There was nothing.

Without Kurt in his life, Blaine had nothing.

As soon as he woke up, he was aware of this. The absence of Kurt not just in his room but in his life struck him the moment his brain rejoined consciousness and the tears just automatically sprung to his eyes. He lay in bed for hours, clutching the Kurt Pillow, sobbing silently; he didn't allow himself the privilege to let out all of his anguish in cries of pain. No, he didn't deserve that. He deserved to suffer in silence, unable to fully express just how much he was hurting. He deserved to have it build up inside of him until it was too much to bear, and even then refuse to let it out because this was pain he needed to feel.

Hours later, when his face was red and swollen and his eyes stung with the amount of saltwater gushing out of them and his stomache hurt from clenching the muscles to keep him from screaming and it was hard to breathe, he fell asleep.

…

November 4, 2012

That was how Blaine spent the next 3 days. Occasionally, he'd get up to go to the bathroom, or eat a small snack, but he couldn't make himself eat too much. His body was too full with emptiness—it makes sense if you think about it. But for the most part, Blaine stayed in bed, crying on and off for hours at a time, like a sprinkler system in Texas during the summer.

He couldn't even bring himself to really think about what had happened. All he could do was stare at the wall, its empty white face, and see the way Kurt used to lean against it when they watched a movie together. Everywhere he looked, everything he saw, was the absence of Kurt.

But that was as far as the train of thought would go. He'd think of how Kurt was missing and then break down, and the crying would kick in, and he'd be so concentrated on not making a sound that there wasn't any room in his head for any other thoughts.

Of course that didn't mean Blaine completely forgot about Alex. Oh no, on the contrary, that was another thing he couldn't forget until the pain became too much to bear. So Blaine kept his cell phone by his head and made sure to check in with Dr. Pierson every day. He'd call right after a particularly bad crying fit so that his voice sounded the absolute worst, say he was too sick to come see Alex, but ask how he was doing just to be sure everything was going alright.

And at least in that one aspect, life was on Blaine's side, because the treatment had begun to show signs of working. This second shot at a bone marrow transplant and round of chemo and radiation was actually doing its job. The first time around, Alex had managed to keep his hair, which was virtually unheard of. This time, though, his curls were coming out more and more every day. Dr. Pierson was quick to assure Blaine that this was a good thing; that the treatment course was doing its job and this meant Alex had a real shot at being a normal, healthy child again.

That small glimmer of hope was the only reason Blaine even bothered waking up anymore.

At 11 o'clock at night, when Blaine was lying wide awake in bed having already slept most of the day anyway, Carter finally returned from California.

The key in the lock made Blaine flinch and the second he heard it, he turned so he was facing the wall, his back to the room. Hopefully Carter would just assume he was sleeping and leave him alone and Blaine could put off telling anyone about his and Kurt's break-up at least one more night.

Then again, when did Carter ever do what Blaine wanted?

"Blaine?" he whispered, flicking on a desk lamp. It was the first light that had been turned on since Kurt left, and even just its gentle reflection on the white walls had Blaine cringing. "You awake, man?"

He remained immobile, hoping that if he didn't move it would make Carter think he was still sleeping.

It didn't. "Dude, come on, I know you don't go to sleep this early."

Blaine grunted in response. Aside from the necessary phone calls to the doctor to ensure Alex's improving health, he didn't want to talk at all.

"I would have come sooner but Amanda needed me too and I couldn't leave her and her family. But I'm here for you now, B, so just talk to me. Tell me what happened."

He rolled over and raised an eyebrow suspiciously, because what Carter just said sounded a lot like he already knew what happened.

"Kurt called," Carter supplied. "He told me his side. Now I want to know yours."

Blaine just eyed Carter, staring at him hard, noticing the way his shoulders now slumped, the sad look in his eyes, just the way his whole demeanor seemed off. His time away from school with Amanda had not been a vacation; he was helping people to handle the death of a parent.

He wanted to ask, "What else did Kurt say?" but he couldn't even find himself to say the name aloud.

