I'm trying to come up with a way to introduce this story that doesn't start with "sup" or "yo" (when did I start using those unironically?) but I think I'm just going to settle for this: I wrote a story. Cool. Or not. Read it and decide.
I also just want to point out that Vanish's badboy!Blaine is all talk and no walk, because it's like a silent form of mutiny against his father. He's brash in speak and general conduct, but he's not promiscuous or violent.
Day 1
Blaine's eyes open. Unfortunately.
What he sees, though, is unlike anything he ever has.
Immediately, above all else, stinging his shrinking pupils with unwelcome luminescence, white surrounds; the pale ceiling melts down into bright walls. Blaine blinks, the movement of his eyes across the unprecedented room rough, like there was sand behind them. His head is bolstered by too many pillows.
Drowsy still, he sits up. Muscles aching, throat abraded, he tries to fend off the flux of nausea and dread that descends. He's dizzy as he stares around. And realization comes too quickly.
Well, fuck. I'm alive.
Blaine exhales, exasperated, falling again onto the hospital pillows. He'd completely anticipated never waking up again, and the empty void of death without pain or emotions of existence. He'd been so sure.
And just as quickly comes the disappointment. Because soon, very soon, he'd have to return to his life: his school and his family—if you could call it that—and himself.
The thought pretty much makes him want to kill himself.
A nurse strides through the doorway, dutiful and sure. She doesn't stop until it's at the foot of Blaine's bed, surveying him. Blaine quickly rises again, his back against the masses of pillows, and stares back with a pierced eyebrow raised, never one to falter—but, under her steely gaze, he finally averts his eyes.
"My name is Nurse Sue Sylvester," she says. She lifts the clipboard belonging to the foot of his bed.
"I'm Blaine." As if he needs to introduce himself. An afterthought, he adds, "Anderson."
While writing on the clipboard, she replies. "Not anymore, you're not. To me, you're a patient in this asylum for poor excuses for teenagers, like you."
"Do you treat all your patients this well?" Blaine rolls his eyes. Quickly, though, he realizes exactly what she had said. "Wait—asylum?"
"Yes, brainiac. Now, you need to take your medication." Walking over to a cabinet above a double sink, she retrieves a bottle of pills and a cup, which she uses the sink to fill with water. As she returns she hands Blaine the cup and a pair of lavender tablets. He says, "If this is an asylum, isn't this place supposed to be about feeling better?"
She nods. "You will feel better, after you take your medication, crazy." He still refuses after she tries to hand him the cup. Soon she gives up, instead placing it on the bedside table and developing a demure expression. "We're just going to slip it into your food later."
She stalks from the room in a powerful gait.
The second she's gone Blaine hurries down the bed to snatch the clipboard. His head spins due to the speedy movement; he feels like throwing up. For a second he considers taking the pills, to let them do whatever they would and possibly ease his headache and nausea, but decides against it.
On the clipboard there's standard information—Blaine Anderson, seventeen years, hazel, brown, et fucking cetera—before a section titled: Patient Behavioral Evaluation.
Probably nurse Sue's spindly letters explain items she'd scraped from the recent meeting: disrespectful. Challenges authority. I suggest shock treatment.
While Blaine is rolling his eyes again and slipping the clipboard back into place, yet another hospital official walks into the room.
The person, who introduces himself as Doctor Schuester, immediately launches into all he has to say. Blaine gets the feeling all the patients here receive this initiation.
Arms crossed, Dr. Schuester says, "Blaine, you know why you're here, right?" Although he appears young, he looks like something's draining that, be it work or bills or a failing marriage, replacing it with middle age and tire.
Blaine nods once.
"You tried to kill yourself." He says anyway.
"Well, no shit."
Dr. Schuester sighs as if on the brink of exasperation, sitting on the edge of Blaine's bed. "Blaine, take this seriously." And then, as if they're having a heart-to-heart or any other exchange of sentiment that really only makes Blaine want to be sicker, "For the better part of the last fifteen hours you were totally unconscious. That was more than enough time for you to be taken to a medical hospital and get your stomach pumped, and then come here."
Blaine's surprised, shocked. A hurricane of questions instantly forms, and he wishes he knew more of the story, more than he could ask Dr. Schuester. Like who had found him, halfway dead on the floor of the living room and headed there fast. He swallows. His throat burns.
"Was my dad there?" He'll be mad. Furious. All the time taken from him to visit Blaine, to take him to the hospital and here and not even have him conscious to remind of how he wasn't worth any of this—
Dr. Schuester nods. "Of course. He was very worried about you, and worked out your stay here before you even woke up."
