Kurt and Blaine are products of The Blackout, a modern day zombie apocalypse. They have since been given an antidote to regain human feeling and a second chance at life. This is their journey in finding each other in a post-apocalyptic world with nothing to cling to except each other.
For weeks, Blaine doesn't know his own name, where he is, or how he made it out of the darkness, but he knows he's alive.
Being alive. For now that's enough.
He doesn't remember much from before. Doesn't remember anything from The Blackout. His past is a hodgepodge of events and faces and people, some of whom must be his family or friends or… more. God, there has to be more.
He doesn't remember the day he got bit, doesn't remember the lives he cannibalized and the skulls he cracked. He doesn't remember the needle shot through his veins or the team of doctors looming over his tranquilized body to keep him from attacking.
Blaine doesn't have a name when he's brought in. He's given a number and a bed and an IV. He's lucky to have that.
He can't speak, but not for lack of trying. Sometimes he doesn't move for days. Every so often, tiny syllables form at the tip of his lips, each slightly more fruitful than the next. Most days, he's kept in a constant state of comatose sleep, as if his body might revert back to The Infected and he'll snap.
That's what they called his kind, and though Blaine was initially captured and selected to be revived based on his youth and minimal physical injuries, he's still more myth than man. A figment of what a human used to be. On Blaine's better days of recovery, he's perhaps a small promise of the future, if there is a future.
Blaine is at the encampment for two solid months when he only begins to grumble the unintelligible sounds of Kurgh. At first, it comes out as a gurgle similar to that of an infant cooing or murmuring in its sleep. The day after that, he speaks it again and his eyes are open. He remembers a bright light being shined into his pupils and his arms being strapped to the bed as he's instructed by doctors and nurses to speak, but his throat bobs and he can't. He's terrified.
He doesn't speak again for a week, too frightened to be touched or prodded with needles or restraints or questions that he can't comprehend.
Against his own volition, the sounds come out louder just a few days later. Blaine's tongue rolls in his mouth as he attempts to sound it out. "Kurgh…t. Kurgh…t." Again, the bright lights. He clamps his eyes shut and whimpers because it's a name, it has to be. "K… ur…"
He stops then, a few words sprouting in his brain left and right, words with viable significance but no definition. He reaches for one of them, fingers discovering the sheet from below him as he grasps as fabric, remembering the touch of cotton against his skin and Kur… Kurgh. "M-ma… ma. Kur…"
When he sits up unexpectedly, he lets out a blood curdling scream and rips out the needle from his arm. He cries out to touch and feel and walk and eat — what is he supposed to eat? Can he eat? God, the name is at the tip of his lips as he attempts to throw himself from the bed and escape for no other reason except panic. It all happens so quickly, he doesn't even notice the tranquilizer needle.
Blaine doesn't say or do anything for another two weeks. He's monitored and sedated and kept on constant supervision, and in that time, he sleeps. Not that he has a choice in the matter. Even as he drifts in and out of consciousness, a few names grow stronger in his head, the syllables and consonants shifting gently against his lips as he replaces grunts for breaths and breaths for sounds.
He remembers the day he wakes up and is greeted with a surprisingly chipper nurse with an optimistic disposition. He sees the world a bit clearer now, and for the first time, he feels the warm flood of sustenance traveling through his veins through an IV to keep his heart beating and his brain alive. Because that's what he is.
The nurse speaks, and though he's not sure what she says, he knows she's friendly and safe. Harmless, even. And so he speaks, eyes blinking back up at her and squinting. "Blai…" His own eyes widen with surprise, because as many times as he's muttered the ambiguous Kurgh, he has no recollection of the significance behind Blai. Yet somehow, it feels oddly familiar, as if he's spoken it his entire life.
He can see the nurse blinking back at him unexpectedly. Slowly but surely, he validates her emotions as confusion. Or is that surprise? Either way, it's a… feeling.
He hasn't felt in so long or even stopped to notice anyone else's emotions that it takes him aback.
"Blai," he repeats again, hissing because he knows there's more. There has to be more. "Blai…. Blai." He huffs softly, gripping his fingers back against the bed because that - that's a feeling, that's a thing he remebers.
