Things had been getting better - he had started to feel a bit more positive, a bit more energetic, a bit more interested...  He put it down to things improving with Kurt - they were engaged and, yes, being in a long-distance relationship still sucked (that had not changed), but this time Blaine had felt more positive about the whole thing.  It helped that his fiancé wore the physical proof of their pledge to each other on the ring finger of his left hand, and Blaine spent every opportunity discretely watching it as Kurt spoke during their Skype dates.  It also helped that he saw Kurt relatively frequently and that they had broken the back, so to speak, of the majority of time they had to remain apart by now.  Every day past was another day closer to the day when Blaine would move to New York and Kurt.

He tried not to let himself pin all of his future hopes and dreams on New York (and Kurt) - he knew that doing so was unhealthy and had been a large part of the problem last time, but it had been easy to lose himself in planning the perfect proposal.  The distraction had consumed him and all of his spare time (not that he actually had a lot of it - between being class president, all of his extracurricular activities, and his actual school work), and now there was a vast nothingness.

And that was the problem.

It felt a bit like sinking at the start and it was so gradual that he never noticed it happen - it was as if little bits of joy simply slipped away from him each day.  He found it more and more difficult to concentrate in his classes - his mind wandered easily and he found himself wandering down irregular and bizarre mental pathways with no real clue where he had been trying to go originally.  He was tired all the time which was not like him at all - he used to have so much energy, but now, no matter how much sleep he managed to get, it was never restful.  He found himself gradually, gradually, gradually descending into a haze of numb and lacklustre antipathy and he could not find the energy to do much other than attempt to overcompensate at school.  He put all of his focus into maintaining the front so that, by the time he got home, he had time to sleep until his Skype dates with Kurt.  He had to force himself to get up each morning and go to school despite knowing that he had things that he should be excited about coming up - Nationals being one of them.

He tries to keep the dark thoughts at bay by replacing them with positive ones, but they are strong, and they talk sense.  It gets harder to remember truths.  It gets harder to remember good things.  It gets harder not to listen.

But you have friends.

You have a lot of friends.

What do you offer your friends to make them stay?

What do you offer your friends?

What do you offer?

Sometimes it does not feel like anything at all.  On those days he cannot leave his bed.  On those days he cannot sleep.  On those days he is irritable and lethargic.  On those days he struggles alone against the dark words.  He tries to write his thoughts down - to try to make sense of them.  The patterns alarm him and, later, upon re-reading them, he is unable to tell which thoughts are true or which are his.

I am sad

I am broken

I am pathetic

I am worthless

I am unlovable

I am talentless

I am a fraud

After Kurt first went to New York Blaine tried to distract himself - he does not regret helping Kurt leave at all (he knows, even now - even then! - that it was the right thing to do).  Clubs and school work and mini-projects and missions all occupied him, but beneath it all a darkness festered.  Whispering.  Whispering.  Gnawing away at his self-confidence and replacing it with a constant sick feeling.  It felt like guilt.

                You are not worthy of his love, you know.

                No wonder he is moving on without you - hes in New York.  There are thousands of men in New York.  Better men.  Worthy men.  Men who can satisfy him.  Men who are satisfying him.

                Stop it!

                Why?  Cant handle the truth?

                Because it is not the truth.

                What is then?

He understands now, of course he does - Kurt was overwhelmed by New York and Vogue and NYADA.  Of course he would prioritise those things.

                You should have been able to handle things by yourself.

Its not an excuse.  No.  Never an excuse - but it was a contributing factor, certainly.

                If he doesnt pick up he doesnt love you.

                You are not worthy of his love.

                If he blows you off again you know the truth...

                What truth?

                That he has outgrown you.

He had not realised how vital it is to him to have physicality in his relationships.  But he knows that now - understands that.  When he can be distracted by flesh, reminded by skin - held and kissed and reassured - and allowed to remind; to hold, to kiss, to whisper sweet nothings against sweaty skin - it is then that he is at peace.

He knows that like he knows that breathing is vital.

But he did it again.

Because he is worth it.

Because Blaine can do this.

He can.

He can do it for Kurt.

