My name is Sea Mars, and I just try to write things down because otherwise my imagination gets out of control. This is my first fanfic, but I'm still proud of it. This chapter has been reeling around in my head for about a week, but I finally bothered to sit down and write it out.

I guess its a fanfic of CP Coulter's Dalton, which I love. So far no main characters are actually mine, but I'm about to get one in there :)

EDIT ON 10 Oct. 2011: I just reread my draft and yeah there's a few mistakes. So if you didn't understand some parts of it for some super bad grammar, wrong names or even a completely wrong word, it's mostly fixed up now.

I do not own Glee or Dalton.

I hope you enjoy...

CHAPTER ONE

BROKEN GLASSES

Loud banging and clashing across the hall broke Blaine out of his reverie. He had been staring at the closing sentence of Kurt's email—all my love, Kurt—for over ten minutes now. He still got butterflies when he read Kurt's name, especially when it was following a word like "love".

A loud grunt actually alerted Blaine to the fact that he could be possibly getting burgled right now, and be sitting here staring at his computer screen like a love-struck idiot. He pushed back from his desk at his bedroom window and walked towards the hallway.

Shane was already leaning against the doorframe of the study, his head cocked to the left and drinking his orange juice.

"Dad… what are you doing?" Shane asked, cautiously. He had half a mind that was imagining mum making him sleep in there for un extended period of time after his performance at Dalton's parent's night.

"Clearing out the study, son. But don't you come help… wouldn't want you to break a nail."

The study was the smallest room in the house, right in the middle, with no windows or comfortable thermostat. The main source of light came from a skylight that the Andersons were fairly sure was not replaced when the house was redone a few years prior. It had slowly become a small museum, holding the elements of the two Anderson brothers' lives as they grew.

It had also become a general junk collection, holding everything that anyone in the house didn't want but also didn't not want. A majority of the room was made up with these haphazardly stacked boxes, thrown in there only when mum wasn't around. Marlene was into the organisation of the study, but once something went in even she wasn't game enough to try and sort it out.

Shane watched as his father lifted up a large box of Blaine's old trophies, and stumbled dropping the box to the floor with a loud clash. If Blaine and his father hadn't reconnected a bit after Blaine's previous life-threatening "ordeal", as his parents referred to it, Shane would have thought his father did it on purpose.

But Barty just looked at the box on the ground, almost shaking. Amidst the trophies and certificates from Blaine's academic and musical achievements, there were also photos of him with various family members and friends.

In that short moment, Shane new that had that ordeal had killed Blaine, it would have killed his family, too.

Shane glanced side long at Blaine who was pulling on a shirt and walking in to the study, with the intention to help his father.

"So why does the study need to be cleaned out?"

Barty looked up sadly at the two boys. "The market presents us with hard times, and this current drop… Rose needs somewhere to send her son for the time being."

Rose, Barty's younger sister, had a husband who made and lost his millions by his inadequate understanding of market shares. Blaine and Shane had never actually met Rose or her son, but from the look on their father's face at this moment, they didn't think they were ready to live with him.

"We just need to get as much stuff into the basement as we can and the rest into your bedrooms."

Shane and Blaine looked stricken at the thought of sharing their space with these boxes of embarrassing moments, posed photographs and awkward teenage phases. Especially the basement, which had been transformed some time ago as a place for the two of them and their friends, having little space for storage and most importantly being able to hide the storage.

But Barty was already back to work at sorting out which boxes needed to go where and didn't notice the boys' silent disagreement.

Blaine, fulfilling his former intentions, bent down and picked up three of the cardboard boxes marked "Shane" in black marker and carried them into the hall. On returning he picked up two plastic boxes which he knew were filled with photographs and scrapbooks and that he did not want any visitors to see, dropping them next to Shane's boxes in the hall.

"Shane?" Barty prompted.

"Uh… No I can't actually. I'm going out with… uh."

Barty got back to his work, his back to the door. "Oh."

Blaine gave his brother a sympathetic shove out the door, almost glad that he could have some time with his father, since they were now on speaking terms.

