Kurt felt himself changing. His whole body, face, all the wrinkles and creases and flyaway hairs were warping and twisting, and Kurt watched himself in the mirror. He forced out a heavy breath, fogging up the glass, so that his face was hidden from view. 

It wasn't just his exterior that seemed to be morphing. Suddenly his perceptions of his exterior were different, also. Kurt didn't just feel fat, or horrible, or old. Now he was ugly, and stupid, and crazy. He could see the madness in his eyes. Kurt looked psychotic. He felt psychotic. The tremor in his hands seemed to add to his mental instability.

His eyes trailed down from his blurred visage to his long neck with the pulsing blue vein visible, and Kurt pressed a cold finger to it. The crescent of his nail piercing the skin made his body feel like air, and he imagined himself floating up, pressing his scabbed knees and elbows to the ceiling, eyes closed and euphoria swallowing him whole. 

Eventually he burst through the pale layer, and blood seeped over his fingernail. It was only a drop, but from it Kurt felt a desire not dissimilar to lust. He licked his lips; they were dry and cracking. His saliva felt like acid, tasted like vomit. Kurt hadn't thrown up today. He hadn't been sick in nearly twelve days. He smiled sadly. His stomach clenched and unclenched, forcing his skin to stretch against his ribcage, and Kurt revelled in the discomfort it caused.

He reached for his razor with fumbling hands. Kurt had never done this before. He'd never succumbed to cutting. He'd never harmed his exterior. Kurt was evil inside. He was broken inside. It had never bled through his skin and dripped onto his cream carpet and stained his soul.

Kurt thought his pain had ended at his mother's death and his compulsive calorie control. He believed he had reached his limit at throwing up and sobbing until he lost his voice and collapsing from exhaustion and dehydration. 

Now, Kurt knew it was time to expand, like his sorrow and anger had continued to do so long after his body had met its previous physical limits.

His breathing was laboured as he stared down at the razor, the gentle slope of the sharpened edge, the glint of the lamp on his desk making it change colour. Kurt thought it was beautiful. He marvelled at its size, its simplicity, the overwhelming need for the cold metal to be pressed to his flush skin.

"I want to die," Kurt said to no one. His raspy breaths came staggered in a mournful reply.

His father was on a date. 

That was what had pushed Kurt.

Kurt had cried. Screamed. His eyes had screwed up and his nose had wrinkled. 

"You can't cheat on Mom, I won't let you. We're not ready for this. You have to cancel it, Dad." Kurt's eyes were heavy and they felt like they were sinking into his cheeks. His skin was loose and rubbery. His heart knocked angrily against his ribs. "Have you forgotten her?"

He could envisage the spittle on his dad's chin as he had screamed at Kurt. 

"How could I forget your mom, Kurt? She was the love of my life. You don't even know half of the pain I felt when she passed. You can't even understand how desperately I needed her everyday, Kurt. Elizabeth and you were my whole world. I thought I lost both of you that day. I lost everything with her." Burt's eyes had pulsated in the flickering light of the kitchen, and Kurt had smashed his untouched plate of dinner on the ground and spat at Burt.

"Don't you dare tell me I don't know my loss! My mother was my world. I died, Dad. You know I died that day. I never came back so don't you pretend like her death didn't hurt me too."

Burt sobbed openly in front of Kurt, but Kurt didn't flinch. He was surging with hatred, pain, sullen, broken ache, and he felt steam filling his mind and corroding his sense of humanity and all he wanted to do was hurt someone, something, anything.

"Don't do this, Kurt."

Kurt smashed a mug. A glass. His bare feet crunched on broken shards but he barely felt the sting. He reached for the cupboard handle. Burt's hand limply smacked his hand away. 

"You let her die, Dad; you don't deserve a second chance."

Now Kurt stood, his stomach heaving with each deep breath, his eyes wide and cheeks gaunt and chin held high in the air. 

Cut. Kurt yelled. He pressed his pale lips together, hard and tight, and his breaths were staggered, and his eyes closed. It took a moment for the sting to subside, for the wetness to take over the dry heat of the metal against his skin. He'd broken the skin cleanly. Cut. More mind-numbing pain. A sort of tingling in his legs started to overtake his ache in his heart. Cut. Cut. Cut. He  began to breathe through gritted teeth, his nose starting to run, his whole body quivering with the memory of the blade touching him, owning him, marking its territory. Cut. Kurt's fingers began to stain with blood, and he hazily watched droplets break against his knees and dribble down his shins. 

