Blaine Anderson sat in the hospital lobby compulsively running a hand through his greying hair, loosening his curls from their usual gel prison. On an ordinary day the mere thought of being this unkempt would be enough to have him searching for a mirror, just so he could ensure that everything was still in its correct place. But this wasn't an ordinary day. Nothing about this day was routine or usual.

“It will be okay, Blaine. Your father has been through worse and thrived,” Blaine's mother reassured with a gentle smile, placing a shaking hand on her son's knee. The sight of it, weathered with age and so different from the hands with which his mother comforted him when he was a child, sent a dark chill down Blaine's spine. Not for the first time, Blaine was struck with how old his parents were and how old he was becoming. This thought caught in his throat for a moment, threatening to be spoken, but he swallowed it down. Instilling any kind of doubt in his mother would be unforgivable. Instead, he nodded with a smile that felt more like a grimace and turned his eyes to the entrance, hoping Cooper would arrive soon. He was always the calmer of the two of them in these situations. It didn't matter how old the two of them became, Blaine was sure he would always need his big brother.

Blaine found that staring at the door didn't occupy his mind enough to keep him from mulling over what was going on and he was drawing dangerously close to panic. He needed a distraction. He picked up a magazine at random from one of the coffee tables and opened it on the first page, determined to read it cover to cover – or at least as much as he could until Cooper arrived. The large printed letters “Garden and Home” didn't fill him with much hope that this would be an exciting read. Gardening tips were the last thing he needed in a small Manhattan apartment. Still, the reading helped. As he focussed on an article discussing the best time of year to plant grass, he found himself worrying less about the situation at hand. He still glanced up at the doors between paragraphs hoping that Cooper would make it to Ohio before anything serious happened.

During one such glance at the door, Blaine saw something that definitely seemed out of place.

He looked different in person, maybe because Blaine was used to seeing him in print or on the stage and screen. He had surprisingly broad shoulders and an upright posture that made him seem taller than he already was. Kurt Hummel, movie star and Broadway legend, had just walked into the private hospital of the retirement village where his parents lived.

He was clearly there to visit someone. The bouquet of daisies he was clutching was becoming increasingly crushed in his white-knuckled fist and he was wearing the same borderline panicked expression that Blaine was sure he was sporting. The journalist in Blaine was curious.

If anyone else noticed Kurt Hummel, they certainly didn't indicate so and Blaine tried hard to be as nonchalant as the rest of the room. He briefly considered calling Natalie, the celebrity columnist for his magazine, but thought better of it. If Kurt Hummel was in the same situation as him, he would hate to be the one responsible for exploiting that.

As the minutes ticked by at the speed of paint drying, Blaine found himself glancing up at Kurt every few moments, not entirely sure why of why he suddenly found him so fascinating. It wasn't like he wasn't used to being around famous faces. As editor of Hunters, a relatively popular men's fashion and lifestyle magazine, Blaine often found himself at celebrity events and parties. And aside from that, Cooper had also been in his fair share of movies and Broadway shows. Attending his premiers always involved rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous. As a result, Blaine no longer became star struck.

Even so, something kept drawing his eye back to the scared-looking man on the other side of the room.

“You don't have to stare, you know. I have just as many Golden Globes as he does.”

The unexpected voice made Blaine jump and nearly fall off his chair. Cooper was in the seat next to him trying hard not to laugh at the furious expression on his brother's face.

“You've never won a Golden Globe,” Blaine muttered as he straightened himself in his seat and tried to calm himself down.

“Exactly,” Cooper grinned. “Neither has Kurt. Now are you going to say hi properly or what?”

Blaine stood up to give his brother a begrudging hug. Cooper never really changed. He was easy and comfortable in almost every situation because he was generally so inappropriate it didn't matter. Still, now that he was here, Blaine felt himself unwind slightly. Cooper would be able to keep the two of them going if anything went wrong.

As Cooper pulled his mother into a hug, Blaine glanced over at Kurt who was looking between Cooper and him with raised eyebrows. Blaine shrugged apologetically, figuring it was because of Cooper making a commotion in the otherwise quiet and practically deserted lobby. Kurt frowned in confusion and Blaine wasn't sure what Kurt actually meant, so he shrugged again.

“Mr Hummel?” called the voice of the lady at the reception desk, pulling Kurt's eyes away from Blaine, “you can go through.”