Luckily, Carter was the type of guy who could read your mind. He answered Blaine's silent question, "He called me relatively normal, told me what happened while I was gone, and then begged me for 10 minutes to come back early and make sure you were alright, breaking down and crying 2 minutes into that. He said he hadn't seen you in class and asked the professors of your other classes about you and they told him you'd been absent. At first he thought something had happened to Alex, but then he went by the Cancer Center and found out that Alex was finally starting to get better, so he knew it was just him.

"Look, the kid is obviously still in love with you if he went through all that trouble. He obviously cares about you if he begged me to leave my girlfriend whose dad just died to come take care of your sorry ass. So why don't you tell me what happened so I can hurry up and help you put your life back together so you can be someone who actually deserves the great thing you have in Kurt. Because you still have him, Blaine, whether he's physically here or not. He's not gone."

Blaine groaned. He was so, so against talking right now. All he wanted to do was go to sleep for real and escape to a dream world where bad things don't happen and everyone is a good person.

Because he wasn't. And he never would be. Carter was right in that Blaine needed to get his life together and be someone worthy of Kurt, but he'd never be that person. No matter how hard Blaine tried, Kurt would always be too good for him. And even if by some miracle he did become good enough, Carter was wrong in that Kurt was still here, because he wasn't. He was gone. He wasn't coming back.

Without a word, Blaine just rolled over and willed himself to go to sleep.

Eventually, an hour full of Carter silently unpacking later, he did.

The night was spent with him tossing and turning, drifting in and out of sleep, just like the past few nights. He was grateful that he'd spent so many days practicing how to cry without making a sound because now he was free to sob and weep and bawl all he wanted all night even though Carter was in the room because he didn't make any noise.

After several hours, Carter woke up. "You have to get up, Blaine."

Blaine didn't respond.

"You have classes to go to."

Still, Blaine didn't respond.

"Don't make me call your parents."

Don't make me call your bluff, he thought.

As if his parents would do anything anyway. They didn't care about him at all. In fact, if Carter called them and told them that he and his boyfriend had broken up, they'd probably be happy about it and congratulate him on finally joining normal society.

"Don't make me call Kurt."

Again, as if Kurt would do anything. Kurt was the one who had called Carter. Obviously, Kurt was trying to stay out of this directly. It wasn't Kurt's responsibility to take care of Blaine anymore. He was free. Why would he want to come back to that?

"Fine. Stay in bed and cry all day like you cried all night. Don't think because you're not making any noise I don't know that's what you're doing. But sooner or later you're going to have to face life for what it is and deal with it. You can't hide forever."

Watch me.

…

November 9, 2012

Five more days passed, and still Blaine didn't move. His body was starting to get stiff, groaning in protest at certain positions he'd been in for too long. He liked it, though. It was more pain.

Pain was his new equilibrium.

Carter tried to make him go to class. He really did. He even physically pulled Blaine down from the bed on Wednesday, but Blaine just lay on the floor, silently refusing to move. Eventually, Carter gave up.

Blaine knew that would happen. It's what always happened in his life. Laurel never gave up, but Blaine left before she had the opportunity to. He figured that if he'd stayed there instead of going to college, she'd have given up on him by now too. She just wasn't aware of everything that went on in his life anymore so she didn't know that now was the time to get out while she had the chance. Save herself and her sanity before things got too intense for anyone to handle.

She probably didn't even know that he and Kurt had broken up. He sure didn't tell her. The only one he'd kept in contact with was Dr. Pierson, who was constantly delivering good news about Alex's recovery.

Interesting how that worked. Whenever he had something good in his life, the universe had to balance it out with something bad. When he was with Kurt, the universe pushed thoughts of Trevor back in, and re-introduced his parents, and opened up alcoholism. Now that Alex is improving, the universe took away Kurt. He could never just have something good in his life and keep it.

Because he didn't deserve it. This was what karma meant. He was an awful person, so he deserved awful things. That was what he had earned in his life. He hit people for fun, he drank so much that it hurt the people around him, and he didn't even care. He didn't even care that his drinking was hurting the person he cared the most about. He just kept on doing it because it was what he wanted to do. He had always thought that Kurt was the most important thing, and he would do anything to keep Kurt from hurting, but he was the one hurting Kurt the most.

And now he was doing it even worse than before.

He made himself sick.

…

November 14, 2012

Precisely 2 weeks had passed since That Day.

