A/N: okies so this is a sort of…promo I suppose, it's a story idea that I love and I want to do and…well since BTHE can't last forever I was thinking of perhaps writing this when it was over. But I wanted to get your guys opinions of course :3 I wont take too much of your time, hope you enjoy xx
PS. Thank you to puppetmasterc on tumblr for helping me come up with both the fic name and a name for Kurt's kid 3333
D/C: not true so don't sue. I don't own any characters from Glee, they all belong to Ryan Murhy.
-.-.-.-.-.-
"You're a bad father, you always were and you always will be!"
Kurt could see it so clearly. Rachel, his wife, the papers in her hands and she was standing by the black marble kitchen counter, glaring in the older man's direction. Kurt was confused. He had just come back from working for his uncle. He was twenty one, tall and lanky with ruffled brown hair, pale, alabaster skin and an almost gaunt completion. The young man looked nothing like himself five years ago, fresh faced with eyes full of wonder, ready to show the world what he was made of. Now he just looked worn out and overworked.
He was looking to his wife of three years who had turned around to see the four year old boy poke his head around the chipped, white kitchen door.
"Go to BED GABE!" Rachel called to the youngster, each word getting louder and even Kurt flinched. Gabriel's large, doe like, cyan eyes widened.
"But I want Daddy to…"
"Daddy has to go, baby…" The woman said, her voice menacingly high. Kurt was silent, confused. He still had a cheque in his hand that he had gotten earlier, his weeks pay; he had planned to give it to his wife like he did every Saturday evening.
He wore a gray t-shirt and some cargo pants, again, nothing like the fashionable clothes he had once donned in high school. The brunet worked on his uncle's building sight, a job he didn't want, but he wanted to pay for his wife and child. He smelt of cigarettes, which he smoked outside because Rachel didn't allow him to smoke them in the house. It was a habit he had picked up last year when all this fighting began.
Gabriel started to cry and Rachel told him to go back to bed. The father wanted to insist the child stay, but he couldn't let his son see them fighting.
"Go to bed, Gabriel…" He said gently, forcing a smile despite wanting to burst into tears and angry screams. Gabriel's teary eyes looked to his father's identical hues. "I promised I'll be right there to read you your bedtime story." Slowly the young boy walked away, his toy fire truck under his arm.
He looked so like his father with his cropped brown hair and soft skin, he also had Kurt's watery blue eyes. The child looked so adorable in the blue transformers pyjamas, which he had gotten for his birthday. His father had bought him that behind Rachel's back because the woman thought Transformers was too violent for a four year old, but she couldn't say no when he saw it. However Kurt had been sleeping on the couch for three days afterwards. It was worth it to see his son smile.
When the door was closed Kurt walked over, hearing his son trudge up the stairs and he turned to Rachel. She had her hands on her hips and was glaring at him. He sighed tiredly, maybe she was PMSing.
"What's this all about Rachel?" He asked in a tired tone and the young woman glared at him, hands on her hips. They had been arguing a lot lately, but he never saw her this mad and he was worried by the papers in her hand.
"What's this all about? Kurt, I'm so sick of you." She growled, not budging, not moving an inch. She just glared his way. "You're always working or…doing shit. You're never here with your family, you never care…." Kurt suddenly felt disgusted. How dare she claim he was never here. He had given up all signs of a social life for them. He worked to keep their livelihood and spent all other time at home with his family.
"Of course I care." He defended. "I work to feed you and Gabe because I love you both….I…I can't help that it's long hours, but you don't have a job Rachel and we need to support our child." Rachel looked dangerous.
"Oh so it's my fault, is it?" She asked in a demented manner. "My fault? That's about thing about you, Kurt; you turn everything around onto who? Me, that's who, and I'm sick of you dodging responsibility." The whirlwind of accusations was so bewildering that Kurt's head started to hurt.
He worked to feed them, he was always home for Gabriel's bedtime story and he spent every single Sunday with his wife and child. He did nothing but love and support them.
