FIC: Breaking Point
Title: Breaking Point
Pair: Klaine
Word Count: ~3180
Includes: mpreg, zombies
Summary: With the weather growing colder and Kurt growing weaker, Blaine tries to find him a safe place to stay. But Blaine isn’t doing so well himself.
AN: Don't hate me. Wish me luck on my midterm, instead.
The road so far...
The Conception of Hope -> Human Kindness -> No Home Left to Run From -> Chasing Ghosts -> Water Break -> Unsafe -> Only Us -> Meanwhile, Back at the Shelter -> Consumerism is Dead -> Camping -> Night Terrors -> No Use for Wind Chimes in the Land of the Dead -> Meanwhile, Back at the Refugee Center -> Hiccup -> The Fight to Remain -> Contraception Should Be Considered a Staple
And now...
“What if he doesn’t make it?”
Kurt’s voice was so quiet that Blaine had barely heard it. But the quiet was necessary. Running just wasn’t an option at the moment. It was too soon for their baby to be born, but Kurt had started having contractions anyway, and their shelter for the night was only questionably secure. Blaine had rechecked all the doors and taken them upstairs, laying Kurt on the bed and rubbing his lower back while they tried to wait out both the contraction and the night. Failing anything else to comfort him with, Blaine had convinced him to drink the last of their water. There was nothing. They would simply have to find more soon.
“It won’t be your fault.”
It was the only reply Blaine could give. He knew they would both be heartbroken if their precious little baby didn’t survive. They’d tried so hard to make sure they did everything right... or as much as they could with no reliable food, shelter, or safety. But there was nothing to be done about it.
“How long between?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Kurt whispered.
Blaine’s hand rubbed hard over Kurt’s lower back. It didn’t seem like he could push down too hard for Kurt’s taste right now. It must be so uncomfortable for him. How he’d kept walking once he’d started having contractions, Blaine didn’t understand. His Kurt was such a tough cookie.
He would make it. He would.
“I haven’t had one in a little while,” Kurt said after a moment. “Not since... the second one after I laid down. Maybe it stopped? It did before, when we rested by the truck. I don’t exactly have a watch to time them, though.”
Blaine leaned over with a relieved sigh. His hands were shaking. The longer they held off labor the better. Blaine didn’t know what to do, and the baby would be so small if she was born now. And if she started screaming... Blaine looked to Kurt, who was covering his mouth. It looked like he was laughing...
No. Crying.
Blaine circled around the bed and dropped to his knees in front of Kurt, kissing his nose gently as Kurt tried valiantly not to make a sound with his pained sobs.
Touching his chin and making Kurt look at him, Blaine mouthed, “I love you.”
Kurt mouthed the words back, and then lunged forward, kissing Blaine with a desperate intensity. Well, that was one way to respond to being pinned down and terrified. It seemed to be their standard response, actually.
Their lips pressing together made the only sounds in the house for a time. Then there was a groan downstairs, and Blaine pulled back and looked at the door. It was boarded, of course, but if a group of walkers made it up the stairs, if they heard or smelled them, it would be hard to fight them all off. Sometimes one would find its way into a place, and the others would follow.
The silence remained, but Kurt was now sitting up with his fingers tightly gripping his crossbow.
There would be no making him sleep. Not with the walkers so close. Blaine settled for getting him to lay down again with a few whispered words of concern for the baby, and he wrapped a blanket around him. Kurt never let go of his weapon.
Together, they waited.
***
“Easy now.” Blaine held out his hands as Kurt inched his way slowly down the side of the roof. This was perhaps the stupidest thing to do with a pregnant person in danger of popping his baby out too early, but they absolutely had to get Kurt more water, and food too hopefully, so the alternative was to fight their way back through the house, which had filled with walkers somehow during the night (not that Blaine could figure out how the hell they were getting in). Blaine wasn’t going to risk that particular stupidity. Not with Kurt getting weaker and weaker like this.
So they’d decided on this one.
