"Cooper?"

Blaine's question was uttered in total bewilderment, his expression going from disappointed reassurance to total confusion in less time than it took Kurt to jump in his seat and Cooper to stride purposefully into the room.

"Cooper," Kurt swallowed, "You're - hi. What are you -"

"I came for a visit," Cooper answered sharply. "My agent thought it would be a good idea to try some auditions up here because of my musical talent, and Blaine was already here, so I was going to surprise him." He stopped in front of Blaine, livid, fuming, his face red and yet with an air of caring no one but family could possess while totally infuriated. "And then Santana called me. Twice. Once to say that you're no longer legally my brother, and the other to say that you were going to a hospital because you'd cut yourself badly."

"It's not that bad," Kurt rushed to explain, and Cooper looked at him. Kurt tried not to shrivel back from the harsh glare. "The cut was deeper than it was wide, but not by much. It took three stitches, that's all. His hand will be fine."

"I can deal with that," Cooper growled, "but he didn't tell me he got disowned?!"

"Cooper?" Blaine asked again, seemingly stuck on that same word, his eyes raking over his brother's features hungrily. Kurt saw his face and recognized it, and a pool of lead seemed to fill his heart.

"And on top of that," Cooper continued, oblivious, "I now hear what is clearly a lack of self-esteem in a hospital room. No family of mine can be connected to me by blood without being one of the most talented people on the planet, I assure you, and it's insulting to think otherwise."

"He's just - he's - um... having... issues," Kurt stammered, his mind blanking on what he could say. "We're trying to help him -"

"Stop talking," Cooper snapped at him. "Bl-"

Kurt reeled back his head. "Excuse me?"

"Cooper," Blaine said once more, but this time it wasn't a question, it was a warning and a greeting at the same time, and he stood abruptly and threw his arms around his brother.

Cooper stood stock-still for a moment, stunned, then wrapped his arms awkwardly - though tightly - around Blaine in return. "Blaine, are -"

"Hello," Blaine cut him off, drawing back suddenly, forcing Cooper to release his hold and let his arms flop unceremoniously to his sides. "Be nice, please."

"Be nice?" Cooper repeated, and it was clear that that was the one thing he didn't expect to hear. "Blaine, you... I - it wasn't very nice not to tell me that I'd lost my favorite brother!"

"Are you mad at me about it?" Blaine reasoned, his face open, persuasive, and Kurt was struck when he recognized it; it was the same face he'd worn when he'd opened the bathroom door after he and Santana had been fighting, and he'd told Kurt everything was alright. He was lying through his teeth; he thought Cooper had every right to be mad. "They're the ones who made it official, and they paid me to keep quiet about having anything to do with them, so -"

"But you told Santana," Cooper pointed out.

Blaine made a small, unimpressed face. "She has a way of drop-kicking the truth out of people."

"And Kurt?" Cooper demanded.

Blaine's face became more menacing and defensive than he probably thought he had a right to be. "Don't make it his fault. I told him, yes, but I made him promise not to tell. It's -"

"You made Santana promise, too."

Blaine sighed. "Yes, but she's Santana. It's different. I'm not dating her."

"So what you're saying is that you forced your boyfriend to lie for you so -"

"No, he did not!" Kurt spoke up again, his tongue getting the better of him. "He asked a favor of me and I complied. And as you've stated numerous times, you're no longer his family. He owes you nothing!"

Cooper was selfish. He and everyone else had known that; but selfishness doesn't mean "uncaring for others", it simply means the one in question cares for themself more for the majority of the time. However, with every selfish person comes a weakness, a desire, and it boils down to two options; the first being the unwavering need to be better at everything than everyone else, and the second needing to be in a position of authority over someone, no matter how convoluted. Some had both, but all had at least one. Cooper was almost reliant on his ability to make himself the one in charge in any situation - but Kurt had kicked his legs out from under him with those words and he stilled, unsure of how to continue.

"He is still my family," Blaine told Kurt, his voice much softer, much more desperate than it was with Cooper, and Kurt didn't want to know that it was because he was handling Cooper but letting Kurt handle him. "Not legally, but in much the same way Sam is. I lo-"

"Blood's thicker than water," Cooper cut in, and if he hadn't offered the words with as much uncertainty as anger, Kurt would have been more pissed off than he was as it was.

"First of all, no, that's nowhere near true," Kurt snapped. "Secondly, the full quote is 'The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb', which means that the bonds we form willingly and with choice and enjoyment are stronger than the ones formed out of necessity and a false sense of being indebted. Having the same blood as someone doesn't make you family. Loving and trusting makes you a family."

"I had no idea that was the full quote," Blaine remarked, almost as if he were in a different, less heated conversation.

"It doesn't matter," Cooper snarled, "Because he does love me and he does trust me and I do the same in return."

"Really?" Blaine seemed shocked, and not because Cooper assumed he loved and trusted him, but because he said he did in return. Kurt's eyes left Blaine's brother to travel to his boyfriend... his fiance. They were supposed to be getting married, supposed to be in love. They hadn't told people because they thought it best to wait until they at least lived together and saw how they fit in a small environment - well, that was what they had said...

But they weren't fitting anymore. Blaine was jagged and sliced and worn down and broken and Kurt was chipped away and his paint was peeling off. They were pretty, painted people, and the world was pretty and painted but when it was jagged like Blaine or chipped like Kurt it was really, really easy to dislodge and send crumbling. Kurt imagined Cooper as the one finger who pressed too hard and sent everything reeling.