Shane needed no further encouragement, and grabbing his phone, wallet and Blaine's car keys he loped delicately down the stairs and out the front door, shouting goodbye to the household.

His iPhone buzzed, and the name Reed Van Kamp came across the screen.

It's cold.

Although this confused him, Shane sniggered to himself. Reed was a rather delicate flower sometimes. He had made it a few more steps when Reed texted him again.

And windy.

This made Shane laugh aloud, knowing that Reed would probably keep texting him all the negative aspects of his surroundings until he replied or picked him up.

I can't reply while I'm driving, what if I crash?

Shane typed a quick reply, before jumping into the driver's seat of his brother's white '85 911 Porche—the one that he and dad had rebuilt a few weeks previously. The engine was small, powerful and quiet and was one of the "bonding exercises" Blaine and his father had agreed on. Barty was amazed at his son's grease-monkey skills, and shocked that his outwardly gay son was willing to get dirty. Besides, Blaine got a free car.

Reed had been lounging around in California for almost a week now, going from fashion show to fashion show and art gallery to art gallery with his mother. She was attempting to shower him in as much love and adoration as she could, though he could not tell if it was because of his recent near-death experience or because the fashion powress had a gay son.

Tonight, however, she was attending an exclusive lingerie show, one that she thought was not suitable for Reed to attend.

So he invited Shane over.

He had just received Shane's text about not texting him while he was driving. It was true that Shane was known to get a little too excitable about Reed and Reed's safety. Were he to know where Reed was right now, would have him speeding to the Hyatt and coming to the rescue.

Yes. It was probably best that Reed waited, at least until he saw Shane pull up and the valet had the car a safe distance from him.

Reed stuck his head over the balcony and laughed at how he felt like Juliet, or even Rapunzel at this moment: trapped on a small balcony, awaiting his knight.

Blaine had just made his forth trip down to the basement, making this one as quick as possible. Every time he had returned from the basement so far, he was sure his father had been through Blaine's box he dropped before.

Very subtle changes, such as the photo that was on top in his photo pile or which award was facing up created a sneaking suspicion that Barty was repetitively going through Blaine's box.

It wasn't like it was a big deal to Blaine if his father went through his box, after all it had been a free-for-all all these years since being in the study and Barty was present at almost every of those occasions in the box.

Making it to the hallway, he started to move stealthily to the study and trying to feel rather stupid and immature at the same time. He poked his head around to see his father, normally so in control, leaning with his back against another pile of boxes to go into the basement looking at pictures from Blaine's box.

Suddenly Blaine felt like he had walked in on a private moment of his father's thoughts and decided to leave him to it. He was about to step quietly back into the hall to find something to do for a while, but was stopped by his father's voice.

"Pardon?" Blaine asked, before considering that perhaps his father was not talking to him and that his cover was blown.

"You aren't as good at sneaking up on people as Shane." There was a short silence.

"I'm sorry." Blaine said.

"For what?"

"I don't really know. I just feel like I should be sorry about something."

"My father always taught me to only admit you are wrong when you truly are."

Barty flicked over two more photos before a shadow of a smile crossed his face.

"Father, I—"

"When was it that you stopped calling me "dad"? I don't really remember. Was it because of an absence or because… Shane still calls me "dad"."

"Father, it—"

"Not that it really matters, I suppose. "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"." Blaine smiled and went to sit opposite his father. He obviously had something he wanted to impart on his son, and in true Barty fashion, he incorporated Shakespeare into it.

While Barty was collecting his thoughts, Blaine thought about why he had chosen to quote Romeo and Juliet: a tale of two forbidden lovers, but are together in death. Someone else—namely Shane—would think that Barty just did it as a in the moment sentence, but Blaine knew that his father hardly ever did anything without thinking it through. Except—

"It's strange, having two gay sons, and those two sons having boyfriends. I always imagined that on a holiday like this you'd bring home a girl who you were seeing, or having to deal with a pregnancy scare because one of you boys screwed up or…" He trailed off.