Kurt thanked her and made his way to the elevator, glancing back at the Blaine briefly before disappearing behind the metal door. Blaine stayed staring at the elevator, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

“So dad's messed himself up pretty bad this time, huh?” Cooper asked as he settled into the seat next to his mother. “I told you last time: no partying when I'm not there to supervise. It's far too dangerous.” Their mother smiled and shook her head.

“It would almost be understandable if he was doing something crazy like dancing, but he had only just got out of bed and was on his way to the bathroom when that little Persian rug that he's so fond of tripped him up. One fall and he managed to break his left arm and his hip and he hit his head enough to give him a mean concussion. The doctors were concerned in the beginning, but they say if the surgery goes well, he should make a full recovery.”

“Only dad could injure himself doing something so completely ordinary,” Cooper sighed, throwing an arm around his mother's shoulder. “Well in any case, the old man is pretty tough. He's been through worse and come out swinging.”

“That's what I was telling Blaine earlier,” their mother said, taking Blaine's hand. Blaine gave her half a smile.

“It's going to be okay, Squirt,” Cooper reassured. “Dad's a fighter.”

Blaine wanted to agree, but the prospect of his father not making it through the surgery loomed huge in front of him. They weren't especially close, but he loved his dad and it was comforting to know that when life got crazy he had someone with whom he could talk things through. This, and the thought of his mother losing the man she had loved since high school, left Blaine absolutely terrified at the possibility that something might happen. He couldn't voice these thoughts, however, not when Cooper and his mother were doing their best to be hopeful and optimistic, so instead, he set his face and looked up at Cooper.

“Please don't call me ‘Squirt', Coop, I'm a fifty-year-old man.”

“That doesn't stop you being tiny,” Cooper chuckled and Blaine rolled his eyes.

There was silence for a few moments before their mother asked how shooting was going on the new TV series that Cooper was part of. As his brother relayed all his work horror stories and set gossip, Blaine found that he was absolutely exhausted. All the adrenaline that had been keeping him going since his mother had called him the previous night seemed to be disappearing and was instead being replaced with the overwhelming need to sleep. He definitely needed coffee or something if he was going to get through any more of this day.

“I'm going to get myself a latte, do either of you want anything?” he asked his mother and brother and after getting their orders, he made his way to the small coffee shop on the other side of the building.

Upon entering the shop, he was surprised to find Kurt Hummel sitting at one of the small tables drinking a huge cup of coffee and looking decidedly more peaceful than he had seemed earlier in the lobby.

After ordering himself a decent-sized latte and deciding he would get the other two coffees before he left, he made his way over to Kurt's table.

“Hey, do you mind the company?” he asked. Kurt looked up at him bewilderedly. “It's just that if I sit alone right now I'll go insane.”

“Sure,” Kurt smiled understandingly and pulled out a seat for him. As Blaine seated himself, Kurt cleared his throat. “My dad sent me back downstairs before I even said a word to him. He told me that unless I got some caffeine in my body he wouldn't talk to me and then proceeded to give me the silent treatment until I left the room. The fact that he's bossing me around again is really reassuring, so I'm just going to follow his orders. How about you? Long night?”

Blaine sighed, “One of the longest I've had in a while.” He left it at that, hoping that Kurt wouldn't ask too many more questions and to his relief, Kurt steered the conversation in a different direction.

“So you know Cooper Anderson?” Kurt asked and Blaine rolled his eyes with a smile.

“A little too well,” Blaine replied and stretched out a hand to introduce himself properly. “Blaine, his younger brother.”

“Kurt Hummel,” he smiled as he shook Blaine's hand.

“I know,” Blaine interjected and Kurt raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Okay, relax,” he smirked. “I just thought it would be politer to introduce myself on the off-chance that you didn't already know who I was. But I should have known because I'm pretty sure I caught you staring at me more than once while you were pretending to read Garden and Home.”

“For your information, I was actually reading that,” Blaine grinned. “Did you know that the best time to plant your cool-grass seed is in summer, you know, before the cool seasons?”

“Shocker,” Kurt replied. “And do you plant much grass where you're from, Blaine?”

“Well I live in an apartment in Manhattan, so not really,” Blaine said, taking a sip of coffee. “But now that I know when to plant it, I'm considering just covering my balcony in the stuff.”

