Kurt was ready to run to Blaine, fold him up in his arms; protect him from whatever he had done. But he didn't move fast enough.

John Anderson was suddenly beside his son, one arm around his waist, the other locked on his shoulder as he half-dragged him toward the kitchen and then to the sink. He turned the tap on full blast.

Blaine was still babbling. His words a garbled mess of disfluent consonants and slurred vowels. "I didn't mean to; but-I- Oh, God, I screwed up so bad-"

John's arm remained tight around his son's waist to keep him from collapsing to the ground, but he freed his other hand from around his shoulders and stuck it under the tap, gauging the temperature. When he seemed satisfied, he grabbed Blaine's wrist and made to shove it under the running water, but Blaine's hand was clamped tightly shut. He pried his fingers open. A little puddle of crimson welled up in his cupped palm. John ignored the sound of his wife moaning somewhere behind him; he was too busy focusing on keeping Blaine's bloody palms beneath the faucet. Blood mixed with water and flowed over both of their hands and down the drain. When the left one was clean, John did the same to the right until the water ran clear in the bottom of the sink. He let go of Blaine just long enough to get a dishtowel from the drawer.

He dried Blaine's hands, remembering vacantly when Blaine used to come in after playing in the yard—his knees and fingers caked with mud—and how he scrubbed them clean just as he did now. He pressed a fresh paper towel into Blaine's left hands and closed Blaine's fingers around it. John turned the tap as cold as it would go and held the dishtowel underneath.

Blaine's gaze was locked on his face, but John could not bring himself to meet his son's eyes. He focused on the blood; some flowed from gashes in his face, while some dried in places that had been left unscathed—John wiped at all of it with no discrimination. The only sounds were his wife's cries, running water, and Blaine's endless stream of remorse.

"Dad, dad—" he kept whimpering, "I'm sorry, oh Jesus, I'm so s-sorry—"

"Stop it. " John's hands locked on either side of Blaine's face seemingly on their own accord. His eyes met his son's. "Now."

Blaine obediently clamped his mouth shut, but his eyes continued the sad babble of anguish; searching his father's.

"I don't care what you did. You have nothing to apologize for." His father spoke through gritted teeth; his fingers pressed hard into his son's damp hair, his thumbs angling his jaw up so their eyes could meet.

"He m-m-might—I-I maybe—" Blaine was stammering again.

He'd had a stutter as a child. It had only been for a couple of years and with a little speech therapy and the power of time, it had suddenly evaporated on it's own. But listening to him now, John remembered his four year-old son; trailing after him only seconds after he had walked in the door from work, endlessly chattering. That disfluent little voice going on and on about the paper spider he had made at daycare, about Nadia Fisher and him collecting the shiniest rocks on the whole playground and how he could have the neatest one to put on his desk at work if he wanted, and about how he was going to probably be a professional baseball player someday on account of he had been the only one to hit the ball off the tee on his first try at practice that day.

"That's great, Blaine." He would say, unknotting his tie and hanging it with the rest while Blaine bounced at his feet- wired with energy that only a child can possess. "Try talking a little slower; remember what Miss Nora taught you in speech."

Blaine would look put-off, his little mouth turning down at the corners and his big brown eyes falling to his shoes.

And John would feel guilty for having caused disappointment in such an seraphic little child. His child. He'd get down on one knee, tip Blaine's chin up so their eyes could meet and he would smile. "I'm so proud of you, Blaine; you're such a good boy."

Blaine had never stopped in his seventeen years at trying to elicit that same reaction time and time again. Baseball teams and straight A's and impeccable manners that all of the other parents raved over. Anything to cover the one black mark he could not take back, but it was to no avail. Blaine had tried and tried, and John had never shown that any of it was good enough.

But now, listening to that same stutter and staring into those same desperate eyes, John could not help feeling that maybe…maybe he hadn't been good enough. "I am going to fix this; do you understand me?"

Blaine stared back at him with wide, lost eyes.

"I said do you understand me?" John shouted.

"Yes." Blaine whispered.