Call him na�ve, but in the back of his mind, Blaine had kind of been hoping that despite what had happened, Kurt would be worried enough about his complete absence from life and come take care of him. It was only reasonable. Kurt, who claimed to love him unconditionally. Kurt, who claimed it was literally killing him to watch Blaine suffer so much. Kurt, who claimed that he would always be there for him, no matter what.

Obviously Blaine wasn't worth it.

Still, Carter continued to try to coax him out of bed. He told Blaine that he was being stupid and he needed to grow up and see that other people had real problems to worry about besides just breaking up with their boyfriends. But Carter just didn't understand. Kurt was Blaine's only saving grace. If he didn't have Kurt, he wasn't anything.

No. Blaine had to keep in mind that he had Alex. He still had Alex. Alex was steadily doing better, and asking for Blaine all the time. Dr. Pierson was urging Blaine to come by the Center if he was feeling so terrible, offering to check Blaine out for free, but Blaine refused; he said he'd dealt with this before and he'd be alright eventually. He just needed time to rest and recuperate and recover.

His parents hadn't stopped by. They probably gathered what had happened and were throwing a party, celebrating their son finally getting rid of that gay thing and returning to the other side. The normal side. The straight side.

Gross.

It was around noon that Blaine started hearing voices outside his door. Carter had left about 30 minutes ago to get some lunch, so he figured it was just Carter returning from that and running into someone he knew in the hall.

But then he heard it. The other voice.

It was his.

Kurt's.

Carter was saying, "Just go in and see him for yourself."

"I can't," Kurt replied. Blaine could hear the anguish in his voice and it was like a knife in his gut. He started tearing up at the pain. "You know I can't. But he's missed too much school at this point to catch up. He won't be able to finish out the semester. You have to try to get him to class."

"I've been trying, man. The kid lies in bed all day every day. I even physically dragged him down one day and he just lay on the floor instead. I can't get him to move. There's nothing I can do. He has to find the strength to do it himself."

Kurt's voice was smaller as he said, "He needs me. I shouldn't have left him like that…"

"Bullshit. You're a saint, Kurt. I would have left far earlier than you did. He doesn't need you; what he needs is to learn how to be his own person."

"He can't do it on his own—"

"He has to. He has to learn how to be an independent person."

"He did! He was alone for years, Carter, and then he finally got me and I left him."

"He pushed you away. There's a difference. Someone that self-destructive can't be saved by anyone but themselves. You did the right thing. You were enabling him."

"Is that something you learned from your psych major girlfriend?"

"That's beside the point. And she's not in school anymore. Look, you did the right thing by breaking up with him. He needs to get his shit together on his own. But if you want to know how he's doing so badly, just check and see for yourself and then leave."

"Do you think it would be a good idea?"

"That's up to you. But I'm going inside so if you want to come in instead of sit in the hall all day, by all means, follow me."

A key twisted in the doorknob lock and Blaine shut his eyes quickly, pretending to sleep. He heard Carter sigh and knew his roommate was rolling his eyes at him. "You're not fooling anyone, Blaine. You're awake and we know it. Dumbass."

"Don't be so rude," Blaine heard Kurt snap from the doorway. Still, he didn't open his eyes.

"It's fine. He hasn't spoken in weeks, so you can say whatever you want and he won't say anything."

If there was such a thing as hearing a heart break, Blaine was sure he just heard Kurt's. The sound made him open his eyes; he immediately found Kurt's blue ones as his Soulmate stood unsure in the doorway, staring at Blaine like he was one of those one-eyed, three-legged puppies in the ASPCA commercials.

"Hi," Kurt practically whispered. He took a few tentative steps in, toward the bed, and smiled softly for a moment. "Is that my pillow?"

It wasn't really his pillow, but yes, the pillow Blaine was cuddling was indeed the pillow Kurt always used to use when he slept over. Blaine turned red and uncurled himself from around the pillow, putting it back beside him where it went.

Kurt frowned. "You didn't have to do that."

Blaine shrugged as best he could in a fetal position. Now that he didn't have the pillow to hold onto, he felt vulnerable. And here Kurt was, standing in front of him. He could smell him, see him, hear his voice, remember what he tasted like when they kissed, reach out and touch him if he wanted.

