A/N: This was meant to be a bit of innocent angst with a potentially happy ending but Blaine decided to take it in another direction and it turned out so much more depressing and angsty than I originally intended. Oops?
Rating: PG-13
Warning: Suicide, implications of depression and self-harm
Word Count: 700+
Characters: Blaine Anderson/Cooper Anderson. Yes, folks, that means incest.
Summary: When Cooper leaves, Blaine does what Blaine does best: he performs. But it takes its toll, beating him up and wearing him down until he can barely think straight, and all he wants is to make it stop. That's why he does it.
When Cooper leaves, it hurts. It hurts so fucking much that Blaine can barely breathe, barely think, barely move when he first finds out. He doesn't understand and he doesn't know what changed and he doesn't want to think about the possibility that Cooper isn't coming back.
But he eats and he sleeps and he bathes and he lives, even though he's dying inside. He smiles and he sings and he dances and he performs, even though every day is harder than the last. He studies and he learns and he teaches and he grows, even though his every breath is a battle that he doesn't want to face.
No one realises that anything's wrong because he doesn't let them. No one realises just how much Cooper's departure has stung him because he hides it and makes sure they see nothing. And when he transfers to Dalton, no one even knows that he has a brother so no one bothers to look for signs of grief.
But Blaine does grieve. He grieves and he cries and he screams and he sobs, in the privacy of his bedroom or his shower or even the kitchen once, when he was all alone and no one was around to hear the plates smashing and glasses shattering. It hurts him every day and consumes his every thought, making each breath and each movement and each word so difficult to form.
But Blaine does what Blaine does best: he performs.
And everyone believes it.
He acts like he never felt his brother's lips on his own, like he never lay beneath him in the middle of the night and cried out in time with his thrusts, like he never came with his brother's name on his tongue and his brother never did the same mere moments after.
He acts like his brother never whispered, "I think I'm in love with you." in the dead of night, with his head buried in Blaine's naked shoulder and his breath hitting Blaine's scorching skin as he spoke.
And he acts like he never whispered, "I think I'm in love with you, too." as soon as the words were out of his brother's lips, like he never turned his head and tilted his brother's chin up so he could kiss him softly.
Everything he does is one big performance and he's so good at it that no one suspects a thing. But it takes its toll, beating him up and wearing him down until he can barely think straight and he's left sobbing and gasping for breath every single night. It exhausts him.
That's why he does it, in the end.
That's why he smashes one of his father's beer bottles against the bathroom tiles while the energy of the party still hums around him and the music makes the room throb with every hit of the bass. That's why he falls against the bathtub and takes one of the shards to the skin on his forearm, his vision blurring as blood oozes out of the cut and into the puddle of alcohol beneath him.
As he sits there and watches the blood with sick fascination, he drunkenly thinks that it's both ironic and bittersweet that his birthday is being celebrated while he's dying, that his tombstone will have the same date on it for both his birth and his death. His cheeks are still wet with tears as he takes the shard to his skin again, and for the first time since he entered the bathroom, he thinks of his brother.
His decision isn't because of Cooper, not really, but because of the hole he left behind when he took off to L.A.. It's because living without the person he loves is too much for Blaine to handle. It's because every day is just too damn hard and no one takes a second to read between the lines of his immaculate, never-ending performance. It's because he hates performing with every fibre of his being and he's certain that this is the only way to end it. It's because he's broken, just like his bottle of beer, and he has been ever since Cooper left.
So that's why he does it, in the end. That's why he takes his life on the floor of his bathroom, sitting in a puddle of beer and broken shards of glass, with his own birthday party still thriving on the other side of the door and the guests completely unaware.
Yes, Blaine thinks, before he lets his heavy eyelids fall closed.
That's why he does it.
FIN.
Feedback is appreciated. (: