A/N: Starting to see a little more family dynamic and a lot more with the side-effects. I tried to do some explanation in here, but some of it ended up being filler until we get back to the Klaine action in the next chapter. Again, not much to say, I think I said it all with the previous chapter.

Warnings: suicidal thoughts, drug induced feelings and talk there-of, general (Klaine is not together?! Why?!) angst

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters depicted, this is a work of fan fiction.

Enjoy!... Or know you are needed by someone.

As Blaine stared down into the box of Honeycomb in exasperation, he was almost tempted to call his brother clever; but he wanted to stick with the fact that Cooper had no idea what he was doing when it came to hiding Blaine's medication. He did not often eat the cavity inducing cereals that were bought for his brother's consumption, more so now when sugar-highs and his meds combined made his feel weird. Blaine could not help that he had been craving the sweetened corn bits since yesterday morning, when Cooper flounced into his room with a giant bowl of it, obviously trying to make him jealous.

Now, instead of Blaine feeling content on getting his craving satisfied, he felt a head-ache coming on. He closed the box, the medication bottle untouched on top of the bagged cereal, and put it away.

Ever since he had been released from the hospital, Blaine had been in constant contact with his parents and brother. Normally, he would not have minded their hovering and smothering, despite how he slept sixteen to eighteen hours a day now, it showed they cared.

Again, normally.

But now it was just all very suffocating.

He was all too aware that Cooper and his mom would come in to check on him in his sleep, touch his shoulder and wake him enough for him to mutter indistinctly at them; Blaine had even caught his father watching him sleep the second night he had been back from the hospital. Though he felt sorry for his parents, to have to go through when he put them through and to continue to worry... really he did. But the smothering had to go. There was also the matter of Cooper trying to hide his medicine, that had to stop too.

As much as he wanted to sit down and talk to his parents and brother about backing off, he was too afraid that they would start asking questions that he was not ready to answer—at least not without talking to Kurt first. Though his family had obviously known him longer, Kurt deserved to know more; seeing as how Blaine had basically told him that he had been the main cause... and while that may have been true, Blaine had so much more to share with Kurt about the whole situation.

And as much as he wanted to think about Kurt and all that they would talk about, or what Kurt would say to him, or how Kurt was going to help him, or if Blaine really needed Kurt to be there at all... He thought better of it. Those kinds of thoughts would only lead him to the more—depressing answer.

The water bottle he picked up from the table felt cold against his hand. Fevers were just another side-effect to one of the medications he was taking now; that and feeling of being dehydrated. Both of which were just small factors in his almost constant state of sleepiness.

Even while he was in the hospital Blaine had not realized how much he truly slept until he came home and actually had access to a clock and more to do than stare at a TV screen. He slept at night, before meals, through meals, watching TV or reading, in the afternoon, and one time he actually fell asleep at the dinner table. Later Blaine had to let his mom clean gravy out of his hair because he could not keep his eyes open long enough for his parents to trust him to take a shower by himself. Other times, instead of sleeping, he was found just staring blankly into space but losing hours doing absolutely nothing, until someone interrupted him.

The sleeping he could handle—he was just catching up on what he lost after the breakup, the feeling dehydrated too—he just peed a little bit more than usual, and even the fevers—he could always take off clothes (and it kept Cooper from coming into his room without knocking), but he hated throwing up.

It happened the first morning of him being back home. Without the nurses forcing him to eat while he took his medicine, Blaine skipped breakfast because he was not hungry and refused to be forced to eat again. His mom did not let him miss taking his first round of pills though. They both learned quickly that he should have eaten before taking his medicine (as directed), because not even thirty minutes later he was on the bathroom floor leaning over the toilet, dry heaving and in absolute pain.

Blaine shuddered at the thought, avoiding looking at the toilet as he walked into his bathroom. He would wait until his mom brought him something to eat before he took his pills for this morning; because he once again found himself not hungry, and he knew better now.

Maybe I'll be hungry by the time she brings me something, he thought, opening his medicine cabinet to look for toothpaste.

The head-ache that had started earlier grew tenfold. Sitting on the second shelf of the cabinet, right next to his toothpaste was his second medication. Cooper could almost be called a genius, hiding Blaine's medicine in his medicine cabinet... except Blaine was not supposed to have medicine in his medicine cabinet... so he was an idiot.