Kurt made it down to the edge of the roof, then reached for Blaine’s hands so he could step onto the next roof without plunging to his doom. Blaine’s hands clasped Kurt’s wrists tightly, and Kurt drew in a slow breath to brace himself before he went.
Two, three...
As Kurt stepped onto the next roof, it creaked and both of their eyes went as wide as saucers. Hurriedly, Blaine pulled Kurt forward and up before the roof could give way under their weight. A shingle came loose, and they scurried toward the other side. Then it fell, drawing the walkers toward that noise.
Kurt leaned over on all fours and let out a heavy sigh.
“You feel okay?” Blaine whispered. When Kurt shrugged, Blaine reached over to feel his belly. It was soft, mostly, and the baby pushed back against his hand. Blaine smiled lopsidedly, an expression that Kurt returned. Like their little peanut had any idea of what her dumb dads were up to. What a story to tell her one day.
Blaine would grin, holding her in his lap. ”Did I ever tell you about the time we crossed a Northeastern suburban neighborhood in the winter by flitting across the rooftops? It was back during the plague, and your Papa was pregnant with you at the time, Peanut-”
“That’s silly!”
“It was absolutely ridiculous,” Kurt would say.
Then they began to move across the roof again, being as quiet as possible. The image of their curly haired child stayed with him as they crossed. Curly black hair, angel blue eyes, and a cherubic heart-shaped face. So mischievous looking, but so sweet.
It was over an hour before they were able to crawl across enough roofs to put a good distance between themselves and the walkers milling around in the streets. Blaine leapt from the roof, then went into the house to help Kurt get inside the attic window. The house was already stripped bare, so he made Kurt rest for a minute, sparing the time to just lay his cheek against Kurt’s belly and hold his hand rightly while Kurt watched him with amusement in his eyes. Then they pressed forward, trying to keep them out of sight. Anything he could do to keep Kurt from more stress and running.
***
When Kurt sank to the ground, he tried to hang onto Blaine, but the weakness in his knees was too sudden, and he was too heavy for Blaine to hold up by himself all at once. They were in what was probably a “bad” part of town, when there had been people to call the wrong sort of people, and there were cars, but these were mostly dead on the lawns. Kurt looked up at Blaine from where he sat on the cracked, deserted sidewalk.
“Sorry.”
“No, I... We need to...” Blaine ran a hand through his disheveled curls and whipped his head around almost frantically.
“I’ll get up,” he said determinedly, pushing himself forward with his hands and willing his legs to support him. Blaine was already carrying their bags, and Kurt wanted to help, somehow, but his head was spinning and now his legs were just jelly beneath him.
“No... stay still. S-stay still.” Blaine crouched down and squeezed Kurt’s shoulders. “You’ve been running ragged for too long.”
Kurt shook his head and looked across the street. “That place looks like we might be able to secure it. Barred windows. We could put some trap on the stairs that lead up to the porch?”
It wasn’t ideal, but securing a place for him to just stay and rest for a while, even if they... Even if Blaine had to scavenge food to bring back, might be their only option. Kurt didn’t think he could keep going like this, and if he did, they would probably lose the baby.
“I’ll check it out.” Blaine pulled Kurt’s head forward and kissed the top of his hair. He stayed that way for a moment, as though taking in the scent of him, then rose and walked across the street, his pick-axe and gun at the ready.
Kurt shook his head and rubbed his arms, trying to fight his drooping eyelids and the chill that was settling into his body from the bleak November weather. It had dropped another ten degrees, he’d bet, over the past few days. Soon they would be looking at full blown Northeast coast winter.
The very thought made Kurt shiver. They had to find shelter. He forced himself to take a deep breath and be grateful that the contractions had stopped. He’d had another during their trek across the roofs, but no more had followed yet, and that was generally his concern at this point. He didn’t know how to classify them, or figure out which ones should concern him (probably the ones that hurt), and he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to hold on, if it turned out they needed to keep walking. Being able to lay still in that bed overnight had probably helped more than anything.
