Fic: Rain Without Thunder And Lightning (2/2)
Title: Rain Without Thunder And Lightning
Fandom: Glee
Rating: M
Word Count: 2,029
Characters: Kurt Hummel, David Karofsky, Blaine Anderson, Emma Pillsbury. (No OCs)
Pairings: Kurtofsky, Klaine. Background Emma/Ken
Story Summary: AU. House servant Kurt is just trying to get through his life when he unwittingly triggers a situation that will change the world he lives in to its core. Slave Fic.
Warnings: Slavery, Dub-Con (due to the slave/master situation), Corporal Punishments, Minor Character Death.
Author’s Note: The author in no way condones slavery or any other practice that limits the natural rights entitled to any human being.
Disclaimer: Glee and anything else you may recognize do not belong to me. The title comes from a quote by Frederick Douglass.
Previous:
Chapter One
A month after his arrival, Master Blaine leaves with his suitcases and Suzy in tow. Things go back to normal between Kurt and Dave, and life at the estate goes through another period of stagnation.
In November, the carefully maintained peace ends. One of the field servants, a quiet young man by the name of Matt tries to run away. He manages to reach the state border, but is captured two days after his evasion.
Things are tense when he returns in shackles and Sylvester is merciless.
Santana, who had, according to Brittany, been very fond of Matt, is enraged when all the servants are called to assemble in front of the barracks, in order to witness the punishment. Kurt, from where he stands next to Brittany and Emma, can see the hint of red from where Santana’s teeth pierced the bottom lip from biting it too hard.
The blood runs down his back, coating his pair of ragged trousers in red. Matt’s muscles clench with each crack of the whip, but everyone else resists the urge to flinch as the leather comes down on the skin.
Three days later, Matt’s tied to a pole outside and he’s barely alive. Kurt suspects Santana to have sneaked out during the night to clean his wounds as best as she could and feed him with the pieces of bread she managed to sneak between her thighs. He’s pretty sure her unprecedented generosity is the only reason Matt’s still alive.
It does no good in the end and Matt is scratched off the inventory list with ‘deceased’ written in Sylvester’s firm hand writing next to his number.
Matt becomes a weight in their minds.
~
William Shuester realizes how useful Sam Evans could be when he first heard his story. A young man who contracted a loan to save his family from poverty but later found himself unable to pay it back. Five years after entering servitude, he is bought back by his hard-working family and freed.
It doesn’t hurt that Sam’s a handsome, blue-eyed blond with an earnest and honest personality. He’s the kind of person the masses cheer for and can sympathize with.
He is not ashamed to admit that he can recognize an opportunity when he sees one.
Sam Evans becomes a symbol.
~
Winter passes quietly, with just a pneumonia scare with Finn. The Masters don’t visit the estate, choosing to spend Christmas in the city. Kurt doesn’t show how relived he is for that.
They do come in the Easter. Master Blaine loses little time, knocking on his door the first night there.
Much like the previous summer, Dave goes back to being angry and surly with everyone. Master Blaine, however, is acting distinctly different.
He’s visiting every other day, always staying longer each day and giving him clothes that have hardly been used. Of course, Kurt’s not blind to the looks and the whispers of the other servants when they see him, much less how Dave’s face falls every time he walks by him.
Kurt feels like he’s drowning, like he’s trying to escape but everything’s pulling him back. Back to Blaine, when all he wants is to escape.
The following week, Rachel comes up to him. Kurt’s astonished when she sets off in a speech, saying that she understands his desire for a better position and the way he is trying to achieve it and does not reproach him at all for it. He walks away as quickly as he can.
In the middle of the second week, during his visit to Kurt, Master Blaine starts talking about taking him back home with him, to be his personal servant. He tells Dave as soon as he can, only to watch his face crumble before storming off, leaving Kurt standing there, with no idea how to prevent leaving the estate.
Two days later while he was hanging up the laundry to dry behind the house, he’s informed by an out of breath Mercedes that Master Blaine has just been attacked. By the time they get to the front of the barracks, Dave’s on his knees with his hands tied behind his back.
Later that night, he kneels in front of Master Blaine and begs for Dave’s life. His owner’s son just stares at him, his face bruised, before walking out of his room.