"He's not -" Cooper began.

"Stop," Kurt ordered, though he didn't expect Cooper to listen - to his surprise, Cooper complied, and looked at him expectantly. As soon as he was shown that basic decency, he was lost - he had no idea how to continue it. He'd expected to be interrupted. He hadn't been and he was lost. What -

"Excuse me, gentlemen," the nurse said, peeking her head in the door in the midst of the dead silence. "But Mr. Anderson can go home now."

And then Santana was there, and her arms were crossed over her chest, and her heels tapped angrily against the tile, and she said, "Anderson."

Cooper felt like simply bursting. He'd liked Kurt when they met before, and Blaine always spoke highly of him, but after their breakup Cooper had been incapable of thinking of him as the person that made his brother happy and instead thought of him as the person who needed his brother to make himself happy. He'd heard and heard of the mess Blaine was for weeks after it had happened, and while he'd been disappointed in his little brother for cheating, he'd been more disappointed in Kurt for refusing to admit to their having been a cause or so much as speaking to Blaine until he was almost too far gone to be reached.

Looking at Blaine like he wished he'd never have to, he felt like he was that far gone again, and this time it wasn't Kurt's fault he was almost over the edge.

But Cooper didn't know why.

It was still Blaine in every aspect he saw. Still trying desperately - and for the most part, succeeding at - trying to mask emotions and reasons that no one could have put into words that he assumed nobody would want to try to. And he didn't know what was causing it. He recognized it, of course; he looked like he'd sounded over the phone after the breakup, if only when he thought he was unseen. But the reason behind it was - well, it seemed a lot like it did after the weeks of silence that happened during the middle of Blaine's Junior year. Cooper never got an actual reason out of Blaine for it, but for the longest time after that it had seemed like Blaine was scare that Cooper would ask about something specific that lying about was just too difficult to do.

Cooper had made the mistake of not asking then, and he wasn't about to this time around - something was going on that shouldn't have been. And so he wracked his mind thinking of this and that and the other to ask Blaine about all the way from the hospital room to Blaine and Santana's apartment. In fact, he was so intensely focused on the idea of getting Blaine to admit what was going on that if you asked him what had occurred in the time he spent thinking, he'd have been unable to answer.

But he knew he didn't talk to people. To anyone. And to everyone else, his face was entirely impassive and he remained silent and stoic, a constant, never changing, just walking alongside. The others tried asked him things; when he heard their voice and not their words, he turned and glared at them and let the others silence them. He was robotic - his head was moving so quickly that his outside had no time to catch up.

And then they were outside an apartment door, and Santana was sticking a key in the lock and turning it, and then sliding the door open and letting Blaine lean on her as they entered. And Kurt followed, and Rachel followed, and Cooper's vision suddenly became clear enough to drag him out of his mental fortress.

And just in time, because as soon as Cooper had closed the door behind him, Kurt whirled around and asked, "Why do you feel the need to yell at Blaine for something that's not his fault?"

"Yeah, Cooper," Santana chimed in, her voice a lot more dry than Kurt's - of course, her arm was still around his brother, who looked up at the beginning of the confrontation. "You were a lot more put-together on the phone. If I'd known you'd blow up at Blaine like that I wouldn't have called."

"Mr. Anderson," Rachel interjected, sending somewhat condescending glances to her friends who'd spoken before looking at him, her tone much more polite, "I'm afraid I have to agree. We could hear a bit of your encounter from the waiting room, and from what Kurt's told us on the way home, it doesn't sound like you're being a very good sibling."

Cooper's face grew hot and he looked at Blaine again - Blaine, who was looking at the ground, not saying anything. He turned back to Rachel, opening his mouth to defend himself, but she continued, holding up a pausing finger.

"Now, I'm not one who doesn't appreciate a good, dramatic argument," Rachel told him honestly, "but Blaine is one of my best friends, and being overly cruel to him isn't helping a damn thing, so if you can't control your temper tonight, I'd be glad to escort you back to the apartment Kurt and I share so you don't have to stay near him." The way she said it and the way she looked at him made it clear that it wasn't his proximity she was worried about, it was Blaine's - and he couldn't blame her.

"Rachel, I don't want him anywhere near my room," Kurt said forcibly, more hostile than Cooper thought he had a right to be.

"Now hold on a second," Cooper refuted heatedly, "I'm allowed to be as mad as I want with him. I thought I was visiting my brother, whom I've hardly spoken to in weeks for some undefined reason, and in the taxi on the way over from the airport I get a call from his roommate saying he's not my brother anymore and never told me. Wouldn't that make you really damn furious?"

"Considering my only brother is Finn, not really," Kurt deadpanned.

"Kurt," Rachel scolded automatically, though the corner of her lip twitched up.

"But that doesn't matter, because this isn't about me," Kurt continued, not even acknowledging her. "It's about Blaine and your lack of respect for him -"

"I'M NOT EVEN HIS SIBLING ANYMORE, WHY DO I HAVE TO TREAT HIM LIKE ONE IF HE WON'T DO THE SAME TO ME?!" Cooper roared.

"I am treating you like a brother, Cooper," Blaine murmured, and in the silence that followed Cooper's outburst everyone turned to the smaller man in time to see him slide out of Santana's hold. "It's how I've always treated you."

"No, because you're not acting like I'm family," Cooper rebutted.

