As he felt the warm water falling over his head, Kurt began to mentally put everything that had happened to him that day in order. He needed to plan what he was going to do now. Even if every muscle in his body was telling him to just break down and surrender to desperation, Kurt wouldn’t give up. He needed to be strong. He would have to find out who took his dad away from him and then figure out how to deal with Walter’s smartass son.

Kurt couldn’t cry. He couldn’t show weakness in a time like this, even with all the pain that was burning in his chest. He felt completely alone, and he had never felt that way before. But he couldn’t afford to break down now.

He stepped out of the shower and put Walter’s clothes on as he kept promising himself that he wouldn’t break down. He still remembered his dad’s motto.

“No one messes with the Hummels,” Burt Hummel would say to Kurt, and the boy knew that he would remain faithful to that philosophy, for his dad and his memory of him. After all, the memory of Burt was all that Kurt had left; the only thing that still kept him standing.

“I won’t break down, I won’t cry, I won’t cry,” he said to himself, remembering his dad.
All these little details about Burt were coming back to Kurt. His smile, his strength, the way he’d always laugh when he’d see Kurt wearing his mother's apron, and Burt’s unbelievable affection for his ugly and completely obsolete collection of baseball caps. All these little things had made his dad so unique, so special. But as he remembered all of that, something clicked inside of the boy’s head.

The realization hit him devastatingly fast.

Burt had lied to him.

“I won’t cry, I won’t cry…” the words kept echoing out of the android’s mouth as he clenched the edge of the bathroom sink, his thumbs turning white. He didn’t even know how he still was managing to say those words; the only thing filling his mind was that painful realization.

His dad had lied to him.

Looking into his own blue eyes in the tarnished mirror, Kurt tried to keep himself together, but that was becoming painfully difficult. He couldn’t stop thinking about how his dad had lied to him for all those years.

“I won’t cry, I won’t cry, I won’t cry,” he kept whispering.

All that time, his life had been a lie; all the love that Burt had given him and the way his dad had always cherished him, protecting Kurt and making him believe that he was human, all of that was part of a huge lie.

Every time Burt had said “You have your mother eyes,” or “You have your grandfather's smile,” he had been lying.

Kurt didn’t have his mother’s eyes. Those two pools of crystalline blue weren’t even human. They were artificial! Walter’s stupid words had shown that!

“I won’t cry, I won’t cry,” he kept telling himself.

He was feeling so lost. Everything was so wrong; it all felt so wrong. He didn’t even know what he was anymore. Was he human? Or he was just a soulless machine, just an artificial imitation of a dead boy? How could he feel all those feelings if he was just a machine?

“I-I won’t cry, I won’t cry, I won’t cry-y…”

The sobs felt suffocating in his throat and he fought against tears that just couldn’t be part of a programmed reaction.

“I won’t cry…I can’t cry….I c-can’t…” were Kurt’s last words before the blue eyed android surrendered to the pain consuming him and fell to his knees.

Loud sobs erupted from his throat and tears ran down his face as Kurt wrapped his arms around himself, assuming an almost fetal position on the white floor of the bathroom. He was trying to keep himself together, trying not to break entirely. It was an almost rather na�ve attempt; the truth was, Kurt was already too damaged to keep himself together alone.

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So are you coming or not? -Q.

Blaine was reading and re-reading the text that had been sent to him. He considered the proposition implied in the text. Did he want to go out?

His mother had already brought him his clothes, his dad was asleep, and the annoying elf was in the shower. So why not? That would be a way to prove that he would not change himself just because he was living with his dad. If his mother thought that Walter could fix their lost cause, the problematic son, she was wrong.

Cracking a small smile, Blaine got up out of his bed, feeling good. It was only his first night in his dad’s house and he was already going out without permission. Somehow, he even felt a little proud of himself.

The greatest detective of District 198 wouldn’t suspect a thing.

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“Hey, man,” a tall boy with his hair styled in a spiked Mohawk greeted Blaine as he made his way towards a small group of teens who all seemed to be wearing leather jackets.

The boy with the Mohawk was Noah Puckerman, but everyone called him Puck. Then there was Quinn Fabray, with her blond hair dyed in a new shade of vivid pink. There was also Mike Chang, who was quiet as usual, and Santana Lopez, who was standing against the wall, holding an unfamiliar blond girl in an almost possessive way. And then there was Sam Evans, who was looking at his cell phone screen every five seconds, most likely exchanging messages with his ex.