No. He couldn't do that. He had to keep himself under control. Blaine was already working very hard to keep the tears threatening to spill over from coming out and there was no way he could keep that up if he moved or spoke at all.

Still, there were so many things he wanted to say.

Where have you been?

Why did you leave me?

I'm sorry I wasn't good enough.

Do you still love me?

Do we have a chance of being together again?

When will this awful breakup be over?

I just want to be with you.

Please just kiss me.

Tell me everything is going to be better again.

I just want you again. I'll give up everything. I'll give up drinking, I'll do anything. I just want to hold you again and kiss you again and be with you and be loved by you and love you right. I just want you. I don't want anything else. The drinking doesn't matter. You're all that matters. You're the only thing that ever made me feel good, I see that now. Please give me the chance to show you.

Because that was what Blaine had finally figured out over these couple of weeks of lying in bed doing nothing but thinking. He'd realized that he had lost the best thing that had ever happened to him over something stupid. Alcohol wasn't doing anything for him but causing trouble and he should have seen that from the beginning. Maybe it wasn't even about the alcohol anymore after the first few times. It was more about the love he felt afterwards, when Kurt held him and rocked him and kissed him and loved him. Drinking was a way to get that intense affection from Kurt that he so longed for. But he didn't need alcohol to make Kurt love him, and he knew that now. It was a warped way of thinking, but it was all he could come up with for why he would be so stupid.

All of this and more ran through Blaine's mind as he stared at his former lover right at his bedside now, wishing so badly to just tug him up with him and cuddle until dawn. But he didn't. He just stared at Kurt, mentally sighing because somehow Kurt had gotten even more beautiful since he'd last seen him.

Except for the dark circles under his eyes. Blaine could tell that Kurt had used concealer—which meant it was really bad—but the bags were still visible—which meant they were even worse. With a pang, Blaine was alerted to the toll their break up had taken on Kurt. Of course Kurt hadn't been sleeping; he couldn't make it through the night without Blaine there. That's why Kurt spent so many nights in Blaine's bed that he had his own pillow there. And now they were apart and Kurt wasn't sleeping.

Blaine wondered if Kurt's nightmares revolved more around him now than Kurt's mother.

"Blaine," Kurt murmured, reaching a hand out to touch Blaine's cheek but dropping it just before they made contact. "Please don't do this. You have to go to class. I've managed to tell your professors that things haven't been going well with Alex—even though they have, I've been by the Center a lot to make sure—but they can only excuse so long. You're going to flunk out if you don't go back now and play catch up over Thanksgiving break. You need this. Don't let what happened with us ruin your education."

Blaine almost scoffed. Oh big whoop. His education.

But Kurt was right. He needed to get his act back together or he'd never get Kurt back.

And that was his new plan. He had to get Kurt back. He had to fix what he broke and make everything good again. No one was going to do it for him this time. Laurel wasn't going to pick up the pieces this time. He had to do this on his own.

"I…" Kurt trailed off, looking like he was having a mental war over whether to say it or not. After a few moments, he continued, "I still care about you, Blaine. I don't want to see you throw your whole life away over something so stupid."

Without thinking, Blaine immediately replied, "It's not stupid."

His voice rasped with disuse, and Carter's head snapped around from where he was stationed at his own desk, doing homework.

"You got him to speak," Carter said, sounding astounded.

Kurt looked unfazed, though. He'd dealt with this once before, after he'd told Kurt all about the Trevor Incident and fell back into that place, feeling like he was that person.

But he refused to keep falling into that place and he refused to be that person anymore.

With a renewed sense of purpose, Blaine sat up.

Carter gasped. "He's sitting up."

Kurt smiled. "I knew you could do it. You just needed something to fight for."

Exactly. He needed something to fight for. And that was going to be Kurt. "I'm going to be good enough for you," Blaine said.

"I know," Kurt replied. "I can't wait to see it."

As Blaine made his way down the ladder of the bunk beds, Kurt headed towards the door and left without another word.

Blaine crossed the room to his closet and started digging through, looking for clean clothes to put on after he showered—his first shower in 3 days. Gross, yes. But at the time, he didn't care. Now he felt grimey and smelly and couldn't believe Kurt had stood so close to him.

