A.N.: Warning for this chapter: explicit description of deathly violence.
1 – Machine Gun Lunatics
He wakes up to something heavy falling on top of him. He grunts and opens his eyes but he can barely see anything – it's dark, it's practically pitch black now, and all he can make out is dirty white fabric as the heavy something – a person, definitely a person – scrambles to their feet and takes off running without even looking behind.
Kurt's head is back to migraine, which is better, but still bad, and if the darkness enveloping him is anything to go by he's been out cold for hours. He tries to make out the person that had fallen on top of him but they're already so far away he can only tell they were wearing white – maybe a tunic? – it definitely didn't look very stylish.
He can smell smoke and remembers the sound of explosions. The smell is so strong it makes him feel sick – no, it makes him sick – he gets about a moment's warning before he's emptying his stomach's content to damp, cool grass next to him. It makes his eyes water and his head hurt worse. He looks to his other side and finds his bag still there. He's about to check if it has everything when the sound of running footsteps startles him. He looks up to find two people, hand in hand, dressed in white tunics – cloths?, definitely not real clothes…– running desperately. As they sprint past him, in the weak moonlight he thinks there are tears on their faces.
"What the hell is happening?" he mumbles to himself. More and more he can make them out now – running in every direction, some alone, some in pairs, or even trios, there are dozens of people running, all coming from the red-lit, smoking area in the middle of the woods. He considers if he should stand, but figures probably not. That is until a hysterically sobbing woman comes sprinting towards him, and she's not running as fast as she can because she's trying to wipe her eyes away and she's not even breathing properly, crying way too hard to catch a good breath.
"Do you need help?!" Kurt asks at once, standing as she comes to within a yard of him. She falters in her steps, looks at him confused.
"What're you doing?!" she gasps, her dark eyes wild with tears and terror. "Run!"
"What?"
She doesn't get to respond before there's a bang (like the one when his neighbor confused the dog for a burglar) and she's crashing to the ground, thick dark blood trailing down her temple, black in the moonlight.
"OH my god!" Kurt gasps jumping at least four feet back and scrambling to the ground. Machine Gun Lunatic. Machine Gun Lunatic. Machine Gun Lunatic.
There's heavy footsteps – it's a jog, not a sprint. It's from boots, not bare-feet. Kurt's blood is cold and rushing through his body like it's trying to make up for all the trips it's never going to make again. He finds his cell phone on the ground and tries to get it to turn on –for some reason still believing 911 might miraculously help him get away from Machine Gun Lunatic.
It doesn't work and then a man is towering over him. In the moonlight he figures Machine Gun Lunatic is wearing dark green, but he can't be sure. What he is sure is he is holding a gun. Not a machine gun, but still a gun. And it's pointed at Kurt.
"Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god," he gasps as he looks down the barrel of the gun. "Please, don't kill me, please don't kill me!"
The man smirks, but then he goes very, very still, and there's a dark small hole in the middle of his forehead and, in a matter of seconds, he's sprawled face first on the ground.
Kurt tries to stand to see who saved him but the moment his eyes so much as peek through the tall grass he can see a platoon of Machine Gun Lunatics marching through the fields. Scared shitless and not entirely resigned to death Kurt grabs the gun from the unconscious (dead) man, and, sighing to himself, thinking it's probably a bad idea, he grabs his too-expensive-to-leave-behind bag and takes off, dragging himself through grass, weeds, earth and even mud – if it's pools of water or blood he doesn't know and certainly doesn't want to know. He crawls in the opposite direction of everyone else, because the way he figures is that dangerous men have all probably left the explosion site.
He stands once he finds a tree and pushes his back against it to take long drags of breath.
Someone crashes against him, and his bag flies to the ground, finally caving in to the experiences it wasn't designed to endure and spilling its contents everywhere. Kurt's laptop. Kurt's sketchbooks, his iPod, his glasses, his favorite sweater, and, ridiculously enough, his blow drier (that he forgot to pack with most of everything else he sent through the moving company).
The man frowns confused, halting in his sprint. He's not dressed in a white cloth, but he doesn't exactly look like one of the Machine Gun Lunatics.
He looks around them, at the objects on the ground, and then at Kurt, eyes running him up and down, but not even in a dirty way, or a cruel way – just looking, taking him in and frowning further. Kurt shakily holds the gun in self-defense, only to find he no longer has a gun. It's on the ground, five feet away. He must've dropped in on impact.
The man takes in his terrified state and watches him closer. Another man hurries by, but the first one calls out "Dave!" in a strong bellowing voice. And Kurt wants to run and hide, but can't. He's rooted to the spot in fear.
Dave halts in his running "What're you doing?! Come on! Most guards are gone!"
"Look at'im."
