The Proper Way to Study the Pieces of Your Broken World

Looking back from where I'm at now, I would say that my sanity buckled under the weight of everything that was happening. My mind was sluggish and slow moving despite the fact that I was jumping from one emotion to the next faster than I could blink. In a matter of moments, Kurt had taken apart my entire world, and I thought that was it, but the hits kept on coming…

We all sat defeated in Santana's newly silent living room. No one had moved. Kurt and I looked at each other as precious seconds passed us by. He used his eyes to beg me to understand, but I just couldn't.

When I looked into his eyes, the only thing I felt was lost. I realized that I had to rethink every single conversation we had ever had. I had to reinterpret every defining moment we shared where he hadn't bothered to tell me the biggest thing he was keeping from me—the biggest omission. The biggest lie.

I tore my eyes away from his. I had to look at somewhere else.

I avoided looking anywhere near Cooper—he was just a reminder of the cannon ball that was bludgeoning its way through my body in wild abandon—and turned to Santana instead. She was still in the fireplace, clutching onto Brittany like her life depended on it. The living room was in complete disarray. "Are you okay?" I asked.

"Peachy," she responded.

Having nothing to say to that, my eyes quickly found Kurt's again. He was still pleading, still guilty, still desperate. I didn't know what to do with him anymore. There were a million questions I needed answers to and every single one of them burned my insides black the longer they went unasked.

I didn't have time to ask questions, though. I didn't have time for betrayal. The world was still turning, still as shitty as ever. Cooper and Brittany were still in danger, and we needed to get the hell out of there before the men with guns came busting in to drag us all underground where we would stay and rot for the rest of our lives.

"We need to go."

"Where?" Santana asked.

"Away from here. I don't know where. Just not here."

And then, just because I still couldn't believe it, I looked directly at Cooper and mentally asked him whether he was able to move. I painstakingly pronounced every single sound in my mind, clearing out all other thoughts and distractions so that I could devote my full attention to the four monosyllabic words I needed an answer to: Can you move, Coop?

He didn't even turn to look at me. His eyes stayed closed, his breathing slow and relaxed as he experienced the silence.

I had to try again. Cooper?

Nothing.

Nothing but the strange desperation that slowly began to fill me up.

Please say something.

My heart sank at the silence ringing in my ears. He really couldn't hear me. Why are you upset? I asked myself. This is what you've always wanted for him.

No more voices, no more screaming, no more pain. He was fixed. He was normal.

Normal because Kurt had—what? Changed him? Turned his ability off? I didn't know what.

Santana's voice reached my ears in a kind of muffle; it was as if she was talking from inside a glass box. "Blaine." She tried again. "Blaine."

I blinked over at her. "What?"

There's no time for this.

Her eyes bore into mine, reminding me that I needed to keep it together right now and that when Cooper and Brittany were safe I could collapse into bed and feel like absolute shit and forget the world, but not a second before.

I forced myself to stand up and look down at my brother. "Cooper? Coop, look at me."

His eyes moved sluggishly, like moving them was too much to ask. He looked fucking high.

"We need to go, Coop," I told him gently, like our roles were switched and he was the little brother who needed someone to hold his hand and show him the way. He certainly looked like it with the way he was blinking owlishly up at me. I felt guilty for thinking it until I remembered that I didn't have to—not anymore. I could think whatever I wanted about him.

Don'tthinkaboutitdon'tthinkaboutitdon'tthinkaboutit…

"Can you move?"

"I—yeah. Yeah." He slowly sat up, his eyes sweeping from one side of the room to the other as he surveyed the damage he had done. When he was finished, his eyes finally settled on my face, and he looked me over with a confused and frustrated expression. "It's so weird. I don't know what you're thinking right now…" Worry mixed in with his frustration. "Are you mad at me?"

It was the one question I just couldn't deal with. My emotions were botched up and blown to pieces all over the place. I had no idea what I was with him.