Kurt laughed and Blaine found himself pleased that he was the one to illicit that reaction from him.

“Well I'm also from Manhattan,” Kurt began, faltering when he looked at Blaine's face, “But you already knew that. I don't suppose you already know anything more about me?”

“Just that you're an actor,” Blaine said, taking another sip of his coffee. Kurt smirked and looked at Blaine for a moment.

“And all I know about you is that you're Cooper Anderson's little brother,” he said. “Tell me more about that, because I imagine that has to be pretty crazy.”

“Well, I mean he's Cooper,” Blaine sighed amusedly. “He's sixty and he still calls me ‘Squirt'. But despite his lack of tact in most situations, I couldn't imagine anyone else as my brother. He makes life interesting. Always has.”

“He tried to chat me up at a party once,” Kurt grinned and Blaine sat up, intrigued. “He probably won't even remember it. It was at some or other New Year's Eve thing back when my career was just getting off the ground and Cooper walked straight up to my friend, Rachel, and me and used the most horrifically cheesy line I've ever had the misfortune of being subjected to. I can't even remember what it was now, but it was really bad. I declined his offer because I was involved with someone else at the time and without missing a beat, Cooper turned to Rachel and gave her the same line.”

“That's Cooper,” Blaine laughed, “anything vaguely human is fair game. I still can't believe he actually got married and had kids, but I suppose that's a sibling for you – always finding new ways to shock and surprise.” Kurt smiled and took a sip of his coffee.

“That's something I don't actually know about you,” Blaine remarked. “Do you have any siblings?”

Something in Kurt's smiling eyes seemed to dim.

“I did once,” Kurt replied quietly. “A step-brother. He died when we were still really young.”

Blaine's stomach sank. He hadn't meant to get so personal, not when the conversation between them had been so light and enjoyable. Now, they were veering into the very subject which Blaine had been hoping to be distracted from. He looked awkwardly down at the surface of the table, feeling awful.

“Hey, it's okay,” Kurt smiled reassuringly. “You haven't said anything wrong. It was a natural progression in the conversation. In any case, I still don't know what you do back in New York. I'm guessing something in finance, but I could be wrong.”

“You're pretty darn wrong,” Blaine smiled, regaining some of his confidence. “I'm a journalist. Well, I mean, I guess I was a journalist – now I'm an editor.”

“Oh?” Kurt asked, raising an eyebrow. “For which publication?”

“Hunters,” Blaine replied. The moment he said it, he knew it was a mistake. Something in Kurt's face darkened and his voice became dangerously quiet.

“The same magazine that printed that rather informative article about my messy break-up with Adam Crawford? You, know the break-up that wasn't that messy until that article came out?”

Blaine didn't have any right to be offended because it technically was on his authorization that the article had been printed, but he had been out of the country at the time and so hadn't actually taken time to read it. It was his fault through negligence. Even so, the way Kurt was confronting him about it like Blaine had personally stalked his apartment and wrote the article himself, raised his hackles. The article had sold well and at the end of the day, that was all the shareholders expected him to care about.

“I suppose you're hoping for an apology or something?” Blaine asked, the frown on his face growing deeper as he spoke.

“Of course not,” Kurt laughed derisively. “That would be a first for any publication. I'm just marvelling at how convenient this whole situation is for you. ‘Exclusive Scoop: Hummel's Father in Critical Condition at Old-Age Hospital'. Think of the magazines you'd sell.”

Blaine had never wanted so badly to throw something at someone. Kurt, however justified he was in his anger, was being so incredibly selfish that Blaine felt sick to his stomach.

“You know what? I could quite honestly not give a fuck what you think I'm here to do right now, because a few floors above us, my father's life is totally dependent on how well his surgery goes. So if you don't mind, I think I'll go find people who aren't going to accuse me of exploiting their private lives while completely disregarding that there could be other people in the world with feelings. It was an absolute pleasure meeting you. Forgive me if I dont ask for your autograph on the way out.”

Blaine stood up angrily, leaving a stunned Kurt Hummel in his wake. Determined to put as much distance between them as possible, Blaine practically ran out of the shop. He had barely made it out of the door, however, when he saw his brother walking toward him with his arm around his mother and an uncharacteristically grave expression that could only have meant one thing.

Blaine's father hadn't made it through the surgery.