"I think I have some explaining to do."

"Blaine's asleep Cooper, he can't stay awake for too long due to his extensive injuries. Injuries you caused. Goodbye." Kurt closed the door swiftly, but Cooper's foot stopped it.

"Please, Kurt, just let me tell you what happened. I love Blaine. I had nothing to do with this. Shit, Kurt I should have been there more. This is probably  all my fault, but I swear it wasn't intentional. " Cooper pleaded against the door, with only his foot actually in Kurt's line of sight.

"Then what is going on here Coop'?" Kurt questioned, opening the door. Cooper looked sincere. You could easily tell h had also been crying about something.

"Please Kurt; just let me in to explain." Cooper begged. Kurt sighed and gestured for cooper to come inside.

"Let's go upstairs and see if we can wake Blaine up. Besides, it's not that late, if he gets used to sleeping this early it'll mess up his body's clock." Kurt said leading the way.

They walked to Kurt and Blaine's room in silence, Blaine was laying on the bed, his eyebrows straining together in a frown, and he was shaking and sweating profusely. Kurt and Cooper could hear his mumbling with a scared tone to his voice.

"Good job we came up here then." Kurt muttered as he climbed onto the bed and began to lightly stroke Blaine's face, not quite knowing how to wake him up without hurting him.

"No Dad. Please no. Don't hurt me. Please. I'm sorry. I'll try to be a good son, I will." Blaine starting getting louder, and Kurt's gentle attempts at waking him were doing nothing.

"Blaine. BLAINE wake up!" Kurt said, rather loudly, into Blaine's ear. The minute Blaine's eyes opened, Kurt was stroking his hair softly and comforting him. "It's okay baby. It was just a dream. I'm here now. He's gone. He can't hurt you. You're safe. You're safe baby. You're home."

Blaine soon relaxed into Kurt's gentle touch. Once he was calm, Kurt helped him to sit up. That was when he noticed Cooper's presence in the room and tensed up. "K-k-k-urt. It's Cooper. What if he tells them where I am. Please get him to leave Kurt, I just can't..." Giant tears starting slowly rolling down Blaine's face as he began to gently shake in Kurt's arms.

"Oh, sweetie. Shh. It's okay. He says he wants to talk to us and explain what happened. If you want he can just tell me? Please don't cry my darling, it's okay. I promise nobody's going to hurt you."

Cooper looked on at the scene and also began to cry. Had he blown Blaine's trust that badly? He was his kid brother. He's promised himself the first time he saw Blaine get hit that he would never let it happen again. But it had happened again. And again. And again. And now look where they were.

"Cooper?" Blaine called quietly. "Why are you crying?" Blaine had grown up with Cooper in the same house as him until Blaine left for Dalton at age 15, yet he'd never even seen Cooper Anderson shed a single tear. However, here he stood, openly sobbing.

"I love you, Blaine. You can't trust me, you don't want to be in the same room as me. You're my little brother. I promised myself I'd never let anyone touch you. At least just let me explain what happened, please. Then I'll leave, I just can't leave without you knowing what happened. If you still hate me then, then I'll move on. But I can't have you hate me and not know the whole story."

"Okay." Blaine nodded. "You can tell me what happened." He sniffed and wiped his eyes, then looked at his brother expectantly. 

Cooper took a deep breath before he began to recall all of last weeks events.

"So on the Saturday that you called, you said you were bringing Kurt to Ohio and wanted help with getting into the house. So I called Mum and Dad immediately and asked to stay in Westerville with them for the week, to ‘get some job seeking advice from Dad.' You know them Blaine, just the thought of my dumping the acting thing thrilled them so much they couldn't possibly disagree. So on Monday, I headed over to their house. Everything seemed normal, they were being perfect assholes as per usual.

"On Tuesday though, I came downstairs and Mum and Dad were yelling. But not at each other, they were just both loud because they were so angry I could tell Dad had been drinking and that's when i heard them.

"I saw the fag's Dad's car driving to Dalton and they were there! In the car!"

"So they're definitely coming here then. Those stupid fucking homos."

"You're so clever for tracking Coop's texts, John. I knew that they'd be up to something one day."

"I remember feeling like my blood had froze. I went into the living room and they were laughing so much. I threw my phone at them and screamed that they were both sick, and I ran for my car. I got in and drove to Dalton as fast as I could, but you weren't there. So I drove around Westerville for a while but I couldn't find you anywhere. So I drove to Lima, but when I got there, there were no cars, so I drove back to the house and again, no one, but there was blood on the floor. I felt so sick. I asked Jim from next door what happened and he said you'd been taken away unconscious in an ambulance, that a young man had gone in with you, and two middle aged adults had followed the ambulance in the car you came in.

