Interlude: John

John held the front door open, keeping a painfully careful distance as his son followed him into the large house, Cooper trailing in after them both. He set the holdall of clothes down in the hallway amidst a veritable mountain of unpacked cardboard boxes and anonymous bubble-wrapped items. "Here we are."

Blaine didn't say anything, and what was worse, John didn't expect him to. He had begun to give up hoping.

It had been a little over a month since his youngest son had finally opened his eyes. That image of Blaine would be seared into his father's memory until the day he died. His tiny body, swallowed by off-white hospital sheets, his dark hair a messy contrast that only served to emphasize how sallow his skin was. And the wires. So many wires, tubes, drips. Beeping machines, monotonous in the too-quiet hospital room.

John had always known that Blaine's teenage years would be hard, but he had never expected... none of them had... If Cooper hadn't been there...

The worst part was how it had happened. Of who it had been, to trigger Blaine's first episode. They had been so careful, so prepared. John had lost count of the amount of pamphlets and preparatory sessions with doctors the family had sat through. They had been warned to look out for possible triggers, or signs that Blaine might be falling too deeply into his empathic sense. When children such as Blaine hit puberty, it was anyone's guess how their senses would adjust and change.

But Blaine was fourteen, and had until now barely shown any signs of distress. The careful regime of loving contact and touch the family had established when he had been diagnosed had kept him so stable that they had actually begun to believe that he might be that one in a million chance. That he would beat the odds.

They had begun to forget that Blaine's ES level essentially made him a ticking time bomb.

And now that time had run out.

The doctors had been full of false cheer and positivity, of course. Blaine's only fourteen, an episode such as this is scary, but manageable... The coma is for his own benefit, there is no lasting damage, you needn't worry, we know what we're doing... There are some excellent facilities for children like Blaine, where he can live like any other child his age... Has Dr Monroe ever mentioned Dalton Academy to you?

Their simpering smiles and false sympathy made John feel ill just thinking about it. He had been so glad to get Blaine home, even if it wasn't the home any of them had known.

Prior to the incident, the family had lived in a town very close to Columbus, where John worked. It was a lovely family home, and neither Blaine nor Cooper had known any different. But John would be damned if he allowed Blaine anywhere near that town again, with its poisonous memories and painful dead friendships. He had wanted to move out of Ohio completely, but that option hadn't been viable. The Andersons trusted Blaine's doctor at the Columbus Sense Clinic, and if Emily was going to quit her job as a middle school teacher to home school Blaine, John needed to stay in his high-paid job.

Which brought them to their new home, in Lima Ohio. They had done as much as they could in the time allowed, balancing staying with Blaine in the hospital against uprooting their lives, but the family was still essentially living out of boxes.

"Blaine! Sweetheart, it's so good to see you home!" Emily swept into the hall, a positive burst of happiness, tainted by an undercurrent of worry, despair and anguish. His wife had never been very good at controlling her emotional projection around Blaine, but it had never been a real issue until now.

"We made good time from Columbus." John said casually, pretending that he didn't notice how Blaine flinched back before his own mother could touch him, or how Emily faltered at the last moment, her arms stuttering uselessly in midair.

Not only had Blaine stayed silent since he woke up, but he also refused touch. Any attempt to get near him was met with at best quiet rejection, and at worse, horrible wordless screaming. The first few days after he had been woken had been nightmarish, as nurses and doctors were forced to act against his screams just so they could treat him.

That was until they realised that his older brother was exempt from Blaine's terror. The doctors speculated that it had something to do with Cooper's role that night, but to be frank, John couldn't care less. All he knew was that his eldest son had stepped up magnificently, and that if it wasn't for Cooper, Blaine would still be in the hospital's care right now.

Cooper tried to save them from the painful moment, "Something smells great, Mom, is that dinner?"

"I..." John watched with a heavy heart as his wife forced herself to look away from her youngest son and pull a smile onto her lips to answer Cooper. "Yes. I was just about to dish up. You boys head into the dining room."

