FIC: Human Kindness
Title: Human Kindness
Pair: Klaine
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 1988
Summary: It’s the zombie apocalypse! And Kurt and Blaine encounter some people along the road.
Comes after The Conception of Hope and before No Home Left to Run From and Contraception Should Be Considered a Staple
“Kurt! Stop!”
Kurt jerked in surprise, causing the little blue Miata to swerve dangerously.
Blaine grimaced, but pointed behind them. “Sorry. We have to go back. There were people back there.”
“Yes! They were carrying a little girl with them.”
Kurt hesitated, looked in his rear view mirror, then hung a U-turn. They’d been on the road for less than an hour. But that was after spending the better part of a day crawling out the ventilation system of a grocery store they’d gotten trapped in, and then the rest of that day and night hiding during the dark hours, huddled together and silent in an abandoned house. At least they’d been able to wash up a little, de-oil themselves from their Macgyver use of lube, and get a fresh pair of clothes that were a bit ill-fitting, but at least weren’t caked with filth.
As well as Kurt could count, it had been almost a week since the world had ended. Four days since they’d fucked each other silly in that cooler. They hadn’t had time to stop and think, or talk, about what had happened, but Kurt couldn’t let himself go there, personally. He couldn’t think about the dead taking over Westerville or watching them rip the living apart limb by limb. He couldn’t think about their shuddering bodies moving frantically against each other in an attempt to remember that they were still alive.
He just needed to hold onto the here and now. Focus on survival and nothing else.
And now, there was a group of people, the first they’d seen since the chaos hit Westerville, walking on the side of the road. Kurt pulled up to them slowly and looked them over cautiously as he cracked the window. Their eyes were wide, but clear, and they looked at one another as though they didn’t quite trust the two boys in the car.
“Are any of you sick?” Kurt asked them.
“No one’s bit,” a tall, middle aged man said. “But the little girl’s not feelin’ too well.”
“Bit?” Kurt rolled the window down more. “Well, get in. There’s plenty of room in the back, and we could always use more hands for weapons.”
The group, including the tall man, the little girl, a woman and a younger man piled into the back, laying the girl across the seats and resting her head in the older man’s lap.
“Is this your car?” the younger man asked.
“It’s the car of whoever worked in the produce department at the Kroger on Executive Parkway,” Blaine said. “And if he wasn’t one of the sick people, he’s not going back for this, I’d guess.”
“Sick people? You mean the walkers?” the woman asked.
“Oh, is that what they’re calling it these days,” Kurt said dryly. “We’re heading north first, to check on his family. Where are you headed?”
“We hadn’t decided.” The young man shrugged. “I’m Jason. She’s Allie. He’s Davis, and the little one is his daughter Janelle.”
Blaine turned around and smiled at the little girl. “Hey, Janelle!”
She blinked up at him and heaved a sigh.
Blaine frowned and touched her head tentatively. “I wonder if we could get her some ice? She’s got a bad fever.”
“I’ll just stop off at Walmart,” Kurt said dryly.
Jason shrugged. “There might still be some in gas stations. I’ve walked into places where the power is still going.”
“The grid’s not down yet,” Blaine confirmed. “We were stuck in a produce cooler for a couple of days.”
“I don’t think we should stop, though,” Kurt said. “We can get ice at your house.”
“But she’s sick, babe,” Blaine protested.
Kurt turned his rearview mirror slightly and frowned at the sight of the little girl. Her breathing was labored, and her brow slick with sweat. She might not last long, from the way she looked. “How long has she been sick? Maybe we should drop you off at a hospital.”
“Have you been to the hospitals?” Jason sounded incredulous.
Allie shook her head. “A hospital is the last place you want to be, believe me. I was there visiting my sister when the walkers started attacking people. The police came in and were shooting people in the head, left and right.”
“Wow.” Blaine reached over to touch Janelle’s hand. “We’re gonna get you some help, okay, sweetie?”
The girl moaned and looked at him with droopy eyes. A few moments later, she closed them.