Blaine realised how often his father had been trailing off in the past half an hour. He usually finished every sentence he ever started, seemingly editing it to perfection on the way from his brain to his mouth.

As he stood up, he put an arm out to Blaine and pulled him up. Barty watched as Blaine automatically flinched away from his father's arm, before taking it and standing too.

Someone so young, someone so damaged. Barty had read that somewhere, probably on a slogan shirt or something.

Blaine followed him silently through the kitchen, out the back double French doors, past the alfresco area, skirting the infinity pool and to a small gardening space behind the pool house.

Somewhere the gardeners didn't go.

"This is my garden. Only you know its here. I come here sometimes, when I need time, or escape."

He walked to a dense, large tree. One that was so obvious now that he saw it Blaine wondered how he had never seen it from his upstairs bedroom before. Barty pushed a handful of the weeping branches aside and let Blaine through before following after him.

Under the canopy of the tree it was almost completely hollow. Like a willow from the outside, but more empty and spacious, and almost uncomfortably cool. Blaine could see why his father would come here to escape. Not even the sounds of the road that could only be a hundred metres away could penetrate the dense canopy.

"I also come here when the aircon is getting fixed." Barty said with a chuckle.

Blaine walked up to the trunk. All over it were words, etched into the bark, or bits of paper held onto the bark with tacks; all of his father's thoughts just thrown together, protected only by the canopy of a tree.

He felt like he had just walked into his father's head and started poking around at the personal thoughts and feelings there.

Blaine's gay, a fresher, more recent wound on the tree read.

Continuing to browse, Blaine came across an older looking piece of paper reading, Blaine came home badly beaten.

He looked down at that, glancing slightly over his shoulder. Even Shane said that you could hardly tell that Blaine was hit even once, and as a precaution Blaine had even stayed out for dinner and come home well cleaned up. He didn't realise his father had noticed.

What could definitely be the oldest, largest inscription on the tree there was a crude drawing of two stick figures—one smaller then the other, and slightly fresher—but both holding hands. Underneath it read, Blaine and in slightly newer engraving Shane, each name followed by their birth dates.

There were more memories under this canopy then in the whole of the Anderson house combined. But, Blaine realised, not all of these were happy memories and that was what made the tree more special and less like a movie of success like the other boxes in the room.

In the distance they could hear Marlene calling out to Blaine. Barty nodded a little awkwardly to Blaine.

"I won't tell anyone. About the tree, I mean."

Barty just nodded a reply, and started reading though the snippets of paper stapled to some of the leaves. Blaine was about to walk past him and out into the garden again as Barty grabbed his upper arm. He was surprised at how taught the muscle there was and also how trustingly Blaine looked at him with those brown eyes that so mimicked his own.

"I'm sorry." Before pushing the canopy and making a way for him back out into the world.

Blaine stood their aghast for a few seconds before hearings his mother call him again, this time slightly more urgent and bolted swiftly through the foliage for the house.

Shane stood, knocking repetitively at Reed's door for a whole minute.

He had been waiting for the door to be answered for almost ten minutes now, and people passing him in the hall were giving him odd looks, mainly of curiosity but there was a few of pity as well.

Shane had called Reed's phone a total of twenty-seven times—in true Shane fashion—and finally decided that he wasn't going to not answer. An inch of doubt crept into Shane's mind.

Like a dropped inkbottle, a poisonous idea started from a small place in his head, spreading quickly and sending alarms and urgencies off in his head, until the mess was too hard to clean up.

Every hotel room at the Hyatt had a balcony. But not every hotel room at the Hyatt had a teenage boy occupying it, alone, and who happened to be terribly clumsy. Now he was imagining Reed's tangled form on the sidewalk below, blood oozing from the popped stitches in his head from the blow Adam gave him a few weeks ago, but also from impact. However for some reason, in Shane's nightmarish imagination, everyone on the sidewalk was merely walking past, ignoring the fact that Hilde Van Kamp's son was sprawled on the ground.

