As usual, I don't own Glee or CP Coulter's Dalton, just a few characters and the writing are my own.

Thank you for your lovely reviews! Enjoy!

It was three and a half weeks until Charlie remembered what Laura had asked of him, and he couldn't quite figure out what reminded him as he left his final class of the day. Maybe it was Dwight bolting through the hallways with a strange smile on his face. Maybe it was seeing Andy whisper something, with a frightened expression, to the boy next to him. It was not the minor screaming match that Julian and Logan were having in the main hallway. This was, in fact, the reason Charlie forgot his almost-promise for the second time.

What was strange about this scene was not Julian and Logan fighting. This was a fairly common event, though not usually public. But Logan had taken his medication today; the look in his eyes was unmistakable to most people who frequently talked to the boy. Somehow, Julian had gotten a rise out of him anyway.

Logan didn't make himself available to many people, so most did not notice the strangeness of the scene unfolding around them. This was fortunate for Julian, who would not have to explain how easy he found it to anger Logan – especially on his medication – or why exactly he wanted to anger Logan. And since many of the students had started eavesdropping after the fight had already began, Julian would not have to explain to most people why he had picked the fight. He would have to explain to Derek, though. Derek always wanted an explanation.

An explanation for why Julian had made every career decision he'd ever made. An explanation for why Logan and Julian were keeping their relationship a secret. And an explanation for the fight that the two had started for everyone to see.

Julian's explanation was this: He hated Logan on his medicine. He mocked Logan for it endlessly, and this was the secret to angering the emotionally dulled boy. Sometimes Julian mocked Logan with the sole intention of angering him, but mostly he just hated to see Logan devoid of life.

So when Julian made a snarky remark about Logan not deserving a say in the Stuart trio's plans because he didn't have an opinion when he was drugged, Logan jumped straight into a fight. That's what Julian wanted, right?

Some days, Logan had to force himself to be angry at Julian. Julian's 'secret to angering Logan' worked as well as it did only because Logan let it. He hated not feeling just as much as Julian hated to watch it, and lately, he had found all of his actions were motivated by the desire to give Julian what he wanted. But he couldn't tell Julian he loved him, and he couldn't stop taking the medication. Derek didn't even have to make him anymore; it became his own sick compulsion to try to fix what was broken. And to some extent, Logan felt like the only thing he could give Julian was a little bit of control.

So he 'fumed' when they walked out of their classroom, and he turned around with a whish, slamming Julian into the wall half heartedly, when he began to make a comment.

"You think it's okay to bring up my medication in front of the whole classroom?" It was a strange sensation to have to force yourself to use the emotion that you should have meant.

"Well it's good to know that those stupid drugs don't take away your ego as well – not everyone in the classroom was listening to us, you arrogant prick," Julian didn't move from his place against the wall.

"Fuck you, Jules. There are easier ways to get attention." Logan couldn't muster up the energy to yell, but he at least made the anger sound convincing, perhaps out of truth. "Just because you don't like me like this doesn't mean you can just embarrass me out of taking them."

"I like you much better when you're drugged," a foolishly brave Windsor sophomore had sneered. "At least then you only beat up your own house."

It was the wrong thing to say. Logan and Julian had turned to the boy with such speed and synchronization that it almost looked rehearsed. The anger on Julian's face was much more believable than the anger on Logan's. Fortunately, Julian didn't notice this, or it would have made him angrier.

"I swear to god, kid," Julian seethed. "Get the fuck out of this conversation-"

"Or that won't be true anymore," Logan interrupted with his newly mastered frighteningly calm rage.

"Hey, don't threaten him!" Wes cut in, lightly pushing the imprudent sophomore out of Julian's immediate glare.

Charlie bolted down the hall toward the fight as he saw several of the other Windsor boys step forward to what looked frustratingly like a face-off stance. It was rapidly growing into a mob screaming incoherently. What was most frustrating for Charlie was that he couldn't really hear what the boys were saying, but could see by their expressions that it was escalating too quickly.

"We still owe them for stealing Pavarotti!" a young Stuart Warbler called out from the crowd.