“Why were they shooting people in the head?” Kurt asked.
Davis’ lips twitched. “You gotta get the brain. Destroy it. Or the walkers just get right back up.”
After half an hour on the road swapping stories about what they’d seen out there, Kurt pulled over at a gas station and looked behind them. “We could use some fuel. I have a pick-axe, and Blaine has a sledgehammer. We should go in, see if there are any walkers around, kill them, and fill up on what we need. There’s no telling when we’ll have another chance.”
“Kill them?” Blaine looked at Kurt hesitantly.
Kurt touched his shoulder. “They’re dead, hon. You don’t walk around with your face half-torn off and your guts hanging out if you’re alive. That’s not good fashion on anybody.”
“It’s the virus, or whatever it is,” Allie said. She stopped when Jason looked at her, then rested her hand on the back of the driver’s seat. “They’re definitely dead, though.”
“Do you want to wait in the car?” Kurt asked. “You can stay here with the engine running, just in case.”
“No.” Blaine swallowed and looked at the gas station. “I’m okay.”
“I know you’re okay. I also know you’re not as crazy as me, so murdering what used to be people is harder for you.”
“I can do it.” Blaine crossed his arms uncomfortably. “Are we sure they’re dead?”
Kurt squeezed Blaine’s shoulder and nodded. Blaine sighed and opened his door.
Allie took the wheel to wait at the ready with Janelle in the back seat while the rest of them took their weapons and approached the door. Kurt twirled his pick-axe back and forth with one hand as he looked around until Davis grabbed his arm.
“Christ, kid. You spar in the local Renfair or something?”
“No. I was a cheerleader, once.” Kurt peered inside the store. It was still brightly lit and he pinched his mouth to the side as he surveyed their options.
“You wanna ring the dinner bell?” Jason asked. He grinned over at Davis, who let out a loud whoop and started banging on things.
“What are you doing?!” Blaine raised his hammer.
Several jerking corpses began to rise from the aisles. Kurt gave Blaine a hard look. “Stay by the door. Cover us.”
Blaine sighed and did as he was told. Davis, Jason, and Kurt made quick work of the walkers, with Kurt systematically working his way through and Davis and Jason spending more time than necessary pulverizing the dead bodies, even after they had gotten the brain. Then Blaine heard a noise behind him and swung around quickly. His hammer sunk into the ribcage of a walker, causing it to fall down.
Kurt ran over and brought his axe down into its head.
“Good work, honey,” he said a bit breathlessly. He reached over to cup Blaine’s face.
“That was a woman,” Blaine muttered. He bent over to check her wallet. “Her name was Sarah Trimble... Looks like she had two kids.”
He touched his fingers to his lips and closed his eyes.
“What is he doing?” Jason asked. Davis rolled his eyes and knocked open the cash register.
“What are you doing?” Kurt asked. “We’re here for supplies and fuel. What are you going to do with cash?”
“Cash is king, honey,” Davis said. He pocketed everything he could, then flipped a switch for the gas. “Go fill ‘er up, Jay.”
Jason nodded and jogged outside.
“So, what, are you two a ‘couple’?” Davis asked with a bit of a sneer.
Kurt raised his chin. “Yes. We are.”
“Well, tell your little woman she’d better toughen up, if she wants to make it out here.” Davis took Blaine’s hammer, which had been resting against the doorframe, and headed back to the car. “Why don’t you get the ice and whatever supplies you think we’ll need? I’m sure you’re good at shopping.”
“Why don’t you chop off the rest of that mullet, asshole!” Kurt yelled back at him. “Before the walkers use it as a bib!”
Blaine looked to Kurt and touched his chest, shooting him a placating look. Then he went over to the ice cooler. “It’s... It’s all melted. There’s a crack in the glass. The heat must’ve gotten in.”
“I suppose.” Kurt scanned the aisles for useful items. “I wish we had a bag or something.”
“Here’s a bag.” Blaine picked up a big purse. “Maybe it was Sarah’s?”