"REED! REED VAN KAMP! OPEN UP" Shane screeched, getting another pitied look from a couple walking past. "Please?" He added as an after thought.

It was then that his iPhone lit up and Reed Van Kamp came across the screen. Shane stood there staring at it, listening to the melodic ring tone he set only for Reed whir away. Should I answer it? Or should I make him call me back twenty-six more times? Or, maybe twenty-seven? As he swiped his finger across answer, the phone stopped ringing.

He'd missed his chance. This was onto the second call now, and just because he had been too pathetic and annoyed to pick it up. He could've been in the shower or bath or toilet or something, after all.

Shane went to dial Reed again, but Reed had beat him to it. He answered on the first ring this time.

"Reed. Why won't you open the door?" It sounded incredibly windy from wherever Reed was and Shane started to consider if his suspicions of Reed falling off the balcony could potentially occur.

"Um. Well. Shane. I didn't want to tell you this before in case you freaked out… But I am maybe, kind of, decided to go onto the balcony… and the door closed… and locked me out here."

There was a silence in which Shane tried his hardest not to laugh.

"And it's cold!" Whined Reed.

Shane had to click his iPhone onto mute for about a minute just to calm down and start thinking rationally. His boyfriend was stuck on a balcony! How he was managing to not laugh, he did not know.

"Reed, why didn't you just ring concierge and get them to come and let you inside?"

"I didn't put the number in my phone because I didn't exactly expect to need to call them unless it was for room service."

"Okay, can you please at least sit down for me, as far away from the ledge? I'll go down to concierge and tell them the little situation." Shane was already walking towards the elevator, starting to get anxious at leaving Reed up there with no protection. He wouldn't have minded before except now that he knew.

(AUTHORS NOTE: THAT SENTENCE WAS BADLY WRITTEN BUT IMAGINE YOU ALWAYS THOUGHT "MY HOUSE COULD BURN DOWN", BUT THAT ANXIETY INCREASES WHEN YOU REALISE YOU LEFT THE STRAIGHTENER/TOASTER ETC ON. THAT'S SHANE'S FEELING RIGHT NOW)

The ride down the elevator seemed to take forever. There was only so much paisley wallpaper you could look at before realising that paisley was never a good pattern, especially in red, as if they had tried to be gender neutral or something.

He walked back into the large foyer. There was a rather majestic feel from the large columns of stone and marble and the mahogany desk that covered a whole wall. Opposite the desk was "Le Loungé", a bar that as far as Shane could see served the usual cocktails and drinks, but with the added bonus of macaroons, as bizarre as that combination was.

Shane had half a mind to keep walking out onto the street and look up to make sure that Reed was, in fact, sitting away from the edge of the balcony. He decided that, knowing Reed's coordination, that the smaller boy would most probably manage to fall off the balcony even from the doorway and had best get him inside the hotel room.

He approached the large mahogany desk, where several women and men, all in pant suits, sat and somehow managed to look busy even though there was no one around for them to help.

One of the women looked up as he approached, so he decided to address his problem to her. Her name badge read Shelly.

"Hello. My name is Shane Anderson, and my boyfriend Reed locked himself on the balcony."

"And you cannot get in?"

"Afraid not. I live in California, but he is here with his mother… Hilde Van Kamp." He felt shameful dropping Reed's mother's name like that, but knew that if Reed were to fall because the lady was too slow to act…

"Oh yes. We have here on file that he does that quite often. I'll come right up and let him inside."

Does that quite often… Shane was already thinking up clever taunts to pull at his boyfriend as he followed the concierge into the elevator and waited to reach the floor. It was about now that Shane cursed the Van Kamp's need to be in a room that exceeded a level that, if fallen from, would not allow serious injury.

The concierge was chatting to Shane, just small talk, which made it easier for him to reply: weather, an upcoming band. She was pretty now that he actually looked and stopped fussing over whether Reed would be all right. Her hair wasn't blond like a lot of the girls from California, but a deep brunette, with natural-looking red and chocolate streaks. Her eyes were an icy blue, which suited her almost translucent complexion. She definitely looked like she belonged in Alaska or somewhere less… sunny.