And then, just as he was about to reach the wall of Windsors, Charlie heard Kurt's voice.

"Would you guys just cool it?" Kurt yelled, clearly as frustrated as Charlie.

And for some reason, Kurt's plea was met with success. Julian, seeing Logan's face fall back to its emotionless state, was too defeated to continue the Stuart Windsor war that he was barely a part of.

"Alice is right," Evan admitted.

"This isn't the right time for this battle," Ethan finished.

Kurt looked slightly defeated. "That's not what I meant."

Adam sat in the middle of the large couch of the Hanover common room. He kept thinking that he should go back to his room where he could journal all of the thoughts he had about the conversation he had just overheard. They were running through his head too fast for him to even pick one out.

Logan hurting Julian as usual – did anyone else catch that tragic face on Julian after he saw Logan's reaction to Kurt? – and Julian was so quick to exit the Stuart Windsor fight. Adam couldn't help but think he looked broken, and the thought angered him.

But for some reason his legs wouldn't move from where he sat, and so this is how Justin found him – sitting in a slightly dark room looking somewhere between star struck and stoned.

"Are you okay, Adam?" the prefect leaned into the room, scaring Adam.

The lights were off in the room, but the sun came in through the windows and faintly lit the room with heavy shadows. Nearly a month ago, they were in the same places, and neither boy missed the parallelism.

"I'm fine," he mumbled looking at the boy in the doorway.

It was even the same conversation. But Adam knew that this time he could not count on Andy to interrupt.

"You just fainted in the hallway; I doubt you're fine. How's your head?" Justin asked, reaching for the back of his head as a gesture.

"Fine."

Justin didn't care that Adam wasn't talkative. He wouldn't have pushed it further, and he didn't have to. Someone called his name from down the hall. The boy that approached him was lanky and even taller than Justin.

"Justin," Andy repeated, his pointed face wearing a frown. "You, uh, wanted to see me?"

Justin turned around, pulling the door to the common room closed behind him as he stepped into the hallway. He left it open a crack and moved a few steps away. Adam rose slowly and stood behind the door, listening discretely to the conversation.

"I want you to explain to me what you know about the kitchen," Justin instructed, surprisingly menacing for the hushed tone he used.

Tempted to begin explaining ovens and refrigerators, but filled with guilt, Andy sighed and ignored his immediate sarcastic response. "I don't know why I finally decided to look at that stupid bottle. I was trying to find some food and I saw it and I just got curious. But then I saw what it was and I freaked out and I dropped it.

"I, uh, couldn't even be in the same room as it-" Andy gagged a little just at the thought of blood. "I ran out behind the dorm thinking I was going to throw up –"

"Sick, Andy. Go use the pan next time; someone has to clean that up," Justin interrupted.

"I didn't, anyway," Andy muttered. "I just ended up lying out on the grass and falling asleep. Until you called and woke me up."

"So that's all you know about the container?"

"Yea. Same as everyone else; it was just that stupid thing taking up the whole freezer."

Justin sighed and Adam heard him begin to walk away. "Thanks, Andy."

"If you say so," Justin raised his eyebrow and left Adam sitting in the common room, just as he had a month earlier.

Charlie followed the twins back into Windsor, trailing slowly behind. He wasn't sure how Kurt had managed to calm the storm with a simple request, but the knowing smirk that Evan and Ethan would give each other every minute or so concerned Charlie greatly. They were scheming.

He silently hoped that they managed this scheme without involving him – he really did like to see the Stuart boys suffer through pranks – and that it wasn't actually violent. He always felt compelled to cut the violent pranks off before anyone got hurt. It was such a shame, since Charlie always understood and appreciated the intricacy of each prank.

He entered the dorm on this thought – remembering fondly some of the tricks he helped the Tweedles accomplish last year – but was quickly interrupted by their call from down the hall.

"Charlie!" Charlie heard the first Tweedle call, incapable of telling who it was, especially without seeing them. But Charlie was kidding himself; he couldn't always tell them apart when he could see them.

"Why is Laura Bancroft in our common room?" the second finished.

