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Quarantined

Summary:

Blaine, Leo and Cody are in Florence on holiday.

Then, a strange illness starts spreading.

Notes:

WARNING: This story is an AU from the original 'verse. What happens in here has little to none correlation with what happens in Leonard Karofsky-Hummel VS The world or Broken Heart Syndrome. The characters involved are (mostly) the same, but situations and relationships between them may be completely different.
Written for this year's COWT #10, M2, and this beautiful Florence sight as a prompt.

Work Text:

This isn’t their first time in Florence – as a matter of fact, it’s probably the sixth or the seventh. It’s one of their favorite holiday choices because it’s got everything all three of them need: beautiful landscapes and amazing, historically relevant art for Cody, great food and hospitality for Leo and, obviously, luxurious hotels and SPAs for Blaine, who couldn’t live without them.

They’ve always felt at home, here. They stayed in almost all the best hotels, the Savoy, the Four Seasons, the Portrait, and now they’re staying at the St. Regis, where they have booked the Royal Suite and where they’ve spent quite a few weeks of complete relaxation, basking in the amazing attentions the whole staff have showered them with, and in the sheer beauty of this incredible little city.

That was, of course, before the epidemic started.

Just a flu, that’s what it seemed to be, at least in the beginning. The authorities were searching for patient zero and apparently couldn’t find them, but seemed to be handling the spreading of the illness pretty well, quarantining the towns where the illness was spreading faster and making sure all suspect cases were analyzed, confirmed and contained quickly.

Then something happened – the TV said something about it, but the dynamics of the whole thing were never truly cleared out, not by Italian news nor American’s. Someone apparently evaded custody and was able to travel through the first infected city and out of it without anyone noticing, spreading the illness outside. And soon enough people were falling ill everywhere, and what had begun as a simple flu had started degenerating. Mutating. People were having troubles breathing, their lungs collapsed, they started spitting blood. They started dying, and autopsies revealed completely consumed and blackened lungs, eaten away by a dark disease no one seemed to be able to explain.

All commercial activities started locking up. Their hotel didn’t make an exception. By that point it was forbidden to leave the country, so the internal medical team conducted extensive analysis to make sure none of the guests were sick, and then locked everyone inside.

There haven’t been much changes since then. Every day a member of the staff passes by their room, several times a day, actually, bringing food, books, entertainment, news from the outside (scarcer and scarcer each day). The service, honestly, has been impeccable. But of course his kids are concerned, and Blaine understands that very well.

Leo is bored to death. He tends to be a little hyperactive, and being locked up in the same room, no matter how rich, comfortable and luxurious, for more than a few days gets on his nerves. He wants to go outside, doesn’t trust this place, doesn’t trust this illness and isn’t even sure of the gravity of it, so he’s starting kicking like a mule, suggesting every day with a little more insistence that they should just up and leave.

Cody, instead, is scared. He’s never found himself in such a situation, he’s far from home, from his beloved parents, he feels Leo’s restlessness and Blaine’s own uncertainty, despite his attempts at showing himself way more confident than he actually is, and all of this affects him, making him worry.

At some point, news start becoming a little concerning. Blaine watches frowning as the anchorwoman informs the channel audience that, in an attempt to find patient zero and study him to come up with a vaccine and possibly a cure for the disease, police is picking up foreigners from their accommodation to have them examined by a specialized medical team. They say they’re sure someone from the outside brought the virus inside Italian borders, so there’s where they’re going to look for answers. Inside outsiders.

Cody and Leo both freak out, for different reasons. Leo’s outraged at the blatant racial motives behind the measure, Cody is straight out terrified that they’re going to pick them up and separate them for whatever reason.

Blaine tries to reassure them both. This isn’t racism, he tells Leo, it’s just that if the government truly believes the virus came from a foreign country then of course they must look for foreigners – but that doesn’t mean those who get picked up are going to be treated unfairly; he also tells Cody not to worry – they’ve already been tested by the hotel medical staff, weren’t they? And they weren’t positive to the virus, so why would they have to pick them up anyway?

He really believes what he says – at least until someone knocks at the door, several times, and upon opening it Blaine finds himself facing a very concerned member of the staff, a young woman by the name of Elsa, who’s been handling their needs the most since they arrived. “Mr. Anderson,” she says, “You need to leave.”

Blaine frowns, trying to hide her from the kids playing some video game in the sitting room. “What’s going on?”

“They just called us,” the woman says, torturing her fingers, “They warned us that the police is going to come in here in a couple hours. Pick up all foreigners and take them away.”

“Oh, but… there really is no need to be so worried for us,” he tries to calm her down, smiling gently at her, “They’re going to take us to a lab and examine us, right? And once they see we’re healthy, they’re going to release us.”

Elsa throws him such a worried, panicking glare that he feels his heart sink at the bottom of his stomach.

“You need to leave,” she says nervously, “If we’re fast, we can still smuggle you out without the authorities noticing. We’re preparing a bus for all foreign guests, please-- you have to be on that bus in thirty minutes. Warn your partners, gather your things-- I will be back to guide you in twenty minutes.”

For a little while, after she’s gone, Blaine’s left there, staring into nothingness. Then he swallows, the enormity of the situation apparently crushing him, making his movements slow and heavy. He turns towards the kids, who haven’t been listening, earphones firmly locked in place around their heads, and haven’t noticed anything.

“Boys,” he says in a shaky voice, “Turn that thing off. Get your things. We’re going.”

Cody and Leo quickly turn towards him. Cody purses his lips and pales like a ghost, and Leo, who seemed about to ask something in return, immediately shuts up when he sees his face.

“Quick,” Blaine adds, seeing them still motionless after a few seconds.

Both boys scuttle on their feet and start gathering their belongings.

Fuck the beautiful Florence, Blaine says as he hurriedly grabs his suitcase, if they ever make it out of this place, they’re never coming back.

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