"I'm acting the same as I always have," Blaine stressed, looking evenly at Cooper, those eyes flashing dangerously at him though the rest of him expressed fatigue. "I'm sorry for not talking to you much, but I was busy. Things came up."

Cooper threw his hands in the air. "Things that were more important than your supposed 'family'!"

"For God's Sake!" Santana cut in angrily, her words a spitting staccato. "If you say he's not treating you like family and he knows he's not treating you any differently, maybe he never treated you like family to begin with and you didn't realize it because he could still hide behind pronouns like 'my brother'."

Silence followed. Silence reigned.

"Damn, Santana," Rachel mouthed appreciatively. She was the one standing closest to Cooper, and only he heard; and at his hearing, he consequently demanded, "Why would he have not treated me like family before?"

"Because you never acted like it?" Kurt offered dryly.

"I did act like it," Cooper snarled at him. "I just wasn't around much -"

"Because staying at home to take care of him when it was obvious your parents wouldn't is definitely not what a good brother would have done," Santana remarked, the satire stinging as it set in.

"I am a good brother!"

"The correct tense is 'was'," Kurt said, leaning against the counter and cocking his head to the left.

"He still is," Blaine argued weakly.

"But why didn't he tell me?" Cooper nearly pleaded, seeing their hard-set faces and knowing that none of them were believing his angry tirade, even though it was the most honest thing he'd ranted about in quite a while. "If my parents no longer have any authority over him, why not just skip the rules?"

"Because they still have authority, Tweedle Dumber," Santana shot back at him. "They deposit money into his bank account monthly to keep his mouth shut. This is on them, not Blaine. It's not his fault."

"But -"

"Enough," Kurt dictated, "He's obviously beyond tired and -"

"I'm not done," Cooper growled.

And Kurt's face instantly transformed. In just a fraction of a second, it went from impassive to nearly apoplectic with rage, filling with color, and he leaned forward and slammed his fist on the corner of the counter and screamed, "I DON'T FUCKING CARE!"

Santana inhaled sharply and whispered an elongated "Daaaaamn," and Blaine reeled back as if slapped and wounded - and Rachel just raised an eyebrow and said, "Language, Kurt," even though Cooper was still trying to process how so much fury could be inside one person - enough to completely break off the corner of the counter top, he noted, as it broke out with a loud crack and fell, clattering, to the floor.

And, truly signaling the end of it, Rachel turned in all seriousness to Cooper and said, "Alright, Cooper, if you'll follow me."

"I'm sorry?" Cooper sputtered.

"Oh, how lovely," Rachel paused and smiled falsely at him before turning over his shoulder and saying, "Blaine, he says he's sorry." And with a flourish, she stuck out her arm, jerked her head back around, and dragged Cooper away. "I'm taking him away now," she called behind them. "Good night!"

"Good night," Blaine's feeble voice called back.

"By now it's Good Morning," Kurt muttered.

"By now it's Good Riddance," Santana's joined.

"Alright," Rachel said, stepping aside to let Cooper enter. "Welcome to the apartment. There's not much to do right now, I'm afraid - but we could break the ice and talk, if you wanted?" she slid the door shut and turned to face him. Though she knew she was appearing confident, she had no idea how to deal with Blaine's older brother, especially in the state he was in - or had been, anyway. He seemed to have calmed down a significant amount since being physically evicted from Blaine's place. "I mean, I know we've met before and all, but we've never truly been on equal terms before now, so..."

Cooper's eyes darted around and observed before he spoke. "What would we talk about?"

"There's a plethora of subjects," Rachel began, slower than she would normally, giving him time to adjust. "We're both insanely talented and devoted to musical theatre, so we could talk about any number of things in that broad category. I'm sure there are literary interests we share, and, if we get desperate, I can break out the bottle of wine I forgot to use on New Year's because Kurt and I were out cold."

"You fell asleep before midnight?" Cooper asked.

Rachel grimaced, but also grinned. "No, we got so drunk we passed out before eleven. It wasn't the best idea ever, but at least we were at Santana and Blaine's."

Cooper nodded, and when he looked back toward her, he was much warmer than she'd seen him all night. "Okay. We could talk."

And that was how, not even fifteen minutes later, they were both sitting cross-legged on the couch, leaning forward and giggling, because damn, nobody ever understood what it was like to know you were born a star and how badly you needed to go after it.

"I know, I know!" Rachel agreed enthusiastically, gesturing wildly with her good arm while Cooper laughed, his head thrown back and his shoulders heaving. Her subconscious congratulated her on being able to loosen him up so well so quickly, but then got quiet when she reminded herself that after all the events of the past half-day, they all needed to wind down. She'd been awake for more than twenty-four hours, she realized, long after the sun had peeked over the top of the skyscrapers. There was probably a reason she felt so giddy and light-headed. She was tired. Really, really tired. And it seemed like Cooper was, too, because he was acting the same way she was; giddy, morals slipping, words coming faster and more hyped than normal. They're both hit the wall at the same time, she supposed. "Nobody gets it! Ugh!"

"Was he at least good after that?" Cooper chortled. "I mean, that's... a pretty big mistake, but -"

"No, he got it, he got it," Rachel assured him, sighing contentedly and then giggling again. "But obviously my star power had stunned him."

