FIC: Family Reunion
Series: No Day But Today
Title: Family Reunion
Pair: Klaine
Includes: mpreg, zombies
Word Count: ~1925
Summary: Blaine introduces Pippa to his brother and sister.
AN: My only defense to get through these next parts seems to be by cutting them back to bite-sized updates.
To say the town was divided was a gross understatement... it was more like they were shattered. It wasn’t over just the outcome of the attack, either. The people were arguing over leadership. Over where to go, if to go. Over what supplies to get first and the danger of sending anyone out at all. Over whether they could afford to support another baby.
Over whether or not they should let Blaine’s older brother live.
”‘Cause I’m a team player, I’d be happy to blow his brains out for you,” Santana said with an acrid smile. “Just sayin’.”
Apparently others had the same reservations. If Blaine was honest with himself, he had a few reservations as well.
Blaine heard the creak of the old steps and stood still for a minute. Pippa let out a joyful noise and smacked her little hand against his chest. She had to have missed him, in her way, and Kurt, while she was being taken care of by Aunt Van and her grandpa. Such a rough couple of days for everyone, and she had no way of understanding why her routine had been interrupted. But Kurt had needed the rest to recover, and Blaine had been trying to keep their town to hold together for just a bit longer.
People were so restless that some of them had gotten it in their heads that they wanted to leave. Right now. The shouting match downstairs had been almost been comical. What did they think would happen if they opened the gate and tried to make a break for it?
That evening, Andre, Mike, and Nick had enacted Kurt’s plan. As far as Blaine knew, they’d at least gotten past the walkers around their camp to begin driving them away. Hopefully, they would return soon.
”They don’t care that we’re all dying here,” Santana sneered.
“Will someone put her down for a nap or somethin’?” Andre argued. “It’s not that we don’t care. It’s that we got a lot to do, okay? Siddown!”
“Mike lost his mother. I lost my life partner!”
Through the doorway, Blaine watched his sister struggle to pull a sweater on with one hand. She was paler than he’d ever seen her, and still a little groggy, but seemed improved, otherwise. Cooper lay beside her. He needed more time to heal, but he’d made it through the night and the next day. Maybe he could pull through.
Pippa cooed and reached for Blaine’s hair. The sound caused his sister to look up, and his brother to roll his head over and blink stupidly.
“Ohhh. Cute!” Tianna came to life and leaned over to get a better look at the baby.
Blaine entered the room slowly. Having his family back in his life, alive, showing them the joy of this little baby in his arms-- he should have been elated. But like everything in his life, it wasn’t that simple. He was equally as battered, inside and out. A negative feeling lurked over his every mood. He kissed Pippa’s little hand and went to Cooper’s side of the bed.
“This is Pippa,” he told Tianna. His eyes drifted to Cooper.
His brother frowned and narrowed his eyes curiously. “Hey there.”
Blaine’s voice exited his body, almost beyond his own will, explaining in a gravelly tone: “Otherwise known as The Peanut, Pippy, Pip, Pipster, Pip’sketti, Princess, and any number of random names that people around the town have come up with. They’re really very attached.” He looked down at Pippa, cradling her so that she could see her aunt and uncle. “Even in the hospital when she was born, the nurses sort of hovered around and doted on her. She is well loved.”
“I bet.” The corners of Tianna’s eyes creased. “She’s so pretty. Look at those bright blue eyes! You’re gonna be a smart girl, huh? And she’s so new! It must’ve been hard on her parents...”
She stopped, then climbed out of the bed and walked around. Cooper looked between his siblings, frowning.
“What?”
Blaine stroked his fingers along Pippa’s belly and kissed her head gently. Being near her helped remind him of his priorities. Both out there, and in this room.
”How is this possible? You have everything, and I have nothing left!”
Blaine’s eyes closed.
“Blaine...” Tianna sat on the edge of the bed and stroked Pippa’s cheek, gazing at her with lovestruck awe. She touched Pippa’s curls. They were still so fine, and soft, and Blaine had carefully washed and combed out her hair that morning and drawn the curls up into two tiny pigtails on either side of her head.