"What about him?" Dave says with a glance and shrug.
"Look at his stuff, look at him…!"
Dave eyes his friend carefully before sighing and stepping closer to Kurt – the occasional sprinting passer-by not even fazing them. Kurt tries to look the least bit defiant, even if he's three seconds away from crumpling with fear. When their eyes meet it takes all of Kurt not to look away at once, and he doesn't. The man looks predatory, but not exactly in a sexual way. In a way that Kurt actually feels like an honest to god prey.
"What's that?" Dave asks, giving Kurt an excuse to finally look away. He has to ask again, looking at Kurt and pointing at his laptop "What's that?"
"M-my computer…?" All of his videos… all of his photographs… All of his photographs with his dad. Gone.
"Was that a question?" The man sniggers "What's it for?"
"W-what?" Kurt asks, voice barely audible.
"I asked what is it for. The compuder."
"What-what do you mean what is it f-for?"
"What do you mean what do I mean what is it for?"
Kurt stares at the man. There isn't a hint of a joke in him anymore. Kurt's eyes follow his arm until he finds him clutching a knife. The other man too. He swallows thickly, looking at the ground as he speaks "I use it f-for school and-and stuff," his eyes find his blow dryer right at his feet. Maybe.
"For school? Alright- but…"
"What's that? The black thing?" The other man interrupts, already stepping closer to the blow dryer, probably noticing Kurt's attention, but Kurt's, somehow, miraculously faster. He dives for it and grabs it, holding it at arm's length, pointed at their chests.
"It's-it's a gun." He takes a deep breath – they're not going to believe him if he looks this scared. He steels himself, "It shoots two bullets at a time. Walk away."
"Liar." Dave drawls out stepping closer.
Kurt gives him his best glare and points the blow dryer at the man's chest "Wanna try me out?"
"Come on Dave, let's go."
"What?! No! I'm not going! That's – he's-"
"I know!" The man who's not Dave says with a meaningful glare "I know! Which is exactly why he's probably not lying."
Kurt could cry, for all that he doesn't understand about that conversation, he definitely understands that the man actually believes his blow dryer to be a gun "Go away." The two men start towards where Kurt had been going "The other way!"
They stop, a mere hesitation before shuffling around and sprinting away.
Kurt watches them leave until he can't see them anymore and then, not wasting time to sob with relief he grabs the actual gun he'd dropped and his laptop and runs away, blow dryer in one hand, laptop and gun in other.
Just his luck, his train stopping near some random evil Amish village blowing up. Is this The Village? Kurt hated that movie.
The smell of smoke is getting thicker and thicker. His eyes burn slightly, and his breaths aren't enough to keep him sprinting any more. Kurt's mind reeling, he decides that the people in the white cloths are harmless, the Machine Gun Lunatics are enemies and… everyone else is probably dangerous too.
He doesn't even see the end of the woods before he's sprinting right out into a clear field. Only it isn't a clear field. It's obscure with smoke, but lit with burning buildings, and a spinning bright, white light on top of some sort of control tower. There's a fence around the whole scene, but it's destroyed and ripped open in so many places it barely exists anymore. There are body-to-body combats happening everywhere, and shots are fired every two seconds, bodies hitting the ground too often. Kurt stands there, stupidly watching the whole thing, his brain in a complete and utter freeze.
There's a small child in a white cloth, sobbing and clutching her leg, hidden partially by a crumbled wall. Kurt watches in horror as a man dressed all in black starts sprinting towards her, gun in hand.
Before Kurt can even think about it he's taking off towards the man, tackling him to the ground, not five feet away from the child. They both crash with loud huffs and then the man is so fast that Kurt doesn't even have time to think about how much the fall has hurt, before he's pinned to the ground, gun pointed at his chest, gasping for breath.
In his last minute panic, Kurt barely manages to take his eyes off the gun to look into the face of his killer, bright, near-blinding white light flooding them fleetingly, but once he does the man's eyes widen and he looks completely taken aback. Kurt takes the opportunity for another one of his miraculous quick-action moments (maybe he does have a pretty good survival instinct – how else could he have survived high school in Lima?) and pushes the man off himself, scrambles to pin him to the ground and point his gun at the man's chest, but he fumbles with it and in the time it takes for him to drop the fucking thing (he's going to resort to the blow dryer again) the man looks to his side, gasps and almost effortlessly rolls them back ("GET DOWN!" Kurt thinks the man just yelled), this time completely covering Kurt's body with his own. There's a loud explosion and he can feel their bodies being thrown across the ground with the impact.
