The first time he heard of Blaine being in the hospital, he was heading home from a late night out with friends. He’d opted out of drinking too much, as the last time he was a bumbling mess trying to walk back to his apartment. It was nearing 1 am when his phone rang. Without glancing at the screen, he tapped his phone and answered.

“Hello? Hey Mom, what’s up? Blaine’s in the hospital… What for?”

And when she told him, it all seemed to click. Cooper vaguely remembered a phone call three weeks ago where his 14-year-old brother- excited, though unmistakably nervous- told him of a guy he “kind of” liked and their plan to go to a dance together. Cooper was happy for his baby brother and listened to all of his plans and what he would wear. Last week he had even stopped a stuttering Blaine from backing out. Now he was laying in an intensive care unit in some hospital in Ohio, knowing nothing but the hatred of others.

Cooper hadn’t noticed he was crying until he caught his mom speaking again.

“-Westerville Children’s Hospital if you can make it out. We don’t know how long he’ll be here…” He sniffed, said goodbye to his mother, and hung up.

The rest of his trip home was torturous. He wanted to be in Ohio, by Blaine’s side, but he knew that wasn’t possible at this hour. He felt so hopeless. Blaine was 14; why would anyone beat up an innocent kid who was just trying to make his life somewhat normal for a night? He was so angry. Angry at the world; angry at himself for being more acceptable than Blaine simply because of their sexual orientation.

He sat at his kitchen table, eyes wet and red, hair distressed, until he could catch a flight to Columbus at six in the morning.

—-

Cooper sat as his desk, sorting files when his cell phone rang with a number he didn’t know flashing across the screen. Knowing his boss’s strict rules on personal calls, he chose to ignore it and continue working.

When he was called two more times by the same number, he decided to answer, insubordination be damned.

“This is Cooper,” he answered.

“Hi, Cooper, I- you don’t know me, but my name’s Kurt and-“

“Kurt, I hear about you so much, you practically live in New York with me,” Coop chuckled, the question of why Kurt was calling lingering in his mind.

He could hear Kurt giggle on the other side, though weakly, and then a heavy sigh crackled over the phone.

“I wanted to call you because Blaine told me to. He… he’s in the hospital and his eye-,” Kurt said but was abruptly cut off by the man on the other end.

“Wait… he’s in the hospital again? Why for his eye?” Cooper couldn’t believe his ears. Why was his baby brother- though not so baby-ish anymore at 17- constantly being sent to the hospital?

Coop listened to Kurt’s choppy explanation of the parking garage, the slushie, and how Blaine had seen it coming and jumped in front to protect Kurt. He listened as Kurt told him that there must have been something in the slushie, because he knows from experience (Cooper cringed a bit) that they shouldn’t cause people to go blind and that he and the rest of Glee club would find out.

Cooper sighed, a headache forming near the front of his skull at the situation.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” he said before saying goodbye to Kurt and hanging up.

It was a bit of a struggle to get free from work, explaining to his boss that this was an emergency and doesn’t he know what an emergency is?! He grabbed his jacket and walked the eight blocks home and packed a duffle before even bothering to check for flights.

He stopped himself in his rush of tasks to allow himself to calm down, though the gesture did anything but. Standing still, he had time to think. There weren’t tears this time like there had been for the Sadie Hawkins incident two and a half years ago. This was pure anger. He crossed his arms in front of his window, disinterested in the view for the first time.

At some point, he thought, society is going to stop hating Blaine and people like him. It may not be until Cooper’s dead and gone; maybe not until Blaine is, for that matter, but one day it will happen. That was the only hope Cooper could rely on as he stood there.

He scolded himself for not being closer to his brother, not spending enough time with him, not being the brother he used to be. In that moment, staring over the island of Manhattan, Cooper swore to himself he would do anything he could to make this better for Blaine. Hate was hate- whether in the form of flying fists or slushies, and he couldn’t stand it anymore; not to his baby brother; not to anyone.

He grabbed his bag and headed downstairs, calling a cab for the airport.