He let go of his son's face and wrapped both arms around him so tightly it nearly hurt, his fingers pressed into his back, and Blaine's dark hair pressed to the side of his face.

Blaine's body trembled against his as he sobbed, his face buried in his father's shoulder, and his own hands tightly clamped around fistfuls of his father's shirt as though he was afraid he would be forced away.

"Everything's all right now." John muttered, pressing one hand to the back of Blaine's head. The hair felt the same- soft, thick, and warm beneath his hand. When had he forgotten his child? The five year-old whose voice and laughter had once filled the house and left long-winded messages on his voicemail when he was out of town. The seven-year old who had carefully aligned all of his John Deere tractors by size and function on his bedroom floor; the fifth grader who had run through the backyard dribbling a soccer ball from one end of the lawn to the other until it was too dark to see. John's memories were as clear as though he had just experienced them— Blaine so engrossed in his tractors that he bit his tongue between his teeth as he planned out their categorization, the sound of the soccer ball against his cleats, but after that… John only had one clear memory.

Blaine's face angled down. His hands folded limply in his lap.

"You're…you're sure?" Shannon had sat beside her husband, her voice wavering, yet unsurprised. She had known, John was sure, but now it was lying out in the open on the kitchen table. An ugly thing for them to all look at.

"Yes." Blaine's face had remained lowered, his eyes on the table.

A long silence.

"You're still our son, Blaine. We still love you." Shannon had finally said when John offered nothing. She squeezed her husband's knee beneath the table, signaling him to act.

Blaine looked between them, still tense in his chair. Everyone always commented on those eyes—striking and warm simultaneously. They were a carbon copy of John's, and people would laugh affectionately over how much the two of them looked alike. But as they looked to John that day—three days after Blaine had turned thirteen—he could not stand to see that helpless face, let alone those eyes. He had stood and left without a word.

John had once known his little boy—from the scars on his elbows to the smell of his hair to the feel of his hand in his own. But that day, the day his son came out to them, he had abandoned him, and now he didn't know him.

He realized after a moment that the hair beneath his hand did not all feel right either; warm, yes, but sticky too. He pulled his hand away and stared in mute horror over Blaine's shoulder at his blood-soaked palm. He slackened his hold, pushing Blaine just far enough from him that he could tip his head down and study the gash in his hair.

Blaine's arms fell limp at his sides, blood already marring his clean palm (and probably the back of John's shirt too, but that could be worried about later). He retrieved a fresh towel and arranged Blaine like a marionette—clamping the cloth in his right hand and pressing it to the newfound injury. "I'm going to go get the medical kit from upstairs."

Blaine didn't respond; didn't indicate he had even heard him. John let go of Blaine's shoulders, when he turned and saw his guests he was momentarily startled; he'd forgotten their presence.

Burt's face was grim and his arm was secured around Kurt's shoulders—an easy enough gesture for him to pull off with his own son, it appeared—Kurt was crying; his eyes set on Blaine.

John swallowed hard, smoothing his collar out of habit, "Kurt, could you stay with him while I—we—go upstairs?"

Kurt seemed to have been waiting for just such a cue; he stumbled across the kitchen and folded Blaine into his arms. He gave into Blaine's shaky knees immediately; they sank to the kitchen floor, Blaine's train of apologies and tears renewed entirely in the asylum of his lover's embrace.

John remained where he was; momentarily mesmerized. Kurt knew the spot Blaine's head fit on his shoulder, the way to take over the cloth pressed to the back of his head; loosen the tie around his neck before running the fingernails of his other hand up and down Blaine's forearm slowly, rhythmically. He knew the words to whisper in his ear so that within moments he was able to quiet the boy in his arms until he was shaking but silent. All of the things John should have known.

Blaine had always been a resourceful boy—eager to come up with a novel way to do everything and perpetually landing on his feet when anything obstructed his path. It made sense, really, John reasoned with himself, still watching, that when the people who were supposed to care for him had turned away, Blaine had sought out sanctuary somewhere else—the arms of this fragile looking teenager on his kitchen floor, one casted leg splayed out, but the rest of his body dedicated to sheltering the boy he loved.