“Hey,” Blaine greeted them as Quinn handed him a bottle with mysterious, but most certainly alcoholic, content.

“How was the family reunion?” she asked, cracking a mocking smile. Blaine almost rolled his eyes at her comment, but noticing how messed up she looked he contained his sarcasm.

Quinn was trying to look fine, she really was, making jokes about Blaine’s family and teasing him. But her attempt to be playful wasn’t good enough to hide her red rimmed eyes or how her voice was cracking a little, making it pretty obvious to Blaine that she had been crying earlier that day.

Taking the bottle out of Quinn’s hands, Blaine tried to ignore the pain in his chest, seeing his best friend like that. He loved her. She was the only one who remained at his side, even when he acted like a total jerk or was being a self-destructive asshole.

Quinn never judged him or tried to change him, and that was the reason why she was one of the few good things in his life. But unfortunately, like all the other things in Blaine’s life, good or bad, the pink haired girl also was messed up, too trapped in a past filled with mistakes and regrets.

“My family reunion?! Great! No one wants me around anymore so they kept fighting over who got to get rid of me. And then, I find a handcuffed boy locked in my dad’s room…” Blaine answered, placing the bottle on his lips and letting the liquid go down his throat. He flinched as he swallowed the liquid. It burnt his throat all the way down.
Yep, it’s definitely alcohol, he thought, trying to figure out what they had put in it that could have made it taste so gross. It was alcohol and mint flavored at same time.

“You found WHAT?” Quinn gasped, shocked. A handcuffed boy? That didn’t seem like Blaine’s dad at all. She knew Walter. She had been Blaine’s best friend since they were kids, way before Cooper’s death.

“So your dad’s a faggot like you, Anderson?” Puck asked, looking over at the hazel eyed boy with a mocking smile.

Blaine shook his head as he took sip of alcohol, forcing himself to stay calm and not start another fight with Puck. He wouldn’t surrender to Puck’s comments, even if they made the tension between them bigger and heavier.

For years they had kept up this fragile fa�ade, pretending to endure each other’s presence, when the truth was they profoundly hated each other.

Ever since Puck had gotten Quinn pregnant and had messed with her head in such a twisted way, she still kept begging for Blaine to not abandon the gang and stick around, even after all that Puck had done to her. That was when Blaine began to hate Noah Puckerman with everything he had.

On the other hand, Puck had never liked Blaine, either. To him, Blaine seemed too arrogant, a spoiled smartass. He wasn’t damaged enough to hang out with their crowd. And after the whole pregnancy episode when Blaine had punched him and then demanded for him to do something, that feeling only grew. Who was Blaine to tell him what he could or couldn't do?

“The boy is just this asshole who Walter is helping. He’s staying at Walter’s place and was stupid enough to handcuff himself,” Blaine mocked, trying to lighten the mood and contain his desire to punch Puck right in the face.

And just as Blaine intended, bursts of laughter filled the dark alley, breaking up the heavy atmosphere.

“You‘re making this up right?” Santana said, laughing and showing her white polished teeth as the blond girl in her arms frowned, not seeming to understand what was going on. Blaine didn’t know her, but seeing how overly protective Santana seemed about her, holding her tightly against her chest like she couldn’t bear to lose her, Blaine concluded that this girl was probably the reason why the Santana had come out months ago as a lesbian, being disowned by her family as a result.

“Is he retarded or something?” Puck inquired suspiciously, bringing Blaine back to reality, obviously not believing Blaine’s story.

“Probably,” Blaine nodded, supporting his weight against the dirty wall before concluding, “and now I’m being forced to share a room with him.” He received a sympathetic look from Mike, who cracked a small smile at him. The quiet Asian boy had joined their crew after being disowned by his father, and he almost never spoke. He just hung around with them to avoid being at home at same time as his old man. At home, Mike would be forced to hear over and over about how he was a failure and how he was throwing his future away by investing his time in dancing.

“You’re living with Walter now? B, that can totally cause you problems,” Quinn said, sounding worried.

“Yeah, man, Quinn is right. Your dad’s a cop, isn’t he?” Sam inquired, finally looking up from his phone.

