Thanksgiving passed, then Christmas, then New Years… and still no word from Blaine.  As Valentine's day drew close, Kurt decided that enough was enough and started doing online searches for Cooper Anderson - Blaine's elder brother.

Cooper, it turned out, was easier to find than Kurt anticipated.  The first name to pop up was one Cooper Anderson of Los Angeles, California with enough acting credits to his name to have a wealth of images that allowed Kurt to easily see that not only was he Blaine's older brother, but that he was a definite younger version of boss Anderson from back at the factory.  

Getting ahold of Cooper though, was not as easy.

Phone calls were filtered through an agent, who didn't buy Kurt's plea that he was a friend of Blaine trying to see if Cooper knew anything about where he was or what had happened to him.  Apparently Cooper had quite a lot of fans - male and female, always trying to find a way to connect with the actor one-on-one and Kurt's call was just seen as a ruse to try and connect to Cooper.

So he tried email, which bounced back on him as undeliverable.

Finally, and begrudgingly, Kurt decided to mail Cooper the old fashioned way, hoping that a real letter might actually reach him.  He explained his history with Blaine, where he had last seen him, and how he hoped Cooper knew more so that Kurt could reach him.  Kurt had never used more ‘pleases' in his life than he did in that letter.

Then the waiting game began.

One day, two days.  One week, two weeks.

He was seriously considering spending some money on a train ticket to Los Angelous when he got a call from an unknown number on his phone one afternoon.

“Hello!”

“Hello?  Is this a Mr. Kurt Hummel?”

“Yes…”

“My name is Cooper Anderson… I got a letter from you and -”

Once Kurt heard the name, his mouth fired before his brain had time to think about about it.

“Oh my god!  Do you know where Blaine is?  Is he okay?  What happened to him?  Does he not want to talk to me?  Is he alright?  Did I already ask that?”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa champ.  Calm down.”

“Yeah… yeah… sorry…”

“Look.  I got a letter some months ago given me two months notice that I would be given guardianship of my brother when he was scheduled to be freed, then I get a letter a month after that saying that due to a transfer, Blaine was not going to be freed as per the last letter and they would let me know if anything changed.  That was the last I heard.”

“What?  But he fast tracked!  They can't go backwards!  Oh my god… was he demoted?!”

“Fast-tracked? Demoted?  What?”  

Sometimes, Kurt forgot that people who had never been in the service system didn't know the lingo.  Promoted, demoted, fast-tracked, write-off…. they were all foreign to people who hadn't lived as a Dent.  Normal society was only ever aware that indentured servants served time for debts owed and didn't bother learning the ins and outs of the system they hoped they would never suffer through.

“He took a less desirable job because it paid more… the dancing job I told you about in the letter… it was… uh… exotic style dancing… but it meant he could get out of the system before he was nineteen.”

In the letter, Kurt had left out the specifics of the type of trade Blaine was involved in to spare Cooper any additional stress it may have caused him…. plus Kurt found he couldn't write out the words without blushing anyhow.

“Oh wow… good on my little brother I guess.”

“Wait, what?”

“Well he's got to have the Anderson male genetic advantage if he's working a pole right?  Good for him.”

Kurt cleared his throat and pulled loose the tie around his neck as the flush went up his body and into his cheeks.  To say that Blaine had attractive genes was an understatement, and not something he expected to be talking about with Blaine's older brother.  

“And… the only way he would have had to spend longer in service after fast-tracking like that, that I know of anyhow, would be if he did something wrong and was demoted to a lesser paying position.”

“Dents don't get paid….”

“You're right… in theory.  The wages we would've earned in that position go towards paying off our debts.  Demoted means you're in a position that won't pay the debt down as quickly.”

“Oh… so… where would he have gone?”

Kurt sighed, realizing then that Cooper was not the help he had been hoping for, “He could have gone anywhere… Dents work everywhere that there's a job where the regular population doesn't have to see them…”

“Well maybe my parents know.  I'll ask them I guess.”