Kurt's pretty sure he's about to pass out again – his ears are ringing and he can't hear a thing. The man is scrambling next to him. Grabs his face – is he going to break Kurt's neck? – and his lips are moving, he's saying something, but Kurt doesn't know what he's saying, so he just looks back at him, wide eyes, terrified, pleading "Please don't kill me!" and tries his best at crawling away. There's a shot fired – Kurt can hear again now. The man ducked his head and Kurt thinks he could see the bullet wheezing right past his head, which is ridiculous. Suddenly the man's scrambling towards him again, shielding Kurt with his own body again.
"Are you alright?!" he hears and oh, that was the man, he's grabbing Kurt's face again (another shot, another duck). "Are you alright?!"
"Y-yeah."
"Can you-" shot "fuck – can you stand?"
"I… think so!"
"Let's- SHIT!" There's another shot and this time there's the distinct sound of the bullet hitting something completely different than the wall or the ground. The man squeezes his eyes shut and then opens them again and looks right at Kurt's. The man's eyes are hazel, almost golden as they're suddenly flooded with bright, white light again, "Please, come with me if you want to live." He says before grabbing a knife from his belt and throwing it, and Kurt looks around to find a Machine Gun Lunatic collapsing to his knees with a knife carved right through his neck. "NOW!"
The man springs to his feet (Kurt thinks he can see him falter and gasp when he does and finds a glittering wetness trailing down the man's leg – when the spotlight finds them again, for another couple of seconds, it shines bright red) and all but hauls Kurt up. He doesn't wait a second before ducking back down, grabbing one of their dropped guns and shooting more incoming Machine Gun Lunatics. Kurt tries not to look completely pathetic standing there as the guy moves frantically around. "Here!" he throws Kurt a gun and Kurt fumbles trying to catch it – not that the man would notice, as he's currently diving for the kid again, looping an arm around her waist and hauling her over his shoulders. "Come on!"
Kurt suddenly feels stupid – he didn't know he could feel anything else at this point, from how confused and scared he already was to start with, but apparently he can – because the man had been going to save the kid, not harm her, and now she's unconscious, maybe dead, and it's probably his fault for stopping her savior. Kurt follows the man as he sprints, mostly behind walls, ducking when he does and stopping when he stops.
They pause behind a burning building that looks, otherwise, relatively calm. The sounds of battle are still all around them, though, and Kurt has never experienced this much heat in his life. The man takes a deep breath, looks around himself and gently puts the kid down, taking two fingers to her throat.
"Is she okay?" Kurt asks feebly. The man looks up at him but doesn't say anything, so Kurt tries not to cry, "I thought you were going to kill her. That's why… I thought…"
The man's eyes soften and he smiles feebly, "She's alive. Just unconscious. She has a pulse."
"Oh…! Thank god!" Kurt gasps, "I…"
"I'm Blaine," the man offers.
"I'm… I'm Kurt," Blaine smiles – actually smiles – and breathes, "It's very nice to meet you, Kurt."
"Oh, huh, I… I guess it's nice to meet you too. And, huh, thanks, for, like, saving my life…?"
Blaine huffs a laugh and just nods. "Look, Kurt, you see that light over there?" Blaine points up to a hill on their right. There's a white glowing light peeking through the trees on top of the hill. "We need to get there."
"Okay…"
"And if I get… huh, held up, I need you to go there. No matter what, okay?"
Why did this man want him to go there so desperately? Was this a trap? Was he setting Kurt up to where he'd have more of his men, so that maybe one of them would actually know what a fucking blow dryer was?!
"I'm not – I'm not tricking you, Kurt," Blaine says, suddenly.
"How did you-"
Blaine laughs again, "Written all over your face," he says, but his tone is friendly, not mocking, "I need you to trust me on this, Kurt, we don't have much time."
"Why?"
"For one, this place is about to blow," Blaine says, already scooping up the small girl into his arms again "And als-"
"Blaine!" Kurt sees the Machine Gun Lunatic before he even notices the three of them and raises his gun. Kurt tries to push Blaine out of the way, but – there's a look of frantic panic on Blaine's face – Blaine struggles against him, trying to get Kurt to drop to the floor, and misses his own opportunity to do so. Kurt almost hears the dull thud of the bullet hitting Blaine more than he hears the shot being fired. He can't exactly tell where he was hit, but Blaine's gasping in pain and tumbling forward and Kurt just knows that Machine Gun Lunatic is getting ready to do it again so he takes the gun he's probably not even holding right and shoots blindly. He misses, of course, but it's enough to get the machine gun guy to recoil and then, before Kurt even sees him moving Blaine has scrambled to his knees and shoots the man right through the chest.
"Come on!" Blaine groans, pulling Kurt up, picking up the girl and taking off running, shielding her with his body as bullets fly towards them – luckily none hit.
Running up the hill Blaine's tripping more than running, gasping for air. Kurt's right behind him when he practically collapses to the ground, breathing hard and coughing.
