10.

Blaine stares at the pushpin in a daze; what the hell has just happened? What did he do? It feels surreal, this piece of plastic sticking out of his hand like that, just below his thumb – even more so when he knows there’s almost half an inch of sharp metal embedded in the flesh. Pushed in by his own hand. What was that, anyway? An accident? An intentional action? He doesn’t remember doing anything with the pushpin beside holding it loosely in his hand. He must have squeezed it in his fist at some point.

Whatever it was, it worked in a funny way. Blaine realizes that everything suddenly seems faded, frozen and pushed into the background in his mind – the emotions, internal fights, he’s not even thinking about Kurt anymore. Nothing else matters for the moment but the thing in his hand; as if his body decided that this has priority now and recalled him to full attention.

He stares for a moment longer before reaching to remove the pushpin, pulling it out slowly, but not trying to be particularly gentle about it; the pain as the sharp tip drags over nerves on its way out feels strangely good. This is new; Blaine has never been a fan of pain of any kind – he experienced way too much of it all through his school career – but it feels different now, somehow. It’s almost desirable.

When the pin is out, blood gathers in the place where it was stuck –  a fast growing, deep red drop that soon overflows and slides down the slope of Blaine’s hand. He watches it, fascinated. It’s so beautiful, the red is simple and so vibrant, so alive. It’s a splash of color so intense that everything else looks washed out in comparison. It reminds him of that rarely revisited moment after he cut his wrists, when the stream of red seemed to be filling some void inside him, making him feel warm and safe.

The blood flows only for a moment, and once it stops, Blaine manages to come back down to reality. Cursing himself for not being careful, he goes to the bathroom to disinfect the tiny wound as well as he can with it being so deep. He tells himself it was just a stupid little accident, nothing important, but somewhere deep down, he knows better. After all, if it didn’t mean anything, why would he keep pressing on the pinprick all throughout the evening, the dull shots of pain giving him a strange sort of thrill? It’s like he indulges in knowing that it’s there and nobody knows, like a secret, like a sliver of control no one can take away from him. It’s only his when so many things aren’t, not anymore.

He sleeps well that night, which is a surprise after two weeks of either insomnia or waking up at all hours, but the way his mom seems to treat him like an invalid before she leaves for work the next morning immediately sets him on edge. She asks over and over again if he’ll be alright alone, if he has her phone number and knows to call her if he feels worse; she wants to know all that he has planned for the day. It’s not like Blaine doesn’t understand her worries, so he grins and bears it, but it makes him feel even weaker and more deficient, untrustworthy. It gets worse with her every call during the day; after the fifth one, he’s so stressed and angry with himself he wants to scream.

He ends up going to his room instead, where the pushpin from last night is still lying on the desk. The curiosity – he refuses to call it an urge, it’s not that, of course it isn’t – seems to push him towards the little pin. A little test, research really, won’t hurt anyone, right?

Blaine takes the pin to the bathroom and washes it thoroughly – he doesn’t want an infection, after all – before returning to his room and settling on the bed. Let’s see if it works, he thinks before pressing the tip to the pad of his middle finger.

The pain as the pin sinks slowly deeper is sharp, simple and controllable. It stops almost entirely the second Blaine wants it to, as soon as he takes his finger off the head of the pushpin. The simplicity of this correlation, the basic cause/result dynamic, should be nothing new, but it’s stunning now, when everything has seemed to be so far out of Blaine’s control for so long. He can make this happen, and he can make it stop. So little and yet so very much. He has some control, which means he’s still here, still real and alive, even though sometimes he feels like he’s so deep in his own mind, lost in its chaos, that he has no connection with his body anymore.

And this type of pain – unlike the one Blaine feels whenever he thinks of his life, his future or Kurt, just plain thinks, really – is so simple. Just a physical response to the skin being breached and the nerve endings irritated. There’s nothing complicated about it, no feelings or dilemmas or internal battles. Just pain.

And then there’s blood, which is at least half of the appeal. The pull of this particular shade of red, just when it trickles out, before it starts to dry and oxidize, is addicting. It spells life and safety, and warmth.

Over the next few days playing with the pushpin becomes Blaine’s way of dealing with bad moments. It’s not like he does it all that often – once, twice daily; only when he feels really restless and overwhelmed, or unreal and lost in his head, unable to get back. This is the only thing that really helps, and it’s not like he’s doing something wrong, is it? There’s no harm in it, really. The pricks are not even visible, unless someone knows what to look for – just small red dots on his palms, his thigh, his arm. It’s nothing to worry about, and it makes surviving every day so much easier, having this option, kind of an outlet for when things get really bad.

But as Thanksgiving approaches, Blaine’s getting more and more restless and anxious. Both his parents are going to be home all day, and there’s his aunt with her family coming to visit, so the house will be full of people he’ll need to talk to, smile at, interact with. There’ll be Anna, too, his 16-year-old cousin who’s had a major crush on him for years. And this is his dad’s side of the family, so – just like him – they simply ignore the fact that Blaine’s gay, or worse, joke and tease him about it, as if it’s some kind of a phase that he’s bound to grow out of one day. The day is going to be sheer torture.

On Thursday morning Blaine is cleaning up a small, shallow scratch just below his knee – a place carefully chosen to avoid detection, and to be easily explainable if anyone noticed by any chance – when his phone rings, Kurt’s smiling face on the display. He picks up almost cheerfully, the fresh calm still all over him, only to be sent right into a spinning chaos of panic and delight all at once. Kurt’s voice is full of sun and smiles as he trills,

“Hi baby, I just wanted to let you know that I’m boarding the plane in five minutes. I don’t know if we’ll manage to meet today, for obvious reasons, but tomorrow I’m all yours. Love you!”