He can do it for himself.

Because Kurt deserves better.

                No.

Because he deserves Kurt.

                Better.

-+-

                He is not completely sure what happened - Principal Sue mentioned that there had been a gas leak or something - but it did something.  Released something.

He had been struggling again - the pressure of finals, and Nationals, and his NYADA audition all rising up, as things often do, at once.  A hydra.  The dark had started to creep back in, but this time he knew better.  This time he could mask its effects.  He could not let it get to him.

He forced himself to go in to school.

                They need you. You have the experience and the talent to lead the New Directions to their second consecutive Nationals victory.  You can do this.  You aced your NYADA audition.  You can do this.  They need you.

So when his enthusiasm and passion had been rejected by the other members of the New Directions he had not been in the right state of mind to let it slide off him, or to let himself think things through rationally - to realise he had come on too strong.

                Thats what you get for overcompensating.

                Thats what you get for caring.

                No.

His reaction had been to call Kurt, because if anybody got Blaine, it was his fiancé.

It had not gone well.

His mind latched on to phrases - twisting them, warping them.  Echoes in his hollow state of mind.

                Puppet Master.

                Hah!  Kurt thinks you are manipulative. You must be.

Replaying sinuous strings of their conversation - fragments diffracting the truth until he could not take any more, he had retreated to the relative safety of the choir room.

His first hallucination had been oddly enjoyable - the puppet versions of his friends had been welcoming, accepting and loving of him and for the first time in weeks he had felt something close to peaceful.  In hindsight he suspected that the gas had something to do with that but the only gas he could think of that would be piped through the school was natural gas and that was not a hallucinogen.  So it could not have been the gas could it?

He had attempted to turn the experiences into something positive he could focus on in the real world and had dedicated all of his spare time to making puppets of all of his friends.  It had worked for a while - making the puppets was cathartic and he had actually enjoyed trying to trap the essence of each person in felt, foam and yarn.

His parents had looked a little concerned but they had not said anything.  It was better than the alternative though, right?

It had been a natural progression to try to talk to the puppets.  He knew that they were not real - he was not crazy - but they allowed him to think clearly, for once.  Talking with them allowed him to talk though things that concerned him -

                Kurts opinion of him.  Forgiveness.  The puppet master comment...

                The vaporape incident with Tina.

- and allowed him to voice the other half of the conversation without the darkness.  Without the judgement.  Without offending anyone.  Without argument.

                Helping Principal Sue up had been a mistake - it had resulted in the second-worst panic attack that he had ever experienced (the first being during the shooting-that-was-not-an-actual-shooting-but-sure-as-hell-felt-real-enough-at-the-time).

He had been compelled to risk everything to retrieve the Kurt puppet - but Sue had caught him anyway.

He had never ever had a detention before.  A year ago he would have been devastated, shaking with failure and disappointment and fear.  Now, he could barely feel anything, drained as he was after his earlier episode.

It left him weakened.

He hated confrontation.   He hated arguments.  He would much rather fix everything - sacrificing his own happiness to ensure that everyone else was happy.  It kept life easy.  So calling Kurt to let him down when he needed him was something Blaine could not bring himself to do.  He tried to come up with a way around it - but he knew that was futile.  Every excuse he could think of was not good enough - each sounded pathetic and hollow.  How do you explain to your fiancé that the reason you cannot support them is because you got caught stealing back a puppet of them you made in craft class after a hallucination where everyone was a puppet?

The panic devoured him.

                He had called, eventually.  He had had to.  He had left it until the very last minute - doggedly delaying the inevitable, knowing that Kurt would be disappointed.

                And so he should be.  You are nothing but disappointing.  A pathetic child who plays with puppets.  Who plays at life.  Who do you think you are?  He trusted you again.  He trusted you and you let him down.  Again.

At least this way he could not be on the phone long as the concert was due to start.

It had not gone well.

                What did you expect?

 Later, much later - it was not like he could actually sleep after that conversation - he found that he could not actually recall the details of the conversation.  He saw puppet Kurt clearly in his minds eye during the conversation - he recalled that much.  It felt like he had had the argument with the puppet instead of his fiancé.

