After about the third day of their captivity inside the abandoned cabin, Blaine had started keeping track of the days that went by. He had found a soft spot in one of the plaster interior walls, and with a fingernail, he was able to scratch hash marks into it. Blaine had been led to believe that the cabin was merely a stopping point, a halfway to "somewhere" point, but when he had two complete sets of five marks on the wall, he dared ask Dave what the holdup was.
With the glare Dave directed toward Blaine, Blaine figured there was no way he would get an answer to his question, and in fact should probably lay low for a bit after asking. In a move that completely shocked Blaine, though, Dave offered up a response.
"My arrangements have... fallen through because my contact has gone soft," he grumbled. "Seems Kurtsie has got your faces plastered all over the place from here to Timbuktu and little Ricky doesn't want to have jack all to do with repaying the favor he owes me from years back. And seeing as how my face is ALSO all over the damn place, it's a little more difficult to get shit done." Dave slumped against the wall, and Blaine could finally see some of the chinks in Dave's armor beginning to show.
Blaine inched a bit farther away from Dave and mumbled, "You could just let us go," but instantly he knew it was the exact wrong thing to say.
"NO I CAN'T!" Dave roared. Elsa, who had been in the bathroom brushing her teeth while the two men were talking, dropped her toothbrush and yelped, absolutely terrified by the rage in the man's voice. "If I just give up now, I will never see my daughter again! He can't have her!"
"Dave, you're scaring her," Blaine scolded him, and he went into the bathroom to try to reverse some of the damage their captor had just done.
"Shit," Dave whispered. It was finally starting to sink into his thick skull that Elsa was going to be a tough sell. He didn't know if he was capable of making her believe that he could be a daddy to her.
After a good five minutes of mostly unsuccessful attempts to calm the little girl down, Blaine emerged from the bathroom and addressed Dave.
"She needs to get out of this room. She's going stir crazy and becoming depressed from being in here. Quite frankly, so am I, but since you don't give a shit about me, at least think of Elsa. We've run out of paper to draw on, new songs to sing, new stories to tell, everything. We need a change of scenery."
Dave remained silent. He thought for a few minutes, and then he sighed with resignation. "Okay, fine. You two can hang out in the main room for the day while I'm out trying to figure out who the hell I can trust to help me. "
Dave turned to leave the room, and Blaine immediately tried to follow him. "Not so fast. I'm gonna have to escape proof the place first. Get back in there - I will let you know when I'm done." He turned and slammed the door behind him, and Blaine could hear the clicking of locks from behind it.
Elsa peeked her tear-streaked face out of the bathroom. "Blaine, is he going away again?" she asked hopefully.
"Yes, baby. He's going away again today. But guess what? He's going to let us out into the other room while he's gone! Maybe we'll find something fun to do!"
Later, after Dave had allowed Blaine and Elsa into the main room and left the premises, Blaine regretted his earlier enthusiasm. There was nothing redeeming about the main room, either. It was just as plain, gloomy, and devoid of things to occupy their minds. It was a different set of walls to stare at, and that was about it.
Oh, and an old, ratty, clawed up couch. Blaine looked at it as if he could practically see the diseases congregating on it, but regardless, he sat down on it and patted the cushion next to him, inviting Elsa to have a seat with him. At the very least, Blaine was happy to finally have something with a little back support, anyway.
Elsa frowned at Blaine's gesture, obviously not wanting to have anything to do with the disgusting piece of furniture.
"It's okay, sweetie, it's not going to bite you," Blaine reassured her, but it felt like a lie. He'd seen cleaner garbage heaps than that sofa - there was every chance that something in the couch COULD bite her.
Elsa tentatively sat down on the couch, perching on the edge and ensuring that as little of her rear ended touched it as she could manage.
"Good girl," Blaine praised.
He had to admit, if he didn't think about it too hard, it was a lot better than sitting on the floor all the time.
"Well, Elsa? What should we do today?" Blaine asked, hoping the child's active imagination would come up with something new that they hadn't thought of before.
Elsa shrugged. "Dunno," she mumbled. She sat on the couch, not making eye contact, not offering up ideas, and not wanting to interact at all. Blaine was beginning to worry even more about the status of her mental health.
Blaine wracked his brain for ideas. He had had a lot of experience entertaining little kids, but it was usually en masse. He didn't have the luxury of interacting with his pupils one on one often, so most of his ideas consisted of things that just didn't work with two people - musical chairs, Simon Says, Red Rover, etc.
In desperation, he decided to revisit a topic they had discussed the day after they had been taken. "Tell me about your daddy?"
Elsa's reaction was mixed. On one hand, she missed her daddy so much she wanted to talk about him. On the other hand, she missed her daddy so much it was painful to even think about him.
"My daddy is the best daddy in the whole wide world," Elsa started. "Every day he sings me awake. He says before I was born he wanted to sing for people in a big city called New York." She scrunched up her face trying to remember a detail. "They have something there called... Bad way?"