"I completely understand," Cooper sympathized. And she noticed, not for the first time, how amazingly hot he was. And though it was cliche and naive of her to choose those words to describe it, he was. He was gorgeous. With that shiny, perfect hair, and those piercing eyes, and that smile that melted hearts. He was hot, and she was human. What was wrong with that? "My own star power has been the downfall of many would-be wannabes before."

"Don't get me started," Rachel added, exasperated, and he laughed again. "You know, when I was four, and in ballet, there was this one girl who thought she was a better dancer than I was."

"Really?" Cooper raised his eyebrows. "Do tell."

Rachel snickered, "She challenged me to a dance-off."

"Did you kill her?"

"I obliterated her!"

Cooper clapped, his laugh ringing out again, and damn, even the laugh was musical. "You know, in L.A., Actor's Workshop is full of people like that."

"Tell me more?" she asked, her tone breathy, leaning forward to catch his words as he made them softer. He mirrored her, his head traveling the few inches towards her it took for her to smell his still-fresh breath.

"This is really good wine," Cooper remarked, his words somewhat slurred, as he downed his glass again.

"Mm," Rachel agreed, the pleasant tingling washing down her throat. Her subconscious was long gone by then, and the sun was done peaking over the skyscrapers and was shining through the window brightly - which actually made for decent mood lighting, since she'd forgotten to turn on the lights and the curtains were drawn. The room was cast in the pink light from the red fabric being shone through, and it fell on them and warmed them, flushing them more than the alcohol already had. "It is," she confirmed, after she'd finished swallowing. "Don't know why I never opened it before now."

"I have an idea!" Cooper burst out. "Let's dance?"

"I don't know," Rachel pretended to be skeptical, "I'm pretty good, I don't know if you could keep up."

"Oh, we're teasing now?" Cooper said, and shoved himself up off the couch in one fluid bound, setting his glass on the table and holding his had out for her. She took it eagerly, and at the warmth and strength in his grasp she shivered as he pulled her up; she placed her wine glass on the table, too, and being sure to run her hand along her torso as she drew her fingers back. His eyes followed her palm, and he smirked before his eyes met hers again. "Well, Mademoiselle, two can play at that game."

"I've got a bad arm," she reminded him, "so be caref- ah!" She exclaimed and then giggled as he spun her around quickly, and as she fell, her heeled shoes leaning over to the side in her lack of balance (both from the alcohol and her sleep deprivation), his arm wrapped snugly around her waist and caught her, in a near-perfect dip... for drunk people. "You're not bad," she said breathlessly, needing to say something to accompany the contact of just his skin having found the exposed section of her lower back and the ways his eyes smoldered dazedly into hers.

"I don't see you struggling," he returned tauntingly, not releasing his position. His skin was hot, but so was hers, and where it touched her she couldn't tell whether she liked the temperature or his muscles better.

"I told you so," she said smugly, regaining her natural Rachel Berry - almost trademark - cockiness. "Though to be honest, it's hard not being a good dancer when dancing with you."

"Are you saying I spark a little friendly competition?" he said, and at the end of the sentence his lips were at her ear and she repressed shivering again when his breath blew over her lobe. "Or are you saying you like dancing with me?"

"To be held like this, I think anyone would like dancing with you," Rachel told him.

"Is that so?" And then he was bringing her upright again and spinning her once more, and she laughed outright at the fun and exhilaration of it before she was abruptly in the same position, but on the other side. Her injured arm was pressed against his torso, but he held her gentler than he had before, and nothing hurt. "What about like this?"

"I like this too," she whispered as quietly as she could, and when he leaned down to hear what she said she kissed him. It was like when he'd touched her - she couldn't tell who it was, but one of them tasted like the wine, and it was as delicious as before, even if it was clouding every thought she had other than hot, hot, hot.

"Wait, Blaine," Kurt called, as soon as he saw Blaine's figure rise from the couch, where he'd been for hours while Kurt discussed the situation with Santana, "Where are you going?"

Blaine looked at him and the trepidation killed him a little. "I was just going to take a shower and go to bed," he said, as if it were something to be ashamed of.

Kurt rose, and Santana let him, sighing and standing up more quietly than he had and heading towards her room. She spared them a half-hearted "Good night" before disappearing behind the curtain, and Kurt looked at his fiance, and Blaine looked back, and he was tired and his hair was curling and his hand was bandaged and there were bags under his eyes, and he looked vulnerable, and he looked... well, he looked ashamed. And he looked like he was terrified that Kurt would think it was his fault. Knowing that he only looked like that when he was blaming himself, when it was Kurt's fault, killed him just a little more, and he wondered if that was what Blaine had meant when he said his feelings were gone. He'd just been killed too much.

But the guilt was still there, and right beside it was the love that caused it, and it was the same love that made him walk over to Blaine and run his fingers through the curls and ask, his voice low, "Maybe I should join you."

Blaine smiled and Kurt was so glad to see it he didn't see the strain behind it. "If you want to."

"Of course," Kurt assured him, and bent back down to Blaine's height to kiss him. He tasted like sweat and like tears and like Blaine without being cleaned up - and it wasn't what Kurt was used to, but he loved it all the same.

Kurt kissed the crook of Blaine's shoulder and slid his shirt the rest of the way off so it piled on the floor on top of his own. He wished he could have said that he didn't stop, but he did, because Blaine was shivering. The bathroom was oddly cold, and Kurt knew it was because they'd turned the vent on, but it was needed if they were about to take a hot shower. They couldn't have the mirror getting all steamed up. Kurt's fingers played with the bandaging on Blaine's palm, untying it slowly, so as not to hurt him, but to get it off so he could get his hand clean.

