A/N: Okay, just to be clear, subsiders are sort of like crazed, conscienceless beings that thirst for blood. They aren't a separate species or anything; they're the product of blood-starved vampires. The vamps eventually evolve into these creatures b/c the lack of blood leads to lack of serotonin in the brain which inhibits judgment and reasoning…and the things are butt ugly, too…
This chapter starts out in Blaine's point of view while he is dreaming. Enjoy!
"Mom?" he calls into the cavernous tomb of his home. Piles of debris lay scattered along the floorboards. The Brazilian cherry wood that had been so beautiful is caked in a layer of dust and plaster from the collapsed ceiling above them. The air is cold from the cross breeze wafting through the shattered windows and glass shards descend from above in a tinkering, shimmering rain.
He has never been so afraid. It is almost impossible to comprehend exactly what is going on in the blur of action around him. He can hear shouting and screaming tumbling through the hallways upstairs, and the part of his mind still processing events wonders who is making the sounds.
Moonlight streams down in rays of albicant, crystalline blue through the small holes peppering the planes of the walls surrounding him. Numbly, he steps over to one of them and presses his eye to the opening, peering out at the lawn cloaked in fog as he searches for something unseen. The grass sprawls far outside of his line of vision, swallowed up by the darkness that his weak, human eyes cannot penetrate.
And then they catch his eye, the advancing line of black that moves silently, swiftly across the property in the direction of the house. He panics, backing away from the hole just in time for another projectile to burst through what was left of the window next to him and embed itself in the opposite wall.
He fights to stay upright as his knees buckle underneath him and he clings to the chair rail, unable to hold back the sobs that wrack his thin frame. He can hear his father bellowing from upstairs, the man's usually cool voice strained with fear and hysteria.
"Blaine, where's Blaine? Goddammit where is that boy? Blaine! Blaaaiine!"
"Dad?" he croaks, his fingers slipping from sweat on the minimal grip of the rail. A few seconds pass before he sees his father race out of a room upstairs and squint down at him from over the banister of the grand staircase, forehead brown with grime and soot.
"What in the hell do you think you're doing down there? Get upstairs now! And stay away from that window!"
Blaine hesitates, taking a few panting breaths before stumbling away from the wall and up the stairs, pausing only for a second to glance at what had wedged itself into the wall from before. The color of it stands out so sharply against the dim grey of night that he is forced to blink as the fire-hydrant-red comes into focus. His first instinct tells him it is a bird from the mass of feathers that sticks outwards from the crack, but as he stares longer, he realizes that the feathers are attached to something other than a living—or formerly living—body. A short, metal shaft protrudes from behind them, and Blaine's stomach cramps with nausea as he realizes they are tranquilizer darts, the kind used on zoo animals like he'd seen as a kid.
He scrambles up the remaining steps, breath hitching with terror as a thought flickers in his mind; his memory of the zoo probably is not too far off because in reality, they are nothing more than animals being poached. Once he reaches the landing his father grabs his wrist and yanks him down the hall, his grip rough and unbreakable as iron fetters. Blaine barely stays vertical as his feet catch on pile after pile of rubble.
He is pushed into one of the spare bedrooms and goes sprawling to the floor, his forearms burning from the friction of the carpet as they cushion his landing. He hears the door slam behind him and lock, and suddenly he realizes that his entire family is in there with him, his mother and sister huddled on the guest bed and his dog cowering under the computer desk, whining and whimpering with the heartbreaking innocence only a dog could possess.
Blaine pushes himself up into a sitting position, processing the situation with frightful confusion. His sister is crying endlessly into his mother's shoulder, and the older woman is working desperately to try and quiet her. She rubs circles into the girl's shoulder blades and coos softly, but the movement is too harried and the sound is too tense to be comforting.
"Mommyyy, what's going on?" the child blubbers, but no answer comes save for hushed shushing.
Blaine takes a moment to stare in wonder at his father's hunched form; never before has he seen the man display any intense emotion such as this. All his life his father has been some sort of untouchable idol, an indisputable authority figure on the periphery of his life, and Blaine can't help but wonder where their relationship truly stands. Because the way his father is looking at him now, his eyes filled with compassion and love and regret and deep, deep sadness, it is apparent that the man thinks and feels differently about his son than Blaine would have ever guessed, and it aches to think that he had never really known the man that helped bring him into existence at all.
Not that it matters anyway, because something tells him that they are going to die before the morning comes, before he has a chance to throw a baseball or trim the hedges or change a tire with that elusive man he wishes to know.
Suddenly the door handle rattles in place, and the family is shocked out of their trance, darting to the middle of the room and huddling together in a pack-like formation. Blaine's father begins whispering hastily and the boy strains to focus on the noise through the thick haze of fear.