"Where do you get off calling me a bad father?" He asked in a serious, hushed tone. Unlike Rachel and her hysterical raving, he didn't want Gabriel to hear, didn't want him to know they were arguing again. Rachel took a deep breath and just shivered from the obvious anger she had been experiencing.
"You're never here!"
"I'm here to read him his bedtime stories." Kurt defended in a weak, pleading voice. "I-I'm there when you can't pick him up from kindergarten, I get off work to bring him to the doctors or dentist…I was the one who brought him to his friend Stephanie's birthday party…when I had food poisoning I still managed to mind our child all day so you could go shopping…with the money I've been saving...for US. All three of us."
Rachel shook her head, not listening. She was being stubborn, she didn't care if he had done all these things, in her mind he was a bad father…because she said so.
There was no "I'm sorry Kurt" or "this is the way it has to be" there was just the light thump of the papers on the marble counter top and Rachel saying sternly. "I want a divorce…" Kurt was frozen and he looked to her face. No tears, no remorse, just...hate. Pure and strong. "My mother was right, we married too young. We were never in love…"
Kurt sighed. She was right. He loved Gabriel, not Rachel. The only reason he stayed with her was for his child's sake.
It took a long few moments of silence and finally he gripped the pen she was now offering him.
"Fine." He said, quietly and disheartened. He managed to scribble out half his name in the black pen before Rachel spoke again.
"This was all a mistake…the marriage…Gabriel." Kurt stopped and looked to his wife, a death glare in his now almost stony grey eyes.
"Call me a mistake…" He hissed. "Call me any name you can fucking think of, but don't you dare say a single goddamn word about my son." Kurt pulled back and stabbed the page with the pen, continuing his name. "How dare you call me a bad father when you have the crudeness to say something as disgusting as that."
-.-.-.-.-.-
That was two years ago. Kurt had lost his savings which he scrimped for, lost his home which he paid for, lost his wife whom he had lost respect for and worst of all he lost the privilege of seeing his son every day, reading to him every night, hugging him every moment he could, playing with him every sunny day…
Kurt got to see Gabriel every other weekend. The young brunet was now twenty three and his divorce had only been finalized since a few months ago. Two years ago, he left his ex-wife's house after he insisted on reading Gabriel a bed time story. While there he explained that daddy was going to find somewhere else to stay, somewhere where they could have guy time without mommy interrupting them. While Gabriel clung to him, sobbing, asking him not to go, he sat with teary eyes and felt his heart break, telling him it would be okay. That memory still haunted him to this day.
Now Kurt lived in a large apartment block. He lived in a flat with one bedroom, one bathroom and another room which was a kitchen opening onto a living room.
Kurt hated this place, he hated this side of LA, he hated the dodgy neighbors he had and he hated that every second weekend that he had to bring Gabriel to a place where he wasn't safe. Although he unfortunately lost full custody of his son, he still cared more about him than anyone else in the entire world.
The day he lost Gabriel forever was the single, worst day of his life. Seeing his son being driven away in his ex-wife's car, crying for his daddy, a fragile kid of five years old had been heart shattering. He was Kurt's son. He looked like Kurt, sounded like him and acted like him with his incredible passion and stubbornness. Even when he pouted he looked so like his father.
Kurt was standing by the window of his living room, elbow on the windowsill as he smoked a cigarette. He made sure that he leaned out, blowing the smoke into the polluted LA air rather than causing his son to suffer. As Kurt smoked, the door of his own room, where Gabriel slept with him, opened and he looked back to see his son, six years old and still in a Transformers pyjama, newer of course, bigger as he had grown quite a bit as he turned six years old. He held a fire truck under his arm and a storybook in his other hand.
"Can you read me a story, daddy?" He asked quietly and Kurt smiled, nodding as he just let go of his cigarette and leaned back, waving the smoke away and closing the window. Gabriel had a big smile on his face and he jogged back into the bedroom. Kurt smiled as his son hopped onto his bed, snuggling beneath the large duvet and Kurt sat beside him, wrapping one arm around his little boy and asking him what story he wanted to read. Gabriel picked Hansel and Gretel, and Kurt happily read until his little boy fell asleep.