A squeal of tires caught Kurt’s attention and alarm seized his chest. He tried once again to get up, to move away from the car that was speeding toward him, but he could only inch away a few feet. The car stopped abruptly in front of him, and a tall black man, with hair graying at his temples, got out and swore at the driver (“Goddamn, Saff!”) before coming over to Kurt with a gun in his hand.
Kurt fumbled for his bow.
“Naw, boy, no need for that. Not gonna hurt you,” he said in a deep Southern drawl. “Jus’ keepin’ alert for freaks, y’understand?”
Instinctively, although this man was living and not pointing the gun at him and his baby, Kurt curled his hand protectively over his belly. The motion caught the man’s attention, and his eyes bulged with recognition.
“Man alive. A pregnant boy. Never thought I’d see...” He crouched down, tucked his gun away, and narrowed his eyes at Kurt. “Sorry to startle you, son. My girl hardly knows how t’handle that car, but I need ‘er to learn, understand?” He paused, thinning his lips. “Speak. You infected?”
“No.” Kurt cleared his throat. “No, I’m not. I just...”
“Maybe we can give you a ride. How far gone are you? It’s too damn cold out here for you to be hoofin’ in.”
The man leaned forward to offer Kurt a hand up, and before Kurt could explain that he wasn’t sure he could get up, a deep, scary voice growled,
“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM!”
Kurt’s eyes widened as he looked over to the car and saw Blaine holding a gun to the head of the girl in the car.
“Blaine! What- no! I’m okay! They’re human!” Kurt protested.
“Humans, walkers, whatever. You’re all the same people-eating bastards.” Blaine’s lips curled back over his teeth in a rabid snarl as he pulled the kid out of the car and dragged her out into the street.
“Daddy!” the girl screamed.
“Baby, please put the gun down!” Kurt’s heart pounded, and the baby jerked inside him. In that moment, Blaine was a stranger. A wild-eyed, dangerous survivor with a gun to a child’s head.
“Now thank about this, son. You don’t wanna do nothin’ you’d regret,” the man said, backing away from Kurt slowly. “I won’t hurt your boy, an’ you won’t hurt mah girl.”
Kurt could see the gun tucked in back of the man’s pants, with the safety still on. He swallowed, then grabbed it and took off the safety. The man looked back to him as though burned.
“I’m a better shot than you are, babe,” Kurt said in a loud, clear voice as he pointed the gun at Blaine. “I can take out your kneecap if I have to. Put the gun down! They aren’t going to hurt me and the baby, okay?”
“What? What are you...” Blaine furrowed his brows, staring at Kurt in disbelief.
Kurt’s voice softened. “I love you. You are not going to kill a kid. These are people. Put the fucking gun down. We have enough enemies out here. Please. I love you.”
For a frightening, too-long moment, Kurt thought he would have to shoot Blaine, because if Blaine killed that kid, he would end up losing his mind entirely from the grief, and Kurt might not be able to get him back.
But all at once, Blaine let the girl go and ran to Kurt’s side, tears running down his cheeks.
“Get in the car,” the man ordered. His girl bolted for the vehicle, and Kurt expected that he’d be spending the next few hours, hopefully, curled up in that house across the street trying to very quietly keep Blaine from slipping away from him completely.
Instead, the man turned to them. “Well, are you kids comin’? I can see some freaks headed this way, an’ they was so damn thick back yonder we barely got through. We’re on our way north, if ya’ll’re headin’ that way. They’s message on the radio says they got supplies and medical help up there. I’m drivin’, though.”
Blaine looked back at him, his eyes wide, shining, unable to see the human being right there in front of him.
“I’m gonna need some help, hon,” Kurt told him. Blaine blinked and shook his head, then returned the gun to the holder on his back and put an arm under Kurt’s, trying to heft him to his feet.
The man took the other side, and together, they managed to get Kurt in the backseat, where Blaine joined him before the man took the wheel.
