Chapter seven- until we meet again

Kurt:

There's this guy in Algebra 2 who's kind of cute, and also out. I think I might ask him out for coffee today. It can't hurt, right?

*

The four that is insistently ever in the back of Blaine's mind wavers, flickers out, and clicks down to a three. Blaine isn't sure why, but he feels a small sense of accomplishment nonetheless.

*

Blaine sees Kurt in the hallways less and less. It might be because they don't have as many classes together, Blaine being one year younger than him. Or it might be because Blaine is, well, avoiding him. And any gossip surrounding him. But when he's seen walking down the hall hand in hand with a blond guy, honestly, the gossip is just confirmed. Though Kurt stays smoothly out of it in mysterious ways, it is understood throughout McKinley that Kurt is dating another junior.

I don't think you hate him at all. I think you lo—

Blaine can't listen to the voice anymore, he can't. At first it was cruel and snarling. Now it is almost pitying, in a mocking way. And the voice has made the rather abrupt transfer from unrecognizably robotic to his very own.

It's really terrifying, and the only person he'd ever even think about sharing it with is Kurt.

But Kurt, as it seems, has moved on.

*

Kurt:

We've been dating for two months now. Honestly, I think we got off on the wrong foot—Paul saying that he prefers tea to coffee when I asked my first offer—but he's kind of grown on me. Paul's nice, I guess. He's just—I'm just—I don't know what's wrong with me. It's not like he's that boring or that sleazy or whatever. But his hands are always slightly moist and slightly warm, and his glasses are always slightly slipping down his nose, and his clothes are always slightly off-kilter on his body, and Paul is just a very slightly kind of person. That's not too bad, though. The worst thing is the bullying. Ever since it got out that we're dating, Dave Karofsky and the rest of the jocks have been dead set on bullying us. I get the usual locker slams along with dirty insults, and it's not too much to handle, but Paul's not used to it. His coming out was much quieter than mine, and he's not used to all this shit being thrown at him for his sexuality. The real problem is—well—Paul thinks we deserve it. He's stopped holding my hand in the hall, and we only meet at each other's houses, not in public anymore, and if I even give him a little peck on the cheek in, like, the library, he pulls away as if I put my leg around his waist or squeezed his ass. Goddammit. We haven't really talked about this much, and that's the other thing. Paul's not that great with communication. He's just, just slightly good at it. But slightly is not good enough. Even when we need to have idle conversation, he stares at me and then the floor and then my outfit, eyes darting around like a mouse's. It's kind of creepy. Or maybe it's not. Maybe I'm just too critical, too picky, and I—I don't deserve him. He's trying, you know? He's not used to all this. Maybe if I just give him a little more time, he'll adjust.

*

Another month passes of Blaine lying facedown on his bed and having to be reminded to change clothes and shower. If he changes clothes, the Dalton blazer stares him in the face the second he opens the closet door. If he showers, it reminds him of the tears that he can't cry anymore. Everything reminds him of something.

One Saturday afternoon, he goes to the park and sits on the swing. He's too big for them now, of course, and they creak under his weight, and Blaine thinks maybe he shouldn't eat as much.

He doesn't allow himself to think the word—the K word, as he's come to call it. It hurts too much when it shouldn't.

It doesn't matter, Blaine... and neither do you.

Blaine knows he doesn't matter. Knows it so well. And yet his mother asks why he's not eating, his dad asks how school's going—they know something's up, and they've been gently prodding around the matter for awhile now.

Blaine thinks they can all wait a little longer.

*

Kurt:

He adjusted, all right. He adjusted—slightly. I can't, I can't fucking do this. Paul continues to be stubborn as fuck. And we're getting bullied even with our minimal touches. I need to talk to him about that, more than slightly—he thinks, god, he thinks that the bullies are right to harass us. I think people think we've broken up now, with what the no-touching-in-public rule. Let them think that. Maybe I'll make the rumors true.

*

There are new rumors regarding Paul and Kurt that Blaine has heard going around. People say they've broken up. People say it's because Paul was too wimpy about the whole bullying thing and Kurt couldn't handle it—can he handle me?

The thought comes unbidden, all at once, and frightening. Blaine pushes it into the recesses of his mind, behind the blackness that is a dark consistency in his eyes now, behind the memories of his mother's conversation with him, behind the memories of the party, behind the memories of Cooper, behind an unfortunately large space in his mind which is disguised as empty, but Blaine knows it conceals horrors and he dares not R. I. P. off the mask, behind another disguised space in his mind that is labeled in his thoughts as simply K, which Blaine also passes on and tries to not give another thought, behind everything, into the corner of his mind brain skull head hair air—empty space. Blaine does not want to see the thought ever again.

Blaine instead opens his mother's conversation in his mind and allows himself to cry. He thinks how stupid it is that he can only cry for himself now—how stupid, and selfish. He thinks how awful it is that his mother is under the impression that he is perfect. And he thinks that she thinks that because Blaine is not allowed to not be perfect. Blaine is not allowed to be dumb or arrogant or annoying or anything that is not perfect. Blaine is only allowed to be one thing. And he doesn't believe in perfection. He doesn't believe in himself, either.

Blaine locks the door to his room and doesn't come out for dinner, not even when his dad threatens to take the door down.

"I'm just tired, Dad," he calls through the door. "Please leave me alone."

"Okay," his dad replies, and it's simple as that. Blaine knows he's worried, everyone's worried, but no one's bothering to press him on the matter anymore. Thank God. Blaine can't imagine what that conversation would be like. Horrifying, no doubt. Blaine sits upright on his bed and lets himself be pulled into the swirling turmoil of his memories.

"I know you're brave."

Blaine is not a cowardly lion.

"You're not afraid of jumping. You're afraid of falling."

And Blaine can't find his wings and learn to fly.

"It's good to know how you're going to get somewhere and where you're going to go. But it's the in-between stuff that's super scary."

Blaine is in between.

"I'd save you too. We could be each other's princes!"

Courage, Blaine. Courage.

He hits the fast-forward button on his mind when true love's kiss is mentioned.

"You're still my prince."

But the apple isn't green and poisonous. It's red. Ruby red.

"You've been out for three hours, Blaine. How on earth are you still tired?"

Red like blood, red like poppies. How on earth is Blaine still tired? How has he made it this far without giving up?

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

Are you going to give up now, Blaine? Are you going to lose your mind? Lose control?

I guess. I guess. I guess.

Red like blood, red like cough syrup. Sticky sweet in the back of his throat and tasting suspiciously like—

Blaine has a bottle in his hand. A green bottle. But it's not ginger ale.

He doesn't know how it got there. He doesn't know how long he's been sitting here, remembering.

But maybe he wasn't sitting the entire time.

How do you explain the bottle, Blaine?

I don't know.

Weak, pleading, open, vulnerable—

It's empty, Blaine. Did you drink that?

I guess.

Courage, Blaine. Liquid courage.

And the memory fast-forwards again, this time whizzing out of Blaine's control on the fuzzy screen of his mind.

is there gonna be alcoholllll??

God, Cooper. Cooper who shouldn't care about him anymore. Cooper who hopefully doesn't.

The three in the back of Blaine's mind materializes to the front abruptly. It smokes and glows bright, like a candle, and fades out soft like someone blew it out. It reappears as a two, and Blaine can't stop the smile from spreading over his face.

Uncontrollable and fast, like jumping off a swing.

Blaine needs to go—right now—the playground—

*

He's sitting on a swing with no memory of how he got there. And he feels like the dark black of the night should be greener. More... garden-like, or something. And he doesn't remember his name. Broken pieces of green are scattered around his feet, gleaming in the light as though they were teardrops. Nestled in the woodchips around his feet. And there is liquid, but it is not teardrops. It is glass.

A raised glass, jumping and falling.

Falling and breaking.

It's the in-between stuff that's super scary.

But he was wrong—he's not in between—he's fallen. He's fallen and he's broken and he's shattered as the glass surrounding his loafer-clad feet. He's not bent—no—he's broken. And he can't, he can't be put back together.

He sees moving shadows. It's shifting blackness. He doesn't know whether it's his blackness or the reality of the playground, but either way he's scared.

You're—

Recognition. It's the jocks. It's Karofsky. He who bullies Kurt, he who bullied Paul. Four letters in each name, and four lost years. Recognition.

—still—

And he remembers Karofsky's nickname: Dave. Four letters in each name, and four lost years. But in Blaine's name—six. Six from and till stutter. Bl-Bl-Bl—he remembered his name... Blaine. Blaine is his name. Dalton... there is six in Dalton, as well. Patterns. Patterns are normal. Patterns are there as fists drive into Blaine, not his own fists, and there is yelling and laughing and jostling, and there is no terror, no pain, only memories. He remembers hands, rough hands, as different hands drive into his skin and leave deep marks. The hands, the rough hands, were from Dalton. And he was touched, yes, he was kissed and touched and looked at, and he remembers—Blaine is crying, crying for himself, crying is six, stupid is six, selfish is more, bastard is more, crying, stupid, selfish bastard, and he tells himself to hold still so that they can hit him easier, because he deserves this.

—my—

Rough hands, touching him, making Blaine not belong to himself anymore, making Blaine someone else's, making Blaine, making Blaine, making Blaine do what?

Four letters—what—so what? So what? So what? So what? So what? So what? Six letters. Two words. Six minus four is two. Patterns. Blaine notices dizzily that he has fallen off the swing. He is on the ground. In the glass. And he is bleeding.

—prince—

And he is blackness, he is not just blackness, no, but he is the blackness, his blackness, the show doesn't have to go on, the curtain is coming down, and this is the end, and Blaine is fine.

Are you okay?

—three words three times two is six six years from and till stutter—

—he can't, he can't do this—

—freak—

"—fag—"

He is the blackness and he becomes the blackness and he became the blackness and there is no more reality in his vision.

It will be okay.