"We need to go," I repeated.

He frowned and I realized that for the first time in our entire lives, I could keep a secret from him.

Stop. Thinking. About it.

"Okay," he said. I helped him get to his feet.

"Blaine, are you hearing this?" Santana got my attention.

She was focused entirely on Brittany, whose head was resting comfortably on Santana's shoulder as she muttered calmly to whoever would pay attention and played with the hem of Santana's shirt. "… and now the little spiders are really mad at the wolf for escaping. They'll come to string him up in a great big web and take his head away. I saw it happen. He can't think without a head. I know because I lost mine a long time ago and now no one understands me…"

Santana kissed Brittany's forehead in a way that was meant to be gentle and comforting, but she had her eyes trained hard on mine. There was urgency there.

"How much time do we have before the spiders find us, Britt?" Santana asked.

Brittany shrugged and continued to play with the hem of Santana's shirt, pulling and twisting the material. "There are too many different futures."

"What's the best one?"

"The unicorn knows how to hide. Maybe he can help us again if we ask nicely." She smiled up at Santana. "He did a really good job before, didn't he? The wolf gave him a hard time, but he still did it and he didn't give up. Unicorns are bosses like that." Her eyes went unfocused again. "Someone should tell him not to drink anything the cherubs give him, but I don't think he'll listen…" She shook her head sadly.

I took what I could understand from what she said and turned to Kurt. "I need to hide them from SIIPA. She says you know how. Is that true?"

Kurt looked up at me and I could tell that it was. I had no idea how he could possibly know how to do something like that, but so many impossible things had happened that day that I wasn't going to question it.

The I'm sorry was still there in his eyes, but I couldn't turn it into something that mattered to me. I had shared everything with him. Obviously he had shared next to nothing with me.

I turned away from him, conscious of Cooper's probing gaze as he studied the two of us. Without looking back at anyone, I started for the door. "Let's go. We're taking Kurt's car," I said without bothering to ask him if it was okay. I didn't care whether he was okay with it or not.

"Blaine," Cooper's said like all of a sudden he wanted to be the older brother again.

"Not now," I told him.

"Blaine," he said again, voice stronger this time.

"WHAT?" I snapped. "What, Cooper? What? What do you want?"

"You need to calm down."

I looked at him incredulously. "I need to calm down?"

He folded his arms across his chest. "Yeah. You need to calm down."

"Are you fucking serious, Cooper?!" I exploded. "I need to calm down?! Look around you!" I yelled, throwing out my arms at the destroyed living room.

He winced.

I instantly felt bad. But I couldn't take it back and he could no longer hear my every thought to know how sorry I was. The reality of it squished my guilt and made my anger flare. "If there are no more stupid fucking suggestions I would like to go before our fucking father gets here and buries us all alive."

That time no one stopped me when I stormed outside.

Kurt drove sitting ridged in his seat with both hands gripping the steering wheel hard. Nobody spoke. Cooper, Santana, and Brittany were all in the back, which left me in the passenger seat. I didn't pay any attention to where we were going and chose to focus instead on the slow pulsing throb that was plaguing the left side of my head. I counted each painful beat to pass the time and keep my mind occupied. The counting was making me feel wrestles but it was better than screaming at everyone like I was itching to.

Eventually, though, I couldn't ignore the nagging sense of déjà vu that kept prodding at me with every accidental glance I took out the window. The roads, and the trees that lined them on either side, were too familiar. However, it wasn't until we pulled into the impossible to see turn that lead to Kurt's driveway that I spoke up and broke the longstanding silence.

"What are we doing here?" I asked, sitting up straight in my seat for the first time since I got in the car.

"I don't know," Kurt said quietly. You told me to take you to a place where they wouldn't be found. This is it.

My annoyance sparked at his response, which did nothing to help me understand and only inspired more questions. What was it about his house that was different from anywhere else? What was it that would keep us from being found?