He tries, he tries so hard that his knuckles are white. He grimaces deeply and he doesn't give up. "Blai-uhhh. Blai… Blai-ugh." He's so close that it's on the tip of his tongue. He can feel the crowd of doctors and nurses around him once again, the pressure so high that he sprouts tears. No one speaks yet somehow the noise gets louder around him, all the noise projected from bodies and energy and thoughts bouncing back and forth, even in his own head. He doesn't relent. Can't be a failure. Can't go back to sleep. Can't go back to the dark place again.
"Blaine-uhh."
Before the doctors can utter a word of astonishment, Blaine bursts into tears, the whole world shaking around him as full recognition of the word washes over his body like a tsunami. Because it's not just any old word or a sound or a grunt or jibberish, it's a name. His name. And the impact of knowing his place in the world suddenly makes him feel so alive, so human.
He doesn't hear everything the doctors say, but he hears his name. Repeatedly. And it's the most beautiful sound in the world, an anchor in the darkest of times when he has nothing to cling on to. "Blaine? … Blaine?" And then finally, who. Who's Blaine?
"I…" His voice cracks, the word stopping in his throat before he picks his finger off the bed and points to his chest. "I… Blaine-uhh. I…" He stops, his heart racing faster as that name flashes in his brain, the ambitious Kurgh. "Kur! Kur—ugh. Kur-ugght."
No. No, he can do this. He discovered his own name, he'll go to his grave attempting to discover this one. "Kuhh-urgt. Kuhhurt." He's close. He's so close it hurts, and this time, no one is going to stop him. "Ku…rt." He lets out a labored breath and his lips form back around the name. "Kurt. F-find…" Syllables. Consonants. Vowels. Structure. Words. "Find Kurt. B-Blaine. F-Find Kurt, n-need Kurt!"
The doctors and nurses are overwhelmed and astonished with Blaine's development, and in the days following Blaine's most recent outburst, his vocabulary leaps from isolated words and syllables to concrete statements. As always, his usual default response remains constant. "Find Kurt."
Blaine is also moved from an IV drip to liquids and solid food. As his health improves, he learns to walk in intermittent steps, regaining the feeling in his legs as a human rather than a creature of flesh.
Over the next coming weeks, Blaine's grasp of phrases and sentences is isolated to letter recognition. He's given flashcards to sound out simple words like cup and cat. In time, he learns the optimistic nurse's name and wonders how she can still smile even at the end of the world.
He continues to ask for Kurt, and most the time, he's ignored. At least, that's what it feels like. After a while, he's positive that he's seeing him in his dreams, a fair haired young man with piercing blue eyes and a melodic voice. God, that voice…
Blaine doesn't know how long he's been at the encampment when he stirs from his sleep to discover a bed and a figure placed about two feet away from him. He assumes it's no one or an echo of an identity just like himself. He lulls himself back to sleep with the macabre realization that, even if his own mother was placed beside him, he probably wouldn't be able to recognize her.
It's so strange to him. He understands the concept of having a childhood and having parents, which is why it's so bizarre that their faces never come to him from within these dreams. Their names, too, are a mystery.
He has a lot of time to think. Sometimes he wonders if he can only see and dream about the faces of the ones that are still living. He wonders who else is out there that he knows - knew. He wonders if they're drifting like he is.
For one, there's only one figure that comes to him as he closes his eyes, the only being that has ever mattered to him since he obtained full recognition of living.
Sleep is a strange - and not always welcome - concept when one has been undead for an unmeasurable amount of time. But it does have one advantage, and that's seeing him.
When Blaine awakes, he's definitely sure of two things.
For one, he's been asleep for at least a full night and half a day, indicated by an extreme fatigue that only comes by virtue of an extended nap.
Secondly, he's being drawn a sponge bath by the friendly nurse, Liv, who loves taking care of Blaine and occasionally making him smile (a new development, too). The water is warm to the touch and feels refreshing on his somewhat hot and clammy skin. She's very gentle as she smooths the sponge across his chest, and as Blaine looks up at her, her face is hiding a secret - but a good one.
"Morning, mister," she murmurs.
She's always treated him like a human, never like The Infected. When he can write again, he wants to write her a letter of gratitude.
"Morn," he murmurs, taking in a deep breath before his eyes trail down to her fingers. "Why wet? Why smile?"