"…will stay and distract them while you and Kadie climb up to the attic. There is a pull-down latter in the closet. Once you're up there, close the hatch in the ceiling and stay absolutely silent. Try not to move if at all possible; you're main goal is to survive, do you understand me? No matter what happens, you stay up there in that attic. You have to promise me you will do that. Do you promise, son?"
Blaine nods numbly, flinching as the door shakes violently in its frame. He can hear muffled voices coming from the hall and a faintly familiar crackling noise that his mind eventually connects with radio communication. Before he has a chance to pick out individual words from the mess of sounds, his mother is handing him his six year old sibling and ushering them over to the closet, pushing the two up the already positioned ladder and into the unfinished space above.
Blaine stares down the hole as his mother drops to the floor again and looks up at them, silent tears rolling down her pallid cheeks. He doesn't understand; why isn't she coming with them? He opens his mouth to ask but his mother quickly put a finger to her trembling lips.
"Do what Daddy tells you, Blaine," she calls softly, her voice nearly drowning in the cacophony of banging as the door threatens to collapse in on itself. He can just barely hear his father's grunts of exertion from holding back the overpowering force. Just then, a crash echoes through the room, and his mother gasps loudly, jolting in her place underneath. Blaine cannot see what happened, but judging by the look of frightened relief on his mother's face, he concludes that the door is not down yet, but just might be at the end of its rope with a hinge missing or something of a similar damage level. His mother looks back up at them with a renewed sense of urgency and begins to shove the ladder back up through the opening.
It hits him like a pail of bricks. His parents are not coming. His breath picks up rapidly and he begins to hyperventilate, leaning over the opening and grasping at the air between him and his mother as if he wanted to hoist her up himself.
"Look after your sister," she tells him, though her voice cracks with fear-spiked sorrow. Another gut-wrenching bang shakes the house and her head snaps to the side, her eyes widening in alarm. Two hinges down, one to go.
"Mom no!" he chokes as she reaches up to close the hatch door. She shushes him sharply but stops her motions, taking one long moment to stare into her child's eyes and mouth "I love you".
And then the hatch closes with a sickening finality and Blaine is banging his fists against the opening, crying and screaming and clawing at the panel but to no avail; she is holding it shut from below. He can hear the continued banging of the door through the insulation padding on which he is kneeling. Each explosion of sound is accompanied by a higher pitched burst, most likely the sound of the door frame snapping into tiny fragments of kindling.
Finally, like the long awaited finale of fireworks at each Independence Day, a blast unlike any other rocks through to the inner framework of the home, throwing Blaine onto his back and his sister to her knees. The muffled breaking of the last hinge is overpowered by a shrill, piercing keen that Blaine realizes with indescribable horror is his mother's screaming.
Foreign shouting erupts beneath him and dull thumps echo between the walls. Blaine grips the foam padding in his fists and shakes with muffled sobs, gritting his teeth as the sounds of his parents dissipate with time and the evidence of their struggle stops altogether. His sister is whimpering behind him and he has just enough self-restraint to pull himself together and wave her quiet again.
And just when he assumes it is all over, his dog—still somehow untouched from before—lets loose a long, forlorn howl.
"Blaine! Wake up!"
His eyes fly open and he is gasping for air, drenched in sweat from head to toe with the side of his face pressed against the ground from where he had slumped over in sleep. He glances around and sees the familiar setting of the alley, as well as the face of the boy from before.
No, not a boy, don't let yourself humanize him; he's a predator. Even though he might not realize it, a part of him wants to kill you.
"Wh-what?" He stutters, peeling his face off the concrete with a grimace and sitting up. Kurt—yes, that is his name, he remembers now—is shaking him lightly, a concerned look twisting across the smooth curves of his features. It takes a moment for Blaine to register that Kurt is indeed touching him and he flinches with panic into the brick wall.
"Oh, I'm sorry! It just…it looked like you were having a nightmare, so I decided to try and wake you…" Kurt apologizes hastily, pulling his hand back with baffling shyness. Blaine blinks confusedly and forces the flurry of adrenaline to calm so he can speak.
"Um…thanks, I guess…I'm just a little, um, jumpy…is it time already?" He asks dazedly. He swallows, wincing as his throat screams in protest against the action, and his forehead burns uncomfortably with fever. The force of his sickness hits hard as the last remainder of sleep vanishes and he breathes shallowly, listening with dread to the wheeze of his lungs.
"Yes, it's been two hours. Actually, a little over two hours. Sorry I'm late; I just had a little trouble getting away from my parents. My Dad likes to lecture; I'm sure you know how that is," Kurt scoffs half-heartedly.
"No, actually. I don't know how that is."
"…oh…I'm—I'm sorry…"
Blaine lifts himself off the ground and attempts to dust off his clothing, but it seems nothing can break the film-like barrier of filth so he gives up and lets his arms drop to his sides. Kurt takes a step back, giving Blaine ample space in order to feel comfortable, and points the light of his phone near Blaine's feet.