She walked straight to the Van Kamps' suite and opened the door. From the hotel door, you could see straight through the living area of the suite and onto the balcony where Reed was leaning up against the glass door waiting.

Shane smiled, and stopped the concierge from walking any further. He pulled out his phone, took a photo of his helpless figure and texted it to Reed, with a text.

We tracked the call. It's coming from inside the house.

When a Stranger Calls was the horror movie that the two of them watched with the Warblers before term was let out, and he particularly remembered the look of horror, the tightening grasp on Shane's shirt and the shiver that wracked Reed when those words were said.

Reed's phone buzzed next to him, lighting up the balcony against the sunset. He picked it up, looked at it and whirled around and stood up in a fluid, yet ungraceful movement. He waved at Shane and started talking, before realising there was in fact a glass door between them. Shane exhaled without realising he had even being holding a breath and realised that Reed was safe.

But, in classic Reed style, he managed to lose his footing while standing perfectly still, stumbled and grabbed onto the door handle for support. He looked up sheepishly and motioned that he was okay.

The concierge laughed.

"He must be a handful." She mentioned, and Shane was unsure whether she meant for him, or for his mother.

Shane merely smiled and nodded, "It does get a bit hectic sometimes."

"Oh, I think I have a key for the balcony on this key ring." She crossed over to the balcony door and tried out several keys before the door clicked and she could slide it over.

"Oh, thank you so much! It is absolutely freezing out there!" Reed exclaimed as he stumbled back into the hotel room. "You'd think that California would be warm everywhere!"

Shane, who had sat on the arm of a loveseat laughed at how easily his boyfriend fell for these certain generalisations.

Reed hopped over to his wallet that was sitting on the table and stuffed a fifty into Shelly's hand. She tried to refuse, but Reed had already removed his hand and put them behind his back so that she couldn't try and give the money back.

Shelly thanked him, and Reed walked her to the door.

While Reed was walking to one door, Shane walked to the balcony door and closed it, driving the bolt at the top of the door closed. When he turned Reed was sitting on the arm of the loveseat that Shane had just vacated. His lips were chapped and his face pink from a mixture of sunburn, windburn, cold and embarrassment.

"Is this a habit of yours? Getting stuck on balconies, I mean?" Shane asked, with a brief reference to Hercules, the movie Reed insisted on watching after When a Stranger Calls so that he could forget a bit.

"Uh… No I wouldn't say it is."

Shane walked towards Reed, who was still perched on the arm of the chair, but looking down at his feet.

"Oh, really? Because the concierge seems to have it on file that this is a regular occurrence." Shane said, a smirk working its way onto his face.

Reed's face shot up, a look of concern crossing over it, and Shane bent to kiss his boyfriend, placing a hand behind his neck and one behind his back. Reed kissed Shane back just as much, tracing the bottom of his lip with his tongue and wrapping his arms around Shane's neck. If practice makes perfect, they were almost experts at this by now.

Reed started to lean back, pulling Shane on top of him and onto the loveseat, never skipping a beat in their passionate kiss. Shane adjusted his arms, wrapping them around Reed's back and crushing him slightly in efforts to get as close to him as possible.

Reed travelled his hands up into Shane's dark, unruly curls that matched his own, pulling his head closer to him.

As the passion of the moment started to die, and the two regained their senses a bit, Shane started to kiss down Reed's neck and up to the opening of his shirt. Reed was special: he didn't want to push it. So Shane rested his head onto Reed's chest and the two just lay there for a while.

Reed started to play with Shane's hair, parting it and plaiting it and arranging it in many unattractive ways, but they all set Shane's scalp tingling.

The two lay like that for a while, each just happy in each other's company, until Reed's stomach gurgled.

"Hungry?" Shane asked, a wicked grin creeping onto his face. "I guess you probably shouldn't have gotten stuck on that balcony."