She smiles even wider then and even rolls her eyes. "Can't a girl give a cute boy a bath without getting a police interrogation?"
It's an intelligent question with a lot of words, and for that, it deserves an intelligent, even witty, rebuttal. For now, he only makes out a few words but not everything, not enough to be clever or smart. So he grunts, assuming that may suffice, and closes his eyes again.
After a few moments, she speaks. "I'm cleaning you because you have a special visitor coming."
"Visi…tor…" He echos, feeling the word around his tongue to capture the meaning. Moments later, his eyes widen and he takes in a deep breath, suddenly clutching for her hand and not even knowing how to hold it, too many fingers getting in the way. "But - no one… knows me?"
She smiles again, her eyes bright. "Kurt does."
She places the sponge aside and buttons Blaine's gown back up along his shoulder, dignifying him just a little before she steps out of his eyeline. From across the room, Kurt is led by foot back his bed, taking it one step at a time despite the fact that he is perfectly capable of walking.
As Blaine sits up and gazes in his direction, the nurse stops them in their path, allowing Kurt to finally recognize the man looking back at him.
"Kur… urt?"
This is a dream. This has to be a dream. Kurt can't actually be standing just a few feet from his bed, looking back at him in complete astonishment as if they had both found a lost face from a lifetime ago, from a different world.
"Kurt?" Blaine repeats, tears quickly filling his eyes as he attempts to catch his breath.
"Bl-Blaine," Kurt echos with astonishment, his voice cracking more from emotion than verbosity. In the time Kurt had been at the encampment - a solid four months - he had actually begun speaking Blaine's name from two months in, and to the delight of the doctors, he'd been steadily regaining the feeling in his legs for weeks.
To the slight embarrassment of the doctors and the nurses, it had taken them far too long to put two and two together and lead these boys back to each other.
Kurt practically breaks into a clumsy sprint as he guns toward Blaine's bed, practically throwing himself against the other man in an attempt to grasp, to hold, to make this moment even more real.
"Kurt… Kurt," Blaine sobs out, throwing his arms around his shoulders and touching his hair. Tears stream down his cheeks as he remembers touch and affection and the press of another person's warm body against his own. This body. "Oh, Kurt."
"Blaine…" Kurt takes in a deep breath, awkwardly petting at Blaine's back and neck. "Found you, Blaine. Real. You're real."
"My-my heart," Blaine stammers, gasping around a sob and pulling back to grasp for Kurt's fingertips. He doesn't remember how to hold hands, not really, but he manages to hold Kurt's fingers well enough to press them to his chest. "Alive, real. You-you found me."
"Beating, your heart. Blaine…" Kurt looks up to meet Blaine's gaze, looking back at him as if he'd found the most beautiful, remarkable person in the world. For the first time in Blaine's existence at the encampment, he doesn't even notice the small team of officials gathered up to witness their reunion, some taking notes of their behavior while others simply have to wipe away their tears.
"It was so dark without you. So dark," Blaine sobs out, burying himself into Kurt's neck and shivering with delight and relief.
"Not dark anymore. Light now," Kurt whispers intimately before cracking another smile. Blaine looked back up at him, grinning bright and brilliantly.
"M-missed you. Oh, I m-missed you." Before anyone can stop him, Blaine shifts slightly from underneath him and tugs the other boy in for a hungry kiss. It's awkward and messy and literally all teeth, and for a few brief moments, Blaine nearly reverts to his darker, more animalistic self. The moment lives on but no one from the small team of doctors and nurses thinks to stop them, not even the ones that look on in bewilderment, their notes long since abandoned.
Some expected them to be brothers or cousins, close relatives, or even just friends.
For others, it only makes the moment that much more emotionally impactful and a totem to prove that all of their efforts are not a lost cause, that there is some life left in this world.
Kurt and Blaine don't care about the world. At that point, they don't even care about the ambiguity of their pasts or the vagueness of their futures or what led them to this place, so lost and hungry and desperate for one another. Those answers will come later - they're sure to.
For now, all they care about is the familiarity and the confidence in knowing that they're real, that their lives together - however great or small - are and were an actual tangible, living force.
So long as Blaine has that, he can take the setbacks, he can live with the lost memories, he can even sleep at night. Because the man in his dreams is real, has been real all along. Even at the end of the world, they found each other.