"Where'd you say that med kit was?" Burt's voice, though soft, startled John. He tore his eyes from the boys on the floor to look at the other man.

"Upstairs hall closet." John murmured. He was not used to speaking timidly. The sound bothered him, so he moved toward the doorway.

"This isn't happening; it's not." Shannon had her head in her hands; she wouldn't look at Blaine. She continued moaning.

"Shannon; that's not doing anyone any good." Her husband snapped, hauling her to her feet by the crook of an elbow. "Come help get the med kit."

"I'll come with." Burt glanced at the boys on the floor. "You two okay alone for a minute?"

"We're fine." Kurt's voice was steady. He adjusted Blaine briefly in his arms, but nodded at his father to go.

Once at the top of the steps, Burt stepped around where Shannon was sitting against the wall and stood close beside John, speaking in low, rushed tones. "You need to get him to a hospital. Now."

John Anderson was not a man who was talked down to, nor ever told what to do. He eyed Burt Hummel the same way he had when the man had first sat down at his kitchen table. "I have this under control."

Burt sneered, "Your son just walked through the door covered in blood with nothing to show for himself but a bloody pocket knife. That paired with the shit I just told you should make it pretty clear—"

"That's right, my son. My son. I will decide what is best for him, and I will decide how we go through this." John stood at his full height, glowering at Burt Hummel. He did not need a lecture from the Father of the Year. "We may not have the same approaches to how we deal with our sons, but I will make sure mine makes it through this."

"Make it through this like he's made it through everything else?" Burt Hummel had never been a man for refined manners and social subtleties, but even he knew his words were pushing it. He didn't care.

John held himself tall for a long moment, prepared to tear this hick of a mechanic apart. But he was right and there was no argument he could make to deny it. He deflated a little, pulling the black box from the shelf. "One step at a time."

Burt regarded him for a long moment before giving a brief jerk of his head to indicate he would comply. He turned his attention to the woman on the floor. "He needs his mother right now."

She stared up at him with vacant eyes, "No one would do that to Blaine. He's a good boy. No one would ever think to do that to—oh, God."

Burt grimaced as Shannon burst into loud tears.

"Shannon, if you can't pull yourself together do not bother coming down these stairs." John growled, already moving toward the staircase.

Burt hesitated for a moment, "I know this is… I can't think of a word big enough to describe how terrible this all is, but, I know you love your son, and, well, like I said… he needs support from anybody and everybody who loves him right now. Especially you."

Shannon remained collapsed against the hallway wall, but she quieted.

Satisfied at least with his attempt, he turned away from the woman on the floor and followed John back down the stairs in silence, his eyes trained on the flower of wrinkled, red fabric on his back.

Kurt and Blaine were at the table. Blaine sagged into Kurt's shoulder; a fresh towel wrapped around his left palm and the pocketknife—the blade now safely snapped shut—cradled in his right.

Kurt saw both of their fathers' eyes on the knife in Blaine's palm, "He wanted it."

John nodded absently, sitting down in the chair across from them. "That's fine. Let me see your hand."

Blaine offered out the one with the Swiss Army Knife; the red plastic, now wiped clean, gleamed brightly.

"No, Blaine. The other one." His father sighed.

"Sorry." Blaine mumbled, retracting his hand to his lap before extending the other one.

"It's all right." John wondered briefly if he sounded reassuring. He pulled the towel from Blaine's hold, and as soon as it was gone, a fresh line of angry crimson was flooding up again. He worked quickly—pulling out bits of gravel and glass while trying to quell the bleeding of the deeper incision across the center of his palm.

Kurt watched quietly from where he sat. He didn't mention anything about the "kitchen accident" Blaine had blamed his palm on earlier that week. It didn't matter for now.

When he had wrapped his hand, John moved behind Blaine's chair, "Lets see your head."

Blaine obediently tipped his chin down, and Kurt pulled the rag away; it was no longer doing much good anyway; the whole thing was stained red.

John flinched as he inspected the gash closer. He pulled a few bits of glass from his son's hair and inspected them closely, "What happened?"

Blaine glanced at Kurt and then back down at the table, mumbling, "Got me with a bottle."