Blaine chokes, washed with a bitter resentment. His dad's the last person to have that reaction. But he nods once and glares at the floor and tries to move on. "How long will I be here for?"
"A while, Blaine. A while."
With that Dr. Schuester stands. He begins to leave but Blaine stops him with another question. "What the hell am I going to do here for a while?"
"Well, for starters, you aren't the only kid here. You'll meet some others soon, and some counselors. You'll talk with them and hopefully get better. We take fields trips and do lots of other fun activities." Dr. Schuester smiles. "By the time you leave here, you'll be a new man."
Well, fuck.
"So, Blaine," say Dr. Pillsbury, re-crossing her legs and adopting a prim smile. "How are you this morning?"
Blaine stares at the clock in the minuscule therapy room and tries to come up with a place he wouldn't rather be. "Fucking wonderful, Doc."
She looks uncomfortable and unsure of how to approach it. Her amber hair sits impeccably against her shoulders. "We don't, um, use that word here, hon."
"What word?" He smirks. "'Wonderful'?"
Her fingers clasp and untwine nervously. She acts as if she hadn't heard his remark, saying, "But, really, Blaine, are you okay? That kind of avoidance could definitely mean that you're hiding something." For a moment she upholds a vibrant self-help pamphlet titled, 'Sarcasm = Secrets.'
Blaine rolls his eyes, kicking the carpet with his boot-clad toe. To him, this is all so full of shit. Nobody here would care about him if their paycheck didn't depend on it. And the way they pretend that that isn't the truth, even if he were to accuse them of that, makes it even worse. He's lied to on every level.
Vaguely he wonders if there's any medication in his breakfast, then figures that there probably is.
He wishes he had medication not only for his mind but his body; his throat is corroded and his voice gravelly, each syllable painful. And the tire hasn't yet subsided.
"Yeah, I'm okay," he says, shrugging one shoulder. Well, as okay as you can be after your luggage and person were appraised for weapons and scars and you're destined to spend the next while sitting in an armchair in a loony bin eating D-grade meals and talking about your feelings.
Tacky inspirational posters adorn the walls, yawning infant seals exclaiming hope and determined turtles. The chair he occupies has a bright pattern, as does Ms. Pillsbury's in her seat across from him. He sets his feet on the coffee table between them.
"I really hope you'll open up to us, Blaine," she says, "You don't seem very okay; you don't have to tell me until you're ready, though. We just want you to get better. And to get your feet off of the table."
He makes no movement. Nothing seems to be his choice anymore, and he supposes he should get used to this. "I didn't ask to get better."
"Well, maybe we don't need your permission." She pushes a strand of hair behind her ear. "And, besides, your dad already sent the down payment for the next two months."
"Two months?!" Blaine's incredulous-he can't even picture himself here for the next two weeks. Two days.
Her eyes widen at his outburst. "Um, yes. Two months. At least." As if preparing for an explosion she expects his next fit, but it doesn't come. Blaine nods solemnly. Because when he compares it to what he'd be going home to, his normal life, the overwhelming school and the absent, so-called father, the crushing depression every day is laden with, he thinks he can endure New Directions. But that doesn't mean he'll particularly like it.
Maybe he can snag a few handfuls of pills while he's here.
A silence ascends between them, prolonged, until Dr. Pillsbury says, hoping to spark conversation and make him open up, "Have you ever been to a therapist before, Blaine?"
"Hell, no."
She again makes no action toward his word choice or his angry, contemptuous tone, though looks like she wants to. "Well, did you ever have anyone to talk to when you felt down?"
Unsettled, he shakes his head. The idea of telling someone how he feels, exposing himself and welcoming vulnerability, is enough to make him almost worried. If he ever did, he'd end up, well, here.
"Do you think that's why you're so angry all the time?" She stares at him curiously, her doe-like eyes trained to him and not the clipboard on her lap, although not before she pauses to describe notes in a neat cursive Blaine can barely make out.
"I'm not angry."He crosses his arms, indignant.
"That's not what it sounds like to me, Blaine."
"But I'm not."
"Whatever it is or isn't, then, do you think you'd be less of it if you had someone to talk to?"
That's not the kind of thing that can be estimated, especially when it's not why Blaine is so whatever he is. He hates the way her problem-solving is so systematic, like it's not personalized for every patient. You plug them into the formula and get the same answer.
Still, since Dr. Pillsbury's never going to let this go if he doesn't, he replies, "Yeah. Maybe." No.