“Wait… what?  Your parents?  They should be in service still….”

“Oh no.  They were released uh… few months ago.   They moved to Chicago to try and rebuild the family honor or whatever.  I was never really into that scene…”

Kurt's mouth suddenly went dry.  If Blaine's parents were freed about the same time that “circumstances changed” according to Cooper's letter, and Blaine wasn't freed along with them there was only one thing Kurt could think of that had happened.

“Oh my god….”  Kurt whined softly, his grip on the phone loosening until it slid from his hand and fell to the ground with a thud just as his body trembled.  From the floor he could here Cooper's faint voice calling out but Kurt couldn't bring himself to stoop down to pick up the phone.

Had Blaine been “written off”?

It was Santana who found him, hours later, curled up under the covers of his dorm room and clutching his pillow with a death grip.  She thought he was sick at first, but upon inspecting the bathroom and the bedroom and declaring it too immaculate to be that of a sick person, sat on the edge of the bed and set a hand on his shoulder.

“Come on princess.  Tell Auntie Snix what's wrong.”

“He's dead….”

Her brow bunched up as she regarded him quietly, “Who?  Who died?  Is it your dad?”

Kurt slowly shook his head, forcing himself to take a shuddering breath and force the idea out of his mind of his dad being dead on top of things.  “No.  Blaine.”

“Blaine?  Blaine who?”

“Anderson….”

“Blaine Anderson?  That snotty little brat from the factory?”

“He… wasn't…”

“Oooh-kay princess…”  She reached up to stroke her extra long nails through his hair, “Take a breath and tell me just what the hell is going on.”

So he did.  He told her more than he'd ever told her before.  About his summer's with Blaine, how he didn't tell the rest of them because he didn't want them to be jealous, about how he reunited with Blaine at the warehouse, about Blaine getting sick and Kurt being freed, and about how the lap dance she bought him brought them back together… and how now he had to be dead because there was no way his parents were alive and free without that happening.

“Oh honey….”  She pulled him into her arms when he had managed to choke it all out and then allowed him to sob against her breasts, and god, how did people find breasts attractive?  They were so lumpy and malleable and…. so much like pillows….

When he awoke a few hours later after sobbing his eyes dry, he was still cushioned on her breasts.  Santana had one arm around him and the other held out her phone which she was surfing the web on.

“‘tana?”

“Mmm… thank god you're awake.  Thought I'd make you straight yet the way you've been attached to those babies of mine.”

“He's dead ‘tana….”  Kurt whined softly as he remembered how he had ended up there.

“Maybe, maybe not.  I've been doing some research.”

“What if someone raped him and killed him in that little room?  God… what if he was mugged?  What if another -”

Kurt was silenced by one of Santana's fingers pulling away from around his shoulder and being snapped to his lips.  “Hush you.  Listen to this…”

She read off whatever website she was visiting, Kurt listening with all too hopeful and attentive ears.

“Indentured servants have been known to change their posted date of freedom by what is called “fast tracking”, yada, yada… Service dates can be extended as well.  The main source of service extension is by demotion, as referenced in cases like… blah… blah… however, some indentured servants choose to extend their stay in service, such as in the case of one child agreeing to work for a longer period of time so a sibling does not have to or may be freed….”

“You think he agreed to stay in service so his parents could go free?” Kurt murmured, still resting heavily against Santana's chest.

“Well it's a thought.  We'd have to ask his parents I guess… see if they know anything.  Lord and Lady Anderson hey?  Would love to see her again… maybe piss on her too tall heels…. She was never happy about anything or anyone…”

“Sounds like someone I know and love…”

His hair was ruffled and she chuckled, “That's my boy.  Come on.  Since you missed all your Friday classes to mope it's now the weekend.  Let's road trip to Chicago.”

“Really?”

Santana laughed, “Yeah.  Didn't you hear what I said about peeing on her heels?”