***
“I’m... I’m so, so sorry.”
Forest Jackson looked at the reflection in the rearview mirror of the two damaged kids sitting in his backseat. The one in a family way had the other’s head on his chest and was petting his hair as gently as he might his own child. Maybe it was a damn fool idea to bring them along. The curly-haired one seemed like he’d gone and cracked already, maybe beyond pulling back together. The pregnant boy didn’t look too well, either. Though it was likely the two observations were connected.
Hell, who could leave two kids expectin’ a baby alone in the road, though?
“We been treated worse,” Saffire said, turning around in her seat to watch the two boys. She was a couple of years younger than them, or so Forest reckoned by looking at them. It was sort of a relief, actually, these boys bein’ so obviously gay. Since they was so obviously together. He hated to not trust folks around his daughter, but it was hard to trust folks in general these days, ‘specially after the ones they’d met already. And he wouldn’t’ve trusted a couple of teenage straight boys around her even before. He was a teenage boy, once.
“We been treated worse by folks for lot less reason,” she continued. It was too true, unfortunately. “You really pregnant?”
“Um, yeah. I am. Almost seven months now,” the boy’s fragile voice peeped.
“Hard to be out here in that condition,” Forest said. In all honesty, he’d never seen a pregnant boy, but his Nana had told him that it happened sometimes, and she could spin a yarn for sure, but they were all damn true.
He pulled out of the neighborhood onto what he hoped was a safer road. If they could get back on the highway, they might be up to Buffalo within the day. Food, supplies, and a hospital for these kids.
“I’m Saffire. How long you been together?”
Friendly girl. Forest hoped his girl never lost that.
“Since last March,” the boy answered again for the both of them. “I’m Kurt. This is Blaine.”
“I’m so sorry,” Blaine said again. He burrowed into Kurt’s arms like he was afraid to be in the world anymore.
Hell, he had right to be.
“Look, we run into some fellas up the road aways who were eatin’ folks,” Forest told them. “Not the freaks, them dead ones. These was real, live men roastin’ up other people they hunted an’ killed. Hunger and fear, it’ll do things to a man. The way I see it, kid, I’m protecting my baby, and you tryin’ to do the same. An’ it’s damn hard out here. Damn hard.”
“Everyone we’ve met so far...” Blaine muttered.
“We been tryin’ to avoid people,” Saffire said.
“Us, too,” Kurt said.
“You have such pretty eyes,” Saffire said, suddenly. “I always wished I had pretty blue eyes like that. My mama did.”
“My mom, too,” Kurt replied. After a moment of silence, he said, “I think your eyes are pretty, too, though. And I know there are girls who would kill for your cheekbones. Or maim, anyway.”
Saffire giggled, then reached down into their bags. “You hungry? We have some stuff...”
“Yeah, go on an’ give ‘im some water,” Forest agreed. “It’s no good for a pregnant wo- ah, person to get dehydrated. ‘Specially when you’re this far along.”
“That’s really generous of you. I can’t thank you two enough for taking us with you,” Kurt said.
Saffire handed him a bottle. “Daddy’s always said that in hard times you gotta make choices about what you’re gonna hold onto.”
Kurt gulped the water down gratefully.
“Why don’t you try an’ relax a bit? You look like you could use it. Name’s Forest, by the way.” He cast another glance back at them and watched Kurt’s eyelids drooping. “There’s room back there for you to lay down.”
Blaine looked up and his eyes shifted around unsteadily. “Are- Are you...?”
“No. I’m okay,” Kurt assured him. “No pain. The water’s helping, I think.”
Blaine tugged on Kurt. The boy shifted him into his lap and began running his fingers through Kurt’s shaggy chestnut hair. The boy didn’t say anything else, just rubbed on Kurt’s arm and back and patted his belly.
Forest hoped that kid could hold on to his brains, for the baby’s sake.
I considered summarizing this part as 'Blainers lucking foozes it.'
