A/N: Cooper has arrived, will be with us for a while and expect the arrival of Kurt soon, in all his gorgeous glory.


Cooper was brash and infectiously happy the moment he swept through the arrivals gate and came veering towards Blaine and his mom, a little more tanned than the last time Blaine saw him, older but probably not any more mature and as always, the same old Cooper – happy go lucky.

Blaine can't help but grin when Cooper drops his bags and picks him up, spins him round once then puts him back on the ground and ruffles his hair, leaving his hands on Blaine's shoulders as he gives him a once over and their Mom watches fondly from beside them, collecting up Cooper's bags.

Cooper lifts one hand when he looks back up to Blaine's face, bops Blaine on the nose with his index finger then hits his own nose with the same finger, eyebrow twitching up as he does, then he lets Blaine go as soon he's done, turning to their Mom while Blaine's grin falls, his lips pressing into a thin line because he knows what that means, the bopping of his nose and then Coopers own.

They've had the signal since they were young, started when Blaine was eight and Cooper fourteen, and it means they need to talk. Cooper's always been observant of Blaine, learning his body language and shifts in his mood so when Blaine needed to talk and was too shy to ask or their parents were in the room, Cooper invented their signal. He'd get up from across the room, bop Blaine on the nose with a scrunched up smile then tap his own nose and walk away, Blaine following two minutes later into Cooper's room where they'd sit in silence until Blaine was ready and Cooper would listen no matter what.

As Blaine got older, he realised that sometimes Cooper needed to talk too and one day he'd tapped Cooper's nose, touched his own and disappeared to his own bedroom, holding out a half eaten bag of crisps to Cooper when he appeared a while later, flopping onto the bed with a heavy sigh and a confused mind.

It's always been their thing since then, their way of communicating without words and without their parent's intervention, though Blaine suspects their Mom knows but she lets them be, but these days, now they're both older and a little beyond their years, it twists something in Blaine's gut when Cooper does it because the last two times it's happened, the talk hasn't been good, filled with news of Cooper being away longer and longer, Blaine simply sighing and nodding at anything he says, unable to change it as much he'd like to.

Blaine troops to the car, obediently taking one of Cooper's bags over his shoulder, one corner of his mouth twitching up every now and then as Cooper recalls stories of failed auditions, other actors fumbling lines and cabin crew of both genders flirting with him on the flight over. As deep as the dread is in Blaine's stomach, his mind whirring at what the talk could be about this time, he's missed Cooper's tales and the sight of his brother bouncing on his feet, happy to be home and wanting to share every detail of his life, so he sits quietly in the car and listens, using the lulls in conversation to silently debate whether or not Cooper would be a good subject for a post on his blog.


It's ten in the evening before Cooper knocks on Blaine's door and leans against the doorframe, Blaine offering him a small smile and a jerk of his head to come in, sliding the book in his lap shut that he wasn't really reading.

Blaine shifts where he's sat and picks at his jeans as Cooper shuts the door and slides onto the bed, sitting against the headboard beside Blaine. Blaine watches as Cooper wiggles his toes and Blaine stretches his legs out, puffing out a breath of air when he realizes he hasn't grown at all in the past year and Cooper's legs still look miles longer than his own. He then lolls his head to the side, Cooper looking back at him, and says, "You wanted to talk?"

"Mmm," Cooper hums, looking Blaine up and down, eyes fixing on his crotch for what Blaine deems far too long making him cough to get Cooper's attention. "You've grown," Cooper says when he meets Blaine's eyes.

Blaine snorts and shakes his head. "No, I hav-"

"So what's this high you've been in the middle of?"

Blaine can't even think to complain about the interruption because blood is now rushing past his ears in fast waves, his eyes have gone wide and he makes strangled sounds as he tries to speak, mouth forming shapes around words he can't find as Cooper just stares at him with a somewhat blank expression, blinking slowly.

"It's not steroids is it," Cooper continues, glancing down at Blaine's torso, sounding genuinely concerned and Blaine blinks owlishly at him, breathing heavy and quick, "because you have grown and bulked out but that is not the way to do it."