"Kurt," Blaine whispered, his cheek resting on Kurt's shoulder, his face flushed and his hands helping undress his boyfriend. He didn't have much to do; pants had been the first thing both of them had discarded, so he tugged down the elastic waistband of Kurt's underwear and slid them down his thighs. Kurt let the tremor that shot down his back at the contact of Blaine's warm fingers tug his head back, but when Blaine exhaled quickly at the lack of touch, his lips returned and pressed delicately against his boyfriend's neck. "My... my socks."

Kurt withdrew again and looked at Blaine more intensely. "You're fine," he reminded him, his voice barely loud enough to be heard at all.

Blaine looked at him, with his smoke-filled, dark gold eyes, and then averted them, and swallowed - though Kurt heard nothing, only saw how his neck bobbed nervously. His hands were still on Kurt's thighs, and when he closed his eyes and opened his mouth to speak no sound came out.

"Hey, I have an idea," Kurt said, hoping with almost everything that when Blaine looked at him it wouldn't be with so much fear. "I can turn the shower on while you take off your socks, and I won't look if you don't want me to. Alright?"

Blaine nodded, and opened his eyes, and Kurt managed not to sigh with relief at the mirrored expression Blaine held.

But he did pull away from his boyfriend and smile reassuringly before turning his back on him and turning the handle. The water picked up quickly, but it was colder than they liked, so he turned it up, the loud beating of the jet-propelled liquid slamming into the tub walls almost drowning out the tune he heard being sung almost silently behind him, to cover the sound of fabric being stripped from skin.

"Are you - Blaine, are you singing 'Little Lion Man'?"

Blaine looked at Kurt with a mixture of hope and disappointment, but Kurt didn't see it. "Too much?"

Kurt's mouth gaped for a moment before he reclaimed it and said, "No, it's perfect." And he didn't turn around and he didn't hug him and tell him that he was proud, because if that song was the one he was relating to, they had a long way to go before good came around.

So Blaine sang a little - only a little - louder while Kurt clambered in. And when Blaine clambered in after him, and they finally stood and faced each other, Kurt made an obvious display of not looking at his ankles and instead kissing him with his eyes tightly closed. He did so for several reasons; nearly all of them were how panicked Blaine looked when he realized just how bare and open he was.

Blaine kissed him back, but not as strongly. And Kurt was suddenly a bit angry; not at Blaine, not necessarily, but at the fact that every time they'd kissed he'd been the one putting the most effort, the most feeling, into it. He knew it wasn't Blaine's fault, and he knew that he was trying, but Kurt was a tactile person - he yearned for and needed affectionate touches every now and then, and he loved giving them in response, and there had been a time when Blaine did, too, but lately all Kurt had been given was a fraction of what was needed, and a tiny percentage of what Blaine had given him before.

And he felt guilty about being angry, but he was angry, and he was kissing Blaine and dammit, he needed to make Blaine feel something. Blaine should have felt something anyway, he should have, they were engaged, they were going to be married, just weeks ago he'd proposed, and they should have been moving in with each other and living with each other and why was it so hard to feel -

"Stop!" Blaine gasped, and Kurt jerked back because as much as he wished he didn't, he recognized that tone, and he recognized the tears. They were in the shower, so it was difficult to tell which drops of water on Blaine's face had come from his eyes - but those eyes were red, and swollen, and his nose was, too, and he was pressed up against the corner of the shower and his feet were sliding, trying to find traction.

The shock and realization of what he'd been doing sunk into his bones and rocketed through him, and he stepped back and let Blaine stand up. "I'm..." so sorry ran through his mind a million times, but never reached his tongue. He was utterly speechless; words didn't connect in his head to make phrases, but the complete and total loathing he had for himself had carved its way into each cell in his body. He'd heard Blaine tell him to stop, he must have, because Blaine didn't just yell to stop when he didn't want something - he asked, he tried for attention, he broke away, he pushed back. He'd been telling Kurt 'no' for who knew how long and Kurt hadn't heard because he'd been so selfishly absorbed in making Blaine feel something he'd... oh, god, he'd held him down.

Blaine's feet planted themselves firmly on the tub's floor, but his hands went from trying to simultaneously pull himself upwards and push Kurt away to curled around him.

But Kurt wasn't stronger than Blaine. Kurt had never been. Blaine was the stronger one, the dancer. Why couldn't he have pushed him away if he'd been trying? The remnants of his touch were drizzled over by the streams of hot water running down, but Kurt could still feel where his hand had pushed at Kurt's chest.

And then Kurt remembered Blaine's feet and how they'd been sliding, and he realized that to keep himself from falling he'd been slipping and using the flat, slicked wall to keep himself up - he'd had no strength to spare or freeing himself of Kurt's hold.

"I'm..." Kurt said again, but he had no way, absolutely no way, of conveying the amount of remorse and disgust towards himself that he felt. But he could see Blaine; and no matter how much he hated himself, he'd have never been able to compete with the face of the man looking back at him.

He was shaking. He was shaking, and he was crying, but he didn't seem to notice either of those things - instead, he noticed everything about Kurt, and how Kurt's fingers were clutching at his sides, and his every muscle in his body was tensed, and how he was trying to speak but couldn't. His skin was red; the hot water must have been running for a while. He was almost able to wonder without feeling sick how long Blaine had been struggling. Almost.