Sam’s family was suffering from serious financial issues and the blond boy was working as a stripper in a dirty club not too far from the dark alley where they were standing. But even having to deal with the ugliest part of Lima’s night life on a daily basis, Sam still hadn’t given up on love. He was persistently trying get his ex-girlfriend back. It was kind of cute actually, na�ve, but cute.

“Walter’s not a cop. He just deals with illegal technology,” Blaine assured them, lighting up a cigarette. It wasn’t like Walter would care with what he did. He hadn’t cared in the last ten years, so why would he begin caring now?

“So he won’t bring us problems right? I don’t want anyone’s “daddy” ruining our parties and messing with our stuff, especially not a cop. Do you understand me, Anderson?” Puck grunted, pushing Blaine. Blaine’s resolution of not fighting with Puck was no longer standing. Noah had crossed the line of how much shit Blaine could handle in one day. Who did he think he was? Some kind of alpha leader? No, Blaine wasn’t anyone’s bitch and he wasn't about to take this anymore from anyone.

“You really think you run this shit, don’t you, Noah?” Blaine said in a daring tone, tossing his cigarette aside and clenching his fists tightly. He wasn’t scared. Puck was taller than him, but Blaine had been wanting punch that arrogant face for a long time.

“Look, Anderson, I don’t know who you-” Puck began to shout angrily. He dangerously approached the hazel eyed boy, but before they could do anything, Santana interrupted them, stopping what would probably turn out to be a really ugly fight. She still remembered the last time that those two had fought. It had been a bloody mess.

“Can you two ladies calm down, please?! My girl Brittany doesn’t like fights. She gets scared, and when someone scares my girl, I GET SCARY. And you don’t want to see me getting scary,” Santana hissed, glaring sharply at the two boys before she shoved them both apart.

“Is your dad gonna cause us problems, Blainey boy?” she asked, still clenching Blaine’s jacket.

“No, Satan, he won’t. He doesn’t give a shit about what I do,” Blaine assured her, disengaging from her but still glaring fixedly at Puck.

“Great.” Santana said before she turned her attention to Puckerman.

“See? His dad won’t cause us any problems. So stop acting like you’re some kind of macho alpha here, because let’s face the facts, there aren’t any such things up in here. We’re all just a bunch of fucked up, self-destructive idiots coming from homes that don’t give a shit about us. No one here is better than anyone, and if someone was better, it wouldn’t be a piece of shit like you,” she said, putting a daring emphasis on piece of shit.

“You are lucky that you’re a hot chick, San, or else you would’ve met my fists already,” Puck hissed, clenching his jaw as Santana cracked another playful smile.

“Yeah, right,” she said, rolling her eyes and walking away from him with a cocky smile. Puck was just like an old dog. He would bark, but he could never bite her. He just messed with Blaine because he believed that Blaine had no place there, that he was just a spoiled brat. Puck obviously couldn’t see all pain and loneliness behind the boy’s hazel eyes.

It took a few minutes and more than a few shots of alcohol for the boys to calm themselves down. Finally, they returned to the habitual fragile truce established between them. And soon, the group did relax, once more talking about stupid topics like talking smack about school and debating about where Sam should put a piercing.

Santana was really insistent about how the blond boy shouldn’t put one on his mouth, saying that his lips were already too flamboyant, making everyone laugh and Sam blush a little. They all stood there for a little while, just until they ran out of alcohol. Quinn wanted to go somewhere to buy more cigarettes because she refused to smoke Blaine’s “crappy cigs.” After all, Quinn had her standards. She only smoked mint flavored ones.

But just as their quest for an open convenience store began, Mike murmured something about the time and went home. Then Sam received a call from the club where he worked, and he ended up having to leave early, too. This left only Blaine, Quinn, Puck, Santana and her girlfriend, Brittany. The five of them kept walking adrift in the cold night, looking for a place where Quinn could buy her cigarettes and Puck could buy some liquor, using his fake I.D, of course.

Blaine wasn’t really into the girls’ conversations and for obvious reasons was avoiding interacting with Puckerman, so he ended up giving in to his old habits. He looked up at the sky, staring at the stars. But as soon as he realized what he was doing, his chest tightened painfully.

That used to be his and Cooper’s thing, looking at the sky late at night and searching for constellations and comets. Sometimes, they had even spent the whole night awake doing just that. It had been more than ten years since the last time he had looked at the sky like this, but Blaine could still remember those times like it was yesterday. The time when he didn’t feel alone like he was feeling now. Nowadays, he was tormented by the worst kind of loneliness, the one that you feel even when you’re surrounded by other people.