“Could be.” Kurt came over with some toothpaste and hygiene items. “Dump it out.”
Blaine did so, and they started filling it up. “I’m sorry I’m not more useful.”
“You’re fine. This isn’t an easy situation to be in. You have to learn to compartmentalize, or you’ll break down. It’s a skill I have already, for better or worse.” Kurt stepped over one of the corpses and grabbed a Diet Coke out of the cooler. “Want anything?” “No.”
“Maybe we can put some of these cold drinks on Janelle’s head. Bring the water, anyway. Why don’t you check to see if there’s a gun at the register?”
Blaine walked over to the register. He looked underneath the counter and sure enough, there was a gun resting on the stool there. He picked it up, weighed it in his hand, and started to look around for bullets. Then he stopped and stared out the window. “Oh.”
“What is it?” Kurt raised his axe as he spun around.
Blaine features had crumbled as he turned back to Kurt. “They left us.”
Kurt dropped his soda and jogged to the door. The Miata was gone. Janelle had been discarded in the dirt. He blinked in disbelief for almost a minute before hurrying out to her and checking her pulse. Finding none, he backed away from her, trying to guess how long it took for them to rise again. He could see the bite on her arm now. Davis must’ve hidden it when he was holding her.
Kurt wondered whose daughter she really was, and if they’d just picked her up to lure someone into helping them. No father could just leave his baby there to become one of those things, could he?
“Kurt.”
Kurt just stood there unable to think of what to do next.
“Babe?”
Kurt turned to Blaine, who touched his shoulder and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Blaine looked at the girl with tears of sympathy filling his eyes. “They said it was a virus. It’s the fever that does it, isn’t it? Let me do it. She’ll only suffer, if we don’t.”
He took the pick-axe out of Kurt’s shaking hands, then walked up to Janelle and swung it clean into her brain. After he pulled it out, he wiped the bloody side against the dirt and came back into Kurt’s arms.
“We... We’d better start walking,” Kurt muttered. “It’ll be dark, soon.”
Next -> No Home Left to Run From
Pair: Klaine
Rating: PG13
Word Count: 1988
Summary: It’s the zombie apocalypse! And Kurt and Blaine encounter some people along the road.
Comes after The Conception of Hope and before No Home Left to Run From and Contraception Should Be Considered a Staple
“Kurt! Stop!”
Kurt jerked in surprise, causing the little blue Miata to swerve dangerously.
Blaine grimaced, but pointed behind them. “Sorry. We have to go back. There were people back there.”
“Yes! They were carrying a little girl with them.”
Kurt hesitated, looked in his rear view mirror, then hung a U-turn. They’d been on the road for less than an hour. But that was after spending the better part of a day crawling out the ventilation system of a grocery store they’d gotten trapped in, and then the rest of that day and night hiding during the dark hours, huddled together and silent in an abandoned house. At least they’d been able to wash up a little, de-oil themselves from their Macgyver use of lube, and get a fresh pair of clothes that were a bit ill-fitting, but at least weren’t caked with filth.
As well as Kurt could count, it had been almost a week since the world had ended. Four days since they’d fucked each other silly in that cooler. They hadn’t had time to stop and think, or talk, about what had happened, but Kurt couldn’t let himself go there, personally. He couldn’t think about the dead taking over Westerville or watching them rip the living apart limb by limb. He couldn’t think about their shuddering bodies moving frantically against each other in an attempt to remember that they were still alive.
He just needed to hold onto the here and now. Focus on survival and nothing else.
And now, there was a group of people, the first they’d seen since the chaos hit Westerville, walking on the side of the road. Kurt pulled up to them slowly and looked them over cautiously as he cracked the window. Their eyes were wide, but clear, and they looked at one another as though they didn’t quite trust the two boys in the car.
“Are any of you sick?” Kurt asked them.
“No one’s bit,” a tall, middle aged man said. “But the little girl’s not feelin’ too well.”
“Bit?” Kurt rolled the window down more. “Well, get in. There’s plenty of room in the back, and we could always use more hands for weapons.”
