt pointed out. Though Blaine knew that, of course.
“There might be a car for you to steal,” Blaine countered. “And if you can, I want you to lay down in the back and try to sleep. Your dad’s gonna kill me if you’re in bad shape when we find him.”
When we find him. Kurt shook his head and just followed Blaine’s lead.
The next exit was a long dirt road with nothing on it for miles either way, aside from a farm house in the distance.
“Isn’t that always the way? Exits with McDonald’s and gas stations for miles and miles, and when you take one, there’s nothing.” Blaine shook his head. “They’ll probably have water, though?”
“They’ll probably have cannibals.” Kurt gauged the distance, then looked back up to the deserted highway. “Let’s just keep alert.”
Roughly fifteen minutes later they approached the house, cautiously looking around as they entered the property. Kurt stopped for a moment, rubbing his stomach and leaning against the fence. Blaine bent over him and rubbed his back.
“It’s okay. Just take it ea-”
Suddenly Blaine screamed, and Kurt shot up, pulling his crossbow out. Blaine quieted almost immediately, but he was clenching his teeth and clutching Kurt’s arm as he bent over in pain.
“What is it...” Kurt’s eyes bulged as he saw the metal trap clamped shut over Blaine’s leg.
A old man came running at them, and Kurt whipped his crossbow up.
“Hold it right there, kid!” the man yelled, raising a shotgun at them. He was a heavy-set man of his mid fifties, with sun-weathered skin and not much hair. By virtue of his ability to speak, Kurt knew this guy wasn’t a walker, but the shotgun didn’t help matters.
“Don’t- don’t shoot!” Blaine said through gritted teeth. “Please!”
“Damn. You done sprung one of my coyote traps.” The man came closer. “Put that thing down, son, and lemme help your friend outta that.”
Kurt put the crossbow back on his back, then stepped back to hold Blaine up while the man crouched down and worked the trap loose.
“Probably snapped your damn ankle, kid. These traps are pretty strong. Them coyotes keep killing m’dogs.”
The trap opened, and Blaine pulled his leg out of it. He looked to Kurt almost sheepishly, though neither of them had seen it there.
The man, who they came to find out was called Gabe, took Blaine’s other side and helped him into the house, where they set him down, and his wife Janey brought out some alcohol and bandages.
“Nah, it ain’t broken. That trap cut you up good though, hon. What’re you doin’ all the way out here?” Janey asked as she started to wrap up his leg.
“Our car got a flat on the way to Columbus,” Blaine explained. “We were hoping to find our family on the way.”
“Columbus? You’re a bit outta your way.” Gabe sat in a battered old armchair.
“How far?” Kurt asked.
“Kentucky,” Gabe said with a laugh.
Kurt rubbed his temples.
“You sure got a high voice for a boy.” Gabe crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.
Kurt met his eyes and went cold. This wasn’t going to go well.
“Well, if you want to stay with us for a night, fine by me,” Janey said. “Then you can ring up someone in the morning.”
Blaine looked up at Kurt, then back to Janey. “I’m not sure there’s anyone we could call. My cell phone hasn’t reached anyone in weeks.”
“Maybe it didn’t hit here,” Kurt said. “Maybe it’s just in Ohio.”
“Do what now?” Gabe sat forward. “I only go into town maybe once a month. Something going on up in Ohio?”
Kurt shook his head, trying to think of a way to explain it. Even a guy like this should know what was out there. “A plague. A virus. It’s pretty bad.”
“A plague.” Janey looked to her husband. “Really.”
“These boys are puttin’ us on,” Gabe said.
“No, sir.” Blaine shifted himself a little. “It’s really dangerous up there right now. No structure at all. When we last drove past Columbus, it was on fire.”
“Then why you headed there?” Gabe asked, as though he’d caught them in a lie.
“My stepmom left me a letter saying that’s where my family was going.” Kurt sat next to Blaine. “We were hoping to find someone we knew alive.”
Janey looked between them, thinned her lips, and stood, stepping away from them. “And how do we know you boys ain’t infected?”
Kurt frowned. She was clearly watching how close they were sitting, so he moved away from Blaine just a little. “I don’t know. It starts out with a fever and goes to the brain. We’re dehydrated, but we don’t have fevers.”
Janey motioned for her husband to come into the other room with her. Blaine turned to Kurt and put his hand on his leg.