Reed glared at him, which only made Shane laugh. Reed pushed him off the loveseat and got up himself, starting to look for the room service menu, ignoring Shane.

Shane started to feel a bit guilty as he watched his boyfriend scour the room for the menu.

"Reed—" he began, but stopped when Reed turned his little head of blond curls at him and glared.

He let him continue searching for a few moments, opening drawers and cupboards all around the television.

"Reed—" he tried again, stopping this time when he realised that he didn't know what he wanted to say.

Reed finally gave up on finding the room service menu, and just sat on the arm chair next to the loveseat rang up the concierge—after all he'd given Shelly more then enough for opening the door—and asked them what flavour ice creams they had.

He shot a questioning look at Shane, and the boy just shrugged. Ice cream was, in his opinion, the best food in the world. This was something that Reed already knew, but he didn't know that Shane was into every flavour.

He ordered a pint of choc-chip cookie dough to go with their chocolate ice cream and then walked over to the mini bar to pull out two cokes, except was stopped on the way when his foot was caught under the leg of the coffee table and he went sprawling onto the floor.

Shane, as was his true form, was in there within seconds of Reed falling, and pulled him up. He checked on his stitches—which were still holding his skull inside his head—and pulled Reed in for a tight hug. He rested his head on the smaller boy's head, before kissing his hair.

"I love you, Van Kamp. You and all your adventures." He pulled Reed even closer still, holding him tighter like a boa constrictor just about to digest his prey.

Reed went to open his mouth but the room service arrived before he could get a word out. Shane opened two bottles of coke and followed Reed into the room with the smaller bed. He already had the movies on demand list on the television in front of them. They both climbed under the covers of Reed's hotel bed and laid their food out on a television tray in front of them. Shane pulled Reed close to him, careful not to spill any of the coke or ice cream onto the pristine bedspread.

They decided on watching Picture This which, while being a chick flick with little original story line was surprisingly good, and the two were happy to watch it again.

Reed tucked his head onto Shane's chest and started to draw circles on his boyfriend's stomach. Shane was already steadily caressing Reed's upper arm, where the muscles were quite tight from his last few months of carrying paintings around at Dalton and then also getting them home. The two were perfectly content to be in each other's company: sitting there, eating and watching crappy movies.

When Ashley Tisdale's character started drinking the juice straight from the "bev bar", Shane lost it into hysterics just like last time.

Reed looked up, apprehensively as Shane struggled to breathe.

"That… That… That is something you would do." Shane managed with heaving laughs.

Reed glared at him, but the way that the smile broke across Shane's face… He found himself trying to hide a smile. Shane ducked his head down to Reed's face and kissed him quickly.

They sat watching the movie again for a few more minutes before Reed realised he forgot something.

He sat up so fast, flicking around and looking so completely shocked, Shane thought that he must've killed someone and forgotten to hide the body. Shane raised an eyebrow at him, gesturing him to go on.

"I forgot! Oh no! How could I forget?" Reed was actually starting to freak out.

Shane tried to calm him. He grabbed his wrists and made him look him in the eyes.

"Reed. Talk. Love, you have to use your words."

"Shane…" His eyebrows crumpled as he realised he had overreacted a lot, and in turn freaked Shane out. "I forgot to tell you that I love you too, is all."

Shane's face broke into a wider grin then he had on before. He pulled Reed back into a crushing embrace and turned him to watch the movie.

Shane kissed the top of Reed's head and murmured into his hair.

Reed wasn't quite sure what he said but he thought it sounded like, "If I didn't love you so much, you'd drive me even more insane."

Blaine walked calmly into the house, searching around for his mother who had just called him, continuously, since he went out the back with his dad.

She held out the phone to him, covering the mouthpiece with her dainty thumb.

"It's Kurt." She said, sounding delighted that her sons were with people they loved and who loved them.

Blaine took the phone with a smile and headed up to his room.

"Kurt?" His smile fading when he heard the tone in his boyfriend's voice.

Chapter Two: In progress as of 9 Oct. 2011.