Blaine's back catches the light from another explosion and Kurt can see the pool of blood forming there. Kurt surges forward, putting a hand on Blaine's shoulder.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah…!" he pants, and Kurt thinks he can see crimson on his lips and chin.
"Let me take her from here." Kurt offers.
"I can-"
"Let me take her." Kurt says, voice so firm it surprises even himself. Blaine looks at him with wide eyes, and Kurt notices for the first time that this is not a man – this is just a boy, probably about as old as Kurt. And this boy knows he's coughing up blood. He knows he has a bullet somewhere dangerous. And he's scared.
"Thank you." He breathes as Kurt takes the girl from his arms and holds her, finding her surprisingly light. Blaine pushes himself to his feet, looking terribly pale, and the contrast between his skin and the few dots of red on his lips and chin is frightening.
"Let's go." Kurt nods.
There are voices and Kurt sees more people dressed in all black from afar. He looks back at Blaine, who's falling behind and Kurt goes back and tries to get his arm across his waist but Blaine shakes his head and mumbles "Get-get her to them and then go to the-to the light."
"No, I'm not leaving you here like this! Come on! It's just a little more! Come on, Blaine."
Blaine smiles and shakes his head "You go."
"No I-"
"You go. I'm replaceable. You're not. Go. Please."
"What're you even talk-"
There's an explosion and Kurt almost topples back down the hill with the force of it. It's the biggest yet and he looks to find every single building on fire. From up here it looks like some sort of facility with several blocks of sturdy buildings, and rows upon rows of smaller buildings after those – like a university campus and its dorms, or a hospital with separate wings and infirmaries, or even a prison,… or a… or a… fuck. Kurt swallows thickly as he thinks of his history schoolbooks and the photographs illustrating them.
"Told you it would blow up." Blaine's weak voice brings him back to the present.
"Is that a concen- is that a concentration camp?!"
"Was." Blaine corrects him with a grin, a pretty lifeless grin, but a grin nonetheless, and then he looks back and he grins wider, and points, "Look, Kurt, we did it… shit… we fucking did it."
Kurt frowns, and squints trying to find whatever it is that's making Blaine so happy, even as he bleeds out. He finds a blue flag flying from the burning control tower, as black figures slip down, dangling from ropes.
"We fucking did it!" Blaine breathes again, only to give into a cough, and another, and he's sputtering blood all over.
"Shit, fuck, Blaine!" Kurt gasps. "Come on!" he urges, lacing an arm around Blaine's waist and pulls him up.
"No…! Kurt, you go! Please…" Blaine protests, but his voice is weak and his eyes are drooping.
"No, no, no, no – HELP! HELP! SOMEBODY HELP! Shitshitshitshit!" He lets Blaine's body fall to the ground and he yanks his own coat off his shoulders, pressing it tightly against Blaine's wound, "Put pressure on the wound – HELP! PLEASE! HELP! – put pressure on the wound, put pressure on the wound – HELP! HE'S DYING!"
A big man comes sprinting down the hill towards the sound of Kurt's desperate screams "Hang on, hang on! I'm coming, who're y-BLAINE?!" The man doesn't even look twice at Kurt before he's taking Blaine into his own arms and sprinting back up the hill "GUYS! I NEED HANDS OVER HERE! EMMA! I NEED EMMA!"
Kurt all but scrambles back to his feet, grunting at the weight of the still unconscious girl, and hurrying after the man who has Blaine and is carrying him towards the light – and how ironic is that?
The light turns out of be a blinding wall of… well… of light. Kurt considers, strangely for the first time, that he might be dreaming. "What's that?!" he gasps, not particularly to anyone, although he's suddenly surrounded by a sea of people dressed in black, like Blaine, running around fussing over too many things for Kurt to even begin to understand what's happening.
A tall, slim girl with blonde hair tied into a tight knot and a nasty cut on her forehead, which is bleeding onto a breathtaking face, stops right in front of him, "Who're you?"
"What's that?" Kurt asks in return, completely forgetting the child in his hands.
She looks at him through squinted eyes, "A portal," she says slowly.
"A p- A portal?" Kurt gasps.
"Yes. Who're you?"
"There are no such things as portals."
"That thing over there begs to differ. Who are you?"
"What do you mean a portal?!"
"It's a portal! It's just a portal! A fucking normal portal! You step through it and you're somewhere else. Like in any other portal! Who. Are. You?"
"There are n-"
"Listen!" she says and suddenly there's a knife digging into his throat and she's leaning close, locking eyes, "Blaine's practically dead and he was with you and I'm not asking you again wh-Oh dear gods!" She steps away at once and Kurt's looking around himself trying to figure out what it was that got her to stop, but besides the dozens of people running around there's no one or nothing new.
"What?"
"Get through that portal, NOW!" she takes his arm and starts pulling him towards the light.
"Hey, what the hell! Get off me!" he yanks his arm away, "Blaine told me to give this girl to you guys, but I'm not so-"
"TINA!" The girl calls and a shorter girl with Asian features that had been leaning against a tall lean Asian man approaches, wiping tears off her face.
"Yeah?" she says feebly.
"Get your mind off it." the blonde girl says, her voice suddenly a lot softer than when she spoke to Kurt, "Here, get busy with this girl… there's no point agonizing over it. I'm sure Emma's already doing all she can."
"Yeah, I just…" Tina sighs and turns to Kurt, "Mike!" she calls calmly over her shoulder, but he comes anyway, "Come help me with this little girl."
Mike – Kurt noticing that, for as tall as he was he was also still quite young, gave Kurt a nod and a small smile before taking the small girl off his arms and into his own, Tina following him into a feebler, flickering golden light Kurt hadn't noticed, hidden between trees. "We'll be right back." Mike said shortly to the blonde girl, over his shoulder.
She watches them leave before grabbing Kurt's arm again. "Come on."
"Where are you even taking me?!" Kurt gasps, wishing he still had his blow dryer with him at the very least.
"The headquarters!" she says like it's obvious and urges him.
"Headquarters?" he asks but she completely ignores him, pulling him along and then, suddenly, there's a lot of cold, like he'd stepped through a curtain of pure and unforgiving ice, and there's a funny feeling in his stomach – like when he's on a roller coaster and it feels like his internal organs are all gone – but it's only a second and as abruptly as it started it stops, and then he's stepping into a pitch black night, no burning buildings to illuminate more than the moonlight and feeling dangerously queasy. With barely more than two seconds notice, he's doubling over and retching, even though there's absolutely nothing in his stomach for him to throw up. The girl waits next to him, tapping her foot and he wants to remind her that impatience never made anyone better any faster. It stops eventually, and he takes a few deep breaths before he lets her grasp his arm again and haul him up.
He shivers, both from the puking and the cold suddenly enveloping him, as he's standing there in his thin shirt without any burning buildings to serve as a fireplace. Right. He probably shouldn't be thinking about the fact that he'd given his favorite Marc Jacobs coat away to stop a bleeding. And… the honest to god truth is – and this actually surprises Kurt a lot – he's really not. It's a fleeting thought, sure, but nothing beyond that. He finds he doesn't actually care about his coat, for the first time in his life.
Not when he's surrounded by crazy everywhere he looks. And certainly not if it was ruined on a guy who saved his life.
It's pitch black, except for the full moon shining brightly over his surroundings, and he realizes they're heading towards a house in the middle of a field, - actually, in the middle of what looks like it might be a valley, the sort of valley that doesn't really exist in Ohio. The sort of valley that only really exists in Disney movies, Ireland or Lord of the Rings.
The house looks about three stories high, and large. It says "Bluebird's Inn" right above the open front door. From inside spills golden, warm light and harried voices.
He feels the girl tugging at his elbow, and notices he'd stopped walking. Someone behind them practically crashes against them, sprinting by toward the open front there. Kurt can't tell much beyond tall, big and blond as the man dashes past them. "Come on!" She tugs harder and Kurt thinks that he might as well. It's not like his survival chances are much better out on the wilderness.
They go through the front door and there's a mess inside. The tall, big and blond guy is fighting against the man that had taken Blaine from Kurt's arms.
"Let me see him! Puck, let go of me! LET ME SEE HIM!"
"Dude!" The man – Puck – pushes back, "You're not going to help in there, Sam! You'll just get in the way!"
"I need to be there!"
"Don't make me punch you!"
"PUCK!" Sam pushes against Puck's shoulders, but Puck is quick at blocking his attack and both Kurt and the blonde girl with him gasp as Sam crashes against a wall, his arm pinned to his back as Puck presses against it, "Let me go!" Sam's anger seems to dissolve into something completely different and his face crumbles, "Just… please… please…"
"Hey, hey…" Puck sighs, loosening his grip and looks around, sighing when his eyes land on the blonde girl escorting Kurt, "Get Mercedes, babe. She's downstairs with Santana."
"I… just… is Will in there?"
"Yeah, why?"
"I think… well… I just…" She seems a little confused and stressed, "I think… I think Blaine saw it, too. I, hum,… the bird, Noah."
"The bluebird?" He frowned, gasping, and then turning to look at Kurt, comprehension dawning on his face, before looking back at her. Even Sam had stopped struggling and begging and was just looking at Kurt.
"The bluebird." She nods.