When we finally broke through the thick cover of trees, the first thing I saw, rather than the house itself, was Burt, who was running towards the car, shouting something that could only be Kurt's name. I realized that he still had that same desperate look on his face that he had three hours earlier—the one he had been wearing as he ran desperate and out of breath to catch up with his son as I backed out of the driveway and stole away his entire world from him. Kurt seemed to come to the same realization, and the Navigator came to a shoddy stop when Kurt threw it into park without bothering to fully apply the brakes.

He struggled to free himself from the seatbelt in his hurry to get out of it, and once he finally managed it, he all but threw himself from the car, his voice alarmed as he called out, "Dad! Stop! Your heart!"

But Burt wasn't listening and he ran until he nearly collided with his son. He grabbed Kurt with both hands, his fingers clenching impatiently and holding too tight. He alternated between shaking Kurt's whole body and hugging the life out of him as angry, loving words spilled past his lips.

I was so focused on the two of them that I didn't notice Everly until my door was yanked open. Before I had time to process what was happening, two insistent hands wrapped themselves around the collar of my hoodie and dragged me roughly from the car. Someone yelled—Santana, I think—as I was slammed down on the ground with enough force to knock the wind out of me.

Something cool and hard was pressed against the space between my eyes. A knee pressed heavily against my chest, keeping me down even thought I hadn't planned on going anywhere.

I looked passed the barrel of a gun into Everly's cold, gray eyes.

"Stay where you are," she said in a clear, controlled voice, and for a confusing second I thought she was talking to me.

"Okay, okay, not moving," Cooper said in an overtly soothing tone, but I could hear the underlying fear in his voice that he was trying to hide. I didn't doubt that Everly could hear it too. "Just… please don't shoot him. Please."

My whole body hummed as my head tried to catch up with what was going on, but nothing was making any sense and I was getting tired of trying to play catch up. The constant onslaught of random unforeseen circumstances was getting old fast. I just wanted the day to end. I wanted to be done.

So I shut down. I stopped trying to find answers to all of the whys floating around in my head and laid on the ground silently.

Sometime in the middle of my shutdown, Kurt must have caught sight of what was going on because I heard his voice, confused at first, then alarmed. "Blaine? Blaine! What are you—Dad—no! Stop. Let go!"

There were sounds of a struggle, and then Burt spoke again. "Hold your brother, Finn, and keep him there. I don't want him anywhere near that kid. He's dangerous."

I forced myself not to speculate on what Burt could mean by 'he's dangerous' or on what could have happened in the past couple hours to make him think that about me.

Don't think about it. Don't think about anything.

When he replied, Finn's voice was hesitant and unsure. "O-okay."

"What the fuck, V?!"

That was Logan. Her voice called off from a distance, but I heard her running footsteps coming rapidly closer. Seconds later she came into my line of sight, panting and out of breath, her wild hair windswept away from her face. "What the fuck are you doing? Put the gun away!"

Everly stayed exactly as she was.

"Burt!" Logan's voice lashed out like a whip. "Do something!"

Then was a pause. Then, "Don't let him move," Burt said tightly.

Everly didn't say anything, but she did press her gun harder against my forehead.

Logan's mouth fell open. "Are you serious right now, Burt? Did you both suddenly get stupid and forget what this kid means to Kurt? Or the fact that he's a minor? You can't just go around shoving guns in kids' faces!"

"Stay out of this, Logan," Burt said in a stern tone that booked no room for argument. "You have no idea what's going on."

"I know V has a fucking gun pointed at Curly's goddamn head!"

Burt ignored her and moved until he was standing over me and looking down at my face as if he wanted to try ripping it off. "Where did you take him?" he asked.

Even if I had planned on answering—which I didn't—I would have been interrupted anyway by the sound of Carole's furious yell.

"Burt!"

I watched Burt go pale.

