When he was a kid, Burt Hummel and his friends had made a game of how close they could get to the house. No one had ever gotten past touching the gate, and, then, only for a moment. It was a mystery, that house, and no one wanted to really know what was beyond the gates, or even within the house itself.

Everyone knew where it was, just within the border of Lima, separated from everything else, but it was rare that anyone would venture out of their way to go past it unless it was on a mindless dare, and even then there was hesitation. The street it was on was avoided at all costs and this avoidance had only served to keep people away – there were no houses near the Dalton house and everyone knew not to open up any kind of business there even though there was plenty of land for it.

So, when Burt Hummel found himself in the middle of a down pour, smoke coming out from the hood of his car, right across from the Dalton house, his phone's battery dead, he didn't get out of his car at once and walk towards the only place that he could possibly make a phone call from. Instead he waited for the rain to end.

When the rain didn't end an hour later, he knew there was nothing more for it. It'd only been a few days since Kurt had let him leave the house alone, much less drive and he knew that it wouldn’t matter what was wrong with the car, he wouldn’t be able to fix it in the dark.

His heart attack had been a little over a month and a half ago, but Kurt was still worried sick about him and if he didn't call Kurt to let him know where he was, he knew Kurt would start freaking out if he wasn’t already.

Burt opened the door and stepped out of the car, closing the door with a snap. He lifted his coat to cover his head and walked quickly across the street towards the gate. He barely touched it, when it was opening for him.

Burt kept his head down and hurried through the admittedly nice looking front yard – there was a small garden and a few flowers he couldn’t put a name to and the grass was actually cut. He walked to the door. It was large and dark and a knocker sat at about eyelevel. He picked it up and knocked, bracing himself for what was to come. He didn’t expect for a boy that couldn't be older than Kurt to open the door.

"I'm so sorry to bother you," Burt began.

"A visitor?" another voice asked, and another boy appeared.

They were dressed the same, in what looked like a school uniform though Burt couldn’t remember ever seeing it before in all his years living in Lima, but both wore different expressions. The one that had opened the door looked unsure if not slightly confused, the other was excited.

"Come right on in," the excited boy said and opened the door wide for him, "what can we do for you?"

"Wes!" the other boy hissed, "he's not going to appreciate unwanted guests in his house."

"What he doesn't know won't hurt him…and look at the poor chap, David, he's all wet."

Burt decided to intrude, then. "All I need is to make a phone call," he said, "and then I'll get out of your hair."

David frowned and looked at Wes. "I'm sorry, but, we don’t actually have a working phone. No one to call, you see, so there's never a need."

"Although I keep saying we should get one again, I'd love to be able to order take out once in a while…but will he have it? Of course not." Wes muttered some more until David hit him on the arm and shook his head. "Oh. Right. Right."

Burt eyed them warily. He didn't understand. Dalton had always been a place to avoid, and yet these two boys despite seeming a tad touched on the head, weren't exactly intimidating or repulsive. He was just about to tell them that he would walk to the next nearest house, but Wes spoke up.

"The storm isn't going to let out any time soon, you could stay the night and we could give you a ride home tomorrow." Light flashed in the sky. He was right.

He hesitated. It was one thing to ask if he could use a phone and another entirely to spend the night. It was still Dalton.

"Could one of you give me a ride now?"

Wes shook his head. "Sorry. Car's not in. But Thad should get in, in a few hours."

David looked unsure. "I don't think this is a good idea," he said.

Wes waved him off. "Where else is he going to go? We can't let him walk in this weather." He pointed outside through the still open door.

David wrung his hands together. "Okay. I guess…I guess you can stay until Thad gets home. You can take my room, and we'll just keep you in there, that way…"

"He's not our prisoner, David…" Wes began.

"I know he's not, but, he can't be seen. No one can know he's here. It's better for all of us, don't you think?"

Wes rolled his eyes and nodded. "Fine. Take him up there then."

Burt for a moment considered just backing out, running out, back to his car and spending the night in there, maybe just asking if they had the tools he would need to fix it up and be on his way. He didn't like the sound of hiding away in this house until he could get a ride home. It was obvious now that Wes and David weren't the owners of the house, and that they answered to someone else, and whoever that was, they didn't like visitors.

"Maybe I should…" he began but stopped when they heard the crash of a door, and then from the shadows came out a hooded figure.