"But, you know, Blaine, I think you did have someone to talk to, but you just weren't looking hard enough."
"Really? Like who?" He wants to scoff, to laugh, because the idea of having someone to confide in is just so foreign. And it isn't like there's anyone available for that at home, either.
"A sibling?" she suggests. The roses on her skirt twirl as she bounces her one of her legs. "I read about you having a brother. Why not him?"
"Cooper?" Blaine raises his eyebrows. "That's because he's probably in Luxembourg boning European chicks and ignoring everybody's calls." After his first movie debut last year, Blaine hasn't gotten but one brief phone call.
"Oh, well, um," she sputters. "What about your mom?"
He shrugs. "Divorce." Like you could call it that. It was more like escape.
As a last resort, she points out, "Maybe you could've talked to your dad."
Quickly, too quickly, he answers, "No."
"Why? You know, Blaine, your parents should always be an option. When did your dad stop being one?"
Maybe when he drove him and his mother away with consistent coldness, the icy, hardened veneer of a hardworking dad shut away from his never-good-enough family.
Or when he became close friends with the bottle around his tailored nine-to-five and his white-collar status, and sometimes during.
Or maybe when he disagreed with the most substantial parts of who Blaine is, and never failed to let him know it.
Mr. Anderson has driven Blaine to rebellion, to obscure dress and crude behavior, all with the philosophy that if he can't like that Blaine is gay, then why should Blaine try to make himself likable at all?
"He just works a lot. I never see him."
Dr. Pillsbury accepts that. He hopes. "Well, you're in New Directions now, and you'll have plenty of people to talk to."
"Don't remind me."
"We have a new member with us today, guys," Dr. Schuester—"Call me Dr. Schue, I insist!"—announces. He and the various teenage lunatics of New Directions sit in a circle formed of iridescent, plastic chairs on the recreational room. Blaine crosses his arms in his leather jacket and wants to disappear.
"Why don't you introduce yourself to us, Blaine?"
"Nah," he uncrosses his arms and instead examines his ever-dirty fingernails. "I think I'm good."
The members of New Directions stare at him in awe or curiosity; he glowers back.
"Then why doesn't everybody else introduce themselves a little?" Dr. Schuester compromises.
"Why? What is this, Alcoholics Anonymous?" A few kids snicker at Blaine's brash comments.
Dr. Schuester sighs quietly and looks to his left, addressing the vivacious brunette that sits beside him. "Rachel, let's start with you."
Rachel's expression explodes into a grin that she'd probably practiced in a mirror countless times before she wound up here. "I am Rachel Berry. I'm seventeen years old and I am an attendee of William McKinley High School. I—"
"Okay, that should do it, Rachel." Dr. Schuester cuts her short and delivers and impression that she must do this a lot. He beckons for the next person, a girl sporting a short, blonde bob, to speak, all the while ignoring Rachel's silent sulking.
The blonde girl doesn't smile. "I'm Quinn."
By now the group adopts the flow of the introductions with Dr. Schuester's prompting. A few more sullen kids say they their name is Unique or Santana or Sebastian or Tina. They've traveled the circle until they reach the last one, a boy who sits next to Blaine and stares out of a window.
The boy has perfectly styled hair and his eyes seem to carry too many secrets and an undefined sadness that is totally unprecedented to Blaine, which he wants to fix right away.
"I'm Kurt."
Kurt looks at Blaine as if equally curious, but as their gazes intersect his blue eyes dart away.
Dr. Schuester claps once, conclusive. "Alright. Now we all know each other. But, Blaine, we'd love to know more than just your name—is there anything you'd like to share with us?"
Blaine shrugs. "I'm sixteen. I'm—well, I was—a junior. I'm running out of reasons not to gauge my eyes out right now."
Smile dropping quickly, Dr. Schuester opens his mouth to voice a concern. He closes it abruptly when Blaine assures, rolling his eyes, "Relax. I wasn't serious."
Moving on after a quiet, "Oh." with resilience, Dr. Schuester says, "Okay. Thanks for sharing, Blaine. Anyone want to share their feelings on Blaine? Anything to say to him?"
Everyone almost collectively groans as Rachel pipes up, "I hope you enjoy New Directions, and overcome whatever it is that's plaguing you. And, while you're here, if be glad to show you anything you need to—"
"Have you ever once shut your mouth since you learned how to talk?"
For the briefest of seconds, she appears hurt by Blaine's reply, but then she rapidly neutralizes her expression. Kurt stifles a smile.
Silence falls.