As Tianna’s fingers caressed Pippa’s hair, something lit up in her eyes, and she looked up. “Oh, Blaine...”
“Yeah, it was hard. And it was so scary,” Blaine admitted. “We weren’t sure if she’d make it. But she was worth it. Every battle we fought... and are still fighting.”
“I can’t believe it...” Tianna’s eyes widened. “You were preg-”
“No, it was Kurt.” He shook his head slowly. “Our first time, and he knew so little about it... and I felt so guilty. Like if something went wrong- Like it was my fault for trapping him in this situation after everything was already so fucked up...”
Tianna’s hand squeezed his knee. “But mom and dad never covered that. They hardly talked about sex with us at all. We probably wouldn’t know where babies even come from if it weren’t for Coop. You had no way of knowing!”
“Guys, what am I missing?” Cooper sounded a little cranky. Granted, that much pain had to be draining. And it was hardly the first time his younger siblings had engaged in an entire conversation that he didn’t understand.
“Coop.” Tianna looked at him, her eyes creasing at the corners. “This is Blaine’s daughter. He has a daughter!”
“Wait...” Cooper tried to push himself up on an elbow. He looked at Blaine skeptically. “Oh. She does look like you. That crazy hair’s gonna be hard to deal with. Mom was always combing tangles out of your hair.”
“We’ve never had a problem,” Blaine argued. Of course, Cooper’s first thoughts were about hair.
“I’m not criticizing. I’m just saying. She’s too little now, but when she’s four or five, wait for her to get stuff caught in it. Both you and Ti were like little savages. I remember you coming in from the back yard with little chestnut burrs all over your head. We practically had to shave you bald.”
Blaine stared at him. Hard. His heart was pounding, and he didn’t quite understand why he was so angry at Cooper for talking about his daughter’s future hair like that. Maybe because Cooper had always had the “good” hair? Blaine wished that Pippa could have the chance to meet her grandmother, who would teach her how to be proud of her beautiful Pinay curls.
Tianna’s hand grazed his shoulder, and she looked between them cautiously.
It then occurred to Blaine that Pippa’s future self-image was probably not why he couldn’t tolerate his brother’s flippant shallowness. Cooper was only joking, after all.
“Really, Blaine. I’m not trying to talk smack about your baby. Why would I? You’re my brother, and you recently saved my life!” Cooper pointed this out, but his voice didn’t carry the emotion right. It cracked, then rasped.
Blaine’s feelings roiled inside of him.
“You shot my husband,” Blaine said bluntly. He’d told Cooper when he’d first found him, but there was no doubt that Cooper hadn’t been lucid enough to absorb what Blaine had said. “We had the ceremony, for what that’s worth, about a week ago.”
Tianna and Cooper stared on in stunned silence. Tianna spoke first.
“You shot Kurt?” she demanded of Cooper.
Cooper pressed a hand over his middle, then lay back. “I didn’t... I’d never met him!”
“You jackass,” Tianna said.
“Pippa’s still nursing, you know. If you had killed him, she’d have lost her father,” Blaine spat. “We don’t have a lot of options. It’s nearly impossible to keep bottles sterile enough on the move... She’d go hungry. She’d get weak. She might die.”
“I didn’t know!” Cooper protested.
“I don’t really care!” Blaine circled his arms around Pippa as she let out a startled cry. “I don’t care what you knew. Did you see him? Did you look at him, and somehow think that it was okay to murder him?”
“They didn’t give me a choice,” Cooper said. “They had Tianna. I had to get out there and get her back. Angus gave me the key to the truck-”
“I don’t care,” Blaine said again. His voice chilled the room. “You apologize to Kurt, when he’s strong enough to be moving around again, for plugging bullets into a teenager. You apologize to my child for threatening the little she has in this God-forsaken world. Don’t apologize to me. Don’t you dare.”
