fallen.
You can't run from it. You can't hide. You can't see it coming. You can only feel it when it's there, when it is much too late. You can't escape, no matter how hard you try. It pulls you in, holds you tight. There's no way out. There's no way to scream for help; no one will listen.
You can only be saved by one who walks blindly into it with you, for you. You can break it, eventually, but not alone, never alone. Only with another will you be spared.
That's not what happened to Blaine.
Blaine wasn't saved, or spared.
He couldn't break it, not by himself.
Instead, it broke him.
Nobody who tried could put him back together.
Nobody.
Everybody.
Absolutely everybody could tell something was wrong with him.
It came to the point where those closest to Blaine could no longer recognize him. The Blaine Anderson they knew was…gone.
Dead.
He was nowhere to be found, nowhere in Blaine's amber eyes or spoken words. It was as if someone had killed him.
They didn't know who. They didn't know why.
Nobody could figure it out.
Nobody.
He was worthless.
Totally worthless.
So fucking worthless.
His life was monotone, stupidly so. His music was trash. His personality was dominated by flaws.
Flaw after flaw.
They were everywhere. All over him, inside and out. People thought he was so perfect.
How could they think that? How could they not see all the imperfections?
He could see. He saw every day.
Every time he looked in the mirror. Every time words left his mouth. Every night when he fell asleep, he saw.
It killed him that they were so blind, that nobody else could see.
Nobody cared enough to see.
Nobody.
They had blinked.
They had blinked, and missed it, and now Blaine was gone. It crashed down on them what they'd done.
They'd ignored Blaine, pushed him away. They were sure it was nothing. They were sure Blaine was fine, like he kept saying he was. They were sure he could deal with it on his own.
They didn't know what it was, but they were sure.
They were wrong.
Something. They could have done something, anything. To make sure. They should have, and they knew it.
But they didn't.
Nobody did anything, even though they should have.
Nobody.
He never sang. Not anymore.
There was no point, and he wasn't very good.
No point, because when he sang before, he felt it. No point, because he stopped feeling.
He broke his guitar. Smashed it to pieces, so that it resembled him. He stopped loving music. He stopped loving life.
He stopped loving.
Nobody ever did it to him. Why should he, to anything? Why should he give away pieces of himself? They were damaged, ugly. Nobody would take them, take him.
Nobody.
It was easy.
It had been easy option, to let Blaine fall. Pulling him back up, or catching him, would have been so much harder. So they let him fall, because it was so easy.
That was how the world worked, how they worked. The only problem was, it was getting harder.
It got harder and harder to look at where Blaine had hit the ground. To see all his pain, everything that had broken on impact.
Nobody had realized that he was falling so fast. Or that he would break so hard.
Nobody.
He was done.
Done with people, done with failure. It seemed like no matter what he did, they still wanted and expected more. It was exhausting, and he was done with it.
He was done with living.
How much longer was he going to have to put up with it? He didn't want to. He wanted it to be over. How much longer, before someone, inadvertently or otherwise, stepped on him while he was down? He didn't think it would be much longer. He didn't quite care.
He was done with caring.
Nobody cared about him. There was nobody he cared about.
Nobody.
They knew. They could see.
They weren't blind anymore.
Blaine was done, and they saw it. They were going to fix it. They had to try; they owed it to Blaine to try.
They did try.
Everything.
Talking, comfort, tears, confrontation.
Song.
Nothing worked.
Blaine was as low as they imagined someone like him could be.
Nobody knew what to do about it.
Nobody.
He gave up.
He wasn't going to fight from now on. And he wasn't going to make anyone fight for him, either, because he simply wasn't worth it.
Pills would work.
But that was too easy. Unlike everyone else, he didn't do easy.
Nobody was too surprised to learn this.
Nobody.
They found him.
He was lying in his bed in the middle of the day. The sight was both frightening and beautiful.
The blood was still fresh, just barely beginning to dry. There was so much of it. It was all over Blaine's body, his clothing, soaked into his bedsheets, and dripping onto the carpet on one side. That was just from his wrists.
His pillows were also painted crimson from the wound on the side of his head. The gun, that nobody would ever know where he had gotten, lay loosely in his hand nearby.
It was gruesome. Sickeningly so.
Yet, Blaine looked more peaceful than any of them had seen him in a long time. He looked like an angel, a fallen angel, beautiful in death.
Nobody could bring themselves to consider it a true tragedy.
Nobody.
It was terrible.
The atmosphere was terrible.
He'd come on a bad day, Kurt could feel it. He was so confused, but whenever he tried to talk to someone, they would either ignore him, burst into tears, or both.
A bell rang, long and strangely ominous, and everyone began making their way to one large room. Kurt followed, too lost to do anything else.
It was a mistake.
Nobody was there to tell him that.
Nobody.
Everybody.
Everybody Blaine had ever known, or had ever known him, was there. Everybody he'd ever spoken to, smiled at, and shaken hands with.
The air was so heavy with grief, it was difficult to breathe. Some didn't want to. After all, Blaine wasn't breathing. It seemed almost blasphemous.
It was a closed casket. They weren't going to have him laying in vulnerability, where everybody could see. He wouldn't have wanted that.
His best friends spoke last, and it was then that they saw him.
A boy, standing nervously in the back of the room. He wasn't familiar to anybody there. He didn't belong there.
Yet, he did.
He was the kind of boy the old Blaine would have loved instantly, and denied it. The kind of boy that could have saved Blaine, fixed him, made him better.
He was too late.
Nobody had ever heard such scary sobbing from Blaine's best friends before.
Nobody.
He tried running.
He tried hiding.
He tried to escape.
When that didn't work, he tried to break it. He couldn't.
He just couldn't.
It was impossible.
It chases everybody at some point; only an unfortunate handful is captured completely. And once they are, it's impossible to get out, as long as they are alone.
Just like Blaine.
And now, like Kurt.
It had been after him since that day, that dreadful day, and he was clearly too slow. Too alone. It had no trouble catching up.
It grabbed hold of him, consumed him, and dragged him down.
Nobody was there to help him back up.
Just like Blaine.
The strangled sobs of the dead boy's friends echoed in his head, every day. Tortured him, reminded him of his flaws.
Just when he might have been free, he fell. They let him, since it was easy.
He began to feel worthless.
He never sang. Not anymore.
He stopped feeling, stopped loving.
Soon, he was done.
He gave up.
And when they found him, he was beautiful.
Just like Blaine.
Because you just can't break it alone. Nobody can.
Nobody.
fin.