Kurt's just standing there, looking between the three of them and seriously considering if he'd just landed himself in some psychiatric hospice, because why are they looking at him and taking about birds? He's been called a lot of things, but bluebird?
"Go get Will!" Puck breathes, ending the long silence and the girl just nods fiercely before sprinting to a door. Kurt gets a glimpse of bodies moving around, fast and stressful, but then there's a man leaving the room before Kurt can even think of turning around and sprinting out of the house. And finally it's someone who doesn't look like he should be in college or even high school. He's either well into his thirties, or early forties; and he's not wearing black: instead his white cotton shirt is stained a horrifying shade of red, and his brown slacks are equally darkened in places.
"Quinn, you can't just –Oh!" he cuts himself off as soon he looks at Kurt, and seriously, does he have something on his face?!
There's a long pause when everyone just stares at Kurt. He sighs.
"I would really appreciate it if anyone could tell me what the hell is going on and please, please can I get an aspirin?!"
They look at him like he's just announced he was Jesus – but then again, they were looking at him like that before, so…
Will is going to say something but then the front door bursts open and Tina's coming inside with a humongous man leaning heavily on her, his leg leaving a trail of blood behind them. "Help!" she squeaks. The man – the boy – is pale and his eyes look just about ready to fall shut.
At once everyone's moving.
"FINN!" Puck jumps, and suddenly the roles are reversed as Sam holds the bigger man back, using the exact same arguments, his own eyes wide with fear, as he watches Finn topple forward barely supported by Will and Tina.
"Get him to his room!" Will grunts, and then there's a shriek.
"FINN!" a female voice calls out, "FINN! Oh no! No! No!"
"Quinn!" Will calls from the front, "Deal with Rachel…!" As they turn a corner and Kurt can finally see a petite brunette readying herself to follow them, eyes already brimmed with tears. She's seized at once by the blonde girl, Quinn, who holds her tightly.
Kurt's left, once again, forgotten in the middle of the large living room and he wonders if maybe this would be a good time to run. Only, that's also when a dark-haired, tan-skinned girl, with a sling holding her arm close to her chest comes sprinting up the stairs from where Rachel had appeared. She turns to Puck and Sam, the pair of them still standing there, looking pale and lost. "Go downstairs. Get those cuts fixed. Mercedes will take care of you guys," she says calmly, but firmly.
"But-" they both start and she shakes her head.
"You're in no state to help. I'll tell Joe to go take care of Finn, and I'll help Emma with Blaine."
"Your arm – you can't-"
"Mercedes took care of it. It's just sore, nothing else. I can push through it, I promise, Trouty."
"If I can't go in there, why can you?!"
"Because I clearly have a hold of myself," she says, her voice suddenly a lot harsher.
"I don- I can- I… How can you just stand there like that while he's-"
"Don't!" she cuts him off, "Don't say what I think you're about to say, because if you do, I swear I will kill you."
"I hav-"
"I can help!" Kurt hears his voice as if it wasn't his own. Whatever happened to 'good time to run'?
"What?" all three turn to him, the new girl more confused than anyone else.
"With Blaine! I can help, with whatever!" he says, convincing himself more than them, "I'm not hurt, I can help!"
"I'm not sure that's such a goo-"
She's interrupted as violent screams erupt from the closed door of Blaine's bedroom. Sam's scrambling to go back there, but Puck manages to hold him back just in time, "Let me go!"
There's another scream that cracks into a series of loud whimpers right after.
"He's alive!" Puck says with a hesitant, but honest smile, "He's screaming cuz he's alive, Sam! He'll be alright!"
"You don't know that!"
"Take him downstairs!" The girl snarls at Puck and then turns to Kurt with frown, like she's doing him a favor, "You go in there! Tell Joe to come to Finn's room!"
Kurt nods numbly as he dashes to the door and opens it, just as another cry fills the house. Blaine's lying on a bed, contorting in pain, tears mingling with sweat as a nervous looking redheaded woman straddles him and holds a soaked cloth to his bare torso. The sheets are completely ruined, red with blood. She too is crying, mumbling over and over again, "I'm so sorry, Blaine, I'm so sorry!"
He must've stood there for a while because when he regains focus Blaine isn't screaming anymore, just panting and whimpering slightly, his eyes closed, breathing hard through his nose as hands fist the sheets, clearly trying to contain himself.
"Huh…" he coughs, making his presence known, and both the woman and a boy with dreadlocks that had been soaking another cloth in a thick liquid muttering under his breath looked up, "Joe?"
"Yes?" the boy looks at him. There's sweat on his brow.
"They need you with, huh, Finn...? His room."
"Oh no!" The woman gasps, her voice small and whimpering.
Joe just nods and stands, disappearing at once.
"Can I – Can I help you?"
She looks at him with wide eyes for a long moment. Kurt thinks of Bambi.