"One hell of a bottle." Burt muttered from where he sat on the opposite side of the table.

"Like the ones you keep in the liquor cabinet." Blaine addressed his father quietly, chancing a glance over his shoulder at him.

John stared back grimly. Blaine needed stitches and probably a check for a concussion. Things that couldn't be done at home.

Blaine watched his father study him, and despite his seemingly dazed state, he caught on quickly. "I'm not going to the hospital."

"It needs stitches." His father replied evenly.

"No it doesn't; it'll be fine." Blaine let the knife drop down onto the table so he could press a hand over the injury as though putting it out of sight would make it go away.

"Blaine; you can't just leave that be; if we don't go get it stitched up—"

"I've done it before; it'll be fine!" Blaine turned his gaze to Burt, looking for someone to agree with him. "It's fine. It'll just bleed a lot, but then it'll go away on its own."

John cringed as though he'd been slapped, but then quickly regained himself. "I don't care what you did in the past, you aren't doing it anymore. I am going to take care of this—of you. Do you understand me, Blaine?"

Blaine was shaking his head adamantly, his voice coming out in a nausea-laced moan. "I can't go; they ask so many questions."

"I'll take care of it." John repeated firmly.

"Blaine," Kurt's voice was as soft as his touch to the other boy's shoulder.

Blaine's eyes met Kurt's and they stared at one another. A silent conversation and then an understanding passing between them until, once again, Blaine looked resigned to whatever fate the world sent him toward.

"All right?" His father tried to make Blaine look at him; tilting his head to make eye contact when Blaine stared down into his lap.

Blaine remained mute, but looked up at his father miserably.

John may not know much about Blaine, but he recognized that look. "You're not going to be in trouble, Blaine."

Blaine sighed, a sound of resignation somehow more disturbing than his incoherent sobs, "Yes, I am."

"I won't allow it, Blaine." John said resolutely; he pulled a fresh towel from the drawer and thrust it into Blaine's hand. "Go change your shirt; try not to get blood on it. I'll be waiting down here."

"I'll go with him." Kurt didn't wait for permission; he slipped out of his chair and coaxed Blaine from his before both boys disappeared up the stairs.

John watched the empty stairwell. Blaine had been walking all right—maybe a little uncoordinated, but he wasn't limping. If what Burt Hummel had told him about his son was true, wasn't he supposed to have a limp or something? That was how they portrayed it in movies…. John shook his head; he didn't want to think about that. He preoccupied himself dropping bloodied rags into the bottom of the sink.

Burt slowly rose from the table, watching Blaine's father. He folded his arms across his chest, "You should probably change your shirt, too."

John paused in his activity, one hand suspended over the sink. He stared blankly at the other man.

"Back of your shirt's pretty messed up." Burt shrugged.

John nodded vacantly, dropping the rag and moving toward the stairs. When he reached his closet, he glanced at his wife where she stood on a chair, pulling boxes from the top shelves and dropping them to the ground. He didn't question her; he was too intrigued by the way his fingers did not shake. The ease with which he discarded the bloodied shirt to the wastebasket; the near serenity of selecting a new one and pulling it on and checking the collar in the mirror before leaving his wife alone to her endeavors and going back down the steps. He smoothed his hair as he reached the landing and took inventory of his son.

Blaine held one hand over the back of his head to avoid dirtying his fresh shirt; he was leaned against the wall of the entryway, his shoulder touching Burt's as they both watched Kurt adjusting a strap on his boot.

When Blaine's attention moved to him, John straightened up even taller, "All right. Lets go."

Blaine gave his father one last pitiful look, but there was no fight behind it. He shuffled toward the door silently, John close behind.

John turned his attention to Burt and Kurt when the group had reached the driveway. The rain had stopped, but the air was hot and muggy, threatening a second storm. "I… thank you for all you've done. I can take it from here."

"I want him to stay." Blaine blurted, moving closer to Kurt.

"Get in the car, Blaine." John instructed evenly.

Blaine didn't move; he looked pleadingly at his father. "Please?"

John flinched. Was he supposed to deny his son the single comfort he requested?