Cooper stared back at him. Blaine rose and left the room with his daughter, who was now crying fretfully. He lingered in the hallway, right above the stairs. Tianna came out of the room slowly, watching him with crossed arms.
“You got married and had a baby,” she whispered.
Blaine continued trying to calm Pippa. He felt bad for having upset her. “No... the other way around... The baby came first. Kurt almost died-- would have, if we hadn’t made it to Buffalo and a hospital. Marriage came afterward.”
Tianna leaned against the wall and touched Pippa’s leg. “She’s really super cute. I’m proud. And I’m sorry. I... I didn’t dare to hope that you’d made it. Let alone that I had so much family waiting for me somewhere. I thought... when mom died...”
Blaine shifted Pippa’s weight in his arm, then wrapped his other around Tianna’s shoulders. She circled her arms around his waist.
“I didn’t either,” Blaine admitted. “I don’t think we can afford to waste how lucky we’ve been to find each other.”
“Less luck. These days there are so few living around.” Tianna wiped a few tears from her cheek. “Better chance when you run into people that you’ll know them.”
“Funny about that. The leader. The one with the bullhorn? I knew him.” Blaine rocked Pippa in his arm. She had stopped crying loudly, but was still making noises. He needed to take her down to Kurt, make sure she didn’t need anything he was missing. “He stole our vehicle, our supplies. He saw that Kurt was expecting, thought we were just an ordinary couple of teens in trouble, and he left us to die.”
“That surprises me not at all. He was a rollicking misogynist and a vaginal irritant all around.”
Blaine nodded. He let Tianna go and pulled Pippa up to let her rest against his chest. “I need to go back downstairs.”
“Blaine?” She tilted her head and searched him with her eyes. “Are you going to forgive Cooper?”
As Pippa settled into the warmth of his body, Blaine felt his rage draining away to some other place inside him. Tucking away for another day. It would pool back in his brain, if he let it. If he talked to his brother again.
“I don’t know if I can.”
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth.
comments posted there. Please comment there using OpenID or your DW account.
Title: Family Reunion
Pair: Klaine
Includes: mpreg, zombies
Word Count: ~1925
Summary: Blaine introduces Pippa to his brother and sister.
AN: My only defense to get through these next parts seems to be by cutting them back to bite-sized updates.
To say the town was divided was a gross understatement... it was more like they were shattered. It wasn’t over just the outcome of the attack, either. The people were arguing over leadership. Over where to go, if to go. Over what supplies to get first and the danger of sending anyone out at all. Over whether they could afford to support another baby.
Over whether or not they should let Blaine’s older brother live.
”‘Cause I’m a team player, I’d be happy to blow his brains out for you,” Santana said with an acrid smile. “Just sayin’.”
Apparently others had the same reservations. If Blaine was honest with himself, he had a few reservations as well.
Blaine heard the creak of the old steps and stood still for a minute. Pippa let out a joyful noise and smacked her little hand against his chest. She had to have missed him, in her way, and Kurt, while she was being taken care of by Aunt Van and her grandpa. Such a rough couple of days for everyone, and she had no way of understanding why her routine had been interrupted. But Kurt had needed the rest to recover, and Blaine had been trying to keep their town to hold together for just a bit longer.
People were so restless that some of them had gotten it in their heads that they wanted to leave. Right now. The shouting match downstairs had been almost been comical. What did they think would happen if they opened the gate and tried to make a break for it?
That evening, Andre, Mike, and Nick had enacted Kurt’s plan. As far as Blaine knew, they’d at least gotten past the walkers around their camp to begin driving them away. Hopefully, they would return soon.
”They don’t care that we’re all dying here,” Santana sneered.
“Will someone put her down for a nap or somethin’?” Andre argued. “It’s not that we don’t care. It’s that we got a lot to do, okay? Siddown!”
“Mike lost his mother. I lost my life partner!”
Through the doorway, Blaine watched his sister struggle to pull a sweater on with one hand. She was paler than he’d ever seen her, and still a little groggy, but seemed improved, otherwise. Cooper lay beside her. He needed more time to heal, but he’d made it through the night and the next day. Maybe he could pull through.