"O-kay. Since Blaine Anderson is now officially inaugurated, what's new, you guys? What's been going on lately?"
The hesitant quiet is soon ended when Quinn offers, "I've been eating. And not just because you guys watch me like hawks all the time, but because I want to."
"That's great!" Dr. Schuester exclaims. Blaine wonders how long it took to achieve that milestone. He doesn't want to end up like that, his life totally ruled by a mental illness.
"You'll be out of here in no time," says Dr. Schuester. "And you all, too-everyone can get better."
Blaine resists the urge to scoff.
"Yeah, right," Kurt mutters darkly. Blaine, surprised, looks at him until Kurt elaborates, "The only sunlight half of these kids are gonna see is during the trip from here to the adult loony bin."
Blaine nods. "I hate how optimistic he is. We're not that stupid."
Smiling wryly, Kurt responds, "I wouldn't be so quick to say that about some of these kids."
Dr. Schuester side-eyes the two of them when Blaine bursts into chuckles. Unique pauses her speech on how she hopes to be on good terms with her parents next visit.
Despite that the next who knows how long is going to pretty much equal being eaten alive by a great white shark, Blaine thinks it'll be slightly less excruciating with people like Kurt around.
Blaine can't decide what he hates the most about New Directions.
It might have been the lying, exuberant staff, or the total lack of free will, but that was before he was faced with an interminable afternoon in the recreational room. That is, if puzzles, an animated movie on the television, and a shelf of approved literature and outdated almanacs can be classified as "recreational."
The "free time" they're all having feels unsurprisingly like being caged in a zoo.
Halfheartedly they entertain themselves with the vast television and 50-piece puzzles and wish they were anywhere else. Security guards stand outside of each door. A few of the kids read, slouched in bean bag chairs, or travel across Monopoly boards, but Blaine pointedly remains inactive. He sits on the velvet couch before the television, on which an animated, G-rated, so-safe-an-evangelist-fetus-could-watch-it movie, and tries not to vomit. Or beat himself to death with the TV remote out of sheer boredom. Another kid, a dark-haired girl Blaine vaguely recalls as Santana, sits on the other end of the couch.
He's already constructed a pretty clear idea if the next few months: wake up. Therapy. Group therapy. Quote, unquote, recreation. Ad nauseum.
Fun.
"I really don't know whether I'd rather die or spend five more minutes in this place," Kurt says, more to himself than anyone else although he gains Blaine's attention as he chooses a seat in an armchair adjacent to the couch. He crosses his legs at the knee.
Blaine keeps his eyes on the screen and nods in agreement. "Exactly. How fucking old do they think we are?"
Cartoony fish flounder across the screen. Kurt eyes them and responds, mordant, "I'd say embryo. And the worst part is that they play this movie and one other one every time, like they don't expect us to notice."
Blaine quirks an amused smile. He readjusts his seat on the couch and wishes he'd picked more comfortable clothing to try to die in. "How do you know? How long have you been here?"
"Two weeks on Friday. Some of these kids have been here for months, though."
"Wow. How do they even remember the outside world?"
"For them, I don't think they're missing much by being in here."
And Blaine gets the feeling he'd think the same if he were here for that long.
As a sort of afterthought, Kurt says, "We take field trips sometimes, when we're good; we're not totally cut off from civilization."
The sheer idea of a half-dozen insane teenagers in any public place is enough to make Blaine imagine the worst. Kurt laughs, a high, pleasant sound.
"We were kicked out of a zoo once," Santana proffers, inviting herself into the conversation, a reminiscent gleam in her eyes. "It was just last week. Apparently you're not supposed to teach the parrots swear words."
Blaine grins.
"We don't take field trips anymore," Kurt informs.
"So, I'm stuck here, then." Blaine deduces. "No field trips. Unless." He smirks. "we sneak out." Kurt rolls his eyes.
"We're in the middle of the woods, hobbit. What're we gonna do, collect tree sap? Chase butterflies?" Santana criticizes.
"Come on," Blaine jokingly encourages. "Whatever you're here for, it can't be so bad that you'd miss a night out of this shit hole, even if we're just chasing butterflies." He pauses. "What are you guys here for?"
"I'm bipolar," Santana says, in the same tone one would use for describing what their name is or what grade they're in. They both train expectant eyes to Kurt next.
Kurt pales slightly. "I—"
A scream, one rife with terror and despondency, pierces the room with startling volume. In an instant the sanguine pace of everything accelerates into fear and confusion.