Next Part: Safe Zone
Pair: Klaine
Word Count: ~3180
Includes: mpreg, zombies
Summary: With the weather growing colder and Kurt growing weaker, Blaine tries to find him a safe place to stay. But Blaine isn’t doing so well himself.
AN: Don't hate me. Wish me luck on my midterm, instead.
The road so far...
The Conception of Hope -> Human Kindness -> No Home Left to Run From -> Chasing Ghosts -> Water Break -> Unsafe -> Only Us -> Meanwhile, Back at the Shelter -> Consumerism is Dead -> Camping -> Night Terrors -> No Use for Wind Chimes in the Land of the Dead -> Meanwhile, Back at the Refugee Center -> Hiccup -> The Fight to Remain -> Contraception Should Be Considered a Staple
And now...
“What if he doesn’t make it?”
Kurt’s voice was so quiet that Blaine had barely heard it. But the quiet was necessary. Running just wasn’t an option at the moment. It was too soon for their baby to be born, but Kurt had started having contractions anyway, and their shelter for the night was only questionably secure. Blaine had rechecked all the doors and taken them upstairs, laying Kurt on the bed and rubbing his lower back while they tried to wait out both the contraction and the night. Failing anything else to comfort him with, Blaine had convinced him to drink the last of their water. There was nothing. They would simply have to find more soon.
“It won’t be your fault.”
It was the only reply Blaine could give. He knew they would both be heartbroken if their precious little baby didn’t survive. They’d tried so hard to make sure they did everything right... or as much as they could with no reliable food, shelter, or safety. But there was nothing to be done about it.
“How long between?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Kurt whispered.
Blaine’s hand rubbed hard over Kurt’s lower back. It didn’t seem like he could push down too hard for Kurt’s taste right now. It must be so uncomfortable for him. How he’d kept walking once he’d started having contractions, Blaine didn’t understand. His Kurt was such a tough cookie.
He would make it. He would.
“I haven’t had one in a little while,” Kurt said after a moment. “Not since... the second one after I laid down. Maybe it stopped? It did before, when we rested by the truck. I don’t exactly have a watch to time them, though.”
Blaine leaned over with a relieved sigh. His hands were shaking. The longer they held off labor the better. Blaine didn’t know what to do, and the baby would be so small if she was born now. And if she started screaming... Blaine looked to Kurt, who was covering his mouth. It looked like he was laughing...
No. Crying.
Blaine circled around the bed and dropped to his knees in front of Kurt, kissing his nose gently as Kurt tried valiantly not to make a sound with his pained sobs.
Touching his chin and making Kurt look at him, Blaine mouthed, “I love you.”
Kurt mouthed the words back, and then lunged forward, kissing Blaine with a desperate intensity. Well, that was one way to respond to being pinned down and terrified. It seemed to be their standard response, actually.
Their lips pressing together made the only sounds in the house for a time. Then there was a groan downstairs, and Blaine pulled back and looked at the door. It was boarded, of course, but if a group of walkers made it up the stairs, if they heard or smelled them, it would be hard to fight them all off. Sometimes one would find its way into a place, and the others would follow.
The silence remained, but Kurt was now sitting up with his fingers tightly gripping his crossbow.
There would be no making him sleep. Not with the walkers so close. Blaine settled for getting him to lay down again with a few whispered words of concern for the baby, and he wrapped a blanket around him. Kurt never let go of his weapon.
Together, they waited.
***
“Easy now.” Blaine held out his hands as Kurt inched his way slowly down the side of the roof. This was perhaps the stupidest thing to do with a pregnant person in danger of popping his baby out too early, but they absolutely had to get Kurt more water, and food too hopefully, so the alternative was to fight their way back through the house, which had filled with walkers somehow during the night (not that Blaine could figure out how the hell they were getting in). Blaine wasn’t going to risk that particular stupidity. Not with Kurt getting weaker and weaker like this.
So they’d decided on this one.