He sneaks out of the house that night and he’s pretty sure Sylvester saw him. She keeps her silence for whatever reason and Kurt quickly hurries to the cell the disobedient slaves, like Matt, are kept in the night before their punishment.
He talks to him for hours in a hushed voice, fingers gripping the bars. Dave never says a word. When the sun’s rising and Kurt has to go back, lest they suspect where he’s been, Dave inches forward and kisses him. Kurt kisses back, both fully aware that it might be the last time.
The next morning, Kurt is reminded of Matt and his punishment and hopes Dave is stronger than the quiet young man.
In the end he doesn’t need to be. In the middle of the night, Dave, in pain and bleeding all over the foreman, Mr Tanaka, is dragged back to his cell. Over the next week, Blaine never looks at him when he passes next to him and never comes to his room again. In all honesty, Kurt can’t say he’s too bothered by it, enjoying the time to sneak across the field to visit Dave every night.
There is no more talk of taking him away.
~
Slowly but surely, the story about a servant in Ohio attacking his master spreads throughout the Midwest. It happens slowly at first. When Blaine leaves with Suzy and returns to Dalton, she quickly tells the story to every other servant she finds.
From then on, it passes on in hushed whispers and shifty eyes. Dave becomes every oppressed servant fighting back and Blaine Anderson becomes every cruel master.
No one really cares that the real story is just about a hurt servant that lashes out against the person who’s trying to take away from him the one thing, the one person, that makes him happy.
~
Over the next two months, something shifts. There’s a tension in the air. Servants are looking their masters in the eye and those who are clinging to their fading power gulp and look away.
Kurt’s positive that Santana has been stealing the knives from the kitchen when she visits Brittany. Most alarming is Emma, who is acting more nervous and fidgety than usual. One can always tell that something is going to happen when Emma starts to act like that. Sue seems to let things slide more easily, which is then tempered with crueler-than-usual punishments.
The house servants are sneaking to the barracks more often than what is usual for them. Emma, after leaving Tanaka’s room, tells her audience about the revolt in an estate in Indiana, led by a servant named Mike. Looks are shared before people get up, one by one, and try to bury that new information in the back of their minds.
~
For some reason, the Andersons think it’s a good idea to spend the summer at the estate. Maybe they want to defuse the tense atmosphere and show that the current political climate, in which William Shuester and Sam Evans speak to full conference rooms, has no impact on the Anderson estate.
They realized they made a mistake in the first days. Kurt, Brittany and Emma are silent figures around the house, a feeling of oppression clouding every corner. They field servants are like an army, lying in wait for the opportunity to strike.
Slowly, over the next two weeks, the Andersons corner themselves in the house, building up a wall between the servants outside. Sue disappears one day, apparently not caring anymore about the fate of her former employers. The estate stops without its most terrifying figure.
Barricaded in the master bedroom, the Andersons listen to the music and laughter coming from the outside. Nobody says a word.
~
Kurt runs outside, where all order seems to have disappeared. He sidesteps the servants crossing his path, feeling the heat of the bonfire burning in the once-spotless driveway.
There’s a pounding in his ears and he can distantly hear Rachel’s voice. Everything else fades away as soon as he spots Dave’s familiar shape, launching himself at the field servant, wrapping his leg around the taller man’s waist.
For some reason, he can’t stop laughing. He doesn’t try, either. He just wraps his arms around Dave’s neck tighter and kisses him.
~
Emma keeps sneaking the Andersons food, and he can’t help but appreciate the irony of putting them in Matt and Dave’s place, depending on a charitable soul. Emma isn’t vindictive though. The redhead seems incapable of holding a grudge and he ends up feeling like a misbehaved child when she turns her doe eyes turn to him, shining with disappointment.
One night, things turn a bit more dangerous and Kurt realizes that revenge starts playing a bigger part than it should. Along with Dave and Emma, he sneaks in the room where the haggard Andersons have been for a whole week.
They stick them in plain, old clothes, to look like any other servants. Mrs Anderson puts all the jewelry she can on herself and her son, before throwing the grey shirt on, careful to hide anything.