His head felt heavier than lead. Kurt stumbled backwards slowly, the bare skin of his back, thighs, calves colliding with the cool plaster, the plain white paint contrasting with the dirty red-brown Kurt had become. His left wrist looked like candy cane wallpaper, and he shuddered at the thought. The taste of shame began to fill his mouth, and Kurt swallowed hard, anything to keep down his lunch. 

All at once Kurt felt proud and ashamed, broken yet fixed, dark but light. He seemed to hover above himself, watching himself slice his body up like bread, once, twice, three times, the bloodied razor falling to the carpet, and he reached down, and a silent ghostly hand caught it, and he smiled.

His knees bent and he fell heavily to the ground, and his squinted eyes locked against the razor bleeding onto his clean floor. Tears began to wet his cheeks. Kurt thought his very pores were bleeding in anticipation of a second cutting. 

That night he fell asleep, naked on the floor, and dreamed in colour for the first time in years. 

---

The gentle walk to school was the only thing keeping Kurt sane. His whole body ached in the aftermath of yesterday's destructive behaviour, the war that had broken out between Kurt and his porcelain appearance.

He'd woken up early, violently shuddering as he shook himself from his nightmare. 

He had been swimming in an endless river of red, the further he travelled, the paler he became. All at one the skin of his arms had peeled away, revealing beautifully intricate webs of capillaries; smooth, lean muscles working overtime to propel his heavy weight through the thickening liquid. 

Kurt had cried out, groped for a rope, watching as his skin unravelled and his innards spilled out. He watched in disdain as his heart beat erratically, lungs inflated the clouded air, pink with bloodied mist.

Kurt hadn't had nightmares in years. Colour. Kurt squeezed his eyes shut as the vivid red began to coat his vision.

Walking was the only way Kurt knew to clean himself of the horror of the night. With each step, however, his legs felt heavier, his thighs thicker and uglier, and the skin of his wrists burned angrily.

Long sleeves had been his only option. The diamante cufflinks securing his cuffs in place were like salt. He readjusted them hopelessly, feeling the sting with more intenisty as he fiddled.

"Fuck!"

The weather was getting cooler, but the coat on his back felt suffocating, and a sweat broke out on the back of his neck. He huffed an angry breath of misty air. He could feel his hair frizzing in the wet air.

Kurt suddenly felt so sad, so terrifyingly alone in that moment. Walking away from hope and comfort, entering a world of desperation and longing. He was addicted to his lack of power. He was addicted to being alone. He was very, very scared.

The trees blurred into a backdrop of green and brown; all colour was lost. Kurt could no longer appreciate natural beauty, only superficial, ugly beauty. 

The smell of the clear air was polluted with the scent of dried blood that was smeared across Kurt's brain. The cool air against his face was like the tip of a whip cracking against him. All simplicity was leeched from the blue-grey sky and replaced with a dirty, tiresome intricacy of the horrors of Kurt's mind.

Kurt sat in calculus, the empty chair beside him looming like an upright coffin. His long sleeves still chafed against the raw skin of his wrists. His eyes felt watery, along with his lips. He kept his gaze downcast. 

The coldness that had devoured him the night before didn't shift to a happy warmth as Blaine entered the room and sat beside him. Kurt couldn't silence the growing whimpers in the back of his head even as Blaine polluted the silence with his voice.

Words seemed to spill from Blaine's mouth like honey being poured from the jar. They came and came, without taking a break to breathe, letting his words run into one another as his brain worked faster than his mouth. "What's wrong, Kurt? You look a little off."

Oh, how Kurt loved his sincerity. 

"My dad and I had a fight. I don't think we'll get past this one."

Blaine gasped, and the whole room seemed to shrink, the walls enclosing around Blaine's open mouth and glistening eyes and slightly stubbled chin.

Kurt felt like he was breathing too much. He focused on the end of his nose and felt the air moving within him, in his nostrils and chest and stomach, and the blood in his veins that seemed to eternally drown him.

Blaine made the world tumble about him. Kurt moved his gaze to Blaine, the trace of a smile still hovering in his features, like he wasn't sure how concerned to be, like he didn't understand Kurt's pain, his anger, his loss. Kurt and Burt were so strong, so united, together in their happiness and pain, and Blaine just couldn't believe that could fall to pieces overnight. Kurt believed it had.

Blaine's eyelids worked overtime. "What happened, Kurt, are you okay, why didn't you call, haven't you made up, what's going on, Kurt?"

So many questions. All of Kurt seemed to shiver.