"Blaine," Kurt reached out and pressed a hand against the small of his back. "I'll come back right away in the morning. I promise."

Blaine didn't look convinced. The boys studied one another in silence.

Ignoring the presence of their fathers, Kurt moved his hand to Blaine's face, "Everything's going to be okay now. Trust me."

Blaine closed his eyes and pressed his hand over the top of Kurt's. He remained that way for a long moment before nodding his head and opening his eyes again.

Kurt didn't risk a kiss. Instead, he squeezed both of Blaine's hands between his own. He didn't mind when Blaine didn't return his smile. "I'll be back first thing tomorrow morning."

Blaine nodded again before turning and climbing into the passenger side of his father's car. He stared out at the trio still outside from the open door.

"I'll call before I get here." Kurt turned his gaze to John.

John nodded slowly, "That's fine. Will you two be all right to drive home tonight?"

"Sure," Burt's eyes moved down toward Blaine before shifting back to John, "We can talk more about this tomorrow. Worry about him for tonight."

John shut Blaine's door before moving to his own. He turned on the ignition and watched out of the corner of his eye when Kurt tapped his fingers lightly on Blaine's window, offering another reassuring smile before moving away from the vehicle. When they had pulled out of the driveway and their guests and home were fully out of sight, John glanced over at Blaine. "Put your seatbelt on."

Blaine obediently clicked it into place, but otherwise remained mute. He did not open his window to stick his arm out into the humid breeze or fiddle with the radio as he usually did until John snapped at him to roll up the glass or turn the volume down. One hand held the rag to his head, the other lay silently in his lap.

"I need to know what happened, Blaine." John finally broke the silence.

Blaine didn't indicate he had even heard him. He remained still for a while; his eyes far away. Finally he spoke, his voice quiet, "Everything fell a part."

John momentarily gripped the steering wheel harder; his stomach felt heavy and tumultuous the same way it did when he had the flu. He ignored the feeling. "I need you to tell me exactly what happened, Blaine. I can't fix this if you don't."

Out of the corner of his eye, John could perceive Blaine noticeably sag a little lower in his seat; his shoulders drooped low and weary and his face turned toward the window. "Where do you want me to start?"

His own voice sounded loud and flat in his ears. The way it did when he demanded a lower level employee explain a decision to him. "Tonight. Or the nearest things that lead up to tonight. We'll start with that."

John expected either silence or a fragmented string of remorse to once again start pouring from his son, but Blaine surprised him. His voice was dull; automatic. He started with the night of the benefit and worked his way through the moment he'd left the lot. When he finished, he didn't look at John. His eyes remained fixed on the window; far away in some other world of thought that John could not even begin to guess at. He didn't look away from the darkness outside until his father was pulling onto the side of the road. John unbuckled himself from his seat, not bothering to kill the engine before stumbling into the ditch as far from the glare of his headlights as he could get before his chest convulsed and he was vomiting into the tall, rain-soaked grass.

When he returned to the car, he found three napkins—the kind from the gas station he kept stowed in the glove compartment—sitting in his vacated seat. Blaine stared straight ahead out of the windshield. John wiped his mouth and discarded the dirtied paper in the ditch before they pulled back onto the road. They drove on in silence. When they reached the hospital, John cleared his throat. "The nurse is going to ask what happened, so—"

"I know what to say." Blaine climbed from the car, leaving his father to scramble after him toward the doors of the ER. When they entered into the room of stark fluorescent light, Blaine finally paused. His gaze shifted between the waiting room occupants before he moved toward the nurse's station.

A heavyset woman in grey scrubs sat behind a wall of glass. She glanced up at Blaine, her eyes studying the cuts on his face for a moment before she met his eyes dully, "Yes?"

"My name's Blaine Anderson; I slipped and fell off a retaining wall in our backyard. I think I need stitches." He turned and pulled the rag from the back of his head to show her.

The nurse shoved a clipboard through the slot in the bottom of the glass, "Sit down and fill this out; someone will see you as soon as they can."

"Thank you." Blaine took the offered paperwork and moved to a vacant blue plastic chair a few seats away from a woman with a sleeping child in her arms.