"So the big, bad witch put on a big fire and watched the greedy boy and girl gobble up all the treats she had made. Cakes, tarts, gingerbread, chocolate, marshmallows and all kinds of wonderful sweets to make them big and fat. She watched over the fire, making it nice and big so she could put her big pot on it and cook Hansel and Gretel, who didn't know that the big fire was for them…" Kurt looked from the book to his son who was fast asleep, leaning onto his father, who smiled and kissed his forehead, the short strands of brown hair tickling his nose.
"Good night, my little Bumblebee." He smiled, in reference to his son's favourite Autobot. Kurt took off his shirt, laying it in the laundry basket and went to have a shower, hopefully washing away the smell of the cigarettes. He didn't want Gabriel to wake up due to the stench.
When Kurt was showered he changed into a blue, pinstriped pyjama bottoms and looked to the boxes filling up his living room. Christmas decorations. This would be the first year since the split that Kurt got to keep Gabriel over for Christmas and he was so excited. In the two years, Kurt, unlike his ex, hadn't even looked to another woman or slept with anyone. It had been two years since he slept with someone, much longer since he enjoyed sleeping with someone and it didn't matter to him. Gabriel was more important than any woman in his life. There was of course..other reasons why the young man didn't sleep with any woman but even now at twenty-three years of age he wasn't ready to admit that to even himself.
His ex however was, apparently, bringing new men home every night; and Kurt wasn't impressed, but as she reminded him even with him being Gabriel's father he couldn't control her social life.
Kurt had been alone for the last two Christmases but not this year. He was possibly more excited than his son who was thrilled to be spending the holidays with his daddy. He had tons of toys bought even though he didn't make that much money wise but he wanted it to be special. They had the tree up, they had baked some cookies (most of which turned out burnt), put on some Christmas music and decorated the tree. Gabriel had school tomorrow so Kurt would wake him up, pack some cookies in with his lunch and drive him to school only for Rachel to pick him up afterwards. It would be another two and a half weeks until Kurt would see his boy again, but he got him for the entire week of Christmas and he couldn't be any happier.
Kurt walked into his bedroom and curled up beside his son. He smiled and kissed the young boy's forehead before closing his eyes, trying to get to sleep.
-.-.-.-.-.-
Gabriel woke at 5:32AM. It was still dark outside and he was coughing. He felt warm but not like a fever warm, more like when he sat on front of the fire too warm. The boy couldn't catch his breath. He could smell smoke and hear something, crackling, again, like the fire, but his daddy's apartment didn't have a fire, not a real one. He was confused and couldn't really see his father because of the black clouds of smoke around him.
This smoke was strange. It wasn't like when he accidentally caught his daddy smoking. It was thick smog, it choked him and made him feel sleepy. Faintly, Gabriel could hear people screaming outside his daddy's flat. He was scared. He could feel his father's bare chest and he shook him.
"Daddy…" He coughed loudly, hoarsely. "Daddy, daddy wake up, please!" As well as coughing, Gabriel began to cry and shiver, screaming as his father's eyes didn't open, he just laid there. The six year olds fragile mind was overwhelmed by the image and his heart began to beat faster as he cried out to his father. "DADDY HELP ME!"
This woke Kurt immediately, although his mind was groggy having inhaled the growing smoke around him for the last fifteen minutes or more. He thought Gabriel had a bad dream and was about to insist he go back to sleep. But then he smelt smoke and he heard his son scream again. It was hot, too hot, he was sweating and with a single breath he burst into a coughing fit. The young brunet panicked and sat up in his place, one hand pushed against the soft fabric of the bed clothes. The room was just smoggy but he knew what it meant. The apartment block was on fire.
Kurt's first instinct was to save his son. He didn't get the boys shoes or socks, he himself didn't pull on a jumper, he just grabbed his child, scared and terrified something would happen to his little man. Gabriel instantly clung to him, his dainty hands balling into fists around his fathers bare neck. He was shaking, crying as the screams grew louder. His father hadn't said anything, didn't calm him and tell him everything was okay and that scared him more. He could sense the urgency. There was no time to calm the young boy.