The group, including the tall man, the little girl, a woman and a younger man piled into the back, laying the girl across the seats and resting her head in the older man’s lap.
“Is this your car?” the younger man asked.
“It’s the car of whoever worked in the produce department at the Kroger on Executive Parkway,” Blaine said. “And if he wasn’t one of the sick people, he’s not going back for this, I’d guess.”
“Sick people? You mean the walkers?” the woman asked.
“Oh, is that what they’re calling it these days,” Kurt said dryly. “We’re heading north first, to check on his family. Where are you headed?”
“We hadn’t decided.” The young man shrugged. “I’m Jason. She’s Allie. He’s Davis, and the little one is his daughter Janelle.”
Blaine turned around and smiled at the little girl. “Hey, Janelle!”
She blinked up at him and heaved a sigh.
Blaine frowned and touched her head tentatively. “I wonder if we could get her some ice? She’s got a bad fever.”
“I’ll just stop off at Walmart,” Kurt said dryly.
Jason shrugged. “There might still be some in gas stations. I’ve walked into places where the power is still going.”
“The grid’s not down yet,” Blaine confirmed. “We were stuck in a produce cooler for a couple of days.”
“I don’t think we should stop, though,” Kurt said. “We can get ice at your house.”
“But she’s sick, babe,” Blaine protested.
Kurt turned his rearview mirror slightly and frowned at the sight of the little girl. Her breathing was labored, and her brow slick with sweat. She might not last long, from the way she looked. “How long has she been sick? Maybe we should drop you off at a hospital.”
“Have you been to the hospitals?” Jason sounded incredulous.
Allie shook her head. “A hospital is the last place you want to be, believe me. I was there visiting my sister when the walkers started attacking people. The police came in and were shooting people in the head, left and right.”
“Wow.” Blaine reached over to touch Janelle’s hand. “We’re gonna get you some help, okay, sweetie?”
The girl moaned and looked at him with droopy eyes. A few moments later, she closed them.
“Why were they shooting people in the head?” Kurt asked.
Davis’ lips twitched. “You gotta get the brain. Destroy it. Or the walkers just get right back up.”
After half an hour on the road swapping stories about what they’d seen out there, Kurt pulled over at a gas station and looked behind them. “We could use some fuel. I have a pick-axe, and Blaine has a sledgehammer. We should go in, see if there are any walkers around, kill them, and fill up on what we need. There’s no telling when we’ll have another chance.”
“Kill them?” Blaine looked at Kurt hesitantly.
Kurt touched his shoulder. “They’re dead, hon. You don’t walk around with your face half-torn off and your guts hanging out if you’re alive. That’s not good fashion on anybody.”
“It’s the virus, or whatever it is,” Allie said. She stopped when Jason looked at her, then rested her hand on the back of the driver’s seat. “They’re definitely dead, though.”
“Do you want to wait in the car?” Kurt asked. “You can stay here with the engine running, just in case.”
“No.” Blaine swallowed and looked at the gas station. “I’m okay.”
“I know you’re okay. I also know you’re not as crazy as me, so murdering what used to be people is harder for you.”
“I can do it.” Blaine crossed his arms uncomfortably. “Are we sure they’re dead?”
Kurt squeezed Blaine’s shoulder and nodded. Blaine sighed and opened his door.
Allie took the wheel to wait at the ready with Janelle in the back seat while the rest of them took their weapons and approached the door. Kurt twirled his pick-axe back and forth with one hand as he looked around until Davis grabbed his arm.
“Christ, kid. You spar in the local Renfair or something?”
“No. I was a cheerleader, once.” Kurt peered inside the store. It was still brightly lit and he pinched his mouth to the side as he surveyed their options.
“You wanna ring the dinner bell?” Jason asked. He grinned over at Davis, who let out a loud whoop and started banging on things.
“What are you doing?!” Blaine raised his hammer.
Several jerking corpses began to rise from the aisles. Kurt gave Blaine a hard look. “Stay by the door. Cover us.”