"What the hell are you doing?" she said, pushing her way through the small crowd of people to gape down at me in disbelief. She took one look at the gun pressed against my forehead before turning her furious eyes on Everly, who was still staring me down.

"Everly. Put that gun away," Carole said in a deadly tone. "Now."

"Absolutely not," Everly said, not the least bit intimidated. "I made a promise to Elizabeth that I would protect Kurt. I'm going to keep that promise no matter what."

Somewhere in the back of my mind, it registered that Brittany was whimpering softly, her barely audible whispers drowned out by the sound of arguing voices to the point where I couldn't make sense of what she was saying. Not that I was paying much attention to her anyway. Something bad was going to happen, but I didn't need a broken psychic to tell me that.

Carole whipped around to look at Burt. "Make her put it away."

"Carole," Burt began in a careful tone, "you need to let us handle don't know who he is—"

"No," she said firmly, affectively cutting him off. "I don't care. He's just a kid." A slight pause, then in a softer, more pleading way, "Please. Think about this. This is going to cause problems for us—for Kurt."

"He is the problem," Everly said in a voice that made me feel like I was already dead, and that couldn't be ignored, no matter how determined I was to try. Disgust and unmitigated hatred swirled in her eyes and seeing it there made my stomach churn. I knew that look. I had seen that look. It made good people do really shitty, really terrible things. I realized that she was going to pull the trigger and put a bullet between my eyes and that would be it.

"He's Carl Anderson's bitch," she announced. Then she said, softer, quieter, and just for me, "I know what you've done."

With those words, everything became all too familiar. Everly became just another face in a sea of many—just another victim who wanted payment for the pain and suffering I caused. If she actually killed me, I realized that a lot of people would be very happy.

She continued, "And I won't let you tell your father about him. He's not going back there. Not again. Not ever."

I didn't have time to wonder what she was talking about.

It happened too fast for me to process the change. One second she was there, leaning over me with the scorching eyes of a killer, and the next she was hanging thirty feet above the ground by some unseen force and everyone was screaming as her legs kicked uselessly in the air.

She hung by her gun, and in my mind I could picture her grip failing and then the inevitable fall. Everyone was yelling for her to hold on, but I held my breath, waiting for it to happen; imagining the horrible crunching sound her bones would make when she landed.

It didn't happen exactly like I pictured. It was worse.

Out of nowhere, her body was jerked roughly to the left, which opened up a gateway of violent aerial maneuvers that had her getting tossed around like a ragdoll.

Logan screeched Everly's name and ran back and forth with arms stretched up towards the sky as if that would get the other woman down. It might have been funny to watch if it hadn't been for the sickening sound of her panicked and horrified screams. Just listening to the desperation in her voice as she screamed herself hoarse made my stomach twist with discomfort. They were ugly sounds that I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Everyone else was completely still, stunned stupid by the sight.

Amazingly, Everly managed to hold on for almost a minute before her grip finally gave way and she went flying. She landed hard enough to crack the back windshield on one of the many cars in the Hummel's driveway and I sucked in a breath, imagining the pain of the impact.

Logan jerked to a sudden stop and stared with wide eyes. Nobody moved. We all waited.

We heard a soft groan before Everly slowly rolled off the car and dropped to the ground. With tired, painful looking movements, she tried to push herself up but her right arm didn't seem to be working, and she dropped back down. She didn't move again after that.

At her sudden stillness, Logan took off like a rocket in her direction, but before she could get close, the ground gave a violent tremble, throwing her off her feet. She landed hard on her ass just as chunks of earth and rocks shot out of the ground and exploded like bombs. Dirt flew everywhere and everyone who was standing was thrown to the ground, where they curled in on themselves in an effort to protect their bodies from the flying debris. Logan, however, continued to push herself to her feet again and again as she struggled to get to Everly. Eventually she gave up trying to stand and crawled.