No one moved. Everyone was waiting for Blaine. John reached out with his sense to try and get some kind of read on him, but there was nothing. Just a dark cloud, an empty chasm of nothingness, a listless disconnect.

Blaine shuffled his feet, looking down, and then up towards the stairs before folding his arms across his body and hunching into himself.

John had never felt so helpless as he felt his heart break in tandem with his wife's.

Cooper slid around them, carefully placing himself in full view of Blaine before ever so slowly bringing his hand up to rest on his little brother's shoulder. There was a visible intake of breath as Blaine clearly struggled not to react, but he didn't flinch away. "Or I could show you your room? We've only set up the furniture and stuff – Mom thought you'd like to sort it out properly yourself until you're feeling well enough to start up with school work again."

Blaine bit his lip, glancing for a moment to his parents, before nodding and following his brother up the stairs.

As soon as the boys were out of sight, Emily crumpled. "Oh god I can't do this."

Panic, self-loathing, failure, terror, anxiety... all of her emotions slipped through John's fingers like water, too fluid to grasp, too slippery to fully take on board.

Burying his own fear down deep, he wrapped his arms around his wife. She clung onto his shirt, her breath shuddering as she tried to stop herself from succumbing to tears. "I thought once we got him out of that, that place, he would be better, but god... I can't even hold him! He's my baby and I can't touch him without hurting him!"

"I know, honey, I know..." He could only murmur empty placations. That was all he was good for, all he had been able to do since they had got the call from Cooper that night to tell them what had happened. "We'll think of something, I promise. Blaine is stronger than this, you know he is."

He felt her nod softly against his chest.

Now if only he could convince himself.

00000

"What are these?" John stormed into the bedroom, throwing the offending items onto the bed as if they were poisonous.

His wife stared at them for a moment, and then turned a steely gaze to him. "Don't look at me like that. Don't try and pin me as the bad guy. You can't tell me you haven't been thinking about this too."

"About sending our son away? No! No I haven't!" He knew he was yelling. He knew Blaine might overhear them. He didn't care.

"They can help him there! We're not doctors John, we're not specialists! We are so out of our depth here and-"

"We're his parents! We're better than any damn doctor or specialist!"

"Well that's all very well and good for you!" Suddenly Emily was on her feet, screaming, her emotions setting fire to the air between them, "You're not with him every day of the week! You get to go to work; you only have to deal with him on the evenings and weekends, on his good days! I'm with him every second of the damn day and I can't take this anymore!"

John stood there and stared. The last time he had seen Emily lose it like this had been when Blaine had been diagnosed.

Her hands shook as she ran a hand through her hair, as she covered her mouth in an attempt to stem the tears and take back the screams.

Finally, he managed to draw together enough words to speak to her without saying something he might have regretted. "I won't talk to you about this right now. But I also won't move on this. We'll figure something else out. I think maybe you need a break. Go stay with your sister this Friday for a long weekend. I can work from home."

She didn't say anything, so he turned on his heel, dumping the offending prospectuses in the bin on his way out.

He didn't fail to notice the crack in Blaine's door where his son was peeking out. Their eyes connected, but there were no emotions exchanged.

Empty.

And then Blaine just slipped slowly, silently, back into his bedroom.

John sighed, and followed.

"Blaine?" Blaine was curled up on his bed, legs folded neatly underneath him, hands cradled in his lap, head bowed. "I'm sorry you had to hear that. Your mom's just a little... stressed at the moment. Can I sit down?"

Blaine nodded, hunching further. "My fault..." The words were a mumble, a bare breath of a whisper, but this was Blaine on a good day. Before Cooper was forced to return to New York by his parents, he had at least managed to coax Blaine into speaking in few, precious words. Touch was still forbidden though, even after three months.

"No, no bug, no. It's not your fault." John desperately wanted to take Blaine into his arms and just hold him, but he couldn't.

So he did what he always did, and talked. "You missed the game last night. It was a great one, right from the start, let me tell you..."

00000

This was either going to work miracles, or end horribly, possibly even in divorce when his wife returned from her trip with her sister.