Kurt made it down to the edge of the roof, then reached for Blaine’s hands so he could step onto the next roof without plunging to his doom. Blaine’s hands clasped Kurt’s wrists tightly, and Kurt drew in a slow breath to brace himself before he went.
Two, three...
As Kurt stepped onto the next roof, it creaked and both of their eyes went as wide as saucers. Hurriedly, Blaine pulled Kurt forward and up before the roof could give way under their weight. A shingle came loose, and they scurried toward the other side. Then it fell, drawing the walkers toward that noise.
Kurt leaned over on all fours and let out a heavy sigh.
“You feel okay?” Blaine whispered. When Kurt shrugged, Blaine reached over to feel his belly. It was soft, mostly, and the baby pushed back against his hand. Blaine smiled lopsidedly, an expression that Kurt returned. Like their little peanut had any idea of what her dumb dads were up to. What a story to tell her one day.
Blaine would grin, holding her in his lap. ”Did I ever tell you about the time we crossed a Northeastern suburban neighborhood in the winter by flitting across the rooftops? It was back during the plague, and your Papa was pregnant with you at the time, Peanut-”
“That’s silly!”
“It was absolutely ridiculous,” Kurt would say.
Then they began to move across the roof again, being as quiet as possible. The image of their curly haired child stayed with him as they crossed. Curly black hair, angel blue eyes, and a cherubic heart-shaped face. So mischievous looking, but so sweet.
It was over an hour before they were able to crawl across enough roofs to put a good distance between themselves and the walkers milling around in the streets. Blaine leapt from the roof, then went into the house to help Kurt get inside the attic window. The house was already stripped bare, so he made Kurt rest for a minute, sparing the time to just lay his cheek against Kurt’s belly and hold his hand rightly while Kurt watched him with amusement in his eyes. Then they pressed forward, trying to keep them out of sight. Anything he could do to keep Kurt from more stress and running.
***
When Kurt sank to the ground, he tried to hang onto Blaine, but the weakness in his knees was too sudden, and he was too heavy for Blaine to hold up by himself all at once. They were in what was probably a “bad” part of town, when there had been people to call the wrong sort of people, and there were cars, but these were mostly dead on the lawns. Kurt looked up at Blaine from where he sat on the cracked, deserted sidewalk.
“Sorry.”
“No, I... We need to...” Blaine ran a hand through his disheveled curls and whipped his head around almost frantically.
“I’ll get up,” he said determinedly, pushing himself forward with his hands and willing his legs to support him. Blaine was already carrying their bags, and Kurt wanted to help, somehow, but his head was spinning and now his legs were just jelly beneath him.
“No... stay still. S-stay still.” Blaine crouched down and squeezed Kurt’s shoulders. “You’ve been running ragged for too long.”
Kurt shook his head and looked across the street. “That place looks like we might be able to secure it. Barred windows. We could put some trap on the stairs that lead up to the porch?”
It wasn’t ideal, but securing a place for him to just stay and rest for a while, even if they... Even if Blaine had to scavenge food to bring back, might be their only option. Kurt didn’t think he could keep going like this, and if he did, they would probably lose the baby.
“I’ll check it out.” Blaine pulled Kurt’s head forward and kissed the top of his hair. He stayed that way for a moment, as though taking in the scent of him, then rose and walked across the street, his pick-axe and gun at the ready.
Kurt shook his head and rubbed his arms, trying to fight his drooping eyelids and the chill that was settling into his body from the bleak November weather. It had dropped another ten degrees, he’d bet, over the past few days. Soon they would be looking at full blown Northeast coast winter.
The very thought made Kurt shiver. They had to find shelter. He forced himself to take a deep breath and be grateful that the contractions had stopped. He’d had another during their trek across the roofs, but no more had followed yet, and that was generally his concern at this point. He didn’t know how to classify them, or figure out which ones should concern him (probably the ones that hurt), and he wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to hold on, if it turned out they needed to keep walking. Being able to lay still in that bed overnight had probably helped more than anything.