Blaine grinned. "Broadway, honey. It's a place in the city where they have a bunch of theatres where they perform plays and musicals. Do you know what a musical is?"
"Little Mermaid!" Elsa exclaimed excitedly. "Daddy says a musical is a play where they sing a lot of the words instead of saying them."
"Very good!" Blaine praised.
"I think Daddy would make the best Disney prince," Elsa stated. "But not Prince Hans, he was mean to Anna and Daddy wouldn't be mean to anyone ever!"
"No," Blaine agreed, "I don't think he would. What else can you tell me about your daddy?"
"Um... he draws a lot of clothes. He's a fashion, de-, de-, de-... deslimer!" she exclaimed triumphantly.
It took everything Blaine had in him not to burst out laughing at the proud child. He decided to ignore her mistake. "Does he make the clothes he draws?"
"Sometimes! He made me a princess dress once. But it was Cinderella, not Elsa. But Daddy says just because my name is Elsa doesn't mean I can't be anyone else."
"Your daddy's a smart man," Blaine said. He was enjoying the innocent insight into the man he was intrigued by. He felt like a teenage boy, crushing hard. "You can be anyone or anything you want to be, and don't let anyone tell you you can't, okay?"
"Okay!" Elsa jumped off the sofa onto the floor. "Thinking about Daddy makes me want to dance, Blaine!" Elsa began to do an adorable little shimmy on the floor in front of him.
Blaine got up with her, glad she was finally starting to show interest in something. "Okay, what kind of dance shall we do?"
Elsa put her finger to her lips and began to weigh her options. "I know! Daddy said he learned this dance when he was in school. He said it was made up by someone named Yon-say."
The little girl bounced to an empty spot on the floor and began to swivel her hips and point to her fingers. "Single ladies put a ring on it! If you like me you better ring it oh oh oh!" she sang. She then slapped her butt twice and began to strut around the room.
Blaine couldn't hold back. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry tears of joy because the girl's performance was honestly the most precious thing he had ever seen in his life. He opted for both, and he joined Elsa on the dance floor.
He would never admit to it, except to Kurt now that he knew he knew the dance, but Blaine had every bit of choreography for the Single Ladies song memorized. He knew the correct words to the song as well, but he much preferred Elsa's version.
He also couldn't help imagining the lithe figure he had seen briefly at the store performing some of the more suggestive moves...
"Single ladies put a ring on it! If you like me you better ring it oh oh - "
Blaine was cut off by a bloodcurdling scream. He looked at the little girl beside him, who was as white as a sheet, as she howled in pain. She held up a foot in the air, standing like a flamingo. The foot was covered in fresh blood.
"Oh god oh god oh god oh god," Blaine chanted as he scooped up the child into his arms. "Sweetie what happened?" He didn't get an answer; Elsa appeared to be going into shock.
"No no sweetie, stay with me, please!" He gently laid the injured girl on the sofa, not caring now about its condition. He looked around, hoping to find something, anything that he could use as a bandage to stop the bleeding. The sheets on their bed were out - they had been slept in far too many times and would likely send germs into the wound rather than keep them out. The towels in the bathroom were all large and too thick to tear. Finally, Blaine settled on his shirt. Luckily it was well loved enough that there was a place in the seam that was beginning to form a hole. Blaine forced his fingers through the hole and began to pull, successfully tearing the shirt into strips. When the shirt was as close to a proper wrapping as he was going to get, he picked up Elsa again and carried her to the sink.
The stream of water coming from the faucet was icy cold and caused Elsa to violently flinch in pain, but Blaine insisted that her foot stayed in the water until it ran clear. The natural numbing that the cold provided was a plus as well.
When the water finally ran clear, Blaine set Elsa back on the sofa and began to wrap her foot. The puncture was deep, but Blaine had determined that it would close up on its own without stitches. When she was covered and settled, he scoured the cabin for first aid materials, namely a disinfectant or an antibiotic ointment, but he came up empty handed; there was nothing even slightly resembling first aid supplies anywhere to be found.
Elsa whimpered in pain on the couch, tears streaking down her face and calling out desperately for her father. Blaine's heart broke hearing her cries, but he could do nothing except be there for the little girl. Before he sat, he noticed out of the corner of his eye the pool of darkening blood on the floor. Upon closer examination, he found a nail sticking up out of the floorboards.
A very rusty nail.
His heart sank, knowing what the combination of such a dirty piece of metal and no disinfectants could mean for the little girl.
Blaine sat carefully next to the child on the couch and pulled her into his arms. He was absolutely exhausted, the day's trauma added onto the ongoing effects of their captivity taking a huge toll on him. He knew he should sleep, but he couldn't shut down his mind enough to drop off. All he could do was wait and pray that what could happen to the little girl that he cared so much about as a result of her injury didn't become a reality.