I watched in horrified awe at the untamed destruction. It was terrifying to watch, but I was captivated by it at the same time, and my eyes swept the area over and over, taking it all in.

I looked over my shoulder at Cooper who was sitting on the dirt with his knees pulled up to his chest and his hands in his hair. His body shook from the force of his screams, but it was nothing more than a murmur of noise in my ears. I felt completely calm—sluggish even as I studied the destructive man who was my brother. He could kill us all with a thought.

Then my eyes shifted and I looked at Kurt who was on his hands and knees in front of Cooper. He was talking; his lips were moving around words that I couldn't hear. I studied his lips hard and thought that maybe I was looking at him say, 'control it,' but I couldn't be sure.

It didn't occur to me to start panicking until Kurt's eyes found mine. His eyes screamed at me in a way that made my whole body feel cold and I scrambled over as fast as I could over the shaking ground. Kurt immediately moved away Cooper when I got close enough to take his place. I ran purely on instinct as I tried to calm Cooper down.

"It's okay, Coop. It's okay. I'm okay. You have to calm down, okay? Remember the stars? We can look at them whenever we want now. You never have to go back to that room again. I'm right here and we're together." I had no idea what I was doing. I just kept saying whatever came to my mind without overthinking what was right, or wrong, or stuck somewhere in between. "But you have to calm down. I love you. You're my brother, and I love you, but I need you to calm down."

I kept on talking, keeping my full attention on Cooper and nothing else. I have no idea how long it took, but eventually Coop was leaning heavily against me, breathing hard but slow through his mouth, and Kurt had his hand on my shoulder, letting me know in his silent way that the worst was over and everything was okay.

But nothing was okay and everything was a mess and I didn't feel sluggish or clam anymore. I felt like a rubber band that had been stretched so far that the only thing left to do was either break or snap.

I turned to look at Kurt. "I thought you fixed him," were the words I hurled at him, monosyllabic and piercing like tiny knives that wouldn't come out once they were in. I watched, completely unapologetic, as it took him a couple of seconds to process the sudden attack.

"I did," he lied. There was nothing to fix. There is nothing wrong with him.

"Of course there is." I told myself no one could be that stupid. "There's something wrong with all of us."

"Blaine," Cooper said in a breathless, pleading voice. "Stop."

I ignored him. I knew my timing was completely wrong, but I was done being patient. I was done waiting. Nothing mattered but the billions of questions that I just couldn't deal with anymore. I needed my answers. Everyone else, including Kurt, including Cooper, could fuck off.

"I thought he wouldn't have to go through all of this shit anymore." I released Cooper to stare Kurt down. I listened to the voice in my head that whispered everything was Kurt's fault. "I thought he was normal now. Wasn't that the point of whatever it was that you did to him?"

Kurt met my stare without hesitation. "Yes." No.

"If that wasn't the point, then what is?! Stop being so fucking vague! Just tell me what the fuck you are! I want to know exactly what you did to him!"

"I didn't do anything," Kurt insisted. I took away his psychic ability.

"But not his telekinesis?"

"Wrong." Correct.

"Why? Why would you leave him like this if you could have taken it all away?! You could have fixed him!" Nothing seemed to matter—not Kurt, not how I felt about him, not Cooper's insistence that I let Kurt off the hook, nor the fact that I kept contradicting myself in regards to how I felt about a normal Cooper. The only thing that did matter was how fucking good it felt to be angry. The rage was spicy and intoxicating and I embraced it gladly. It felt even better to have someone to direct it at—to have someone to blame. "Why didn't you fix him?!"

"I don't know why," he said and there was that look again—the one where he was using his eyes to plead with me to accept what was happening and move on. I can't just go around taking people's abilities away. The only reason why I took his psychic ability away was because he couldn't function with it. If he could have learned how to control it, then I wouldn't have left it alone. His telekinesis is different. He can learn how to control it with practice. We need our abilities. Without them, SIIPA has all the power. They have everything and we have no chance of ever fighting back.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I felt sick. He sounded just like them—justifying the destruction and manipulation of people's lives for his own twisted agenda. At least, that was what I told myself.