Throughout the whole thing, Dave leans on the door, his arms crossed in front of his chest, sending menacing looks to Master Blaine.
When the family is ready to leave, Emma and Kurt walk out first, followed by Mr and Mrs Anderson. Blaine stops on the doorway and stares Dave in the eye. Blaine once saved his life, thanks to Kurt’s pleas and now Dave’s paying back the debt. Blaine breaks eye contact first and leaves the room, his mother quickly grabbing his arm.
They leave by the back door and Dave takes them to the hold pickup truck Tanaka used to go into town, as Kurt and Emma distract anyone who passes by.
The disappearance of the Andersons is dully acknowledged the following day, and slowly, as news start coming him from the changes being made to the legislation that allowed bond servitude, the servants of the Anderson estate lose steam.
One by one, the servants leave the estate. First, it’s Puck, followed by Brittany and Santana, who manages to leave in the night with the silvers. Finn, Rachel, and the others go as well.
Freedom is a foreign taste in their mouths. Something they’ve hungered their whole lives for, on a subconscious level, before having it thrust upon them and with no idea what to do with it.
Kurt and Dave hear about William Shuester’s efforts to help the newly-freed servants with a place to stay, food, and possibilities of paid employment. After Kurt takes what clothes he can, they set off to Cleveland. It’s a good a place as any to start.
~
Five years later, Kurt Hummel, as he calls himself now, is sitting in the bus stop, desperate to get home and curl up with Dave for a few hours before the former field servant has to leave for his shift. In front of him, a handsome young man with black hair is crossing the street.
He feels himself freeze as the man turn his head slightly to the left and stares him straight in the eyes. There’s no recognition in his face as he walks past him and disappears around the corner.
A short, hysterical laugh bursts out of him. The woman in the ugly green coat sitting next to him sends him an odd look, as he shakes his head.
When he finally reaches the small apartment, he opens the door and untying the wool scarf from around his neck, tiptoes around the bedroom. Dave, a notoriously light sleeper, slowly blinks himself awake, sending him a dopey smile when he sees him.
“You’ll never believe who I just saw…”
It’s not much, but it’s theirs, and most importantly, they’re no one else’s.
Fandom: Glee
Rating: M
Word Count: 2,029
Characters: Kurt Hummel, David Karofsky, Blaine Anderson, Emma Pillsbury. (No OCs)
Pairings: Kurtofsky, Klaine. Background Emma/Ken
Story Summary: AU. House servant Kurt is just trying to get through his life when he unwittingly triggers a situation that will change the world he lives in to its core. Slave Fic.
Warnings: Slavery, Dub-Con (due to the slave/master situation), Corporal Punishments, Minor Character Death.
Author’s Note: The author in no way condones slavery or any other practice that limits the natural rights entitled to any human being.
Disclaimer: Glee and anything else you may recognize do not belong to me. The title comes from a quote by Frederick Douglass.
Previous:
Chapter One
A month after his arrival, Master Blaine leaves with his suitcases and Suzy in tow. Things go back to normal between Kurt and Dave, and life at the estate goes through another period of stagnation.
In November, the carefully maintained peace ends. One of the field servants, a quiet young man by the name of Matt tries to run away. He manages to reach the state border, but is captured two days after his evasion.
Things are tense when he returns in shackles and Sylvester is merciless.
Santana, who had, according to Brittany, been very fond of Matt, is enraged when all the servants are called to assemble in front of the barracks, in order to witness the punishment. Kurt, from where he stands next to Brittany and Emma, can see the hint of red from where Santana’s teeth pierced the bottom lip from biting it too hard.
The blood runs down his back, coating his pair of ragged trousers in red. Matt’s muscles clench with each crack of the whip, but everyone else resists the urge to flinch as the leather comes down on the skin.
Three days later, Matt’s tied to a pole outside and he’s barely alive. Kurt suspects Santana to have sneaked out during the night to clean his wounds as best as she could and feed him with the pieces of bread she managed to sneak between her thighs. He’s pretty sure her unprecedented generosity is the only reason Matt’s still alive.
It does no good in the end and Matt is scratched off the inventory list with ‘deceased’ written in Sylvester’s firm hand writing next to his number.