“We should get them to give us some water and send us on our way. There’s no way they’ll understand.”
“How can we not at least warn them?” Kurt replied.
“Well, I agree, but I don’t know how. I wouldn’t believe us, if I were them.”
Kurt looked at Blaine’s hand and stood to take a look out the window. Then he dropped to the ground.
The next thing he knew he was looking up at the wooden panels of the ceiling, and there was arguing above him. Blaine was by his side, touching his face tenderly.
“I’m... I’m all right.” Kurt pushed himself up, much to Blaine’s dismay.
“I’m afraid you boys are gonna have to leave. We don’t want any disease down here,” Gabe told them. “You should’ve stayed up in Ohio.”
Kurt closed his eyes and put his hand to his head.
“Please, please, just let us have some water before we go?” Blaine pleaded.
“Look. Just... I don’t know how far this has spread.” Kurt opened his eyes and looked at them. “I promise you, I don’t have the virus. I’d be dead by now, if that were true. But listen to me on this alone: When these people get sick, it affects the brain. Don’t go into town without your shotgun and ammo.”
“Do what now? What are you sayin’?” Gabe demanded.
“I’m saying it makes them dangerous. They’ll try to eat you. I know how that sounds, but these people have lost whatever it is that makes them people. That’s what happens when part of the brain dies. It changes your personality. I don’t know how it works, but you’d better be armed, if you go out there.” Kurt tried to rise, but Blaine grabbed his shoulder firmly to keep him down.
“Please let us have some water,” Blaine asked again. “We’ll leave right after that.”
Gabe curled his lip as Blaine’s hand rested gently on Kurt’s chest. “You two...”
Kurt felt heat rising to his cheeks. Janey left the room and brought back two big glasses of water. “Drink up. Oh. Gabe.”
“When you go back up to the interstate, you’re gonna have to head north. Back the way you came.” Gabe scratched his head. “Dan Turley down the way, he’d know better. I never leave the farm much, m’self.”
Kurt drank his water down in several big gulps. Blaine squeezed his hand, even though Gabe was looking at them funny now.
“But Dan’s got no use for queers either,” Gabe warned. “You’d best head up on north, outta these parts.”
“I understand,” Kurt said in a tight voice.
Later, as they left the house with Blaine leaning on Kurt as he limped along, Kurt said,
“Why are all the homophobes the ones who get to live?”
Blaine managed a chuckle and bowed his head toward Kurt. “Can you keep holding me up like this?”
“For a little while. I got a good nap in on Janey’s filthy tacky-ass floor.” Kurt looked up at the sky.
“You were only out for a second!”
Kurt stopped as the heavens opened up on them.
“Water. Now we get water.”
Next -> Unsafe
Pair: Klaine
Includes: mpreg, character deaths
Word count: ~1960
Summary: It’s the zombie apocalypse, ya’ll! Kurt and Blaine get derailed on their trip and stop for water.
The road so far...
The Conception of Hope -> Human Kindness -> No Home Left to Run From -> Chasing Ghosts
“We should take a break,” Blaine suggested.
Kurt shot him a look, hitched the bag he was carrying higher on his shoulder, and kept walking. There was little hiding that Kurt had been sick for almost two weeks now. Keeping food down was a chore, and he was just exhausted constantly. He kept telling Blaine that it was a persistent flu but both of them had moments of terror that he would develop the fever at any moment, and what little Blaine had left to hold onto would be gone.
Lately, Kurt had been having cramps in his stomach, too, and once he’d just sunk into Blaine’s arms, out for the count for a harrowing moment. Harrowing for Blaine, anyway. Kurt didn’t remember it.
He just sighed as Blaine pulled him to the side of the road and made him sit down, which was just as well, since he was starting to feel lightheaded. He was thirsty and hungry and tired and frustrated. And lost. They were freaking lost.
Getting a flat tire wasn’t an issue when Triple A could come fix you up, or if you had a place you could go get a tire. Kurt could put a new one on easily. But when the whole world had gone to hell, there wasn’t much help to be had anywhere. No tools, for starters, and no guarantee that they could find the right tire and come back (without taking the risk of trailing walkers behind them and heading back into a nice group attracted to the smell left in their car of escaped prey).
For now, it was press on, press on, press on.