"So that's it?" Carter asked. "Kurt comes in and you're suddenly better again? He might not always be there for you, Blaine. You guys could break up again and the next time it could be for good. You can't rely on him to fix everything for you every time."

"That's not what I'm doing," Blaine said distractedly, trying to find a good outfit. If he was going to win Kurt back, he had to look great at all times in case they ran into each other.

"Yes it is."

"Look," Blaine sighed, stopping in his search to look Carter in the eye as he said this, "Kurt is it for me. Okay? He's the one. He's my Amanda. You of all people understand that. I screwed it up, majorly, because my head got all screwed around. But I've figured it all out and I'm going to make it good again. I'm going to be the kind of person who deserves the great thing I have in Kurt, just like you said when you first got back."

"And what's to say this won't happen again? What if your head gets all screwed around again and you lose him again?"

"It won't; I won't."

"How do you know?"

"Because I won't let it!" He didn't mean to yell, but this was important. He needed Carter to understand, and if the way to do that was to scream so he had Carter's full attention that's what he would do. "I won't let this happen again. I'm learning from my mistakes, okay? I see what I did wrong. I won't do it again. I'll have those stupid Relationship Rules with Kurt that you have with Amanda. I won't drink again. I won't let myself get into this place or be that person. I'm going to fight it."

"And how are you going to do that?"

He took a deep breath and returned to looking for clothes, thinking. How would he do that? He began thinking out loud, listing things to Carter. "I'll start by calling Laurel. She hasn't heard from me in a while and she's been freaking out via texts. I'll tell her what happened and tell her to hold me accountable next time, to not be so scared that I'll do something drastic that she just lets me get away with anything. Then I'll go to each of my professors' offices and apologize for my prolonged absence and see if there's anything I can do to salvage this semester.

"Then I'll go to the Cancer Center for Alex. He's been asking for me and I haven't been there for him. The fact that he's finally getting better is great and he needs his big brother to be excited with and happy with. I want to read him story books and watch movies with him again. I miss him. I'll have to deal with my parents, too, because they'll be there, probably waiting with balloons and streamers to rejoice at my pain. But I don't care. I won't let them be such a big factor in my emotions anymore. I won't let anything control me but me.

"I can be better if I choose to be. I just have to try. I just have to try."

He trailed off as he found Kurt's shirt from so long ago that he said he would wash for him and hold until Kurt wanted it again, since it fell in the garbage. He never did wash it, and when he found it, he smiled and brought it to his face, inhaling Kurt's scent on it. It didn't even smell like garbage. Typical Kurt.

And, God, had he missed that.

He would get it back soon enough.

"If you're only doing this for Kurt—"

"I'm not," Blaine cut in. His tone wasn't biting or harsh, though. It was firm, but not in an aggressive way. "I'm doing it for myself, too. I don't want to be this person anymore. Part of the reason I was drinking was to escape myself. I didn't realize that if I hated myself so badly, I could have just changed the bad parts of me. But that's what I'm going to do now. I'm going to become the person I want to be."

Finally Blaine selected a dark-wash pair of jeans and a white button up with a grey and black striped cardigan, setting the outfit on his bed to go take a shower.

When he glanced over at his roommate, he was surprised to see Carter smiling.

"What? No more arguing or challenging me?" Blaine asked.

Carter just shook his head. "I was only challenging you to get you to challenge yourself. Now…Now I'm going to help you."

"I appreciate that, Carter, I do. But I don't want your help. This is something I need to do on my own."

If possible, Carter's grin just widened. "That's exactly what I wanted to hear, B. Good job."

Blaine looked forward to the moment where it was Kurt telling him "Good job." With any luck, it wouldn't be too much longer.

He wasted too much time wallowing in his own self-pity.

Now…shit was about to get real.

No more Wallowing Blaine. No more Drunk Blaine. No more Self-Hating Blaine. No more Destructive Blaine. No more Vicious Blaine. No more Mean Blaine. No more Depressed Blaine. No more Silent Blaine.

No more.

It was enough.

With a laugh, Blaine was reminded of a Disney song.

You're the saddest bunch I ever met
But you can bet before we're through
Mister, I'll make a man out of you