“Hey, look at that!” Puck exclaimed, catching the crowd’s attention and pointing to a solitary domestic robot walking in the streets, carrying what appeared to be some sort of a heavy bag. The gray machine seemed to be old and the metal that covered its exterior didn’t shine anymore. The robot was at least forty years old, clearly a legal one, belonging to the line of first models made after the institutionalization of the Anti-humanization laws.

“Check it out,” Puck snickered before he threw the empty bottle of alcohol at the robot’s head.

A piercingly metallic cry echoed in the air as the robot fell to its knees almost instantly at the violent impact of the empty bottle at its head. Blaine and the girls flinched hearing the noise, but Puck just burst out laughing when he saw the way the robot fell to the ground. The form of artificial intelligence tried to get up seconds later but didn’t succeed. It continuously tried to stand up, being unsuccessful in each of its attempts.

Puck had probably damaged some important part of the robot’s central unit of processing, because the gray machine wasn’t able to stand on its two feet anymore.
Blaine felt pity seeing the way the robot tried and tried without succeeding. It was a really painful scene.

“Why did you do that!?” Brittany cried, horrified, giving voice to Blaine’s thoughts.

Brittany didn’t like the way people like Puck treated robots, like they were stupid vermin, using them and treating them like garbage. It always reminded her of the way people used to treat her before she met Santana, always using her for her body and then calling her stupid behind her back.

“What? it’s only just a thing!” Puck argued, rolling his eyes and obviously annoyed by his friends.

“Y-Yeah, it's only a thing,” Quinn agreed in an obvious and pathetic attempt to please Puck by taking his side.

Hearing Quinn’s words made Blaine roll his eyes. He couldn’t understand how someone as smart and amazing as Quinn could go so low just to please a guy who had already hurt her so much.

After the pregnancy, Quinn had lost herself in such a twisted and screwed up way that she kept following Puck as faithfully as a puppy. Quinn needed to be loved so badly and wanted to feel protected. She would always wait for the few little crumbs of affection that Puck sometimes gave her. She was addicted to those brief moments, willing to do anything for just a few more seconds of warmth. At those times, she didn’t feel like useless garbage.

“Leave it, baby,” Santana whispered, wrapping her arms around her girlfriend, who still seemed upset.

“But t-they hurt him!” Brittany complained, seeing the agony of the old robot as it still tried to stand.

“It’s okay.” Blaine assured them, cracking a small comforting smile before going in the robot’s direction. He held the heavy machine in his arms and embracing the thing’s center, he tried to help the robot to stand on its two feet again.

“See? It's okay now,” Blaine said, trying to comfort Brittany as he still held onto the robot’s center. He knew that if he let go, the robot would fall again. The machine was shuddering and it was too damaged to stand on two feet without help.

“If you say so,” Brittany frowned as Santana walked her away from the robot, noticing Blaine's efforts to keep the thing standing.

Santana mouthed a silent thank you before turning her back to Blaine. She was followed by Quinn, who gave an apologetic look to her best friend before walking away from him.

“Always playing the good guy, aren’t you, Anderson?” Puck grunted, seeing Blaine trying to help the gray robot.

“Fuck you, Puckerman! What you did was completely unnecessary!” Blaine shouted, leaning the robot against a wall before he took his arms from around the thing’s waist.

“Don’t be a fucking hypocrite, Anderson. I've already seen you break things before.”

“But I never broke a…a-” Blaine tried to argue before Puck interrupted him.

“A what? This is a thing! Just like principal Figgins’ car or the school lockers!” Puck shouted back.

And Blaine didn’t want to admit it, but Puck was right. He had broken thousands of things, and he really wasn’t in any position to judge Puck for doing damage to a thing.
Because that was what the damaged robot, trembling in front of him was. A thing. A machine.

No matter how human it seemed, no matter how much it seemed to be in agonizing pain on the cold pavement, or how the robot’s fingers were clutching Blaine’s pants, pleading for help, that robot was still a thing.

Robots are just things, Blaine, things! he thought to himself, leaving the robot behind and trying to ignore the lump forming in his throat as he tried and failed to convince himself that he was doing the right thing.