Blaine knelt in front of Kurt and cupped his face with both hands. “How do you feel?”
“I’m having one of the best times of my life,” Kurt replied coolly.
Blaine looked down at the ground. “We need some water.”
“I need some...” Kurt leaned back against the fence post and rubbed his stomach. “Midol.”
That caused Blaine to lick his lips and hide a smile.
“Go on, laugh.” Kurt rolled his eyes at his own snippy tone. “You can laugh at that.” He closed his eyes and felt the summer heat bearing down on him.
“No better, hm?”
Kurt shrugged. “No worse. I’m hot-wiring the next car we see. I don’t give a frick about the gas mileage.”
“I haven’t seen one,” Blaine said. “Well, none that looked like they could still run.”
“There’s no way my dad set out, with his wife and stepson in the car, without a spare tire. He’d be ashamed of me.”
Blaine responded with a light kiss, then he rose, pick-axe in hand, and waited. A few minutes later, Kurt pushed himself up.
“That’s not long enough,” Blaine complained.
“We can’t wait around for nightfall,” Kurt argued. “Unless you want to arrive unfashionably early for our dinner date with the dead.”
“And we can’t keep walking like this. You need some sleep, or... or...”
“Or?” Kurt readjusted his crossbow and picked up the bag with their rapidly dwindling food supplies. “How about a map?”
“A map would be good. I miss my GPS. I really relied on that thing.” Blaine pushed back his shaggy curls and looked around. “We could just walk down the next exit. See if there’s a gas station, or something.”
“Or drooly, decaying fucked-up monsters,” Kurt pointed out. Though Blaine knew that, of course.
“There might be a car for you to steal,” Blaine countered. “And if you can, I want you to lay down in the back and try to sleep. Your dad’s gonna kill me if you’re in bad shape when we find him.”
When we find him. Kurt shook his head and just followed Blaine’s lead.
The next exit was a long dirt road with nothing on it for miles either way, aside from a farm house in the distance.
“Isn’t that always the way? Exits with McDonald’s and gas stations for miles and miles, and when you take one, there’s nothing.” Blaine shook his head. “They’ll probably have water, though?”
“They’ll probably have cannibals.” Kurt gauged the distance, then looked back up to the deserted highway. “Let’s just keep alert.”
Roughly fifteen minutes later they approached the house, cautiously looking around as they entered the property. Kurt stopped for a moment, rubbing his stomach and leaning against the fence. Blaine bent over him and rubbed his back.
“It’s okay. Just take it ea-”
Suddenly Blaine screamed, and Kurt shot up, pulling his crossbow out. Blaine quieted almost immediately, but he was clenching his teeth and clutching Kurt’s arm as he bent over in pain.
“What is it...” Kurt’s eyes bulged as he saw the metal trap clamped shut over Blaine’s leg.
A old man came running at them, and Kurt whipped his crossbow up.
“Hold it right there, kid!” the man yelled, raising a shotgun at them. He was a heavy-set man of his mid fifties, with sun-weathered skin and not much hair. By virtue of his ability to speak, Kurt knew this guy wasn’t a walker, but the shotgun didn’t help matters.
“Don’t- don’t shoot!” Blaine said through gritted teeth. “Please!”
“Damn. You done sprung one of my coyote traps.” The man came closer. “Put that thing down, son, and lemme help your friend outta that.”
Kurt put the crossbow back on his back, then stepped back to hold Blaine up while the man crouched down and worked the trap loose.
“Probably snapped your damn ankle, kid. These traps are pretty strong. Them coyotes keep killing m’dogs.”
The trap opened, and Blaine pulled his leg out of it. He looked to Kurt almost sheepishly, though neither of them had seen it there.
The man, who they came to find out was called Gabe, took Blaine’s other side and helped him into the house, where they set him down, and his wife Janey brought out some alcohol and bandages.
“Nah, it ain’t broken. That trap cut you up good though, hon. What’re you doin’ all the way out here?” Janey asked as she started to wrap up his leg.
“Our car got a flat on the way to Columbus,” Blaine explained. “We were hoping to find our family on the way.”
“Columbus? You’re a bit outta your way.” Gabe sat in a battered old armchair.
“How far?” Kurt asked.
“Kentucky,” Gabe said with a laugh.
Kurt rubbed his temples.