His face was cast in shadow from the hood he wore, but he was dressed in regular clothes as far as Burt could see. His shirt was short sleeved and Burt couldn’t tear his eyes away from his arms once he’d seen them because they were crisscrossed with scars, some deeper than others, and many of them fresh. Only an animal could have caused such damage.

"What is the meaning of this?" he growled.

Wes looked towards David and then stepped in front of Burt. "Nothing?"

"His car was broken down and there's a storm. He was just asking for a phone, but we don’t have one," David explained in a rush, "so we were thinking he could stay until Thad gets back."

"We can't just send him out in the storm," Wes added, "it'll be just one night."

The cloaked boy nodded his head, a sharp nod that told them it would just be the night and he wasn't happy about it.

“Make sure he stays in the guest room.”

Then, he turned on his heel and left the way he came. Burt stared after him with a mixture of curiosity and an overwhelming need to be as far away from him as possible.

"See, that went well," Wes said to David.

David rolled his eyes good naturedly. "It could have gone much worse," he muttered and closed the door.

Burt felt for a moment, as he heard the lock click, that he had made a terrible mistake in even approaching Dalton. He followed after David without saying a word, trying not to think about how worried Kurt was going to be.

The house despite everything everyone had said was actually rather nice and kept up. Burt tried to keep his mind on looking around at the d�cor and wondering how Kurt would react to it and away from the three boys he’d met. Wes. David. And the angry one who was clearly in charge and had given no name. He tried to not wonder about why the master of the house kept his face hidden, or about who else or what else resided in the house.

He was lead to what must have been a guest room and David went into a closet in the hall and grabbed him a towel and spare pajamas that were only a bit too big for him. Burt didn’t ask who they belonged to and David offered no information.

“Goodnight,” Wes said, “we’ll get you out of here first thing tomorrow, but do stay in the room, he won’t be happy if you go to his part of the house even if it an accident so we’ll come fetch you, alright.”

Burt nodded, but he couldn’t help but let himself be curious. There was a reason this house was so feared and here he was closer than anyone else had gotten. He took a look around the room.

The guest room had yellow walls and furniture that didn’t match. The bed sat against one wall with a table next to it and on it was a lamp. The wardrobe was made of some light colored wood, but it had intricate carvings and looked sturdy. Just out of curiosity, he opened it and found to his surprise that it actually had clothes within. He closed it again.

A desk was across from the bed near the door and two piles of books lay neatly on top of it. They were all hard covers and worn. Burt who had never been interested in reading ignored them to sit down on the bed and get changed.

The mattress was softer than any he’d ever sat on and Burt knew that under any other circumstances he would have actually enjoyed sleeping on it.

When he was changed he slipped under the covers made up of mismatching sheets that were soft to the touch. Kurt would have known what to call them – and he dropped his head on the pillow and within minutes he was asleep.

Burt woke up the next morning refreshed and with the sun and he didn’t know if it was his still groggy mind or his innate curiosity but he opened the door to his room and walked out onto the hall and then down the hall.

- - -

Kurt stared at his iphone, before his eyes flickered to the house phone next to it. He was seated on the kitchen table with both phones sitting in front of him, but neither had rung since that call about a subscription to some magazine or other hours ago. It should have rang at least an hour ago. He picked up the house phone, still eying his cell phone as he walked to the refrigerator and grabbed the paper stuck under a souvenir magnet of a sandal from an amusement park they’d gone to years ago and stared at Carole’s number for a while before dialing.

Kurt hadn't wanted to call her unless he was really sure that something must have happened, but now he was concerned and he hoped more than anything that they both had just fallen asleep over at her house where his dad had been for the night on a date – which could not have happened at their house because “Kurt, I’m tired of being cooped up in this house”. As much as he didn’t think about what could lead to his father falling asleep at Carole’s, he hoped it was the case because everything else was too hard to try to think about, not when he had just almost lost his dad.

Carole picked up after the fourth ring, and she sounded as if she'd been sleeping. It gave him hope even though a part of him was slightly disturbed. "Hello?"

"Carole, it's Kurt. Is my dad…does he happen to still be there?” Before she could answer, he rushed out: “because he hasn't gotten home and I'm just…it hasn't been too long since he was…" He trailed off.

He could hear Carole moving. "He left more than two hours ago, said he promised he'd be home early." She sounded worried.

Kurt tried to keep himself calm, he tried to stop himself from forming horrible scenarios in his mind about how his heart could have given out again, or how he could have gotten into a pile up, or countless of other things.