A squeal of tires caught Kurt’s attention and alarm seized his chest. He tried once again to get up, to move away from the car that was speeding toward him, but he could only inch away a few feet. The car stopped abruptly in front of him, and a tall black man, with hair graying at his temples, got out and swore at the driver (“Goddamn, Saff!”) before coming over to Kurt with a gun in his hand.
Kurt fumbled for his bow.
“Naw, boy, no need for that. Not gonna hurt you,” he said in a deep Southern drawl. “Jus’ keepin’ alert for freaks, y’understand?”
Instinctively, although this man was living and not pointing the gun at him and his baby, Kurt curled his hand protectively over his belly. The motion caught the man’s attention, and his eyes bulged with recognition.
“Man alive. A pregnant boy. Never thought I’d see...” He crouched down, tucked his gun away, and narrowed his eyes at Kurt. “Sorry to startle you, son. My girl hardly knows how t’handle that car, but I need ‘er to learn, understand?” He paused, thinning his lips. “Speak. You infected?”
“No.” Kurt cleared his throat. “No, I’m not. I just...”
“Maybe we can give you a ride. How far gone are you? It’s too damn cold out here for you to be hoofin’ in.”
The man leaned forward to offer Kurt a hand up, and before Kurt could explain that he wasn’t sure he could get up, a deep, scary voice growled,
“GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM!”
Kurt’s eyes widened as he looked over to the car and saw Blaine holding a gun to the head of the girl in the car.
“Blaine! What- no! I’m okay! They’re human!” Kurt protested.
“Humans, walkers, whatever. You’re all the same people-eating bastards.” Blaine’s lips curled back over his teeth in a rabid snarl as he pulled the kid out of the car and dragged her out into the street.
“Daddy!” the girl screamed.
“Baby, please put the gun down!” Kurt’s heart pounded, and the baby jerked inside him. In that moment, Blaine was a stranger. A wild-eyed, dangerous survivor with a gun to a child’s head.
“Now thank about this, son. You don’t wanna do nothin’ you’d regret,” the man said, backing away from Kurt slowly. “I won’t hurt your boy, an’ you won’t hurt mah girl.”
Kurt could see the gun tucked in back of the man’s pants, with the safety still on. He swallowed, then grabbed it and took off the safety. The man looked back to him as though burned.
“I’m a better shot than you are, babe,” Kurt said in a loud, clear voice as he pointed the gun at Blaine. “I can take out your kneecap if I have to. Put the gun down! They aren’t going to hurt me and the baby, okay?”
“What? What are you...” Blaine furrowed his brows, staring at Kurt in disbelief.
Kurt’s voice softened. “I love you. You are not going to kill a kid. These are people. Put the fucking gun down. We have enough enemies out here. Please. I love you.”
For a frightening, too-long moment, Kurt thought he would have to shoot Blaine, because if Blaine killed that kid, he would end up losing his mind entirely from the grief, and Kurt might not be able to get him back.
But all at once, Blaine let the girl go and ran to Kurt’s side, tears running down his cheeks.
“Get in the car,” the man ordered. His girl bolted for the vehicle, and Kurt expected that he’d be spending the next few hours, hopefully, curled up in that house across the street trying to very quietly keep Blaine from slipping away from him completely.
Instead, the man turned to them. “Well, are you kids comin’? I can see some freaks headed this way, an’ they was so damn thick back yonder we barely got through. We’re on our way north, if ya’ll’re headin’ that way. They’s message on the radio says they got supplies and medical help up there. I’m drivin’, though.”
Blaine looked back at him, his eyes wide, shining, unable to see the human being right there in front of him.
“I’m gonna need some help, hon,” Kurt told him. Blaine blinked and shook his head, then returned the gun to the holder on his back and put an arm under Kurt’s, trying to heft him to his feet.
The man took the other side, and together, they managed to get Kurt in the backseat, where Blaine joined him before the man took the wheel.