John sat down silently beside him and watched his son as he balanced the clipboard on his knees and penned in all the necessary information. John knew Blaine had done it before; he had made him fill out the forms himself when he had brought him in for broken ribs, "Do you need help with anything?"

"Got it." Blaine replied, one hand still holding the washcloth to his head.

When he finished, John plucked the board from his lap. "Just stay here; I'll give these back to the nurse."

Blaine didn't argue; he watched the clock behind the cage of metal on the wall.

John shoved the board back under the glass, "How long is the wait? He hit his head pretty hard and—"

"It shouldn't be long. We'll call you up when someone can see you." The nurse didn't look up as she pulled the forms from the board and tucked them into a manila folder.

With little else to do, John moved back to his chair beside Blaine. He studied his profile, but Blaine wouldn't look at him; his gaze remained focused on the clock. John watched it too, but then wasn't sure why they were fixating upon it. He glanced between the metal caging on the wall and the side of his son's face; hoping to unlock some mystery of what they were supposed to see up there in the slow movements of the heavy black hands.

Blaine must have seen his confusion out of the corner of his eye; his gaze didn't shift, but he spoke. He sounded tired, "It's all just a matter of time."

John was not entirely sure what Blaine meant, but he felt a fresh wave of nausea burn his chest for a moment, "Blaine, I—"

"Please don't." Blaine cut him off quietly. His gaze still fixed upward.

John closed his mouth, but he still felt he should say something; do something. He shifted just a little closer so their shoulders touched.

Blaine shifted away without a word.

John accepted the rejection silently. Their fellow waiting room occupants appeared and disappeared in slow waves. The woman with the baby was called back, and a new woman with yellow-tinted skin filled her seat. A man cradling his arm came in the front door and caused a fuss at the front desk before dropping down in a seat adjacent to them. Another woman with a child was called to follow a nurse in navy scrubs behind the swinging double doors. Someone vomited on the floor a few rows behind them; the sour, acrid smell was quickly replaced with the scent of disinfectant by a janitor that materialized from behind another door. John watched them all with muted disgust and unease. Blaine's eyes never left the clock. The hands worked their way around the face, and John slouched back in his seat, unable to scrutinize the other mangled and ailing humans in the room any longer as the wait dragged on. He turned his eyes back up to the clock and strained his ears for the sound of their last name to be called. It was all just a matter of time.

When they returned home, Blaine's head bandaged and a brown envelope with an x-ray inside hanging limply from his hand, they found Shannon had been busy while they were away.

The entire family room floor was covered in photos; some were arranged in neat rows while others were discarded in messy piles. The boxes from the closet upstairs were shoved in the corner. She sat on the couch, Tucker's head on her knees, and a photo clutched to her chest.

"Shannon," John sighed, observing the mess from Blaine's side, "what is all of this?"

She turned her gaze up to them. Her eyes swollen and red, "I was trying to find when it…you were such a happy baby, Blaine."

Blaine's eyes drifted over the chaos on the carpet. He stooped and lifted a photo to study before dropping it back down again.

"I wanted to find where it went wrong... How could I have missed it?" Shannon's eyes, too, studied the disarray—a chronology of her son's life where she was sure she would find some pivot point she had missed. Some crucial change she would find hidden in the glossy ink. She had pulled out every photograph she could find, but all that stared back at her were frozen milliseconds of choir concerts, birthday parties, and past holidays. She turned her misty gaze back to her son and husband. "How could I not see something so incredibly horrible had happened to my—to my—"

Both men cringed when she dissolved into sobs.

Blaine took a tentative step around a cluster of pictures, "Please don't cry, Mom."

Despite his quiet plea, her sobs only worsened. She stumbled to her feet and walked straight through the photographs; bending them and sending them sliding across the carpet in a flurry around her feet. She threw her arms around Blaine and sobbed. "My baby, my poor baby—"

Blaine stood stiffly in her hold, "Mom, please, please stop crying—"

John watched the discomfort on Blaine's face; his wife's pitiful bereavement.