"Kurt, honey, can you keep calm? I'm going to drive the way I assumed he would have gone home, and I'll be over in a bit…I don’t want you alone. For all we know he just made a stop somewhere and lost track of time, or a whole bunch of other things. Have you tried his phone?"

Kurt had, back when his dad had been only half an hour late, but the call had gone straight to voice mail. He'd lost count of the number of voice mails he'd left, not that his dad would be able to figure out how to get to them.

"Yeah. Just got his voice mail. He probably forgot to charge it again."

"Oh, that man," Carole said and then, "Alright, I'm heading out Kurt. I'll see you in a bit, hopefully with your dad. Don’t worry too much, alright?"

He took a deep breath. "I'll try."

He walked back to the couch where he'd been sitting and unlocked the screen for his phone just in case. There'd been no calls, just a text from Mercedes that he ignored for the moment until the thought crossed his mind that maybe she knew where he was. The text was just a question about a hat. Kurt couldn't even let himself enjoy the fashion related question, he just sank into the couch.

Carole arrived about an hour later without Burt. "I couldn't find him or the car anywhere," she told Kurt.

Kurt wrung his hands together. "Where do you think he is? Should I call the police?"

"Let's give him a bit more time," Carole suggested, "then we can start calling hospitals or the police, okay,"

Kurt's face had paled at the mention of calling the hospital, and Carole was quick to reassure him, "if you haven't heard from one already there shouldn't be anything to worry about. But just in case."

He nodded sharply and looked at his phone again. "I shouldn't have let him go alone," he said, "but there was just…I couldn't miss…" he trailed off.

When another hour went by without a word from Burt, Carole took it upon herself to make the calls while Kurt made them a fresh pot of coffee. Every terrible scenario that he could think of was going through Kurt's brain. He couldn't concentrate on just one, they all just blended together until Kurt was incapable of doing much else but try to rule out the more ridiculous of possibilities.

He hadn't checked into any hospital. The police told them they would take a look around but that they couldn't do much until he was missing for twenty four hours at least.

Kurt and Carole spent the night with their phones and despite the three cups of coffee, Kurt fell asleep a few hours into their vigil.

When he woke up around 6 am the next morning it took him a while to remember that something must have happened to his dad. Carole who was half asleep in her chair, tried to get up too, but Kurt just shook his head as he yawned.

"I'm going to get more coffee and go out to look for him. I'll call if I see anything."

When she tried to stop him, he waved her off. “No,” he said, “I’m alright, I’ll try everywhere between this house and yours.”

Kurt knew his father. It wasn't like him to not call or leave an explanation if he was going to be out all night and even if his phone was dead, he would have found a phone to use. He definitely wouldn’t have let Kurt think the worst after the heart attack.

He drove around, following the route he knew his father usually took to Carole's house, and then starting to go through the back roads he could have taken if there had been too much traffic, still he found nothing. It was as he was losing hope of finding him, that he spotted the car and for a split moment he almost convinced himself that it couldn’t be his dad’s car. He parked behind it and got out and knew at once it was his dad’s because of the small bag Kurt had gotten him for his birthday last year to carry tools. It was sitting in the backseat. His dad wasn’t in the car though, but his phone sat on the passenger seat.

There were no houses in the near vicinity except for the one that had tall hedges and the wrought iron gate. He wondered for a moment if his dad could have gone in there for help. Kurt still didn’t understand why there hadn’t been a call though. The gate opened with just a push and he walked towards the mansion like house with awe as he took it in. What he would have done to have lived here.

He walked up to the door and used the brass knocker, after three knocks he waited, but no one came to the door. He knocked again. Nothing. He walked to the window and tried to look inside, but the windows hid everything, so, Kurt walked carefully around the bed of flowers to try and find another window to knock on. He was so unfocused, thinking about his father he didn’t see the other boy that was busy clipping flowers from a bush and ran right into him and toppled over him.

“Oh, god, sorry. I’m so sorry.”

"Sorry. So sorry," an Asian boy said and helped him up. "You really shouldn't be here, though. He's not very happy today and it's all my fault really and now that man will probably die up there and it'll just be terrible. He just has such a temper."

"Man? What man?"

It couldn't be his father.

"He came in last night during the storm and we let him stay the night, this morning there was some sort of incident, I don't know what happened exactly, but now he's just locked up and I don't know what will happen to him now."

Kurt didn't want to believe that it could be his father down there, but where else could he have gone?