"I'm sorry," Blaine gulped.

"You're what?!" Kurt squeaked, appalled. "What?!"

He looked away once more, to his feet, and Kurt followed his gaze before remembering he'd promised not to. "Sorry. I'm sorry."

"What the hell are you sorry for?!" Kurt sputtered. He no longer felt the heat of the water, just the drops sinking into his heated skin. He'd built up an immunity to the temperature - it must have been a long time. A long time spent on only a few thoughts that had no right being conceived in the first place. He was thrown by the time warp from his head to reality. It had only been a couple of seconds; how could it have been minutes? "I'm the one who... the one who... You shouldn't be sorry!"

"I don't know what you want me to say," Blaine mumbled.

"What you feel, Blaine," Kurt felt the anger bubbling back up, and even though he knew it was entirely unreasonable, it was there and it was spoken. "Damn it, you never tell me that. I can't help you if you don't tell me -"

"What do you want me to tell you?" He wasn't asking for the last answer Kurt gave, they both knew that; he was looking for specific words. He wanted to say what Kurt wanted to hear. Or he felt like he needed to and he didn't want to at all. But he wouldn't say that. He wouldn't say he felt that. And though Kurt understood that when he cut he did it because his emotions were gone, now couldn't be one of those times. It just couldn't be. It didn't work. It took days to slink back into the emptiness, at least from the pattern they'd all seen.

"I want you to tell me how you feel!" Kurt repeated himself, frustration boiling over in irritation and adding to the anger. Blaine looked at him and saw the way his nostrils flared and his fingers clenched into fists, and he observed how he shifted his weight to one leg, and he understood. He understood that Kurt didn't trust him and that Kurt didn't believe him, because why else would he be questioning what Blaine had said before? And why else would he have - would he have... done what he'd just done? Why wouldn't he have stopped when Blaine told him to?

Because he needed proof. Blaine didn't have any to offer him. Kurt didn't trust him, and he had no way to make him.

"Can you show nothing?" he demanded furiously. "Why is it so difficult to just tell me what you feel?"

Blaine felt like screaming to the top of the world and its peoples that it was difficult to feel at all, let alone express that feeling - but instead he just said, "Because it's mine. What I feel. It's mine."

"It's supposed to be ours -"

"No." Blaine shook his head. "Never. Some things are. My feelings are not meant for you. They're mine and I'll show them as I see fit."

"But you never show them at all! Do you just not feel?!"

"I'm working on it," Blaine swore to him, and he wondered how flimsy the oath he'd made sounded to Kurt's ears. "I'm working on it."

"You shouldn't have to be," Kurt growled angrily, and the tears that stung Blaine's eyes blurred his vision again and spilled over once more. "You're an adult now, expressing things, feeling things, it's not all going to lay itself out in front of you for others to see. You're going to have to say it sometimes."

"I know," Blaine whispered.

Kurt groaned. "If no one else, I should be the easiest one to tell it to!"

Blaine knew he was right. He should have been. But in reality, he was the most difficult person to express things to, because every time he tried he failed. And failing meant that Kurt had one more reason not to trust him, or forgive him, or do anything to him that Blaine was already doing. Blaine trusted Kurt more than anything, and that entitled forgiveness, especially for what had just happened - even if, for the second time in his life, he felt more violated than anyone should have ever had to.

"I can't," Blaine told him, shaking his head and looking down at his feet for the umpteenth time. "I'm sorry. You said you would... I can't... you promised, and I..."

"Blaine, I know that it's difficult, but can't you at least give me something to start with?!" Kurt's hands rose a bit and Blaine flinched back without meaning to at the movement. Kurt's hands froze in the position they were in and dropped again, and Blaine was too scared of Kurt's face to look at it.

Kurt didn't want to understand why Blaine couldn't look at him, but he did - and so he challenged it. "Blaine, look at me."

Blaine's face rose and his eyes locked on Kurt's neck. His face was almost cautiously blank, as if he were purposely hiding, and Kurt's blood boiled again. "Look at me. You owe me that much."

So Blaine steeled himself against the consequences and look at Kurt's face. Kurt couldn't tell what was on it, but it was enough to break the careful, empty barrier Blaine had built up so quickly, and Kurt was reminded of how Blaine had looked looking up at him from his bed with Kurt's phone in his hands when he'd asked who Chandler was.

Kurt didn't want to face that if that was the only thing Blaine felt when he looked at him, so he turned around and shut off the water and said, "Forget it. You don't owe me anything."

"No, I do, I owe you so much!" Blaine pleaded the moment the water stopped assaulting them. His hair flopped wetly into his eyes and he ran his fingers through it, pushing it back. "I owe you everything, I'm sorry, I just don't know... I just don't know how to say it or feel it or anything." He swallowed again when Kurt left the shower and didn't turn back to face him. "I'm sorry, Kurt, I'm trying!"

Kurt shook his head and yanked the towel off its rack, his back still facing Blaine, who was following him, clambering out of the small, wet area after his boyfriend. There was a tiny voice in his head that told him "Don't go after him right now, you're not okay yet," but he ignored it; he wasn't concerned for his own state of well-being, but for Kurt's, and he'd been the one to disrupt it. "Kurt," he called again, reaching out for his boyfriend.

His hand hesitated right before it was to touch, and the voice in his head told him, "See? You're so bad right now you're scared to touch him."