Kurt carried Gabriel out of his flat, managing to somehow kick his own door down with surprising strength as he refused to take his hands off of the boy in his arms. The man staggered slightly as he burst into the hall, a panic in his heart. People from upper floors and homes on this level were trying to rush out, hitting against the father and his son who was staring with wide eyed at the fire fighters running passed them in the opposite direction trying to encourage people to not panic. Kurt wanted to protect Gabriel more than anything else and although common sense told him to listen to the fire fighters he couldn't stop as he pushed passed people and rushed for the stairs, hearing his neighbours screaming and the fire-fighters calling to them all, telling them once more not to panic.
Kurt clung to Gabriel, holding the younger male to his chest as he felt countless bodies push against him, causing him to stumble and stagger as he rushed down the countless stairs. There were flames around them once they reached the last step and Gabriel let out a small cry when a flame licked against his leg. It didn't touch him enough to even singe his trousers but the fright caused the boy to break into sobs and bury his face against his father's neck. On the second level a piece of the ceiling above them caved in and once more Gabriel screamed at the sound as the light debris that fell on him, not heavy enough to hurt but enough to feel. Kurt dodged it, just wishing his son to be okay, he didn't care if he was injured, he just needed to get Gabe out of here.
Panicking people pushed past the brunet and his child. On the first floor Kurt saw the fire-fighters trying to get people out, trying to calm them. It didn't work. Kurt cried out as he felt someone run into him, the person lugging their TV of all items with them as they ran from the fire. The force of the push caused him to fall. Gabriel fell with him and as Kurt tried to cling to his son he felt someone pull him up. A fire-fighter. The moment this happened his heart stopped.
Gabriel wasn't in his arms.
Kurt screamed and stretched out for Gabriel whom he could just make out between the people. The boy was curled up, peeking out between his arms to see his father, screaming for him and Kurt in turn was crying as the fire fighter pulled him away, trying to get him out. He had tears running down his eyes. Gabriel, his son, he was in reach. He tried to pull away, tried to get him but the male was too strong to get away from. People stood over Gabriel and within seconds he disappeared from Kurt' sight. Why was no one helping his son?
"LET GO OF ME!" He screamed loudly. "LET GO, MY SON. MY BABY BOY! LET ME GO, SOMEONE, SOMEONE SAVE MY SON!" No one was listening. The smoke, the fire, it was all too much. Where was Gabriel? Where was his boy?
Kurt was coughing and gasping as they dragged him out of the large building. The flats were an inferno. Fire raging and engulfing the structure and black smoke plummeting into the crimson morning sky. Kurt didn't care. There was someone trying to bring him to one of the ambulances, but he fought, tooth and nail, needing to get back into his child, needed Gabriel in his arms, safe.
"MY SON IS IN THERE!" He screamed as one of the firemen stopped him. The other man had his helmet on and was telling Kurt that he wasn't allowed in. Kurt had tears falling from his eyes and he refused help from paramedics.
A loud groan was heard and a sound rose above the screams as the building began to collapse on front of everyone's eyes. Slowly at first with just the outside structure caving in but within the space of no more than ten seconds it came crumbling to the ground.
Kurt's eyes widened as he watched the building begin to collapse. In front of his tear-filled eyes, the structure came down, falling to the ground and Kurt fell to his knees, sobbing, screaming his son's name loudly into the sounds of sirens and screams. Some victims were severely burned and in pain, screaming in agony, but that was nothing compared to the pain in Kurt's heart. The fire fighters were busy putting out the inferno, water spraying the last of the flames, but Kurt had only eyes for the dust from the building rise into the air and the crumbled structure.
"Gabriel!" He tried to scream, tried to move, to do something but he couldn't. His voice came out pitiful and hoarse; his body felt like it was weighed down as he gazed to the crushed building. His son…his gorgeous, beautiful son….