"I went to the hospital and they said you were in the ICU and to come back tomorrow when you weren't. So I stayed at a motel and tried to sort my head out. The next day I went back to the hospital as soon as visiting hours started but they said you didn't want anyone in there with you.

"I tried every day, but finally today they said you were discharged. So I asked what your injuries were and when they told me, I felt so ill again. Dad had deliberately given you the same injuries three times in a row, Blaine. Doing the same twice is a rare coincidence, but three times, that's just sick minded games. So I went to talk to them about it, but not alone. I took four police officers with me. They are being convicted of 4 counts of child abuse and 1 for an unprovoked attack. You weren't legally their child the third time so they're getting charged for that separately.

"That was when it got interesting though, they found a man in our father's most used contacts, and they found the name "Dan Hushet."

Kurt and Blaine's blood ran cold at the familiar name.

-

Kurt left the apartment with tears streaming down his face, he ran to the hotel he had booked for the time being without noticing the footsteps following him closely behind. As he turned into an alley he thought he heard something so he stopped and that was when it happened. "Oi! Fag!" Kurt heard the voice booming around him.

"I did it! Now fuck off!" Kurt screamed back, turning to face Dan, standing there in his hoodie, holding a brick.

"You know what? Actually just because you're no longer dating the other gay idiot, your queerness still OFFENDS ME!"

"What are you going to do, Dan? You can't hit the gay out of me!"

"I can try."

There was a bang as the brick hit Kurt's head and then darkness.

-

Kurt ran out of the room, his stomach twisting inside of him as tears fell down his face, he bent over the toilet and began to throw up violently. A few minutes later he felt a familiar hand on his back, rubbing soothingly. He relaxed into Blaine's touch and fell to the side of the toilet. Blaine ignored the pain and sat down next to Kurt, he wrapped an arm around the taller mans waist and pulled him tightly to him. Blaine pulled off some tissue and wiped Kurt's mouth, before throwing it down the toilet and flushed. He sat back down with Kurt, who let his head drop onto Blaine's shoulder Blaine started stroking Kurt's hair and kissed him on the head.

Fifteen minutes later cooper entered the room and with permission, continued to explain his story.

"It turns out Dad was behind the attack. He planned the whole thing to make Blaine miserable and to ‘get back at the fag that ruined his son for good.' I'm so sorry you guys. I had no idea, I tried to tell you, I really did. Anyways, they are having an open case court on the 23rd of July, they've pleaded guilty, which is good, but there's something else you should know. They uh, they found some other evidence and old conversations. They're re-charging Dan and our parents sentences are changing. Dan is being charged for 1 count of attempted murder, Dad is being charged for 1 count of attempted murder and 1 count of assisted attempted murder, Mum is being charged for accessory to murder in the first degree."

Kurt was immediately over the toilet throwing up again. Blaine couldn't even move. "They were trying to..." He trailed off.

Cooper nodded sullenly. "I'll go break the news to Burt and Carole."

Kurt stopped throwing up and wiped his mouth again. He was shaking when he fell against Blaine and started sobbing. Both of them sat there on the floor, Kurt sobbing into Blaine's shoulder whilst Blaine just stared into space. He couldn't even move. Everything hurt too much. But at the same time everything felt so numb. He could hear Kurt's cries and Burt yelling downstairs, but it all seemed so far away. He could feel the tears falling down his face, and strangely the sound of them hitting the floor was louder than anything else around him. He focused on their consistent rhythm against the tiles.

He heard footsteps upstairs, he could see Kurt falling into Burt's embrace and he felt Carole's arms wrap around him. But he didn't really see or feel anything. It was all dull. He felt as if he was falling through the floor.

He found himself being led into the bedroom and he knew he was now lying down in bed. He could hear Kurt spilling out all of his feelings about being devastated that someone had wanted to kill him, but still nothing reached him. He couldn't bring himself to do anything, everything was so blank and empty around him. He felt Kurt take his hand, and on instinct held it back, but he didn't feel anything from it. The usual buzzes were gone. The tingles he always felt stayed in his hand and heart, but they never reached his brain.

He could hear Kurt calling his name, trying to snap him out of the trance, but he couldn't form any words to answer. He heard Kurt calling for help and the others entering, but he kept his eyes on the ceiling. He focused on the white above him as it slowly turned dark and he was suddenly surrounded by darkness as everything finally fell completely silent.