So he pulled his hand back and let it drop, and he fell silent - just in time for Kurt to speak up.

"You know, this is exactly why things didn't work out last time," Kurt muttered, seemingly to himself, but obviously to Blaine - and Blaine's jaw dropped in sheer astonishment of what he'd said and what he'd meant. "You don't ever talk to me, and so I give up on trying to talk to you and the next thing you know you're someone else's sex toy -"

That's when it clicked.

"I'm sorry?" Blaine said dryly, leaning back, and the contrast that was his current tone to his previous one was so sharp that Kurt turned around, still mindlessly drying himself off, but his eyebrows raised now. "Sex toy?"

Kurt seemed a lot less certain of his word choice when his face was visible. "Yeah. Toys sit around when their players lose interest and let their new players control them." His head cocked to the left, and Blaine, as well as everyone else Kurt had been royally pissed at, knew what that meant. But that didn't matter, because for the first time in a long time, Blaine knew Kurt was wrong, and it wasn't acceptable.

"No," Blaine disagreed, and he reached out and stole the towel from Kurt in one fluid motion, using it to dry himself off instead, right in front of Kurt's disbelieving eyes. "I didn't stop trying to talk to you. I talked to you at every opportunity I had. I called you and left voice messages, which means I talked to you even when you wouldn't talk to me. I didn't stop until you made it clear I should."

"By ignoring your call?" Kurt snorted, reaching down and grabbing the underwear he'd discarded only minutes ago, slipping into it and beginning the process of dressing, even if there were still droplets that adorned his cooling skin. He hadn't even noticed the rigidity of the air when he'd left the shower; he'd been too busy being hot-headed.

"Yes!" Blaine snapped, and Kurt paused to look at him with disbelief yet again. He honestly couldn't remember the last time Blaine had fought back to him like he was now, and if he hadn't been so far gone, he'd have seen it as a good thing. "Which means you were right about one thing - you did give up on me. But it wasn't my fault that you stopped talking to me!"

"So instead of trying again, you slept with some guy you met over facebook," Kurt deadpanned, and stared straight at Blaine, no mercy in his face - that was, until Blaine threw the towel into it and started dressing himself, too.

"'Let new players control them'?" Blaine quoted him scathingly as he fumbled to get the towel off his head. "I went over there seeking companionship because you refused to give me any, and it is not my fault he kept going when I told him to stop!"

"Wait, what?" The towel successfully tossed aside, the anger flushed from Kurt's system as quickly and unexpectedly as it had entered. "He... you told him to stop?"

Blaine glared at Kurt, at the now-gentle expression, at the boy who kept changing his mind. He glared at him and said, "Yeah. I told you to stop, too. Doesn't seem anyone listens to me in that regard."

"I stopped," Kurt refuted quietly, his voice much softer, and Blaine almost shook his head in pity. Kurt didn't trust him and didn't believe him when he was sane enough to think straight, but when he was angry, when he was being hurtful, suddenly he was worth actually listening to. It was sickening. The moment he stopped being average and started being an inconvenience was the moment Kurt had stopped trusting him. And if this wasn't inconvenient, Blaine never wanted to be convenient again.

"Took you long enough," Blaine nearly spat, and Kurt's didn't react, not even when Blaine slid his shirt back over his shoulders and started buttoning it again. "But he didn't stop at all. He kept going, and he told me to stop screaming when I screamed." Through the bitterness, Blaine felt the familiar, twisting sensation fit itself in his gut again. He stopped automatically when the voice in his head told him to. It was louder than before, stronger, and Blaine wondered who it belonged to, him or the person he fought with in his journal. "And afterwards he had the nerve to ask me if I was alright."

Kurt sucked in a breath that Blaine was pretty sure he wasn't meant to hear. "Blaine -"

"Don't you dare," Blaine warned him, "don't you dare."

"You promised me you told me everything ab-"

"But I'm just a 'sex toy', remember? And toys don't make promises, let alone keep them."

"But this is -"

"It takes a player for a toy to do anything, Kurt. Toys sit around when their players lose interest, right? And then they let the new player control them? Isn't that what you just said?"

"I didn't -"

Blaine slammed his fist against the wall with so much force the booming sound echoed around their apartment and the wall dented beneath his fist. "TOYS BREAK WHEN THEIR PLAYERS BREAK THEM!"

"YOU'RE NOT BROKEN!" Kurt bellowed back, curling his own hands into fists.

"LOOK AT ME!" Blaine all but screamed, "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT THE SCARS ON MY ANKLES, LOOK AT THE SCARS IN MY HEAD!"

"BOYS!" Santana pounded on the door without warning and both of them jumped. Blaine jumped backwards and his foot caught on Kurt's shirt, still on the ground, and he stumbled, regaining his footing by clutching the sink's counter. Kurt jumped without actually leaving the ground, just a jolt flying through him as he whipped his head to face the door that swung open just a moment later. To both of their surprise, Santana didn't look nearly as livid as she'd sounded, but more anxious than anything else. "What the hell is going on?!" she demanded, looking between them, her gaze first settling fleetingly on Kurt, disapproving, and then on Blaine worriedly. "I thought you were taking a shower and going to bed!?"

"I am going to bed," Blaine said stiffly, speaking to Santana but looking at Kurt, who turned to him in bewilderment and regret when he voiced the words. "Kurt's going to the couch if he's still sleeping here."

"Blaine!"