Blaine thunks his head back against his headboard and shuts his eyes as he covers his face with his hands, breathes, "Shit," into his palms, his face hot and he feels stupid, scared and embarrassed all at once.

If anyone in his family was going to find his blog, he would've chosen Cooper to be the one because he doesn't take anything too seriously and the worst he'd do is tease Blaine, which isn't a change from the normal, and Blaine can deal with that, with knowing Cooper hasn't judged and won't, will leave the subject alone once it's out and talked about, but they do have to talk about it and that's what's making Blaine squirm and pull his knees up to his chest, his chin resting in the dip between them.

"How long have you known?" he asks, mumbling quietly.

"Two, maybe three, weeks," Cooper says.

Blaine whips his head round with a raised eyebrow, says, "And you waited this long to tell me?"

Cooper shrugs and says, "I was waiting for more stuff to tease you with, but then you went all quiet," grinning when Blaine groans and hides his face in his knees. "Seriously though," he says and Blaine rests his temple on a knee, looking at Cooper with a weary expression, "does all that get you off? Talking about how much you love sex and posting up pictures of yourself?" He then hastens to add, "And you look good by the way," winking with a smirk.

Blaine can't help but laugh, the sound bursting from his throat loud and clear, and he dims it down to a snigger, mindful that his parents are asleep down the hall. It takes a few minutes to compose himself, a new fit of laughter hitting him every time he tries to meet Cooper's eyes but he eventually settles down and pushes his legs out, crossing one over the other and twiddling his thumbs in his lap as Cooper waits.

He opens and closes his mouth three times before he says, "It's not about getting off," searching for the words to explain this to someone who's grown up with the good-mannered, shy Blaine – someone quite different from the person he is on the inside, on his blog, where he keeps his thoughts about sex and his opinions about Ohio.

He wonders if Cooper is seeing him differently, trying to connect the child he knows – private, loyal, never swears even when he's angry – to the boy on the internet who's an exhibitionist and says fuck, shit and every other swearword he can think of, a complete change to the boy he is normally.

"It's about being me," he continues, "being accepted."

Cooper's eyebrows knit together and he says, "You don't think we accept you?" and Blaine hurries to shake his head and turn a little to face Cooper more comfortably because he can't stand the tone of Cooper's voice, sounding like he's disappointed someone.

"No, it's not here that's the problem – home, I mean," Blaine clarifies and Cooper nods, eyebrows still drawn. "I know that you all love me, you, Mom and Dad, and you would still love me if you knew about… that side of me, so it's not that, it's-"

"Kids at school," Cooper finishes, now sounding angry, his eyes darting away and Blaine watches his fists curl and uncurl, the line of his jaw rigid and hard too.

"It's not so much a problem anymore now that I've graduated," Blaine says, shrugging one shoulder, "but I like keeping it a secret to the people physically around me. It's kind of… funny, really." Cooper is looking at him now like he's not making sense and a corner of Blaine's mouth quirks up before he says, "It made me angry at first that everyone called me a virgin as an insult, treats me like I'm innocent, but now it's sort of funny because they don't know what I know and they'd be so scandalized if they saw everything I thought about."

Cooper snorts and says, "Scandalized," with wide eyes, his hands up and fingers wriggling and Blaine swats at his arm and shakes his head.

"It's not about getting off," he says again, a repeat of earlier, because as much as Cooper's being silent and taking this in, that's the part Blaine needs to him to understand the most. "It's being in a place with people who understand what's in my head and the complexities of what I have to say."

"But is it complex?" Cooper says, tapping at his thigh before he saying, "'Cause I've seen your blog and read your posts and it just seems like you're a virgin with a healthy interest in sex." Blaine raises an eyebrow and Cooper rolls his eyes and tuts. "Fine, slightly more than healthy interest, but the point still stands. Is it so complex?"