"Are you fucking insane?! We have no chance of fighting back no matter what! You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, Kurt! You don't have one single clue what they're capable of!"

I was so angry that I completely disregarded the sudden hurt on his face and the pain that swam free in his eyes. And before I could take a second thought, it was gone, replaced with a rage that matched and fueled my own.

Looking at his twisted face, I thought, this is it. This is what he meant. This was the difference between loving the idea of someone and loving someone for who they actually were—flawed and imperfect, bad and good, terrible and wonderful—and Kurt was all of those things. And I loved him with everything that I had.

And I hated him almost as much.

It was the worst time to realize it, but that was how it happened. That was how it went, and I already told you that I would only tell you the truth. Love it or hate it. Deal with it or don't.

It wasn't a happy moment. It wasn't beautiful or loving at all, but that was when I knew for sure. And despite the way my world tilted just a little bit under the force of it all, the real world that I was forced to share with everyone else, kept turning, and the moment passed by.

"And you think you do?!" he yelled back in my face.

So I screamed in his. "YES!"

His response, if he had one to begin with, was cut off when I was wrenched up by the back of my sweatshirt and slammed up against Kurt's Navigator. Burt's fisted hands that were wrapped tightly around the neckline of my hoodie pulled upwards until I was reaching with my tiptoes in an effort to stay on the ground.

Kurt's hands were instantly on Burt's arm, pulling. "Dad! Stop it! Let him go!" He shot Cooper a nervous glance.

Burt shouldered Kurt off without taking either of his hands off me. Kurt stared up at his father in shock at the forceful, almost violent gesture, but Burt didn't seem to comprehend the hurt he stirred up.

"Damn it, Kurt! Why do you keep protecting this kid? Didn't you hear what your aunt said? He's on their side. He is Carl Anderson's son. He helps that son of a bitch stockpile innocent people under the dirt! And now he knows about you! He knows where we live! How long do you think it will be before he tells his fa—"

Kurt interrupted him with words that left his lips in a rush, "I didn't know about Blaine." I already knew about Blaine.

Five quick words and Burt lost his grip on my sweatshirt. "What?"

"I didn't know," he repeated, and his eyes pleaded with his father to understand the lie and know what it meant.

Burt stood absolutely still. "You knew?" he asked, appalled—like the very idea of it was enough to make him violently sick.

Kurt's eyes flooded with something worse than tears. "No," he whispered. Yes.

Burt's expression hardened—not in an angry way, but in a defensive way that was meant to protect him from something that dark and ugly. "How long?"

Kurt's mouth opened and closed. He shook his head. "I… Dad…"

There was something hallow in Burt's eyes. It mixed powerfully with the disappointment that began to radiate off of him in waves.

"I don't understand." Burt shook his head like a lost man. His eyes went unfocused and haunted, and it was obvious from the look on his face that he had gotten himself tangled up in his own thoughts. "Eight months. I lost you for eight months. And then your mother…" He closed his eyes against whatever past horrors he was facing.

Kurt looked completely ruined by it. "I…" His voice broke.

Burt suddenly exploded—the change dizzying and without warning. "Do you have any idea what was going through my head when you left?!" Kurt winced. "And then when Everly found out what he was? Do you know what I was thinking? I thought I would never see you again, Kurt! I thought you were gone and this time I would never get you back! You're mother died to protect you! How could you compromise that?!"

"I'm…"

"Sorry. Yeah. You're sorry."

The silence that followed was deafening. It filled up fast with more and more questions that I didn't have answers to. We all stood there—me, Kurt, his father, Cooper—and said nothing.

So many lies, and half truths, and things that had never been said at all. I didn't know where I stood anymore. Maybe that was what hurt most of all.