Kurt, Blaine, and Santana swivel in search of the source, as do all the others. The arising panic stems from the fact that no one knows just what is going on, what to do; it's a chain reaction and soon everyone's in a sort of uproar.
Security guards surround the writhing Sebastian, who crouches on the carpet beside a scattered puzzle. He releases whimpers that unsettle everyone in the room. It's a kind of damaged that Blaine's never witnessed before.
He looks away quickly, a task rendered easy when a counselor arrives to shepherds them from the room. As they disappear into the hallway, the counselor introduces herself as Ms. Corcoran.
"But you can call me Shelby." She leads them down identical corridors. "I don't really know what to say about with just happened. You should know that Sebastian has post traumatic stress disorder, and sometimes he remembers what he went through."
"Which was?" Blaine asks, totally violating the careful air Shelby had established to avoid telling them just that.
"A very terrible experience when he was younger." And that's that. Shelby's heels create a clarion rhythm against the linoleum.
"Yeah, no shit." Blaine doesn't give up despite the darkening of Shelby's expression. "If I wanted to hear that, I would've bought a dictionary."
Shelby guides the group toward the long stretch of hallway where their rooms are located.
"That's enough of you, Danny Zuko. As for the rest of you, if you need to talk about anything, I and all the other therapists are standing by. We'll definitely be talking about this in a group soon."
She allows them to disperse into their rooms. Blaine glances at the numbers on the doors to find the one Ms. Pillsbury had mentioned was his, and is surprised to see Kurt follow him into the room.
"Aw," Kurt remarks. "I was really enjoying having my own room." He falls into a seat in his bed.
"I'm not exactly thrilled either, babe," concedes Blaine. He wanders over to his own bed.
Silence overtakes the room as they consider the aftermath of what had occurred. Finally, Blaine asks, "Is this kind of thing usual? Are people having mental fucking breakdowns every other day?"
Kurt shakes his head, an eyebrow lifted. "Did you see how everyone treated it like it was the apocalypse?"
"Well, that sucks. This was the only halfway interesting thing since I got here."
Along with questioning whether there are pills in his food, Blaine has to wonder if there's even food in his pills.
"Why do they hate us?" Kurt asks.
Seeing as the population consists of only seven, the kids of New Directions sit at the same lunch table to eat—or, rather, speculate. Only Sebastian is absent.
"I'll bet my brownie it's supposed to be ravioli," Santana bargains, stabbing the magenta creation with her plastic spork.
Blaine replies, "That's a brownie?"
"And they say they want us to get better." Kurt shakes his head in disapproval.
God, Blaine hates New Directions.
Blaine rolls his eyes when, about thirty minutes after lunch, the same administrator—Shelby or Sharon or something—raps on the door frame once before entering his and Kurt's room. "A lot happened today. I know this is only your first, so it must be a lot to process," she's saying as she approaches Blaine. Kurt was called outside not long ago for what Blaine assumes is the same he's current receiving.
He shrugs, adopting apathy in hopes that she'll go away, although he knows that'll never happen. "No, actually. I completely understand: Sebastian's psycho."
Helping herself to a seat on his bed, Shelby clasps her hands and stares at him. "Sebastian is not psycho. He can't help what happened to him. He has—"
"PTSD, I know, I know. He's the one who was traumatized, not me. We don't need to talk about it."
For a moment she looks as through she might persist, but in the next she relaxes into surrender. Blaine doesn't fall for her reverse psychology bullshit for even a second.
"Fine." She rises, walks toward the door. "But you can't avoid the group therapy."
"And even though Sebastian may have a problem, it's important that we respect him," Ms. Pillsbury explains, and it's so sweet that Blaine feels like he's on the brink of contracting diabetes.
Sebastian smiles, but keeps his eyes to the carpet. Since returning after lunch, he's been reserved, almost embarrassed, Kurt notices.
"Oh, God," Blaine breathes. "Is this a mental hospital or a crappy after school special?"
Dr. Schuester, accompanying Ms. Pillsbury in their circularly seated chat, puts in, "We don't want you guys to treat him any differently, alright?"
"Pretty fucked up after school special," Kurt mutters. "But, then again, aren't they all?"
"And now we'll know exactly what's going on if this ever happens again." Dr. Schuester smiles.
"But we hope it doesn't," Ms. Pillsbury adds.
Blaine sighs quietly at the realization that whether kids are having flashbacks daily or not, this is going to be a few long months.
Opinions? Also, anybody want to beta this for me?
I try to keep updating pretty regular: every weekend you'll see a new chapter.
aaand you can find me at blowjobanderson . tumblr .com.