***
“I’m... I’m so, so sorry.”
Forest Jackson looked at the reflection in the rearview mirror of the two damaged kids sitting in his backseat. The one in a family way had the other’s head on his chest and was petting his hair as gently as he might his own child. Maybe it was a damn fool idea to bring them along. The curly-haired one seemed like he’d gone and cracked already, maybe beyond pulling back together. The pregnant boy didn’t look too well, either. Though it was likely the two observations were connected.
Hell, who could leave two kids expectin’ a baby alone in the road, though?
“We been treated worse,” Saffire said, turning around in her seat to watch the two boys. She was a couple of years younger than them, or so Forest reckoned by looking at them. It was sort of a relief, actually, these boys bein’ so obviously gay. Since they was so obviously together. He hated to not trust folks around his daughter, but it was hard to trust folks in general these days, ‘specially after the ones they’d met already. And he wouldn’t’ve trusted a couple of teenage straight boys around her even before. He was a teenage boy, once.
“We been treated worse by folks for lot less reason,” she continued. It was too true, unfortunately. “You really pregnant?”
“Um, yeah. I am. Almost seven months now,” the boy’s fragile voice peeped.
“Hard to be out here in that condition,” Forest said. In all honesty, he’d never seen a pregnant boy, but his Nana had told him that it happened sometimes, and she could spin a yarn for sure, but they were all damn true.
He pulled out of the neighborhood onto what he hoped was a safer road. If they could get back on the highway, they might be up to Buffalo within the day. Food, supplies, and a hospital for these kids.
“I’m Saffire. How long you been together?”
Friendly girl. Forest hoped his girl never lost that.
“Since last March,” the boy answered again for the both of them. “I’m Kurt. This is Blaine.”
“I’m so sorry,” Blaine said again. He burrowed into Kurt’s arms like he was afraid to be in the world anymore.
Hell, he had right to be.
“Look, we run into some fellas up the road aways who were eatin’ folks,” Forest told them. “Not the freaks, them dead ones. These was real, live men roastin’ up other people they hunted an’ killed. Hunger and fear, it’ll do things to a man. The way I see it, kid, I’m protecting my baby, and you tryin’ to do the same. An’ it’s damn hard out here. Damn hard.”
“Everyone we’ve met so far...” Blaine muttered.
“We been tryin’ to avoid people,” Saffire said.
“Us, too,” Kurt said.
“You have such pretty eyes,” Saffire said, suddenly. “I always wished I had pretty blue eyes like that. My mama did.”
“My mom, too,” Kurt replied. After a moment of silence, he said, “I think your eyes are pretty, too, though. And I know there are girls who would kill for your cheekbones. Or maim, anyway.”
Saffire giggled, then reached down into their bags. “You hungry? We have some stuff...”
“Yeah, go on an’ give ‘im some water,” Forest agreed. “It’s no good for a pregnant wo- ah, person to get dehydrated. ‘Specially when you’re this far along.”
“That’s really generous of you. I can’t thank you two enough for taking us with you,” Kurt said.
Saffire handed him a bottle. “Daddy’s always said that in hard times you gotta make choices about what you’re gonna hold onto.”
Kurt gulped the water down gratefully.
“Why don’t you try an’ relax a bit? You look like you could use it. Name’s Forest, by the way.” He cast another glance back at them and watched Kurt’s eyelids drooping. “There’s room back there for you to lay down.”
Blaine looked up and his eyes shifted around unsteadily. “Are- Are you...?”
“No. I’m okay,” Kurt assured him. “No pain. The water’s helping, I think.”
Blaine tugged on Kurt. The boy shifted him into his lap and began running his fingers through Kurt’s shaggy chestnut hair. The boy didn’t say anything else, just rubbed on Kurt’s arm and back and patted his belly.
Forest hoped that kid could hold on to his brains, for the baby’s sake.
I considered summarizing this part as 'Blainers lucking foozes it.'
Next Part: Safe Zone