"The sweatshirt," he says simply, nodding to where the pile of fabric lay in a pile next to the dumpster. Blaine plucks it from the ground and slips it over his shoulders, holding back a sigh of relief from the way the soft, clean material slides against his skin. He yanks up the zipper and pulls the hood over his matted curls, feeling warmer than he can remember in the past few weeks, and stuffs his hands in the deep, fleece-lined pockets.
"Okay," he says, inhaling deeply the scent of vanilla dryer sheets from the inside of the hood. He knows he shouldn't allow himself to feel so relaxed, but he can't help it; his body seems to be decompressing of its own accord. "Okay, I'm ready."
Kurt smiles cautiously at him and begins to make his way to the mouth of the alley, slowly enough for Blaine to catch up to his side. Relaxed or not, Blaine still feels himself tense as his shoulder accidentally brushes Kurt's and every nerve in his body shouts warnings at their close proximity, urging him to put as much distance between him and the mysteriously compassionate being as possible. Kurt notices his movement and turns to him just before they reach the edge of the light from the streetlamp.
"I don't want to be insensitive," Kurt begins, his voice strained with a guilty reluctance, "but if this is going to work, you have to calm down a little. Act like you're supposed to be here. Look casual. You know?"
Blaine swallows and winces, clenching and unclenching his hands nervously. "O-okay. I'll try."
Kurt's lips press together solemnly and he allows Blaine a few moments of preparation before they step out into the street, Blaine's eyes pounding from the sudden exposure to brightness. Once he adjusts, he finds his gaze flickering around on a three-sixty swivel, gathering information about the scene around him in small, unsatisfying bites. He wants nothing more than to take a long moment to observe his situation, but as Kurt had told him, he needs to stay collected. If he acts like a fugitive, others will see him as one.
Behind him, three people—not people, sentient creatures—are walking in the opposite direction, chatting and holding steaming cups of what smells like coffee, but the scent is a bit off. To his right, a street vendor sits inattentively in his newsstand, peddling the latest gossip that he himself probably has not glanced at, unlike the wad of bills no doubt folded carefully in his register beneath his twiddling fingers. Ahead of him, the sidewalk stretches emptily up the road and turns sharply left, disappearing behind the corner of a multistoried building that looks like it had been formerly used as office space but turned residential.
"Is that where you live?" Blaine asks, his eyes still darting around defensively. He feels extremely uncomfortable under the glare of the streetlights, almost naked without the cover of darkness that had offered so much protection. In the distance, he hears Kurt scoff.
"What, there? Oh no. No, I live in a much nicer area. Actually, if I were to be really blunt about it, we're standing in what is informally considered to be the slums of the city. You're actually pretty fortunate to have picked this place to hide out; not many would suspect you were human at first glance. There are so many homeless people in this area, most would just assume you were one of them and keep their distance."
Blaine blinks once and his face darkens with a sick realization. "Well, I guess I am lucky. Lucky that nobody from your species has the heart to help out someone in need."
"Hey, don't blame me." Kurt retorts lightly. "It's safer to stay away. Those who are homeless have a sixty percent higher chance of displaying the beginning signs of subsider activity. I mean, it's common sense, really. If you have no money to pay for food, you starve, and then you lose your mind. And recently, there's been a spike in unemployment ratings because so many farming companies are going out of business so…" Kurt trails off as he sees the expression on Blaine's features change at the last sentence, shifting from cynical doubt to heartbreaking sadness like the flick of a switch.
"I'm sorry," Kurt says quietly. "I shouldn't have mentioned that."
Blaine shakes his head and clears his face to a neutral stare. "No, it's okay. It's your way of life, I guess. Even though it's wrong."
Kurt doesn't have any response so he beckons to Blaine with his hand and starts walking, glancing at the shorter boy occasionally as they cross intersections and pass street corners, noticing how uncomfortable Blaine looks under the unseen scrutiny of the city lights.
Eventually they make their way out of the slums and into the more densely populated commercial areas. Blaine can feel every pump of his heartbeat through the sweat-soaked frays of his shirt and his senses scream chaotically in his brain as every sight and sound swims electrically through the live wires of his conscience. Kurt seems perfectly at ease next to him, but every now and again he notices him glance around at the surrounding population and scan the faces of those who pass by, watching for the faintest flicker of realization in their blank, glassy eyes.
"Kurt, a-are we almost there?" Blaine whispers frantically as a one of them walks within five inches of his right side. He fights back a yelp at the cold rush of air that hits his face and the panic that floods down from his hairline.
"A few more blocks and then we're there," Kurt replies evenly.