"Can I help you?" he repeats.
"Yes!" she gasps, shaking her head to herself, "I need you to hold him, just like this."
Kurt swallows thickly and nods, moving to replace her. She takes the cloth off Blaine's skin and the boy breaths out and seems to all but collapse with relief. Kurt throws one leg over Blaine's hips and takes a new cloth from the woman's hand, trying to ignore the weirdness of straddling the relative stranger who saved his life, while he's barely conscious and there's a woman standing there, "You need to press it deep against the wound, so the salve can get through."
He nods numbly and somehow doesn't even think to mention that this is not how you treat gunshot wounds. As soon as he presses it back Blaine's contorting in pain again, nearly throwing Kurt off himself, and gasping out.
"N-n-noooo!" he breathes, voice hoarse, barely there, "STOPstoppleasestopstop!"
Kurt sends a panicked look at the woman who just shakes her head and tells him not to stop. He's not so sure he can help anymore but he tries to swallow his own fears and the fact that he feels like he's torturing the guy that saved his life. "I'm so sorry…" he mumbles, holding the cloth with one hand, and brushing drenched hair off Blaine's forehead, "I'm so sorry, Blaine."
The woman is running a cloth through what Kurt can only assume is more salve, and muttering words under her breath much like Joe had been.
"I need to get the one on his leg, too." She says suddenly.
"Oh."
"I'll need to get the bullet out first, though." She continues, like she's saying it more to herself than to Kurt, "It's not like that one. That one's through and through, no bullet… but… He's not going to like it. So, could you…"
"Hold on extra tight?" Kurt offers.
"Yes, please." She nods and hands him a new cloth, and Kurt takes it. She drops the old one on the salve and turns back towards Blaine.
She quickly cuts the leg of his pants away, and then presses a hand to his flesh. Kurt should probably be paying attention to his own job on Blaine's chest, but her hand is glowing. Honest to god glowing. "What th-"
"AHHPLEASEDON'TMAKEITSTOP!" Blaine lurches with such strength that Kurt almost falls over before he balances himself again and gives up entirely on watching the glowing hand. Trying not to think too hard on whatever the fuck is happening around him and instead focusing on keeping his hand in place.
"Blaine!" The woman's voice calls through, frantic and nervous, "I need you to sing it! Please sing it!"
Blaine's gritting his teeth trying to keep his screams in and he takes a long series of hard, shallow breaths before he (sort of but not really) sings in a completely broken voice, more whimper than anything else "qero reviv, aduja mye reviv, quero reviv", her voice joins his soon enough and the glowing is so strong it fills the entire room with golden light.
Beneath him Blaine is twisting and gasping and crying, no longer managing to even hum the song, and then suddenly he's not. His torso falls against the mattress, his hands stop twisting the sheets in them, and his hips stop trying to push off Kurt's.
"Oh my god, oh my god, is he-"
"He's just passed out." She says, "I almost wish he'd stay like this until we're done…" she sighs like she knows it won't happen. She pulls her hand away and there's something black and small poking out of Blaine's leg. She picks it up; it's the bullet. Kurt tries not to pass out from confusion, himself.
"I think…" she says thoughtfully, "I think I don't need salve for this one," she smiles tiredly. "It's not very deep, you see?"
Kurt wants to say 'No, I really don't.' and 'What the hell are you even talking about?!' but instead he just stares back at her.
"Well, it hurts less, anyway… just the enchantment, I mean," she takes a deep breath and presses a hand back to his leg. Blaine squirms but doesn't wake up.
Kurt shakes his head, as if that would make things seem less impossible and turns back to Blaine. The boy looks mildly peaceful now. His hair drenched in sweat, wet curls framing his pale face. Kurt notices his features much better now, and there's a slightly bumpy, crooked nose, soft full-ish lips, still stained blood-red, and a strong, wide jaw. Kurt smiles at how much nicer Blaine's face is when it's not contorted in pain.
"The leg is healed," the woman announces.
"Oh. Okay," he says. Silence falls between them. "What's your name?"
"Emma," she says, with a small smile "What's yours?"
"Kurt."
"That's a beautiful name. Strong, too."
He finds it oddly nice, "Thank you," he smiles. "Why couldn't you do what you did to his chest if that was less painful, and faster?"
"Because that wound is much deeper. And it hit a lung. I don't… I'm a good healer, but I'm not… that good," she shrugs with a nervous chuckle, "I needed the salve doing as much damage repair as it can, before I try closing it up with the enchantment. And the salve really hurts. I also gave him a small potion to make up for the blood loss, and his body is generating blood much faster, which adds up to a little extra discomfort," Kurt doubts it's very little, from the way she cringes with the idea, "But I think it's almost done, now… I think I can do it soon."