Pippa cooed and reached for Blaine’s hair. The sound caused his sister to look up, and his brother to roll his head over and blink stupidly.
“Ohhh. Cute!” Tianna came to life and leaned over to get a better look at the baby.
Blaine entered the room slowly. Having his family back in his life, alive, showing them the joy of this little baby in his arms-- he should have been elated. But like everything in his life, it wasn’t that simple. He was equally as battered, inside and out. A negative feeling lurked over his every mood. He kissed Pippa’s little hand and went to Cooper’s side of the bed.
“This is Pippa,” he told Tianna. His eyes drifted to Cooper.
His brother frowned and narrowed his eyes curiously. “Hey there.”
Blaine’s voice exited his body, almost beyond his own will, explaining in a gravelly tone: “Otherwise known as The Peanut, Pippy, Pip, Pipster, Pip’sketti, Princess, and any number of random names that people around the town have come up with. They’re really very attached.” He looked down at Pippa, cradling her so that she could see her aunt and uncle. “Even in the hospital when she was born, the nurses sort of hovered around and doted on her. She is well loved.”
“I bet.” The corners of Tianna’s eyes creased. “She’s so pretty. Look at those bright blue eyes! You’re gonna be a smart girl, huh? And she’s so new! It must’ve been hard on her parents...”
She stopped, then climbed out of the bed and walked around. Cooper looked between his siblings, frowning.
“What?”
Blaine stroked his fingers along Pippa’s belly and kissed her head gently. Being near her helped remind him of his priorities. Both out there, and in this room.
”How is this possible? You have everything, and I have nothing left!”
Blaine’s eyes closed.
“Blaine...” Tianna sat on the edge of the bed and stroked Pippa’s cheek, gazing at her with lovestruck awe. She touched Pippa’s curls. They were still so fine, and soft, and Blaine had carefully washed and combed out her hair that morning and drawn the curls up into two tiny pigtails on either side of her head.
As Tianna’s fingers caressed Pippa’s hair, something lit up in her eyes, and she looked up. “Oh, Blaine...”
“Yeah, it was hard. And it was so scary,” Blaine admitted. “We weren’t sure if she’d make it. But she was worth it. Every battle we fought... and are still fighting.”
“I can’t believe it...” Tianna’s eyes widened. “You were preg-”
“No, it was Kurt.” He shook his head slowly. “Our first time, and he knew so little about it... and I felt so guilty. Like if something went wrong- Like it was my fault for trapping him in this situation after everything was already so fucked up...”
Tianna’s hand squeezed his knee. “But mom and dad never covered that. They hardly talked about sex with us at all. We probably wouldn’t know where babies even come from if it weren’t for Coop. You had no way of knowing!”
“Guys, what am I missing?” Cooper sounded a little cranky. Granted, that much pain had to be draining. And it was hardly the first time his younger siblings had engaged in an entire conversation that he didn’t understand.
“Coop.” Tianna looked at him, her eyes creasing at the corners. “This is Blaine’s daughter. He has a daughter!”
“Wait...” Cooper tried to push himself up on an elbow. He looked at Blaine skeptically. “Oh. She does look like you. That crazy hair’s gonna be hard to deal with. Mom was always combing tangles out of your hair.”
“We’ve never had a problem,” Blaine argued. Of course, Cooper’s first thoughts were about hair.
“I’m not criticizing. I’m just saying. She’s too little now, but when she’s four or five, wait for her to get stuff caught in it. Both you and Ti were like little savages. I remember you coming in from the back yard with little chestnut burrs all over your head. We practically had to shave you bald.”
Blaine stared at him. Hard. His heart was pounding, and he didn’t quite understand why he was so angry at Cooper for talking about his daughter’s future hair like that. Maybe because Cooper had always had the “good” hair? Blaine wished that Pippa could have the chance to meet her grandmother, who would teach her how to be proud of her beautiful Pinay curls.