Blaine continued on to brush his teeth and take a shower.

Mornings were the only time that sleeping seemed to escape him. The first time being back from the hospital, he thought that it had something to do with him just being used to being awake in the morning for school, because it certainly was not because he was a morning person. Kurt was, but Blaine took forever to wake up in the morning. Rolling around and hitting his alarm at least five times before trying to sit up, never bothering to open his eyes until he was being blinded by his bathroom lights once he finally got up.

Then one of the nurses at the hospital explained it was because the medicine he took at night was wearing off, so his sudden bout of energy in the mornings was nothing more than an indicator that he should take his morning pills.

Whatever, Blaine rolled his eyes, the barely warm water of his shower cooling his skin and relaxing his muscles. I'm gonna take advantage of it, seeing as I have plenty of school work to catch up on.

Tina and Sam were taking turns dropping off the papers from his classes after school, glad that he was feeling better from being sick (the excuse his parents used to explain his absence from school—he was just lucky that it was not finals time yet and Dr. Miller—his new doctor—was kind enough to write him a discrete doctor's note for the school) and that they were excited that he would still get to go to Nationals with them.

Brittany even dropped by once to visit him. Telling him about the baking project in Home Ec and that she would be his partner and help him catch up because she was really good at mixing cake and cutting it after it was done baking and because he was really good at making the sugar blanket for the top (fondant—but she had the right idea) and decorating that they were going to have the highest grade! Yes, she said it almost just like that. All before she went on about how he was glowing and rested looking. Asking where he found "it" and why he had not put "it" back on.

What "it" was or how he was supposed to wear "it", Blaine could not say; he was just glad that Brittany had still decided to be there for him through the whole thing, despite her not knowing what was truly going on. He appreciated her more and more, and was going to really miss her when she left for MIT on early admissions.

"I'll visit you," Blaine told Brittany, hugging her close to him.

"Okay," she responded, smiling and petting his loose curls (it was easier to not gel his hair at all than have to re-gel it every time he woke up from sleeping), "You can bring Santana and Kurt when you do! I know we'll all be busy, but I can always make time for some lady and gay kisses!"

He smiled back at her, "Sure, anything for you."

But with less than two months of school left, everything was closing in on him pretty fast.

He had to make sure he caught up before he had to go back to school; and everything was under a time crunch when he could only do work to his fullest before he took his medication... maybe he could convince his mom to let him push back taking it an hour if all he was doing was school work?

After drying off and dressing himself in sweatpants, Blaine opened his medicine cabinet automatically to get to his gel before he remembered—then decided he was going to gel his hair anyway, he would just take an extra shower today. It would help fight his pill induced fevers and may even wake him up enough to get more work done.

But as he stood there debating if he wanted to use raspberry or waterfall scented hair-gel—it clicked.

Not the "it" that Brittany had been referring to, but what his brother had been doing.

Cooper had been purposefully putting his medications in places he might run into them as a test, seeing if he was tempted to try and take them again. His theory was only confirmed when Cooper's head popped through the cracked bathroom door.

"God, Blainers!" He ducked back through the door, hand over his eyes, "Put some clothes on!"

The younger sibling did not even bother to mock glare at his out of view older brother, smiling at the cracked open door, "I just took a shower! Stop being a pervert!"

Thanks for caring enough to check on me though, Blaine thought, leaving it unsaid. Thanks for proving your point. Thanks for making me realize that I can't get through this without Kurt; that I really do need him.

A/N: Okay, so this is it for this week, you'll hear more of how Cory's death will affect this story next week. It's so hard to believe he's gone, I couldn't make myself write anything until yesterday and I had to block a lot out while editing today after losing my aunt. I'm sure that you will get some more from me this week, I write to cope and I've got a lot to cope about right now. I don't know what exactly that I'll update; just know that it is an update, nothing new. Probably If There Was No Cake or the final installments of Feeling Wanted. Just expect them to be up tomorrow or Saturday, at the latest Monday.

Anyways, I hope ya'll enjoyed and are coping with Cory's death well.

Until next time,

Anjel Starlight