Limits
Summary: Taken from a prompt on the Glee Angst Meme. Burt Hummel's dead, Kurt Hummel's doing his best to stay under the radar of Child Services, and the bullying is quickly bringing him to the end of his steadily shortening rope. The tiny, unused razor in the jewelry box seems to agree with that assessment. So it is really any wonder that when he catches sight of a blue police box left open just a crack that he would run inside?
Disclaimer: Nope. No, no, no.
AN: Thank you for all of your feedback on the last chapter, if you can really call it a chapter. In this bit, we get into some action, and you Whovians will know exactly what I mean when I say: Bad Wolf.
Chapter Eight: Espressivo
Kurt woke up on the floor, alone. His head felt like it was going to explode (awesome) and he really, really wasn't sure where he was. With a light groan he scrambled to his feet and rubbed his temples, just as someone began shaking his arm.
"Hey, hey, get a move on! The show's about to start."
Kurt blinked blearily and a red-headed girl came into focus.
"I know the beam's disorienting, but you're going to hold us up and seriously? Don't do that before you even play."
What in the hell was even going on? Where was he? Where were his…people? He had been with other people, Kurt knew that, but his brain was unbearably fuzzy and he just couldn't pin down who he was looking for or what he'd even been doing or why he'd been lying on the floor.
"Play? What are we playing?" Kurt asked and the girl took his arm, dragging him bodily towards what looked to be a set for a television show.
The girl (Pip, judging by the nametag pinned to her front) rolled her eyes at him.
"We're in Street Smarts. I hope for your sake you're sharper than this, because you're doomed otherwise."
What.
The.
Hell.
Numbly, Kurt accepted his own nametag and stuck it on. He didn't notice when he'd been pushed up to the little gameplay podium because his eyes were locked on the 'host', a large robot wearing a backwards baseball cap and an awkwardly fitting polo. Oh dear.
Oh dear, oh dear.
"3, 2, 1… roll!"
And then there was recorded cheering and flashing lights and Kurt's opponent was posturing at him, pointing fingers and hooting. He sneered and shot bitchface at her, trying to back away from the podium.
He didn't have time to play a game, he had to go find his people, wherever they were.
But then security guards were at his back and holy shit, they had guns.
Kurt stilled and allowed himself to be pushed back. Despite her continuous bravado, Pip's eyes were wide on second glance and the whites were showing. She was scared and staring at him, a strange pleading look on her face. Dragging in a breath, Kurt nodded slowly.
Absently, his hand rubbed patterns into the scar in his left arm. Through the introduction of the rules he tried desperately to quell the panic that was roiling in his stomach like nausea because fear didn't lie and if she was scared, then maybe he had a reason to be too. The hole in his memories was frustrating and upsetting and Kurt just wanted to leave.
But the guns at his back didn't lie either.
Shit, shit, shit.
Would he actually have to play to get out of here, wherever here was?
Kurt didn't realize what playing the game meant until he'd won it (how the heck had that even happened?) and had turned to glance over at Pip.
The girl was shaking and trembling and beginning to cry, staring at host-bot and not even bothering to protest, like she knew it'd be a hopeless cause. Kurt reached out a hand to try and steady her, the beginnings of a sympathetic smile tilting at his lips before she disintegrated under his hand, leaving naught but a tiny hill of dust on the floor.
Kurt froze and the smile slipped off of his face like rain on a windowpane.
He stared from the dust to host-bot, from host-bot to the security guards, from the security guards to the door that had just opened.
"Sweep up the loser and prepare for the next shooting," Someone was saying, not even sparing a glance to Kurt.
Okay.
Mind made up.
So not sticking around for this.
Kurt bolted and made a run for it, making a mental note to stick to the Discovery Channel and Food Network next time they hit London, because he'd sure as hell never be watching reality television the same way ever again.
If there was ever a next time, anyway.
He felt and heard the beam sizzle not an inch away from his ear, and holy shit, holy shit, he had to get to the Doctor and Rose and make sure they were okay –fine time for those memories to pop back up, thanks-, and hands were grabbing for his coat. Kurt slammed into a security guard and ripped the gun off of his belt, firing a warning shot into the air that startled enough to give him the opportunity to slip through the door.
Why did all of these hallways look exactly the same?
Why the hell was he even here?
And why was it always running?
Kurt Hummel had never been particularly good at being an optimist.
It had never made sense in his world, where a good day meant not getting an outfit ruined with corn syrup and a bad day meant dragging himself out of panic attacks inside a stinking metal dumpster filled with the week's garbage. Add to that a naturally confrontational personality, cutting belligerence under stress, and bad luck, and yeah, Kurt kind of had the ability to see a bad situation coming a mile away, usually with bells on.
Kurt's lack of optimism went hand in hand with several of the most important universal constants.
One, Rachel Berry was incapable of dressing herself.
Two, Kurt Hummel had never been lucky.
Unfortunately, the rule book never mentioned how exactly to handle laser beams that reduced you to the molecular level, or deranged and quite lethal game shows, or women that were hooked up to the entire informational database, or the fact that Kurt's second ever kiss from a guy tasted disturbingly like goodbye.
The rule book also never mentioned Daleks, which in Kurt's humble opinion might have been the scariest motherfuckers to walk, roll, or levitate through the universe.
Kurt had a few words for the author of that rule book, none of them very nice, and made one more mental note (he should publish that mental note; it'd be a bestseller and it was already long enough) to amend that book. Then maybe burn it and rewrite it himself because the current edition was just not getting the job done.