Blaine considers him and thinks, then simply says, "Yes." He understands Cooper's point, that the basics of what he is is a virgin with a love for sex, exhibitionism and all that entails, but because of where they live and the attitudes of the Neanderthals at school, it is complex. In another state or city, New York or San Francisco maybe, he might not have had to look for like-minded people on the internet because they roam the streets and barely bat an eye at someone like Blaine, but here in Ohio where homophobia is on his doorstep, he can't be himself out loud, so he does it online where there's a world that took him in without question.

"People here don't understand," he says. "There's people everywhere that don't understand and will always see virgins as pure and naïve, sexually inexperienced minds that need to be 'taught' how sex is." He huffs and rocks his temple against the headboard. "Even if they do get it, they'll find me too clingy or call me desperate." He sighs. "Around here it's a losing battle to try and be who I really am. Online I'm simply normal. Accepted."

Cooper stretches in neck in the passing silence and exhales heavily through his nose, says, "You've always been the odd one of the family," and Blaine grins and feels his shoulders drop, the last string of tension he'd been holding cut loose.

"Just do me one thing," Cooper continues and Blaine hears the concern in his voice again, something serious about to be said, and he nods. "When you meet a guy in New York, don't rush into sex, okay?" He gives Cooper a look that says I'm not an idiot and Cooper says, "Look, I know that's what everyone says along with 'you're first time should be special,' but they're right," Blaine resists the urge to roll his eyes at that, "it should be special, with someone you care about."

"Coop-"

"You know what you want, you're not naïve or innocent, but you don't know about the emotionof sex until it's happening and you feel like you're going to explode." Blaine shuts his mouth and briefly considers the flash of hurt in Cooper's eyes, gone as soon as he says, "Don't do it just because you want to do it. Be ready, okay?"

"I-" Blaine stammers, a little struck dumb by Cooper's rushed cover of the subject, but he says, "I'll be careful," and tucks his legs closer under himself. Cooper smiles and ruffles Blaine's hair before he glances at his watch and slips off the bed, bopping Blaine and himself on the nose once again as he leaves with a quiet goodnight and Blaine frowns at his closed door once he's gone and then remembers, Oh, New York.

It doesn't take long for him to flit back to what Cooper's just said, about the emotion of sex and a special first time. Blaine's heard so many times in films about how 'special' a first time should be, with someone you love and when you're ready and it all seems such a cliché that never comes true. The horror stories of first times – awkward fumbles, ripped condoms, finishing too early – sound so much more likely because Blaine knows sex is messy, vulnerable and a tangle of limbs and a slide of sweat.

But that's where his problem lies. Knowing what sex is but not what it does.

He hasn't considered until now that there's an emotional disconnect on his blog between sexual attraction and the beat of his heart. It's all been sexual so far, his blood only thrumming faster at the pictures of beautiful boys, the videos of men in ecstasy, and there's been no like or love in the equation, no butterflies in his stomach due to want for companionship over hungry desire.

He wonders if that will ever change.

He's hopelessly in lust with this 'highinthemiddle,' but could he fall in love with him too? He doesn't know him past his username and the short comments, hasn't wanted him past a quick fuck (a few of those in fact), but Blaine knows how easily he gets enthralled and how quickly he could start to see something where there is nothing.

He's always been a romantic, fawning over romance novels and the perfection of true love in words and on screen, and he had a strange time at first placing that state of mind beside the one filled with sex, but he got there and works with a mix of the two, the romantic being the person he is to his family and the outside and the other being who he is online, though his want of wooing and sparks and butterflies does come through every once in a while.

His temples are starting to hurt as he thinks, ideas about lust turning to love and not knowing what will come of his desire for this anonymous boy starting to creep into a headache deep behind his eyes, and he slides down the bed until he's laying flat, blinking up at the ceiling, fingers drumming over his stomach, chest heaving up and deflating as he sighs and slips his eyes shut.

His mind somewhat slows in the dark and he's asleep within minutes, dreaming quick and fitfully until he wakes in a daze at three am, lazily strips down to his boxers and curses Cooper for always being so right and so puzzling and making him feel more complex than he was when they begun.