Charlie let his head fall back in frustration as he dragged himself toward the voices. He knew that it was useless to hope that Laura wasn't really in their common room – of course she was. And when he turned into the room, he was not surprised to see her, grinning with her constant confidence, sitting on the center of the large couch.

"Alright, come with me," he mumbled angrily, waving his hand to signal the same thing.

She followed happily enough, smiling at the twins as they waved her goodbye. With the same happiness, she sat on Charlie's bed as he closed the door behind him.

"Laura, you have got to be kidding me. Can't you just skype with Dwight?" Laura laughed at Charlie's suggestion, so he continued. "Go home. Don't you have classes?"

"It's so boring at my school," she whined. "Plus Dwight told me something weird was going on and I thought I'd come help him investigate."

"Laura, school is not supposed to be this crazy. You're supposed to be there to learn and you're supposed to be bored," he lectured – wondering why Laura seemed to prefer his brother speeches to Justin's. He sighed and changed his tone. "I can't be mad that you and Dwight are happy – he's been a lot less pushy about the salt stuff since you've been in the picture."

"The salt stuff? Chaz, you really should listen to Dwight about protecting the house."

Charlie laughed. "I forget that you're one of them."

"One of them?" Laura sounded offended. "You mean the Serendipity Hill Hunters?"

"Yea, sure, that," Charlie wasn't particularly interested. "Look, Laura, if you go home now, I won't tell Justin that you were here."

"That's a lie; you tell him everything. And besides, this is important. I've never met Lucas or Morgan or Sadie. I've only ever met Dwight and that was just luck – I didn't even know he went to Justin's school."

"Wait, you knew Dwight before you came here?"

"Yea, I found them online."

Charlie expected her to explain more, but concluded that she was mad at him. "If it's important to you, run off and I can at least stall Justin from collecting you."

Laura gave Charlie a forced smile and left his room, presumably to wander into Dwight's, but Charlie pretended he didn't know this.

Julian had walked in angry silence back to Stuart, ignoring Derek's many phone calls. Logan noticed as Julian put his phone away without answering.

"Derek?" he asked, eager to break the silence. He held open the Stuart door for the boy behind him.

"Yea. Thank God he's got practice for a little while still; the longer I can avoid him impeaching me, the better," Julian grumbled, still not ready to talk happily.

"Impeach? Tell me again why I can't call you a drama queen?" Logan joked, trying to get Julian in better spirits.

"I'm not in the mood, Logan," Julian entered his room, not expecting the blonde boy to follow after him.

"Well whose fault is that?" Logan snarled, and Julian turned around in surprise. Logan approached the boy slowly. "You're the one who was trying to piss me off and now you're mad that it worked?"

"Forgive me for having an opinion –"

Julian was cut off by Logan pinning him against the wall. In a low voice that was laced with a growl, Logan challenged the boy in his grasp, "You were either trying to embarrass me or piss me off; either way you don't get to be mad at me."

"And I suppose your 'sexy face' is supposed to keep me from being mad?" Julian smirked, knowing that it was doing just that. Logan's feral stare made Julian's stomach do back flips.

"No, you having no reason to be mad is supposed to keep you from being mad," Logan returned Julian's smirk. He leaned in and slowly began kissing Julian's neck.

"You ass…" Julian said –breathlessly and unconvincingly.

Julian leaned into Logan's lips and tilted his head back to expose more of his neck. Logan changed his grip from pushing Julian into the wall to pulling him closer. His left hand slid quickly from Julian's arm to the back of his neck. Julian hummed softly, and Logan could no longer resist the urge to move his attention to Julian's face.

As soon as Logan had pressed his lips against Julian's, the boys had begun the passionate dance for dominance that they replayed every kiss. It was a game that neither ever won, but instead every time either had the upper hand, the other fought more. This was how they quickly ended up on Julian's bed with Logan fumbling for whatever item of clothing he could reach and Julian's hands tangled in Logan's hair.

There was a knocking at the door that would have distracted most, but Logan and Julian could not be persuaded to notice anything but each other. The knocking continued and so the ignoring did too.