Take all that, scrunch it up into a ball, and sprinkle on top being in the middle of a pissing match with the Doctor because he wouldn't get in the TARDIS.
"Not happening."
"Get in the TARDIS."
"No."
"Do it."
"Do I need to try and remember all the ways to say no?"
"We don't have time for this!" The Doctor snarled at him. Pale-faced, Kurt folded his arms over his chest, trying his best for bitchface. He had the sinking feeling that it was more like Hey-Kurt's-totally-scared-to-death-face than anything even remotely intimidating. Under any sort of normal circumstance, he probably would have obeyed.
But this was anything but normal and Kurt really couldn't have found the worst timing to be an obstinate brat.
But something was wrong and it wasn't the kind of wrong that stemmed simply from the Daleks actually existing when they absolutely shouldn't. The Doctor was half-manic, but edged with a sort of desperate hysteria that was unlike him and sent alarm bells ringing in his head.
One of these days, if Kurt lived long enough, he'd really have to do some serious thinking about where exactly his survival instincts had gone.
"Get in and help Rose hold down that lever."
"No."
"I don't have the time to keep fighting you!" There was the desperation again and Kurt shook his head.
"No, you don't."
The look he got in return shook him to his bones, sad and resigned and furious and guilty. Then the Doctor was slamming the door of the TARDIS shut and it was beginning to vworp-vworp away. Kurt couldn't hear it, but he was sure that Rose had caught on and was probably pounding desperately at the doors, probably screaming with panic and rage because she wasn't an idiot either.
Something in the Doctor sagged in not-relief and he focused back on what he'd been doing as if completely unable to look at Kurt.
"You lied, huh?" the boy muttered quietly, kneeling down to lean against a panel next to the other man and crossing his arms.
The Doctor chuckled, low and hollow.
"Figures. You know that this means I've doomed you, right?"
"Well, you know," Kurt began, smiling a not happy at all smile, "It takes a liar to know a liar, and I've told a lot of lies. Not anywhere near as many since I joined up with you." He didn't know if it was the situation or not, but the talking didn't seem to slow down the Doctor's working and he didn't tell Kurt to be quiet, either. "I don't think I ever thanked you, not really. For taking me away."
The man grunted in acknowledgement.
"You took yourself away. I just opened the door; you made the choice to walk through it."
"Well, I'm grateful anyway. Just accept my thanks, you cranky git."
"No one should have ever taught you that word."
"And yet you can only blame yourself, Jackie Tyler, and Harry Potter for that one."
A hand reached out and ruffled his hair, already mussed and disheveled from the running and the fighting and the explosions. The action was quick and light but for that very short time, Kurt couldn't do anything but lean into it.
"That the adrenaline making you so spunky or is there something wrong with you?"
Kurt shrugged.
"Who knows?" He sobered. "Where did you send her?"
"Home," the Doctor answered shortly. Kurt sighed, blue eyes shuttering.
"Makes sense. Probably better that I decided to throw a hissy fit. Her timeline's five years before mine. There's nothing for me there." The words were out of Kurt's mouth before he could stop them (when had he become such a blabbermouth?) but when he took the extra seconds to think about it, it was true. It'd be five years of laying low and probably staying in London because his younger self would still be around. His father would be alive and Kurt would have to fight every day to not book a plane to Ohio. He'd be so close to the people he loved, but would never be able to reach out for them without causing the mother of all time paradoxes.
The only people he'd be able to speak to without fear would be Rose and Jackie, and when the five years were up, what would he do? Fly back to the states the day he was meant to leave and take his own place again? He…couldn't.
Kurt was different now and he couldn't ever go back to being the Kurt that he'd been before his father's death, or even the Kurt that he'd been when he'd first stumbled into the TARDIS. Hell, he even looked different at this point. It seemed kind of like forever ago.
And then all he could do was ache, not for the first time, for the people he'd left because he missed them with his entire heart. He missed Mercedes and her capacity for love and loyalty, and he missed the sweetness that lay so very close to Santana that she hated admitting she had, and he missed Mike's ability to say solely what needed to be said and Finn's well-intentioned idiocy and Puck's stupid, ugly mohawk. He missed Brittany and her unfailing honesty and Artie's attempts to be gangster in a sweater vest and Rachel's I'm Sorry cookies.
He missed his house and he missed his father.
This had to be better.
"For what it's worth, you guys all made me better. Not just, you know, putting the pieces back together. I'm better than I was, even before." Unconsciously, Kurt trailed his fingers over his black-wrapped arm, knowing intimately where the normal, flawless skin ended and the scar tissue began. "So basically you're stuck with me, come hell or high water."
"Poetic," the Doctor snipped, still focused on what his hands were doing. Suddenly, he stopped and looked up, shooting Kurt a wry, crooked smile. "This is what they call having a moment, isn't it?"
Kurt smiled back.
"Guess so."
"…could be worse."
The entire station rumbled and the Doctor lurched to his feet, Kurt following behind him.
"Finally," the boy muttered, hiding his trembling hands in the hemline of his shirt. "Time to open up that can of whoop-ass."
The Doctor snorted.
"Fantastic."
AN2: And there it is! Please leave a review if you liked it, but if you hated it and wanted to skewer me alive, well, feel free to tell me that as well. I know I've said it before but I'll say it again, I love compliments but I also really appreciate whatever criticisms people might have. I'm not too easily offended.