Blaine sighed and did as he was told. Davis, Jason, and Kurt made quick work of the walkers, with Kurt systematically working his way through and Davis and Jason spending more time than necessary pulverizing the dead bodies, even after they had gotten the brain. Then Blaine heard a noise behind him and swung around quickly. His hammer sunk into the ribcage of a walker, causing it to fall down.
Kurt ran over and brought his axe down into its head.
“Good work, honey,” he said a bit breathlessly. He reached over to cup Blaine’s face.
“That was a woman,” Blaine muttered. He bent over to check her wallet. “Her name was Sarah Trimble... Looks like she had two kids.”
He touched his fingers to his lips and closed his eyes.
“What is he doing?” Jason asked. Davis rolled his eyes and knocked open the cash register.
“What are you doing?” Kurt asked. “We’re here for supplies and fuel. What are you going to do with cash?”
“Cash is king, honey,” Davis said. He pocketed everything he could, then flipped a switch for the gas. “Go fill ‘er up, Jay.”
Jason nodded and jogged outside.
“So, what, are you two a ‘couple’?” Davis asked with a bit of a sneer.
Kurt raised his chin. “Yes. We are.”
“Well, tell your little woman she’d better toughen up, if she wants to make it out here.” Davis took Blaine’s hammer, which had been resting against the doorframe, and headed back to the car. “Why don’t you get the ice and whatever supplies you think we’ll need? I’m sure you’re good at shopping.”
“Why don’t you chop off the rest of that mullet, asshole!” Kurt yelled back at him. “Before the walkers use it as a bib!”
Blaine looked to Kurt and touched his chest, shooting him a placating look. Then he went over to the ice cooler. “It’s... It’s all melted. There’s a crack in the glass. The heat must’ve gotten in.”
“I suppose.” Kurt scanned the aisles for useful items. “I wish we had a bag or something.”
“Here’s a bag.” Blaine picked up a big purse. “Maybe it was Sarah’s?”
“Could be.” Kurt came over with some toothpaste and hygiene items. “Dump it out.”
Blaine did so, and they started filling it up. “I’m sorry I’m not more useful.”
“You’re fine. This isn’t an easy situation to be in. You have to learn to compartmentalize, or you’ll break down. It’s a skill I have already, for better or worse.” Kurt stepped over one of the corpses and grabbed a Diet Coke out of the cooler. “Want anything?” “No.”
“Maybe we can put some of these cold drinks on Janelle’s head. Bring the water, anyway. Why don’t you check to see if there’s a gun at the register?”
Blaine walked over to the register. He looked underneath the counter and sure enough, there was a gun resting on the stool there. He picked it up, weighed it in his hand, and started to look around for bullets. Then he stopped and stared out the window. “Oh.”
“What is it?” Kurt raised his axe as he spun around.
Blaine features had crumbled as he turned back to Kurt. “They left us.”
Kurt dropped his soda and jogged to the door. The Miata was gone. Janelle had been discarded in the dirt. He blinked in disbelief for almost a minute before hurrying out to her and checking her pulse. Finding none, he backed away from her, trying to guess how long it took for them to rise again. He could see the bite on her arm now. Davis must’ve hidden it when he was holding her.
Kurt wondered whose daughter she really was, and if they’d just picked her up to lure someone into helping them. No father could just leave his baby there to become one of those things, could he?
“Kurt.”
Kurt just stood there unable to think of what to do next.
“Babe?”
Kurt turned to Blaine, who touched his shoulder and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Blaine looked at the girl with tears of sympathy filling his eyes. “They said it was a virus. It’s the fever that does it, isn’t it? Let me do it. She’ll only suffer, if we don’t.”
He took the pick-axe out of Kurt’s shaking hands, then walked up to Janelle and swung it clean into her brain. After he pulled it out, he wiped the bloody side against the dirt and came back into Kurt’s arms.
“We... We’d better start walking,” Kurt muttered. “It’ll be dark, soon.”
Next -> No Home Left to Run From