Kurt nods.
She takes the cloth, gently removing Kurt's hand from it. The wound is red and angry, but it's not bleeding. "Kurt. When Blaine wakes up, I'm going to ask you to help me. It's going to hurt – maybe more than the salve, because… I've never had to use the two together, and… well, I think it'll really hurt, because I'll be sealing the salve inside his flesh. I need him to sing the song, so the enchantment can work. I need you to help him with that. Okay?"
"How?"
"I don't know, just… sing it too?"
"I don't know it…"
"Just hum the melody, then. Hold his hand. Help him focus."
Kurt nods. He feels his own sweat starting to run down his temple. He moves to sit next to Blaine. With a long breath he looks back to the unconscious boy whose eyes are blinking open and a frown's settling over in discomfort. Kurt feels only a little self-conscious as he finds Blaine's hand and holds it, squeezing. Emma is already assuming position, hands starting to glow as she presses them against Blaine's wound.
It's instantaneous. Blaine's eyes fly wide open and his mouth opens in a voiceless scream, body tightening and back arching off the bed, tears filling his eyes and streaming down his cheeks. Kurt can feel his own hand being crushed but he tries to ignore the pain – it must be minimal, when compared. "Blaine!" he asks, "Blaine! Look at me, hey, look at me!"
Blaine's eyes are squeezed shut, his jaw clenched as he tries to hold the pain in.
Kurt takes his other hand to Blaine's cheek and guides his face to look at him, "Blaine, look at me, I'm right here, look, it's me, Kurt!" Blaine's eyes open, hazel drowning in tears, and his breaths come out too strong, but steadier, in a clear attempt at self-control. His lips are still tightly closed keeping his screams inside, though, "Remember me? You saved my life! Remember that? I'm Kurt! I'm helping Emma. She tells me you need to sing. So come on, Blaine, I need you to sing for me! Can you do that, Blaine, can you sing for me?"
Blaine shakes his head, the movement eliciting fresh tears to pour down his face.
"Yes, yes you can! Come on! How is it? You have to teach me, I don't know the words! Come on, Blaine, teach me the song."
"Qero" he grunts, taking three deep breaths before the next word, "r-re-reviv," another three deep breaths, "Aaaaaaduja mye OH FUCK reviv," whimpers and sobs and another scream and a grunt before "qero reviv". Emma's hands are already glowing much brighter.
"Okay! That's great! You're a natural! You're a star! Again! Encore, please! I can't get enough of your voice, please!"
Blaine gives him a fleeting breathless smile and Kurt feels his heart half unclenching at that. Blaine closes his eyes and nods tersely before taking a few deep breaths and whimpering out in a broken voice, "qero reviv, aduja mye reviv, qero reviv."
"Qero reviv, aduja mye reviv, qero reviv," Emma's singing too, and Kurt doesn't know what the hell he's doing but he figures he might as well sing it. "Qero reviv, aduja mye reviv, qero reviv."
Between Emma's tearful voice, Kurt's hesitant singing, and Blaine turning it from song into howls of pain, the room is filled with so much light Kurt has to close his eyes. Emma's hands are glowing so bright it's practically blinding.
And then it's gone. Emma's gasping for air and taking her hands off Blaine's chest and there's nothing left there except still glowing skin and the tiniest hint of a scar. She lets out a breath so heavy and long she might as well have been holding it for hours.
"Oh goodness…" she sighs, hanging her head back, tears streaming down her cheeks. She collapses to the floor and smiles. "My goodness!"
Kurt looks between her and the boy in his arms – because, somehow, Blaine ended up clutching to Kurt with strong hands.
Blaine's breaths against Kurt's chest are deep and exhausted. Kurt holds a hand to his hair and says, "You did it, you're okay. You're fine, you're fine. You did good."
He feels Blaine's nod against himself and then he hears as he croaks out, "Thanks…"
"Well, you saved my life, it was only fitting." Kurt responds, but the boy's already asleep in his arms and Kurt's left there, in the silence of the room.
One person passed out, another mumbling "oh goodness" over and over again, her face in her hands, and the third one staring ahead of himself, completely and utterly lost.
Kurt has never had so many thoughts and questions running through his mind. The fact that he hasn't had a panic attack until now is by itself a miracle.
But finally, sitting on a strange bed, in a strange room, of a strange house, in a strange, well, world, with a strange boy in his arms and a stranger woman with hands that glow and heal stuff…
Kurt's breaths are becoming shallow and fast; he can't make them stick, his chest is tightening and tightening, caving in on itself, no breath of air enough to fill his lungs or make it stop feeling like he's suffocating.
In the back of his head it registers that the Emma woman is calling his name, but he can't do anything except stand really still and try to breathe.
