Wes sighed as he turned back over in his bed so that he was facing Blaine's. All in all, the evening had not been a complete disaster. The younger boy had arrived back at their room in Dalton; happy and somewhat relaxed, which is all any of them could hope for these days. He'd been fully prepared to go another round with Kurt, but he'd been promised that Kurt had been a 'sweetheart all night'. He couldn't help but think back to the outcome of Trent's intervention, and frustration ached in his chest at just how far backwards Blaine had slipped.

Flashback

'He asked if there was something wrong with him Wes.' The frustration and anger and pain were right there on Trent's face as he paced the empty dorm. 'What the hell was I supposed to do with that? What the hell can you do with that? He is terrified and I don't know what I'm doing.' Wes stood up to stop the other boy's pacing and it took less than a second for Trent to make eye contact with him. He was so used to asking for it from Blaine, or fighting the younger boy for it that he had started to forget that not everyone around him had trouble connecting.

'You need to admit when you are way in over your head Trent.' He said firmly. 'It is something we all need to start thinking about. What else can we do for him if he continues to slip? We have exams in a matter of weeks, none of us are sleeping well, all of us are worried about him. Maybe it's time we got someone else involved. Someone who could actually help.'

'Who?'

'My dad.' Wes replied with a shrug. 'It's his duty as headmaster to look after the students here, and although he can't force Devon's parents to put him into the counselling he needs, there must be something he can do to help us. He has contacts, people in therapy who would be happy to do him favours. We have looked after Devon for almost two years now, and I can honestly say that I've never seen him backslide so fast in such a short space of time.'

'Are we in over our heads?' Trent asked quietly, his voice small and his shoulders hunching in on themselves.

'What do you think Trent? You have just admitted that you don't know what you're doing, and putting him in with someone from my dad will do him less harm than you will if you end up saying the wrong thing. It's scary, it's hard and it has always been our last option, but now I think we need to look at it as a lifeline. We are going to need a discussion about Dev's grades, about him skipping forwards into his senior year, and college applications can be fucking terrifying when you do have a clue, never mind applying for early admittance whilst suffering through one of the toughest things anyone could face. He is going to need help. Help that we can't give if we aren't here.'

End Flashback

He turned over again; onto his back this time, to stare at the ceiling. Blaine's breaths were steady and consistent in the bed next to him. He was safe. Wes was not ashamed to admit that Friday night pushed his nerves to their limit. He had been scared to death by the idea that he could have caused untold damage to the younger boy, and he was still angry at himself for what he'd said and done.

When he'd caught Blaine, creeping around their common room, positively shaking with nerves of his own; he'd wanted to do nothing but wrap him up in the quilt he'd found and hug him until both of their pain had gone away. They had thought that they were doing a good thing, but in truth, all they'd done was hide him away from the world; damaging his chances of making friends with his own years, and having a fair crack at a normal life. There was that word again.

Normal.

Nothing was normal when it came to Blaine Devon Anderson. It wasn't normal to have had your head beaten in, almost to the point of death, and have been able to remaster the piano in less than a month after leaving the hospital. It wasn't normal to have come out of a five-month coma, being unable to do the most basic of tasks for yourself, and yet still retaining the ability to pitch match and note spot. It wasn't normal to have gone through something so horrific, and still be selfless to the point of self-destruction.

He wished he'd known him before the attack. If Blaine maintained the opinion that he was different or stupider after what he'd gone through, then what must he have been like before his life had become a dumpster fire? Had he liked sports? Had he ever boxed before then? Was he bright, was he outgoing? Had he had a sense of humour? The enigma that was his roommate's previous life was something they'd never experience for themselves. Instead, what they had been given, was the gift of a brilliant, brave, selfless boy, who it had been their ultimate privilege to get to know.

He sighed again and sat up in bed, giving up his attempt to silence his head. There was a shifting in the bed opposite him, and he prayed to whichever god was listening, that it wasn't a nightmare. He breathed a sigh of relief when the smaller boy settled back down; one of his legs dangling out of the covers and a pillow over his head. Wes smiled softly at the sight; getting up to carefully push Blaine's leg, back under the quilt. He paused when his eyes caught sight of a long scar on his calf, but waved the feeling off to ensure that his roommate wouldn't catch a cold.

His mind flickered back to the first time he'd ever seen the extent of the younger boy's injuries; scars criss-crossing over his body like some sort of macabre painting. The only two limbs which had gone unharmed were his left arm (apart from the fingers) and right leg. Blaine had opened up slowly about the attack; usually after his nightmares when he was vulnerable and from what Wes had pieced together, there had been five (or maybe six) guys against Blaine and his date. Two of them had carried baseball bats, whilst the rest had been tooled with sharps, and even though Blaine had come out worse, neither of the two boys had been conscious when the ambulance had turned up.