                You are losing it, Anderson.

When it had happened for a third time (the second time outside the choir room) he had been nowhere near the gas.  The experience had been similar to the pervious hallucination in the choir room - pleasant.  He had been aware that it was not real at the time, but it had been hugely preferable to the negativity and the floating darkness of the reality.

At night he longs for the puppet-world - their company is pleasant at least.  They do not judge him.  They love him as he is.  He stays awake as long as he can - it is not like he will awaken rested even if he does manage to sleep - conversing with puppets (both real and inanimate, and those that appear in the darkness at once solid and false).  Eventually he knows he will lose and the darkness will come back.

He tries to listen to music once the lights are off - something to drown out the deafening silence of the house after dark.

The darkness creeps in anyway.  Unbidden.

I feel that the future is hopeless and that things cannot improve

Kurt hates me

I let him down

I let everyone down

I am bored and dissatisfied with everything

I want to feel again

I want to be able to look forward to things

I cannot recall what happy feels like

I dont want to feel guilty all the time

I am a complete failure as a person

I am guilty, I am being punished

I am a disgusting person

I am a cheater

It is a black mark on my soul

I would like to kill myself

Im too much of a coward to do it

No.  I love my family too much to put them through that

Am I brave to continue?

I should be put down

I used to be able to cry but now I am beyond tears

I have lost interest in other people

I have replaced them with puppets.  What does that say about me?

I should be on medication

I am terrified of medication

I cant make decisions

I cant eat

I cant sleep

I cant think

I cannot overcome my loneliness, my fear, my disgust

At myself

At my actions

At my state of being

I am disgusted by my own body

I cannot love

I cannot make love

I cannot fuck

I cannot be alone

I cannot be with others

I should not be with others

I have nothing to give

I should be alone

-+-

It bubbles below the surface throughout the day - gently lapping at his subconscious, a constant reminder of failure and disappointment.

Shame shame shame.

Drown in your fucking shame.

He has not slept properly in days/weeks/months/years - he cannot be sure anymore.  Vision blurs and twists, and he has finally drained the last of his energy.  He cannot bring himself to care.

Tina had caught him with the ‘Tina puppet - he had felt shamed into giving them to their ‘real selves.  He had even sent Kurt to the ‘real Kurt in New York...

                Dont you mean - ‘Kurt to the real Kurt?

                The puppet was tangible in this nonsense of distance and drama...

...together with the puppet NY crew.  It was supposed to make him feel better.  It had, briefly.  Watching his friends and the people play...

                ...you are losing your grip...

...had been nice.  Seeing the joy on their faces - the delight...it had been nice knowing that he had done that.  That he had been responsible for their pleasure.

But it had faded.

                Everything fades.  Everything dies.  Everything leaves.

                And no one notices.

                No one cares.

                Why should they?

-+-

                He tries to talk to Kurt again.  Again instigating the call.  Again trying to maintain his sense of self.  His sense of reality.

                Losing your grip.

                Losing your mind?

But Kurt is distracted.

                He has more important things to think about. 

He snaps.  He does not mean to, and part of him cheers.

                At least youre not a push-over!

But Kurt is sharper than he is - his tongue is razor keen through years of bullying and torment.

                You suffered too, Blaine.  You suffered too.  But you took it.  Like the bitch you are.

His palms are sweating so badly he almost drops the phone, but he takes Kurts anger.  He takes it.

                Good boy.

When he finally hangs up, exhausted, he does not sleep.  He dares not sleep.  He spends all night composing an apologetic e-mail - excuses, excuses, excuses and begging for forgiveness.

                You make me sick.  Hes got you so whipped - hes the one who was in the wrong this time and what do you do?  You take it.  You apologise.  You grovel.

                Pathetic.

He almost jumps the voice is so real.  It is not his voice.  It is not Kurts voice.  It is not a voice he is familiar with at all.  It is not whispered.  It is clear as day.  Its origin - less than a foot to his right.

He falls from the bed in panic.

He searches.

He finds no one.

He is alone.

He is alone.

He is alone.

                Your truth, your lies, not mine.

-+-