Matt becomes a weight in their minds.
~
William Shuester realizes how useful Sam Evans could be when he first heard his story. A young man who contracted a loan to save his family from poverty but later found himself unable to pay it back. Five years after entering servitude, he is bought back by his hard-working family and freed.
It doesn’t hurt that Sam’s a handsome, blue-eyed blond with an earnest and honest personality. He’s the kind of person the masses cheer for and can sympathize with.
He is not ashamed to admit that he can recognize an opportunity when he sees one.
Sam Evans becomes a symbol.
~
Winter passes quietly, with just a pneumonia scare with Finn. The Masters don’t visit the estate, choosing to spend Christmas in the city. Kurt doesn’t show how relived he is for that.
They do come in the Easter. Master Blaine loses little time, knocking on his door the first night there.
Much like the previous summer, Dave goes back to being angry and surly with everyone. Master Blaine, however, is acting distinctly different.
He’s visiting every other day, always staying longer each day and giving him clothes that have hardly been used. Of course, Kurt’s not blind to the looks and the whispers of the other servants when they see him, much less how Dave’s face falls every time he walks by him.
Kurt feels like he’s drowning, like he’s trying to escape but everything’s pulling him back. Back to Blaine, when all he wants is to escape.
The following week, Rachel comes up to him. Kurt’s astonished when she sets off in a speech, saying that she understands his desire for a better position and the way he is trying to achieve it and does not reproach him at all for it. He walks away as quickly as he can.
In the middle of the second week, during his visit to Kurt, Master Blaine starts talking about taking him back home with him, to be his personal servant. He tells Dave as soon as he can, only to watch his face crumble before storming off, leaving Kurt standing there, with no idea how to prevent leaving the estate.
Two days later while he was hanging up the laundry to dry behind the house, he’s informed by an out of breath Mercedes that Master Blaine has just been attacked. By the time they get to the front of the barracks, Dave’s on his knees with his hands tied behind his back.
Later that night, he kneels in front of Master Blaine and begs for Dave’s life. His owner’s son just stares at him, his face bruised, before walking out of his room.
He sneaks out of the house that night and he’s pretty sure Sylvester saw him. She keeps her silence for whatever reason and Kurt quickly hurries to the cell the disobedient slaves, like Matt, are kept in the night before their punishment.
He talks to him for hours in a hushed voice, fingers gripping the bars. Dave never says a word. When the sun’s rising and Kurt has to go back, lest they suspect where he’s been, Dave inches forward and kisses him. Kurt kisses back, both fully aware that it might be the last time.
The next morning, Kurt is reminded of Matt and his punishment and hopes Dave is stronger than the quiet young man.
In the end he doesn’t need to be. In the middle of the night, Dave, in pain and bleeding all over the foreman, Mr Tanaka, is dragged back to his cell. Over the next week, Blaine never looks at him when he passes next to him and never comes to his room again. In all honesty, Kurt can’t say he’s too bothered by it, enjoying the time to sneak across the field to visit Dave every night.
There is no more talk of taking him away.
~
Slowly but surely, the story about a servant in Ohio attacking his master spreads throughout the Midwest. It happens slowly at first. When Blaine leaves with Suzy and returns to Dalton, she quickly tells the story to every other servant she finds.
From then on, it passes on in hushed whispers and shifty eyes. Dave becomes every oppressed servant fighting back and Blaine Anderson becomes every cruel master.
No one really cares that the real story is just about a hurt servant that lashes out against the person who’s trying to take away from him the one thing, the one person, that makes him happy.
~
Over the next two months, something shifts. There’s a tension in the air. Servants are looking their masters in the eye and those who are clinging to their fading power gulp and look away.
Kurt’s positive that Santana has been stealing the knives from the kitchen when she visits Brittany. Most alarming is Emma, who is acting more nervous and fidgety than usual. One can always tell that something is going to happen when Emma starts to act like that. Sue seems to let things slide more easily, which is then tempered with crueler-than-usual punishments.
The house servants are sneaking to the barracks more often than what is usual for them. Emma, after leaving Tanaka’s room, tells her audience about the revolt in an estate in Indiana, led by a servant named Mike. Looks are shared before people get up, one by one, and try to bury that new information in the back of their minds.