"Whoa now, Hobbit," Santana held up her hands, "He can't really go back to his place with Shnoz-Berry there and your older, hotter, stupider not-still-brother taking his bed, so I don't think he can really leave. And you know our couch is horrible for sleeping on -"

"I don't care, Santana, as long as he's not in my bed."

"Blaine," Kurt said without sound, following Blaine with his eyes as Blaine shoved past Santana and out of the bathroom, leaving his socks on the floor and Santana with her hands - and eyebrows - up. When he actually pushed her, she made a sound akin to the beginning of another rant of hers, but then cut herself off, even though she didn't bring her lips back together.

And then, when he didn't expect her to, she spun on her heel and slapped him across the face.

The sound echoed in the room and Kurt yelped in surprise and pain. "What -?!"

"Wait," Santana murmured, and looked over her shoulder, where Blaine instantly appeared again, his eyes wide and surprised.

"Don't h-" he began, but then, just as immediately and just like Santana, cut himself off, especially when he saw how Kurt's hand covered the mark Santana's had left. And when he met Kurt's eyes, he closed his mouth, and his expression became much harder, and yet much more vulnerable - he was pretending again, and pretending leaves everyone vulnerable. "Don't hit him," he ordered softly, and Kurt looked away when Santana looked at him, because he couldn't meet Blaine's eyes alone, let alone Santana's. "Just... don't hit him."

He was gone again, but Santana was satisfied. "Alright," she said amiably, as if all she'd done was maybe flicked his shoulder lightly. "Just making sure he did still love you."

Kurt didn't respond, so after a second, Santana added reluctantly, "And... you can have my bed."

Kurt looked up, grateful and regretful, but the only thing he saw was her hair disappearing behind the shutting door.

"Blaine," Santana called after him, moving faster than she would have for others, following the sound of him to the living room, where he was picking up his keys. "Where are you going?"

"Out," he answered brusquely, turning his back and heading for the door.

"I don't think so," Santana said, shooting forward like a bullet from a gun and grabbing his arm, swinging him back around to face her abruptly. "You don't just get to shove me and walk out, idiota. I -"

"I'm not an idiot," Blaine bristled at the word.

"I didn't know you speak Spanish."

"It's pretty easy to guess what the word means. And it's Italian." He corrected, almost as if he wasn't in the mood for bringing the conversation down to a civil level. "Along with French and German and -"

"Jesus, kid," Santana interrupted, "How do you know so many languages?"

"I studied them?" Blaine still didn't smile. "It's easier to sing a song in its original language than a translated version, and some of my favorite songs were in these languages, so I studied them."

"Alright, fine," Santana allowed, "But you still don't get to walk out, no matter what language you do it in."

"Just let me go for a walk -"

"No," Santana dictated, grabbing his hand instead of his arm and squeezing it softly, not pulling him anywhere, so her intentions were clear. "I overheard some things I'm not letting you go off without talking about first."

Blaine observed her and she observed him. His eyes were flecked with gray and were almost a sludgy brown, and his face had started drying from the tear stains enough for the salt to be barely visible on his cheeks, and his eyes and nose were red. His hair curled wildly around his head, the bits that were still soaking plastered to it, and his face was flushed but the hand she held was pale. He looked like he was dying, not like he was well enough to go out and walk off a fight.

She wondered if he felt like he was dying. She had when she'd heard him shout at Kurt, and not because he was shouting, but because he'd had to resort to it and the things he shouted about.

"Blaine," she started, her voice much quieter, in an attempt to get his weird triangular eyebrows to un-flatten themselves. "I know that it's not the easiest thing in the world, but you said something about that guy not stop-"

"I want to forget it, Santana," Blaine snipped, and tore his hand from hers. "It's not important."

"Well I love you, so yes, it is!" she asserted, snatching his hand again and watching the playlist of feelings he couldn't identify play across his features. She wondered if that was the problem all along; not that he couldn't feel, but that he couldn't identify or express his feelings, and because of that they didn't seem like they were there, even when it was clear they were.

"Fine, then it's important," Blaine sighed. "But it's still not something I want to talk about."

"You're going to anyway," Santana told him, and when he huffed slightly and turned to the door, she said, "Your ankles."

He paused. "Are you going to tell me to cover them up?"

There was so much more in his voice than in his words, so much that showed just how scared he was that she was going to be ashamed of him showing his scars, so much that showed how scared he was of doing it anyway, so much that showed he wished it wasn't a problem, that Santana physically felt her stomach convulse, and she swallowed bile back and shivered at the grotesque feeling.

"No," she said, "I'm going to ask if you want to or not before you go out."

Even though his back was turned to her, she could read him like a book; the way the vein in his wrist flexed on the hand she still held said he was nervous, and the way his shoulders hunched and stiffened said he was afraid - and the way he wouldn't look at her said he wanted to but didn't want her to see him.

He dropped his keys and they fell with a clink to the ground. "Maybe I just won't go out."

"That's fine," she coaxed him, pulling just the smallest bit towards the furniture, and he had to turn and look at her to walk; when he did, she smiled, despite how she wanted to cry when she saw that he was again. "That's fine. You're going to stay and talk to me."

"Will you..."

"Will I what?"

"W-Will you stop when I need you to?"

Santana's smile slipped and she blinked back the sting in her eyes. "Yes, honey, I'll stop when you need me to."

He took a deep, shuddering breath. "Okay."