“You sure got a high voice for a boy.” Gabe crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes.
Kurt met his eyes and went cold. This wasn’t going to go well.
“Well, if you want to stay with us for a night, fine by me,” Janey said. “Then you can ring up someone in the morning.”
Blaine looked up at Kurt, then back to Janey. “I’m not sure there’s anyone we could call. My cell phone hasn’t reached anyone in weeks.”
“Maybe it didn’t hit here,” Kurt said. “Maybe it’s just in Ohio.”
“Do what now?” Gabe sat forward. “I only go into town maybe once a month. Something going on up in Ohio?”
Kurt shook his head, trying to think of a way to explain it. Even a guy like this should know what was out there. “A plague. A virus. It’s pretty bad.”
“A plague.” Janey looked to her husband. “Really.”
“These boys are puttin’ us on,” Gabe said.
“No, sir.” Blaine shifted himself a little. “It’s really dangerous up there right now. No structure at all. When we last drove past Columbus, it was on fire.”
“Then why you headed there?” Gabe asked, as though he’d caught them in a lie.
“My stepmom left me a letter saying that’s where my family was going.” Kurt sat next to Blaine. “We were hoping to find someone we knew alive.”
Janey looked between them, thinned her lips, and stood, stepping away from them. “And how do we know you boys ain’t infected?”
Kurt frowned. She was clearly watching how close they were sitting, so he moved away from Blaine just a little. “I don’t know. It starts out with a fever and goes to the brain. We’re dehydrated, but we don’t have fevers.”
Janey motioned for her husband to come into the other room with her. Blaine turned to Kurt and put his hand on his leg.
“We should get them to give us some water and send us on our way. There’s no way they’ll understand.”
“How can we not at least warn them?” Kurt replied.
“Well, I agree, but I don’t know how. I wouldn’t believe us, if I were them.”
Kurt looked at Blaine’s hand and stood to take a look out the window. Then he dropped to the ground.
The next thing he knew he was looking up at the wooden panels of the ceiling, and there was arguing above him. Blaine was by his side, touching his face tenderly.
“I’m... I’m all right.” Kurt pushed himself up, much to Blaine’s dismay.
“I’m afraid you boys are gonna have to leave. We don’t want any disease down here,” Gabe told them. “You should’ve stayed up in Ohio.”
Kurt closed his eyes and put his hand to his head.
“Please, please, just let us have some water before we go?” Blaine pleaded.
“Look. Just... I don’t know how far this has spread.” Kurt opened his eyes and looked at them. “I promise you, I don’t have the virus. I’d be dead by now, if that were true. But listen to me on this alone: When these people get sick, it affects the brain. Don’t go into town without your shotgun and ammo.”
“Do what now? What are you sayin’?” Gabe demanded.
“I’m saying it makes them dangerous. They’ll try to eat you. I know how that sounds, but these people have lost whatever it is that makes them people. That’s what happens when part of the brain dies. It changes your personality. I don’t know how it works, but you’d better be armed, if you go out there.” Kurt tried to rise, but Blaine grabbed his shoulder firmly to keep him down.
“Please let us have some water,” Blaine asked again. “We’ll leave right after that.”
Gabe curled his lip as Blaine’s hand rested gently on Kurt’s chest. “You two...”
Kurt felt heat rising to his cheeks. Janey left the room and brought back two big glasses of water. “Drink up. Oh. Gabe.”
“When you go back up to the interstate, you’re gonna have to head north. Back the way you came.” Gabe scratched his head. “Dan Turley down the way, he’d know better. I never leave the farm much, m’self.”
Kurt drank his water down in several big gulps. Blaine squeezed his hand, even though Gabe was looking at them funny now.
“But Dan’s got no use for queers either,” Gabe warned. “You’d best head up on north, outta these parts.”
“I understand,” Kurt said in a tight voice.
Later, as they left the house with Blaine leaning on Kurt as he limped along, Kurt said,
“Why are all the homophobes the ones who get to live?”
Blaine managed a chuckle and bowed his head toward Kurt. “Can you keep holding me up like this?”
“For a little while. I got a good nap in on Janey’s filthy tacky-ass floor.” Kurt looked up at the sky.
“You were only out for a second!”
Kurt stopped as the heavens opened up on them.
“Water. Now we get water.”
Next -> Unsafe