~
For some reason, the Andersons think it’s a good idea to spend the summer at the estate. Maybe they want to defuse the tense atmosphere and show that the current political climate, in which William Shuester and Sam Evans speak to full conference rooms, has no impact on the Anderson estate.
They realized they made a mistake in the first days. Kurt, Brittany and Emma are silent figures around the house, a feeling of oppression clouding every corner. They field servants are like an army, lying in wait for the opportunity to strike.
Slowly, over the next two weeks, the Andersons corner themselves in the house, building up a wall between the servants outside. Sue disappears one day, apparently not caring anymore about the fate of her former employers. The estate stops without its most terrifying figure.
Barricaded in the master bedroom, the Andersons listen to the music and laughter coming from the outside. Nobody says a word.
~
Kurt runs outside, where all order seems to have disappeared. He sidesteps the servants crossing his path, feeling the heat of the bonfire burning in the once-spotless driveway.
There’s a pounding in his ears and he can distantly hear Rachel’s voice. Everything else fades away as soon as he spots Dave’s familiar shape, launching himself at the field servant, wrapping his leg around the taller man’s waist.
For some reason, he can’t stop laughing. He doesn’t try, either. He just wraps his arms around Dave’s neck tighter and kisses him.
~
Emma keeps sneaking the Andersons food, and he can’t help but appreciate the irony of putting them in Matt and Dave’s place, depending on a charitable soul. Emma isn’t vindictive though. The redhead seems incapable of holding a grudge and he ends up feeling like a misbehaved child when she turns her doe eyes turn to him, shining with disappointment.
One night, things turn a bit more dangerous and Kurt realizes that revenge starts playing a bigger part than it should. Along with Dave and Emma, he sneaks in the room where the haggard Andersons have been for a whole week.
They stick them in plain, old clothes, to look like any other servants. Mrs Anderson puts all the jewelry she can on herself and her son, before throwing the grey shirt on, careful to hide anything.
Throughout the whole thing, Dave leans on the door, his arms crossed in front of his chest, sending menacing looks to Master Blaine.
When the family is ready to leave, Emma and Kurt walk out first, followed by Mr and Mrs Anderson. Blaine stops on the doorway and stares Dave in the eye. Blaine once saved his life, thanks to Kurt’s pleas and now Dave’s paying back the debt. Blaine breaks eye contact first and leaves the room, his mother quickly grabbing his arm.
They leave by the back door and Dave takes them to the hold pickup truck Tanaka used to go into town, as Kurt and Emma distract anyone who passes by.
The disappearance of the Andersons is dully acknowledged the following day, and slowly, as news start coming him from the changes being made to the legislation that allowed bond servitude, the servants of the Anderson estate lose steam.
One by one, the servants leave the estate. First, it’s Puck, followed by Brittany and Santana, who manages to leave in the night with the silvers. Finn, Rachel, and the others go as well.
Freedom is a foreign taste in their mouths. Something they’ve hungered their whole lives for, on a subconscious level, before having it thrust upon them and with no idea what to do with it.
Kurt and Dave hear about William Shuester’s efforts to help the newly-freed servants with a place to stay, food, and possibilities of paid employment. After Kurt takes what clothes he can, they set off to Cleveland. It’s a good a place as any to start.
~
Five years later, Kurt Hummel, as he calls himself now, is sitting in the bus stop, desperate to get home and curl up with Dave for a few hours before the former field servant has to leave for his shift. In front of him, a handsome young man with black hair is crossing the street.
He feels himself freeze as the man turn his head slightly to the left and stares him straight in the eyes. There’s no recognition in his face as he walks past him and disappears around the corner.
A short, hysterical laugh bursts out of him. The woman in the ugly green coat sitting next to him sends him an odd look, as he shakes his head.
When he finally reaches the small apartment, he opens the door and untying the wool scarf from around his neck, tiptoes around the bedroom. Dave, a notoriously light sleeper, slowly blinks himself awake, sending him a dopey smile when he sees him.
“You’ll never believe who I just saw…”
It’s not much, but it’s theirs, and most importantly, they’re no one else’s.