Except every time that horrible thought crossed John's mind, he only had to think of their argument, and Blaine's face afterwards. He had to try. At this point, he was willing to give anything a go, even if there was only the tiniest possibility that it could help.

The idea had been planted in his head a few weeks ago. He had been talking to a work colleague, Robert Pierce. A great guy, with a daughter of his own, who also happened to be slightly above the norm on the Hawkins Scale. She was nowhere near the level of Blaine of course, but it was enough that sometimes things could get hard for the poor kid.

Somehow they had gotten to talking about their children, and while John was very tight-lipped when it came to talking about Blaine, he had been happy to share about Cooper, and Robert was a very open, chatty person. He clearly loved his daughter, and was a lot more liberal with his conversation topics that John tended to be, especially since Blaine's episode.

"It was my wife's idea. Don't get me wrong, the damned creature gives me the creeps most of the time, and sometimes listening to Britt talk to it like a person is a little disconcerting, but it's unbelievable how much it helps. Way I figure, they're our kids, you know? And what's the point of living in the twenty-first century if we still hold on to these ridiculous superstitions?"

"Blaine?" John knocked softly on Blaine's bedroom door. The woman had just left; he had paid her extra to deliver when he had visited her earlier that week. Blaine still wasn't stable enough to be left alone for any period of time.

Blaine was sitting up in bed, rubbing his eyes. He slept a lot more these days, although John was unsure how much of that was being a teenager, and how much was hiding from the world. He blinked up sleepily at his father, but didn't voice a greeting.

John sat down on his son's bed. "So. I know things have been hard, and I know you find it hard to be close to your mom and me a lot of the time. We don't blame you!" John rushed to reassure Blaine, "But I thought you could use some company; someone who you can touch and hug and not worry about."

Blaine's brow creased, and there was the barest flicker of confusion in the dense grey smog of nothingness that normally shrouded him.

John reached into his sweater, and pulled out a tiny grey ball of fur. The little kitten tumbled gracelessly onto the comforter, voicing a disgruntled mew, her tail twitching.

Blaine stared unmoving at the tiny creature as she shook herself and blinked her bright blue eyes, surveying the room and the big people. And then she twitched, hopping forwards to bump her nose on the back of Blaine's hand, mewing again, more persistent this time.

"I think she wants to play." John murmured softly, unable to keep a smile from his lips as the bold little kitten began to try and explore Blaine's lap. "She's all yours. You'll have to think of a name."

The kitten tumbled accidentally off Blaine's lap, but righted herself immediately. John watched as this time, Blaine held out his hand to her. She batted his fingers with her paw and Blaine, Blaine smiled.

It was the tiniest quirking of lips, the smallest bright ember of happiness. But it was there.

He even introduced himself to the animal, as if she could understand every word. "Hi kitten. My name's Blaine."

The kitten just started trying to eat the sleeve of his pyjama top, but Blaine's smile widened, as if she had replied.

So when, two days later, John greeted his wife back into the house with a kiss on the cheek, all he had to do was beckon her silently to the living room.

He would never forget the overwhelming flood of emotions that crashed over Emily, when she saw Blaine.

He was by no means his old self, but he was Blaine, more than just a living shadow. He was their son, sitting crossed-legged on the rug, playing with a piece of string and a hyperactive kitten, a smile on his face.

"Blaine. Your mother's home." John prompted, breaking into the bubble of boy and kitten.

Blaine's head snapped up, but his smile stayed where it was, softer, shyer. "Hi Mom."

John hung back, watching as Emily walked around the sofa and sunk to her knees in front of their son. "Hey baby. I see we have a new house guest."

Blaine nodded, scooping up the wriggling kitten in his hands, holding her out. "Molly, this is my Mom." The little grey kitten mewed, batting a paw into the air, before worming her way out of Blaine's grip and landing back on the floor. She immediately began stalking the discarded string.

But Blaine kept smiling, softly, shyly, the little ember of happiness had begun to warm to a spark.

And as he watched his overwhelmed wife sitting on the floor with their youngest son, a kitten tumbling between them, John actually began to hope that things might get better.

TBC