Flashback

Wes continued to scan the textbook as he approached his dorm, taking his key and absentmindedly entering the space without even thinking to knock. A terrified gasp ripped his attention from his book and he vaguely heard the door close behind him. In front of him, frozen and wide eyed was his new roommate. Well technically Blaine had been his roommate for over two months now, but despite him promising to take him under his wing, he hardly ever saw the boy.

'Shit…' He breathed, taking in the scene in front of him. It was the very first thing that had come to mind at seeing Blaine in nothing but a pair of boxers, trembling violently. He threw down his book onto his bed and took up the younger boy's quilt; wrapping it around him against the frigid temperatures in their room and sitting them both down on his bed. 'Hey, its okay.' He said softly, when Blaine began to fight against him, and he removed his hands from his shoulders; holding them up in a sign of peace. 'You're okay now.'

He couldn't get the image out of his head. It looked as though Edward Scissor Hands had gone to town on his roommate's body. Thin lines covered his chest and stomach, a large, violent looking scar mapping over his right shoulder, and another vertical, down his sternum except, that one looked more surgical than anything else. He had no doubts that the younger boy's back was more of the same, and he realised that his casts had been hiding more scars, instead of breaks.

Blaine's hair had grown back in, from when they'd first met, but he already knew about the huge scars that also covered the young boy's skull, and adding them to the already horrifying image he'd just witnessed well… was there any wonder why the boy couldn't stand being physically close to any of them?

'I'm sorry.' He whispered, when his roommate had calmed slightly. 'I should have knocked before coming in.'

'Its okay.' Blaine replied, falling over the words slightly with the stutter that still hadn't totally disappeared.

'No, it isn't. I shouldn't have come in without announcing myself, that was something we learnt together on week one. I'm so sorry Blaine.' He caught Blaine's wince at the use of his first name, and cursed again at his own obtuseness. 'You don't like being called that do you?'

'M…My dad calls m…me it, when I'm in t…trouble.' Wes winced, both at the admission and at the sound of Blaine stumbling over his words. It was an after effect of his surgery, but he'd started to get worse when he was under stress, or was nervous.

'I'm sorry.' He replied honestly, and as gently as he could. 'Perhaps you would like to pick something else for me to call you by. Do you have a middle name?'

'Devon.' The younger boy forced out, barely tripping this time.

'So, could I call you that instead?' Wes asked, relief flooding him when he was awarded with a nod. 'Do you mind me shortening it sometimes? Like to Dev?' The newly baptised 'Devon' shook his head and Wes offered him a tentative grin, beyond pleased, when it was returned.

End Flashback

It had been in the first few weeks, following that incident that they had formed a bond. A bond which was now in danger of being severely tested by the coming weeks. To the rest of the guys; Blaine had remained just that; but to Trent and he, he had become Devon Anderson instead. They only ever used his first name if they needed to break him out of flashbacks or nightmares, and even then, they had much preferred to stick with Dev or D if they could.

Blaine was the brave, outside face the younger boy showed the world. It was the face he had worn to every interaction with Kurt, it was the face he wore for classes and it was the face that people fell in love with. But underneath that face, Devon was a terrified young boy, who was still trying to find his place in the world. The Warbler's sometimes were given glimpses of Devon, like on the bus to and from Regionals, that Monday, and…

"Are you okay?" Shit, and now he'd woken him up.

"Yeah I'm fine." He lied, with a smile, their room illuminated by the bathroom light.

"And you call me the liar." Blaine replied, wrapping his duvet around himself and sitting next to Wes on the edge of the older boy's bed; leaning into his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing really." Wes replied with a sigh. "I was just thinking about the first time we met."

"I woke you up in the middle of the night, screaming. I hadn't meant to fall asleep but unpacking had tired me out. You'd thrown a blanket over me and I got trapped in it trying to escape the dorm."

"No, not that." Wes whispered, shaking his head, and pushing the first images he's ever gained of the younger boy form his mind. "When I walked in on you and you were in the middle of getting changed. I'd forgotten to knock."

"That was the day you called me Devon." The younger boy replied with a grin. "We sat in almost this exact same spot, me bundled up in my duvet and you trying not to freak out."

"I just didn't want to freak you out." Wes admitted. "I was so scared that I would do or say something wrong, and that you would end up hurting yourself trying to get away from me."

"My stiches were out by that point." Blaine replied with a frown.

"Yes, but I didn't know that at the time."

"Look how far we've come."

"Yeah." Wes snorted. "You grew a huge streak of insolence and my life has been a wild ride ever since." The pair of them laughed softly at that and were soon back to sharing a comfortable silence; Blaine's eyes drooping as he stifled his yawns.

"Am I staying with you tonight?" He asked quietly, and Wes eyed him up for a minute, surprised at his perception.

"Would that be okay?"

"Of course, it would. It's not like we haven't before."

"No funny business then." Wes responded with a grin; ushering the now laughing boy up, so that they could both slip under the sheets; Blaine's duvet getting abandoned on his own bed. As soon as he felt the familiar weight of the younger boy's head on his shoulder, he closed his eyes and realised that this is what he'd needed to shut his brain up.