Shannon finally broke her vice-like hold on Blaine to stroke his face, smooth the collar of his shirt; she sniffled, "I won't let anybody ever hurt you again, I promise; never ever—"

"I know, mom." Blaine mumbled; he stood still despite the impulse to dart away from such smothering contact. He let her fuss over him, cuddle him, offer empty reassurances, but finally he was sure he would suffocate, "I'm tired; I'm just going to go to bed."

Shannon trailed after him up the stairs, still cooing reassurances and love. She sat on the edge of his bed and stroked his hair. "Do you want me to sit with you until you fall asleep?"

"No, that's okay; I'll be fine." Blaine mumbled.

"Let him sleep, Shannon." John had remained, until then, silently observing in the doorway.

She ignored her husband. "Are you sure you don't need anything, baby? Anything at all?"

"No, I'll be fine. Thanks, Mom." Blaine said wearily.

She finally moved toward his doorway; she would have remained standing there if her husband had not gently pushed her out into the hall.

"Try to get some sleep, Blaine… if you need anything you know where we are."

"Got it. Night." Blaine let out a sigh of relief when his door finally clicked shut. He lay still and listened for the creak of the seventh step.

Shannon went to the kitchen, pulling a glass down from the cupboard, "I should bring him some water… and then I can check on him and—"

"Let him be, Shannon." John rubbed his eyes.

She paused at the sink, her eyes focused down on the ruined washcloths, the cup suspended in her hand.

When she didn't respond, he let out a long breath, "We're going to have to find out what happened to Oliver Marlow's boy."

"I hope he chokes on his own blood." Shannon responded, her voice icy. She finally moved to fill the cup.

"Don't think like that. That could mean bad things for Blaine." John replied grimly.

"That boy living and breathing is bad for Blaine. And it means bad things for Eric, too. I'll finish him off myself." Shannon turned off the tap.

"Shannon." John said; his voice a flat warning. "None of that. Blaine doesn't need to be hearing those kinds of things either."

She pivoted around on her heal abruptly. She moved so quickly John barely avoided the glass that came flying toward his head. It shattered against the wall behind him, shards of glass and rivulets of water ricocheted off the drywall and made their way to the floor like shrapnel.

"Jesus, Shannon!" He hissed.

She glowered at him, "Don't you dare tell me what he needs! Don't you fucking dare!"

"Keep it down." John glanced toward the stairs; "You'll wake him up."

"I will not quiet down!" She pointed an accusing finger at him; fresh tears left muddy tracks down her cheeks. "You do not get to pretend like you love him! You are the reason he kept this from us! Because he could never be fucking good enough for you!"

"That's enough, Shannon." Despite his warnings, John heard his own voice grow louder.

"I am through listening to you! I should have left you!" She glowered at him through her tears. "The second he came out to us, you stopped loving him. Loving us. I should have taken him then and left and then none of this would have ever happened!"

John spoke through gritted teeth, "It did happen, Shannon. Whether you fucking wanted it to or not, it did. We can't just keep wishing it were different. Crying and pulling out his baby pictures won't change that. You are guilty in this too."

"I hate you, John Anderson; I hate you!" She screamed, closing her eyes tight against the sound of her own voice. "I may have not caught this, but you are the reason he hid it at all!"

"You think I don't know that?" He finally screamed back, wishing he could expel the twisting guilt out of his abdomen with the volume of his voice. "Do you think for one fucking second I haven't been thinking that since he walked through the door?"

Blaine listened to the distorted sound of angry voices. His parents did not fight. Not the traditional way anyway—they preferred to silently exchange a look of discontent; John would immerse himself even more heavily in his work for a few days and Shannon would have a few extra glasses of wine at night and listen to Edith Piaf. There had been only one other screaming match in Blaine's memory and it had also involved him. Two months after he had come out to them, similar threats of packing him up and moving in with his grandparents had been thrown at his father if he did not try to at least take an interest in Blaine. They had started working on the car three days later. Blaine slipped from his bed, holding up a hand to indicate Tucker should stay. He slipped out the door to the top step and sat silently, listening to the war downstairs.