Somehow, in his despair, behind the veil of tears he managed to notice one form rise out of the rubble and ashes. He would never be sure why the fire fighter captured the brunet's attention. His helmet was up and he held something in his arms as he rose out of the ashes like a phoenix, miraculous and powerful. It was somewhat beautiful, like a scene from a movie although the young man couldn't appreciate that at this moment. The masked man staggered, holding something to his chest as if it was his lifeline, as if this thing in his grasp was the most precious thing in the world and he had to protect it.
As he walked away from the dust and rubble, coming into full view Kurt saw what he was holding. A small body covered in a fire blanket, about the size of his son. The boy was laying in his arms, face urned to the chest of the man holding him. Kurt gazed with wide eyes, seeing the dark blue pyjama's leg sticking out from underneath the protective cloth. The Autobot's symbol plastered all over the trousers. Gabriel, it had to be.
"GABRIEL!" Kurt screamed, pushing passed the men who tried to hold him back and running to the fireman. Gabriel very slowly and with a lot of effort managed to lean away from the male, coughing, soot covering his face. He looked so small and fragile, his blue eyes tear filled and there was rivers of wetness streaming down his soot covered cheeks.
"Daddy.." He tried to yell, voice cracking as his arms stretching out. Kurt rushed to his son and didn't hesitate in taking the boy from the hero, holding him to his chest as he fell to his knees, sobbing. He pulled the boy close, feeling Gabriel weakly shiver and clinging to him in return. His father was apologizing again and again and again. Both were crying desperately, Kurt unable to be strong right now as relief flooded his body his hands were touching the boys hair, his back, feeling it raise and fall with every breath. He was alive.
The fire fighter was still standing over them and Kurt was still sobbing as he looked up to the male, thanking him through his tears. The fireman didn't speak, but helped the brunet to his feet by touching his arm. Kurt didn't let go of Gabriel as he was ushered away from the scene.
The twenty-three year old held his boy to his body, feeling Gabriel cough and splutter, but that didn't matter in this moment, he was alive, he was really alive.
"You need to get him in an ambulance.." The fire fighter said, taking off his helmet. The young man beneath the helmet was vaguely Eurasian looking with black, curling hair and dark eyes. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes twinkled, the satisfaction of saving a life evident on his face even if he did appear very serious right now. The young male had been inside, ushering people away and he saw the brunet fall, saw the child go down and heard the father's screams. He had made a point to save the child, he was too young to die, he couldn't leave him but then the fucking building began to fall around them. Thankfully however they were both safe.
"Daddy, I want to stay with you…" Gabriel cried, clinging to his father and Kurt promised he'd be with him in the ambulance, but the young boy still cried, clinging to his father, crying and coughing simultaneously.
"Hey…" The stranger knelt down to the little boy's height, stroking his hair as Kurt still held him close. "Do you like fire trucks?" Gabriel nodded furiously, tears in his eyes. Kurt was amazed how calmly his son's saviour was speaking, despite the noise and bustle around them, the panic and painful screams. "If you go with your daddy to the doctors, I'll tell him to take you to the fire station when you're better and you just ask for Blaine and I'll show you around ok?"
Despite being obviously sick, Gabriel's eyes lit up and he nodded, tears still rolling along his. Kurt looked to the other man, deep, satisfied hazel meeting tearful cyan eyes. They stared at one another for a long few moments.
"Thank you…" Kurt said, his voice filled with honest gratitude. He was still holding his son firmly to his chest as he carried Gabriel to an ambulance. The paramedics took him and he cried for his father who climbed in and sat beside him as he lay on the stretcher. Gabriel coughed and clung with one hand to his father's trousers. Kurt took a moment to notice the burns on his skin where the fire licked him. He noted the way he was coughing horribly, he also paid attention to how Gabriel was covered in bruises and soot and how his son almost died. He had failed his child, and his ex's words echoed in his head.
"You're a bad father, you always were and you always will be!"
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A/N: to anyone who read thank you :*