"I don't know anymore, Blaine. I just don't know."

The heat of Blaine overcame Kurt as they came in contact. A hand against a hand, though small, though insignificant, Kurt felt the blood in his face blooming in patches like winter roses. Blaine's eyes, however, had Kurt encaptured, and he felt himself sinking in his blood, his dirty, flowing, carpet-staining blood. 

"Talk to me about it, Kurt. Maybe I can help."

"You're so kind, Blaine." Kurt paused to close his eyes; he suddenly felt so very tired. "But you're too kind. And you can't help me today."

Recoiling like a bitten child from a snake, Blaine curled into himself, eyes creasing, heart breaking. "Oh. Oh, okay then, Kurt."

Kurt swallowed dryly. He continued to shiver, though the blooming roses on his skin began to wilt. His wrist began to sting. Kurt embraced the pain.

"I'm sorry, Blaine."

"It's okay, Kurt, I understand."

That evening, Kurt cut again. And again. He felt his skin splitting, screaming, begging him to stop. Kurt disfigured his wrists, thighs, chest, shoulders, hips. He felt a laugh tickling his lips, his whole mouth aching with his pleasure.

It was freeing, Kurt decided. He had never felt such control over himself. His dad forced him to eat. He was too ashamed to not eat with Blaine. But this? Kurt was alone. He was in power. He had total power over himself and the razor. If he wanted to bleed, he would. If he wanted it to hurt, he'd go slowly and he'd apply extra pressure. If he wanted a scar, he'd use the razor as a saw, going over and over and over the cut, watching the blood spring free like eager salmon zipping down stream. 

He always cried. With every cut, he shed a tear, and each time it felt like he was cleansed, reborn, opening himself to all the emotions in the world.

Kurt hurriedly dialed Blaine's number. It took him three tries to get the number right. He knew it off by heart; he repeated it under his breath when he felt the looming guilt of taking creamer in his coffee engross him. 

Ring. Kurt cried out in anticipation. His heart seemed to stop. Ring. One of the cuts on his chest broke open. Ring. Kurt's mouth drained of saliva.

"Hey, what's up?"

"Blaine," Kurt whispered. Relief washed over him like a rolling heat.

"It's a bit late, is it important?"

"I had to tell you what happened with my dad. I had to tell you. I just can't not, Blaine, because you're my friend, and you deserve to know, and I think I need to get it off my chest before I explode and do something I might regret." Kurt grinned like a naughty kid. He felt like he'd lied. He didn't feel any guilt whatsoever. In fact, Kurt felt nothing except meretricious glee.

"Hey, don't worry about it, Kurt, you know I'm not entitled to know absolutely everything that goes on in your life, and it was unreasonable of me to push you to tell me-"

"Blaine."

Blaine paused. His end of the line sounded prickly. Kurt imagined Blaine's house was beautiful, just like the boy that inhabited it. He wondered what his parents looked like. He wondered if they loved Blaine. He wondered if his dad was as heroic as Blaine painted him to be.

"You know you're such a good friend to me, Blaine. I appreciate it entirely. I think I would have forgotten how to smile by now if it wasn't for you."

"That's sweet. I feel the same way, of course. You're so brilliant, Kurt. I'm so glad we're friends."

"Do you think we'll be friends after school? And college?"

"I think so. I hope so."

Kurt could feel Blaine smiling down the phone. It was such a beautiful silence. Kurt wished he could dream properly in the colours that it painted on his ceiling.

"So, Kurt... what happened with your dad? That's what you called about, right?"

Kurt felt the colour shift before he saw it. A car passed by the house and illuminated his bedroom in a sickly orange glow. "Well," Kurt whispered. "He's moved on."

"From what?"

"My mom. Me. He's moving on, Blaine, and he's going to forget us. I can't let him, though. I can't let him do this."

"Why 'us'?"

"What?"

Blaine laughed stiffly. "Kurt, he's not going to forget you. I mean, he's not forgetting your mother, either, but the way you're talking about it, it's like... well, it's like you're dead too."

"I just don't want him to forget mom," Kurt finally said. "She's all we really have to keep us from falling apart."

Kurt hung up. Before he knew what was happening, his phone was lying in a broken pile on the floor. Plastic debris scattered the floor around the wall it had been thrown against.

He was dead. Kurt hadn't lived a single day since his mother had died. How could Blaine not understand that? How could he be so ignorant, so cruel?

Minutes later two angry fingers were thrusted into his mouth, and all the life in him was splashing into the perfectly white hole of his toilet.