John collapsed into a kitchen chair. He covered his face with his hands, "I did not stop loving him, Shannon."

She continued to glare at him from across the kitchen. She let out a sound of disgust.

He lifted his face from his hands to look at her. "I didn't. He's my son, how could I—it's just, he didn't turn out—"

"The way you expected?" She glowered even more fiercely.

He nodded his head slowly, "He loved baseball and he was always with that Fisher girl and…I saw something else for him."

"Do you think I imagined for one second he would be gay?" Shannon snapped, "Do you think I was happy when he would come home with a bloody nose because the other boys beat him up? Do you think I was thrilled to find out I would never have grandchildren? You did not even try to love him, John, you have never been anything but hard on him."

"I didn't know how..." John said meekly. "I didn't— I wanted everything for him. The very best the world could give him. Life is hard enough; he didn't need this thrown into the mess. Is that so wrong to think? To be disappointed life wasn't going to be fair to him? I was hard on him because the world is not going to be easy on him."

"His father could have been easy on him. He could have had someone give him the benefit of the doubt."

John snatched the envelope from the hospital off of the table and nearly tore it pulling the glossy image out. He thrust a finger at a thin, opaque, dark line amidst the neat glowing blue ellipse. "Do you see that? They cracked his fucking skull once and neither one of us knew a damn thing about it. If you were such a fucking perfect parent, then why did neither one of us know about that? It was on his forehead! Neither one of us is blind, Shannon, so explain thatto me."

Her tears came faster again, "he told me he was trying to pull your toolbox down and—"

"Oh, please, Shannon; what the hell would he want that thing for in the first place?" John glowered. "Did you even bother to ask him?"

She sobbed and didn't respond. Rain had begun to pelt the windows around them, the storm outside renewing its energy with loud howls of wind. John shouted louder; his own storm whirling in his fingertips, his chest, his head; driving him half mad.

"You remember it as well as I do. No fucking toolbox did that. We did not miss this because he's so good at hiding it. We missed it because we decided to. I did not do this alone." John stood and thrust the image toward her again. The evidence she had searched for in the living room staring her in the face in shades of black and ethereal blue and white.

She covered her eyes with her hands and sobbed.

John had thought he would feel better sharing his guilt with someone else, but watching his wife break beneath her own contrition, he only felt worse. He lowered the image and stared down at the floor. He let a long breath out his nose. "Shannon, I didn't—"

"Y-you're right." Shannon sniffled, trying to use the base of a palm to wipe the tears from her face. "I didn't want to believe that anyone would ever think to be cruel to him—but it's even worse. It's so much worse."

John sighed; he dropped the image down on the table. He wrapped one arm around his wife's shoulders. She collapsed into his chest, sobbing, "what have we done, John, what've we done?"

John remained silent for a long moment, "We'll make some calls in the morning and get this all straightened out."

"What about Blaine?" She sniffled.

"I'll figure that out, too… in the morning. We'll deal with it all in the morning." He guided her toward the stairs, leaving the glass and scattered photographs to be dealt with some other time.

"Blaine." Shannon startled beneath her husband's arm when they reached the steps.

Blaine stared down at them; his head leaned against the wall beneath the railing. His eyes moved between them, silently calculating where they all stood.

John shifted uncomfortably beneath the gaze. When he met his son's eyes, he felt like it was his own eyes staring back at him, judging the contents of his head, the black marks on his record.

"Can't you sleep, Honey?" Shannon remained beside John, feeling equally meek at the base of the stairwell beneath her son's silent gaze. She tried to wipe any remainder of smeared make up from her face.

The doorbell rang; causing John and Shannon to both jump. Blaine's eyes drifted to the door as though he had expected the sound all along. He met his father's eyes when the bell rang again.

John felt powerless beneath that gaze. Even when a series of rapid knocks sounded at the door, his eyes remained transfixed on his son. He felt a thrill go up his spine that settled as a buzzing rush of adrenaline at the nape of his neck.

Blaine lifted his head from the wall, but remained seated where he was. He looked toward the door for a brief moment before looking back at John again. His voice was quiet. "I told you. Just a matter of time."