Tianna’s hand grazed his shoulder, and she looked between them cautiously.
It then occurred to Blaine that Pippa’s future self-image was probably not why he couldn’t tolerate his brother’s flippant shallowness. Cooper was only joking, after all.
“Really, Blaine. I’m not trying to talk smack about your baby. Why would I? You’re my brother, and you recently saved my life!” Cooper pointed this out, but his voice didn’t carry the emotion right. It cracked, then rasped.
Blaine’s feelings roiled inside of him.
“You shot my husband,” Blaine said bluntly. He’d told Cooper when he’d first found him, but there was no doubt that Cooper hadn’t been lucid enough to absorb what Blaine had said. “We had the ceremony, for what that’s worth, about a week ago.”
Tianna and Cooper stared on in stunned silence. Tianna spoke first.
“You shot Kurt?” she demanded of Cooper.
Cooper pressed a hand over his middle, then lay back. “I didn’t... I’d never met him!”
“You jackass,” Tianna said.
“Pippa’s still nursing, you know. If you had killed him, she’d have lost her father,” Blaine spat. “We don’t have a lot of options. It’s nearly impossible to keep bottles sterile enough on the move... She’d go hungry. She’d get weak. She might die.”
“I didn’t know!” Cooper protested.
“I don’t really care!” Blaine circled his arms around Pippa as she let out a startled cry. “I don’t care what you knew. Did you see him? Did you look at him, and somehow think that it was okay to murder him?”
“They didn’t give me a choice,” Cooper said. “They had Tianna. I had to get out there and get her back. Angus gave me the key to the truck-”
“I don’t care,” Blaine said again. His voice chilled the room. “You apologize to Kurt, when he’s strong enough to be moving around again, for plugging bullets into a teenager. You apologize to my child for threatening the little she has in this God-forsaken world. Don’t apologize to me. Don’t you dare.”
Cooper stared back at him. Blaine rose and left the room with his daughter, who was now crying fretfully. He lingered in the hallway, right above the stairs. Tianna came out of the room slowly, watching him with crossed arms.
“You got married and had a baby,” she whispered.
Blaine continued trying to calm Pippa. He felt bad for having upset her. “No... the other way around... The baby came first. Kurt almost died-- would have, if we hadn’t made it to Buffalo and a hospital. Marriage came afterward.”
Tianna leaned against the wall and touched Pippa’s leg. “She’s really super cute. I’m proud. And I’m sorry. I... I didn’t dare to hope that you’d made it. Let alone that I had so much family waiting for me somewhere. I thought... when mom died...”
Blaine shifted Pippa’s weight in his arm, then wrapped his other around Tianna’s shoulders. She circled her arms around his waist.
“I didn’t either,” Blaine admitted. “I don’t think we can afford to waste how lucky we’ve been to find each other.”
“Less luck. These days there are so few living around.” Tianna wiped a few tears from her cheek. “Better chance when you run into people that you’ll know them.”
“Funny about that. The leader. The one with the bullhorn? I knew him.” Blaine rocked Pippa in his arm. She had stopped crying loudly, but was still making noises. He needed to take her down to Kurt, make sure she didn’t need anything he was missing. “He stole our vehicle, our supplies. He saw that Kurt was expecting, thought we were just an ordinary couple of teens in trouble, and he left us to die.”
“That surprises me not at all. He was a rollicking misogynist and a vaginal irritant all around.”
Blaine nodded. He let Tianna go and pulled Pippa up to let her rest against his chest. “I need to go back downstairs.”
“Blaine?” She tilted her head and searched him with her eyes. “Are you going to forgive Cooper?”
As Pippa settled into the warmth of his body, Blaine felt his rage draining away to some other place inside him. Tucking away for another day. It would pool back in his brain, if he let it. If he talked to his brother again.
“I don’t know if I can.”
This entry was originally posted at Dreamwidth.
comments posted there. Please comment there using OpenID or your DW account.