"Julian, you're going to have to explain yourself to me sooner or later!" Derek yelled through the door, suspecting that his friend was there even though he wasn't answering. "And what's with the riot in the common room? The sophomores look like they're going to war…"

When Andy walked back into his room, Emil was asleep. It was mid afternoon – he was back earlier than usual since practice had ended early - and Andy quickly concluded that his roommate had to have gone to sleep immediately after his classes. He tried to tell himself not to worry – maybe Emil had just had a rough day – but Andy had the sneaking suspicion that he knew why Emil was tired.

At first, Andy panicked. Should he try to look through Emil's things? The fear that Emil was using again hit Andy like a truck, and he desperately wished he was mature enough to have immediate control over the situation. He abandoned the idea of searching Emil's belongings quickly and instead found he was growing angrier and angrier – he felt betrayed.

Grabbing some homework for distraction, Andy left the room with a slam of the door. He hoped it woke Emil up.

"You okay there?"

Andy turned to see the Windsor prefect walking down the hall. He knew who Charlie was - his older brother, Matt, had played ball with him and he was always over hanging out with Justin – but he couldn't recall ever talking to him before.

"Yea, I'm fine," Andy tried to be polite as he walked down the hall and toward the boy.

Charlie stared at Andy with curiosity, but passed him and approached Justin's door. He knocked as he opened the door instead of waiting for Justin to answer it.

Justin sat on his bed with homework sprawled out in front of him with a distressed look on his face. As he looked up to see Charlie, he instantly grinned. Charlie gently closed the door and walked over to the bed. In an uncharacteristically affectionate mood, he leaned down and left a small kiss lightly on Justin's lips.

"Well hello there," Justin grinned, raising an eyebrow at Charlie's affection. "What did I do to deserve that?"

Charlie shrugged, "Nothing in particular. You just looked like you needed it."

Justin squinted at Charlie, not quite believing his answer. After a moment, he mimicked Charlie's shrug and moved over so the boy could sit beside him. Charlie quickly took the hint and sat down against his friend. Taking a page from this new book of affection, Justin draped his arm around Charlie and pulled him closer.

"Have you started your history essay?" Charlie asked after making himself comfortable.

Maybe for another couple this would have ruined a moment, but they had come together out of friendship, and somehow Justin couldn't help but think that their mundane conversation was more romantic than any sappy line he could think of.

"Yea, that's what I was working on. I can't seem to make myself write it," Justin mumbled, frustrated with himself. "It's like I can't think anymore."

"The blood thing still?" Charlie turned his head to meet Justin's eyes, but because he was already so close, he ended up with his head against Justin's shoulder.

"I don't know how I'm supposed to handle this. Everyone's still a little freaked out, but it's not like I've got any more to go off of."

"What about all the other weird things? The knife?" And the blood on the stairs. It dawned on Charlie that he still hadn't told Justin about Laura's secret.

"What, the missing kitchen knife?" Justin's face scrunched in confusion. "I didn't think that had anything to do with…Now it just got creepier."

"Justin, I have something to tell you," Charlie sat up, worried and stumbling over his words. "And I'm sorry. I'm really sorry that I didn't tell you, or that Laura didn't tell you –"

"Charlie, I refuse to believe that you're leaving me for my sister, but that's what it sounds like you're saying," Justin tried to make a joke out of it, but would be a little embarrassed to admit that he spent a second with this fear very real. "Get on with it."

"No – Laura told me about something else weird in Hanover." Charlie decided to just spit it out. "When she was here at Valentine's Day, you dragged her back at night and she said she saw blood on the stairs. She was sure of it."

This scared Justin more. "I didn't see anything - Why didn't she tell me?"

"She thought she was seeing things until the kitchen incident. And then…"

"Then?" Justin insisted angrily.

"Then you were broken and we couldn't stand to put any more pressure on you – "

"WE?" Justin rose from the bed and spun to face Charlie angrily. "She told you then? Charlie that was a month ago!"

"I'm sorry, Justin –" Charlie followed suit and stood up, so that they stood facing each other across the bed.

"You kept this from me for a month? Charlie, what the fuck?"

