1.

Tina’s kind, pretty face looks worried as she approaches Blaine after everyone else has already left the choir room in twos and threes, laughing and talking. He’d recently taken to waiting till everyone is gone, pretending to be busy looking through his bag or sending a text. It’s easier this way, when he can avoid talking to people. That’s what he wants, just not to be disturbed, shaken out of the silence inside. But today it won’t work. Tina sits down on the chair facing him, touches his hand. It feels weird, to be touched. It’s almost as if his skin forgot the feeling. But it’s only been three months, it couldn’t have. Could it?

“Blaine, what’s going on with you?” Tina’s voice is concerned, gentle. His throat tightens impossibly, but he fights it, his mask already on, brows raised questioningly. “And don’t tell me it’s fine. You weren’t yourself out there. I’ve never seen you so... I don’t know. It’s like you didn’t even try.”

Blaine shrugs. The truth is, he didn’t try. Why would he? He didn’t need a solo; he just wanted to be left alone. Two months ago he’d have jumped at the chance and flattened that freshman he competed with without even trying. Even last month he might have done his best and win what was rightfully his – he was honestly much better than the other boy, his voice deeper and clearer, his charisma natural. But today he just didn’t care anymore.

“I just didn’t like the song.”

It’s as good an answer as any, but Tina doesn’t buy it. They are quite close, the shared experience of having boyfriends away in college naturally connecting, and it’s not the only thing that they have in common. But still, she’s not the kind of friend Kurt had been from the very beginning. Blaine has nobody that close now.

“But Blaine, it’s for Sectionals! You know as well as I do that Owen is good, but far from great. It’s you – your voice, your stage presence we need to win this. Especially when we’re up against Vocal Adrenaline again this year. We need every asset we have, and you’re one of our best assets, Blaine!”

He shrugs again.

“Tell this to Mr. Schue. Singing background for every new member is apparently all I’m good for this semester.” He gets up and takes his bag. “I have to go. See you tomorrow?”

Tina takes his hand once more, stopping him, her eyes uncertain.

“Blaine… Are you sure you’re all right? I know it’s hard without Kurt here. I get it, you know I do. Maybe we could go out together again? See if there’s anything good at the movies?”

The forced smile hurts his face as he nods, the muscles out of practice.

“I’m fine, Tina. And sure, Friday?”

“Friday.”

She lets him go, and as he walks to his car, the mask falls away, the numbness is back. The thought that Kurt would have realized, would have noticed his lie, sucks a little more color from the world.

Blaine doesn’t know when it started. Didn’t notice it, really. Everything has been normal, day after day – school, Glee, homework, sleep. Sometimes, coffee or shopping with Tina. Talking with Kurt via Skype. Longing. Always longing.

Nothing really happened. He hasn’t been bullied or attacked. His grades are excellent as ever. He hasn’t argued with his parents or anyone else. He’s still well liked. Everything is fine. Maybe he’d become just a background voice in Glee, while Mr. Schue constantly gave solos to the new voices, most of them sophomores and juniors. Maybe his parents are even more absent, because “he’s almost an adult now and can be trusted to take care of himself”. Maybe Kurt has less time to talk and text lately. But these are details, nothing to lose sleep over.

So why did his world lose all its colors? And when did it happen? Have they bled out of his life little by little until nothing is left but drab grays? Everything looks like the November sky outside the kitchen window now. He has trouble remembering what it looked like in summer.

He’s calmer, too. Quieter. Nothing moves him to the core lately, or makes him dance and laugh like crazy. Nothing really hurts, either, and it’s good. No pain, no intense emotions. He’s… numb.

He misses colors sometimes. Dreams of vivid blues and greens, and whites, of explosive splashes of yellows, oranges, reds. It’s always after he talks with Kurt right before going to bed – in the morning, he wakes up longing for the colors. And then he forgets. It doesn’t happen all that often anyway. At first, in August, they were talking every night. But life is busy, especially in college, he knows that. Two, sometimes three times a week is plenty.

He knows that the colors in his dreams – they are Kurt. His boyfriend is what makes his life vivid and lush, always has. And he’ll do it again, when he comes home for Christmas. They’ve just been talking, Kurt called to say he wouldn’t be in Lima for Thanksgiving, can’t afford the plane ticket. It’s fine. Christmas is close enough. They’ve planned plenty for then.

Dicing a tomato for a salad to go with the chicken he’s frying for his solitary dinner, Blaine imagines all the things they’ll get to do together once Kurt’s here. Thinking of that beautiful smile and storm-colored eyes feels like warmth, like a rainbow. A whirlwind of colors and emotions, intensity and life. It envelops him, and suddenly Blaine doesn’t feel alone and unimportant, and not good enough. It’s breathtaking, remembering what it’s like to feel, to see properly. To live. His breath hitches as he’s flooded by a rapid wave of happy anticipation.

And then, just as fast, it’s punched out of him.

Yes, he’ll have ten days of this. But it’s not a happy ending, not some kind of resolution that will save him from this purgatory. Kurt will be gone again, for more of the unbearable months. And Blaine will be back to just existing, step by step, every day worse than the last, no destination in sight, no reason to keep going. It feels like drowning now, gray waters of hopelessness flooding Blaine’s lungs, his vision blurred by them, or maybe it’s tears, he isn’t sure. Something slips from his numb fingers and he looks at them in a daze. He’s been doing something. Cutting, yes. The tomato. He needs to cut the tomato.

The knife is still in Blaine’s right hand and he looks at it curiously, as if he’s seeing it for the first time. It’s sharp, all the knives in their kitchen are; his father takes care of that. Blaine raises it to eye level, the gleam of wet blade fascinating. Everything is dimmed and muted, only blood pounds in his ears insistently. Blood; vivid red of life, pulsing, oozing.

He doesn’t really know when he does it; doesn’t even feel it. He just knows that he’s sitting on the floor now, his arms outstretched on his knees, staring at all the red around, mesmerized. It’s beautiful as it flows, intense, alive, real. He’s missed the colors so much, and it turns out they were inside him all along, he just had to let them out. Because now he can see the other ones as they flash before his eyes. So beautiful. So overwhelming.

It’s getting colder, but it’s okay. The red will warm him up. It always does in his dreams.