They pass by another vendor, but this time it is not a newsstand and the same coffee smell from before assaults Blaine's nostrils. Again, the scent registers weirdly in his mind and he turns his gaze towards the kiosk, slightly shocked by the large line that has formed behind the counter.
He remembers coffee from back when the world was normal; He can recall the way each brew would fill up his kitchen with its rich, wafting flavor, how every morning during the week his mother would make a pot just for him and he would come bounding down the stairs like a child on Christmas morning for that first mug, dumping in teaspoon after teaspoon of cream and sugar until his mother would stop him with a loving, reproachful smirk.
The smell of this coffee, though, troubles him. It has almost a metallic edge to it that he cannot place and he studies those of them drinking it, how after each gulp their lips come back stained with a red residue that they lap up greedily with their tongues, just like he used to do with the foamy remnants of marshmallows in his hot chocolate years and years ago. His stomach drops to his feet and he nearly doubles over, reaching out and clutching Kurt's shoulder without a second thought.
You will not get sick, you will NOT get sick…
"Blaine? Blaine what's wrong?"
He can't respond because, in that moment, his eyes lock onto the packets of blood behind the counter of the kiosk and time lurches to a stop. He sees the cheerful attendants dishing out cup after cup to each eager patron, sees the way they add the doses of human life source into every drink as if it were nothing more than a shot of espresso.
"I need…to get away from here," Blaine croaks, speeding up his pace significantly in order to pass quicker. He can't take this. He can't take this at all.
"Hey—hey! Blaine, wait! Stop." Kurt calls after him, chasing Blaine through the crowd until they reach the end of the block. Blaine slumps against the street sign, teetering heavily on the verge of tears.
"Blaine, what happened?" Kurt asks, unsure of whether or not he should pry but deciding to chance it all the same. Blaine doesn't reply at first, simply shakes his head again, trying to calm himself before anyone notices. Already he can see a few passers-by throwing him faintly alarmed glances, and he prays feverishly that they don't look too closely, prays that they don't see the hot flush of his cheeks or the non-existent glimmer of his hazel irises.
"I…I just wasn't prepared for that," Blaine coughs out between shuddering breaths. "It's one thing to hear about it but it's another to actually see…"
Kurt nods in understanding and waits patiently for Blaine to regain the hold on his emotions. After a minute, Blaine stands straight again and clears his throat, securing the hood around his face before turning to Kurt.
"How much farther?" he asks bluntly. Kurt looks over his head at something behind him, raising his brows a fraction of an inch upwards.
"Actually, we're here."
Blaine spins around on his heel and comes face to face with a glass encased building, so tall it seems to touch the few stars that remain in the sky despite the grand city lights that chased the rest away. Each pane in the giant grid of windows reflects back the landscape of buildings neighboring it as well as the life on the street below, and Blaine can suddenly see the image of his face in the mirror-like exterior. He can't remember ever looking so ragged, so covered in slime-like grit he very nearly passes himself off as a stranger.
"God, I need a shower," he breathes, his fingers brushing across a hardened on clump of soot stuck to his left cheek.
"Yeaah," Kurt drawls, ambling over to the front doors of the apartment complex and pulling them open, ushering Blaine inside with a flick of his wrist. "After you."
"Thanks…" Blaine responds quietly and slips inside.
The lobby is almost obnoxiously ornate, not classically decorated, of course, but rather in the art-deco style which almost every building has come to adopt in an attempt to look classier. Blaine follows Kurt to one of the spacious elevators and waits nervously for one to reach the main floor, glancing around at the front desk workers who type tirelessly away at their computers, their uniforms impeccably clean and lint-free. Blaine looks down at himself for a second, grimacing at how unkempt he looks in comparison. If not for Kurt's sweatshirt, he would stick out like a sore thumb.
The quiet ping of the elevator shocks him out of his reverie and he almost jumps inside after Kurt, sending up silent strings of thanks when the cab arrives empty. Kurt presses the button for the twelfth floor and they ascend in an awkward silence, unsure of what to say and settling on nothing at all.
Once the doors open again Kurt strides confidently down the hallway while Blaine struggles to keep up, almost plowing into the taller boy's—see Blaine, now you're doing it again, don't become attached —back as he comes to a halt in front of apartment eighteen-oh-four. Kurt slips his hand into the pocket of his designer slacks and retrieves a small, silver key, inserting it into the lock just above the handle and turning it with a click.
Just like the entrance to the lobby, Kurt pulls open the door and stands aside for Blaine to pass.
A/N: Okaaay, so this one turned out A LOT longer than I had anticipated, haha. I'm sort of loving this story and for the first time in forever, I actually have a plot-line somewhat planned out in my head, so yay! Anyway, next chapter will pick up immediately after this and Blaine will start to learn how to trust people again. Please feel free to give feedback and review, it really inspires me to write more!