"I wasn't keeping it from you on purpose – I just forgot."

"That's bull shit, Charlie," Justin waved his arms with rage. "You just said that you and Laura didn't want to tell me. Because you thought I couldn't handle it? Awesome, Chaz. Glad to know I'm a baby you have to coddle. That's exactly what I want from this relationship."

"Justin, you're overreacting-"

"Get out Charlie. I'll stay here overreacting and you can go keep some more secrets from me."

Charlie gave a single loud laugh. "Says the king of secrets. If I had a nickel for every thing you keep from me-"

"That's not fair; those aren't my secrets-" Justin interrupted loudly.

"And Laura's secret wasn't mine!"

"What Laura told you wasn't a secret until you made it one," Justin sneered. "She should've told me. You should've told me."

"Why?" Charlie matched Justin's volume. "So you could still have no idea what to do?"

"Get out." Justin repeated it with more firmness and pointed to the door. His eyes were cold and his jaw was clenched. "I'm serious. Go."

Charlie was livid and confused and had nothing else to say. So he did.

Andy had ended up in the common room, and found Adam in the same state Justin had left him in.

"Hey, Adam," he mumbled nonchalantly, sitting himself down at a table without expecting the boy to respond.

"Hi," Adam had muttered back.

And for twenty minutes, that had been their conversation. Andy did his homework and Adam stared out the window from his spot on the couch. But Andy wasn't working on his homework as much as he was fuming and cursing angrily under his breath.

"Uhm," Adam stopped looking out the window to observe the boy at the table. "Are you okay, Andy?"

Andy glanced back at Adam, having forgotten he was in the room. "Yea, I'm fine. Emil's just ticking me off."

"Oh," Adam pretended he needed no further explanation, but, in actuality, he wasn't sure if he wanted further explanation. He didn't really like to get in the middle of some of the Hanover drama. Not to mention, his roommate had a tendency to gossip, and Adam was pretty sure he had said something about Emil's drug problems and covering up his withdrawal last year. Though how they managed to cover up a drug addiction and recovery was beyond Adam.

This entire thought process was why Adam didn't like to get involved. He was an over-thinker. And his over-thinking was better spent on Julian, or people who he valued. People who were nice to him. Emil had always rubbed him the wrong way.

Andy had gone back to his homework, and Adam had every intention of leaving the conversation be, until Andy's head fell flat against the table. Adam jumped an inch off the couch.

"Uhm…"

"I wish Matt or Avery was here…" Andy mumbled against the table, and Adam could barely hear him.

"Oh." Adam wondered if his minimalist answers would deter Andy from speaking, but Andy was talkative and Adam doubted this.

"I can't help him," Andy whispered, turning his head so that it still lay against the table, but was now facing Adam. "I know you heard; last year I just freaked out and ran to Matt. I'm such a wuss."

Now that Andy was looking at him, face scrunched in a pout, Adam could see he wasn't getting out of this conversation. At least he sort of liked Andy – Andy treated him like a friend even though they barely talked.

"Matt was prefect though, wasn't he?" Adam tried to sympathize. "It's not weird to involve the prefect."

"Yea, but I was just running to my big brother," he whined. "It's just too serious of a problem; I can't see him like that again. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to watch…"

"It can't be too bad, yet," Adam thought aloud. "He doesn't look sallow or anything."

"Well," Andy pushed his lips to the corner of his mouth, making one of his weird faces that the boys liked to mock him for. "I don't even know…I just – it started with him being tired all the time last time, and now every time he sleeps at a weird hour I panic. I can't ever let it get too bad again. I can't –"

"Andy," Adam noticed the protective tone in the boy's voice for his older friend. It was sweet, and Adam couldn't help but realize he was sympathizing with the boy. "Just talk to him about it first. Or never let him out of your sight – then you'll know."

Andy laughed at the advice, but considered it. How was it fair of him to accuse Emil without even knowing if he was just going crazy?

"Andy?"

"Yea, Adam?"

"You're drooling on your book."

Andy sat up and stared at the small wet spot on the paper in front of him. Maybe this was a sign that he should go back to his room.