"Take me to him," he told the other boy who began to shake his head. "Please. I need to know if he's my father."

The Asian boy hesitated, looking torn, and then sighed. "You have to be quiet and do whatever I say." He held Kurt's gaze for a long moment as if to see if Kurt would agree.

“Yes, sure. Anything.”

“Okay, but remember you said you would.”

Kurt nodded. He’d do anything. He needed to be sure if it was his father who was being kept in this house. Wes began walking towards the back of the house and Kurt followed him, trying to figure out why anything could have gone wrong with just knocking on someone’s door.

The back of the house was just as beautiful as the front and even maybe better. There was a large fountain that didn’t have any water but instead just a few fallen leaves, and there were roses and other flowers all around. A tree offered shade, standing tall and above everything else.

We led Kurt to the back door and opened it and entered first. They stepped into a hallway and Wes said nothing as he continued walking inside, into a room whose furniture was covered in sheets and then towards stairs. Here, Wes paused.

“The man – your father – is in the attic. Now I can’t promise you anything, so just follow me and don’t make a sound.”

Kurt nodded. Wes turned and started up the stairs.

Kurt followed silently and didn’t even try to look around – if his father had gotten put up there because of his curiosity, he would try to not be interested in any of the house’s contents.

They didn’t meet anyone on their way up there and Kurt wondered who else aside from Wes lived there. The last of the stairs were not carpeted like the rest and on Kurt’s first step creaked. Wes paused, but continued on a moment later.

The attic didn’t look like an attic other than that the roof was sort of slanted. Wes walked to a white door.

“He’s in here,” he said, “now, I don’t know if he’s your dad and I’d love to help, but I can’t do more than show you to this room. I’m in enough trouble as it is.”

Wes motioned towards the door and then he left the way he came and Kurt stared at the door for a long while before he turned the doorknob and pushed it open.

In the part of the attic that he and Wes had been standing there had been light from a window, but past the door there was nothing. Here you could see the beams from the roof, nails sticking out everywhere. There was no window and as far as Kurt could see no lamps or other source of light.

A lump sat towards the corner, and Kurt with just the light from outside of this room could make out a familiar shape. It had to be his dad. It just had to. But what could he have done to insult the master of the house – whoever that man was – to be put up here.

“Dad?” He asked.

The body moved and coughed.

Kurt rushed forward. “Dad?” He reached towards his shoulders with both hands and shook him a little. “It’s Kurt, dad, come on, wake up.”

His eyes opened slowly and he shook his head.

“Come, it’s me, dad, we have to go.”

Kurt helped him get back up on his feet, but Burt groggy as he was swayed on his feet and Kurt had to hold him up until he got his bearings. As they stepped out of the room, he was finally able to see his dad properly. He wore a nice set of pajamas that were slightly too big on him and he actually didn’t look like he’d been hurt or anything.

“Kurt, what are you doing here?”

“Well, you didn’t turn up last night, did you?” Kurt said, “I was worried. I called Carole. But, let’s talk about this later. We have to be quiet. These stairs creak.”

Somehow they made it down the stairs and to the other set of stair that took them to the second floor and Kurt was almost smiling at their luck. They were close. They could go out the back through the kitchen and around the house and then to his car and once home they could get one of the guys from the shop to go out and get his dad’s car. Kurt had it all planned out.

They didn’t make it to the first floor. Because instead, as they walked down the hall towards the last of the stairs someone coughed and then the body of a boy a little shorter than Kurt stood right in front of him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” He asked.

His voice was the thing that gave away his power in the house, that and his confident stance and Kurt stepped back.

“Because I think you think you can take my prisoner without permission. Who let you in?”

Kurt shrugged. “Last I heard, it isn’t legal to kidnap.”

The boy was hidden in a too big sweatshirt, and he had a mask over his face that Kurt decided had to be to hide his identity – not the move of someone that wasn’t guilty.

“So, step aside,” Kurt continued, “We won’t press charges, just let us go.”

“You can go,” he said at once and then he pointed at Burt, “he can’t.”

He wasn’t necessarily scary. Kurt even thought he could take him down if he wanted to – maybe.

“We’re going,” Kurt pressed and swept past him. The boy didn’t even try to stop him.

Instead, he laughed. “Goodluck,” he said, “you’ll need it.” Then he followed them as they walked to the front door. Kurt walked straight out but his father stopped right at the door and no amount of pressure forward allowed him to leave the house.