Hi everyone! This is something I started working on about five years ago. I had the idea, then Twilight came out and everyone was all vampire mad and my idea felt crap. (Especially because I hate Twilight :P ) But I feel like giving this the reception it deserves because there was a time I worked quite hard on this. It's VERY AU- please don't expect a lot of similarities with Glee. I hope I can pull this story off well; it's quite adventurous for me plot-wise, so we'll just keep our fingers crossed! If you see any typos please let me know especially in the first few chapters in which Blaine was originally a girl :P I don't write with a beta so it might escape my notice that Blaine is a 'she' or something :P

Hope you like this, guys! I'm quite excited for it!

*And for the NPLH'ers thank you for following me over, and I will do some one-shots from that verse later on when I get the urge :D

Thank you! Feedback would be lovely!

How poetic are dead flowers?

They are born, bloom into radiance, live out their lives in the beautiful sunshine, and they are cut from life; placed into vases and commented on until they shrivel up. Brown, dead memories of life and vibrancy. Why does life have to continue in this methodical fashion? Why does life and vibrancy always end in the constriction and deterioration of life? Why do I, even now, feel this power called time pressing in on me? Calling me to the brown, shrivelled masses?

I need to escape. I need my life back. I need to enjoy every moment and savour the sweetness of breathing, smiling, wanting. I want life to love me again. Then maybe I could fall back in love with life. Should it be any sweeter in death?

As I look down the road, sighing as the dust settled in the wake of the truck that has just driven past; I realize how dead and dusty my life has truly become. The dust is like my life to this point; dry and unsettling. This is what this trip is about. It is a search for life – my life.

I drop the dried up roses I held in my hand and stride over them as I begin the steps to change my life forever. I think twice. I walk back to the shrivelled deadness and pluck one stem from its fellows. This I would take with me. A reminder of what is at stake. Of what I can never return to. I step on the bouquet of death and a single petal flies away in the hot wind; lost forever from the world it had loved and choosing its final resting place.

He told me that this was a phase, that my life had already begun and was in full flight and I was in fact throwing it all away if I went through with this. That was my problem. I had no personality besides that which others placed on me. In certain situations with certain people I may come across as the life of the party, while with others I may cease to exist in any form besides that which they instructed. I was irresponsible and had little will to become otherwise. I had never had a chance to be independent with my family treating me as the perfect son. I was sick of the good grades, the feeling of guilt if I went out with friends, the feeling of guilt in general actually. My family would never understand that I liked boys. Well. One more than all the rest. But I was tired of covering up. I was tired of my closet. I had decided to break free of the restrictions that had been placed on me and allow my inner self to break free and make my mark on the world: whoever I may turn out to be.

Reaching eighteen was nearing and I had been scared into action. I had booked myself a ticket on the next bus to leave Ohio. It would always be a special place for me, but I had to find out who I was meant to be. And somehow I doubted that my destiny lay here. I wasn't going to let myself share fate with the shrivelled flora at my feet.

I can hear a vague noise in the distance. It rumbles closer.

Closer.

I can see the dust clouds forming in the distance. A well-marked sign of arrival. Now is my moment. Today is the start of Blaine Anderson's new life.

The air feels dry in my mouth. I can't seem to get moisture back on my tongue. Am I really going to be able to do this? To get on this bus and leave forever? It has just begun to hit me. This is what I would be leaving behind. My dear, annoying mother. My stern, uncomprehending father. And him.

I can't believe I might not see him again. That this desiccated stem and petals may be our last memory. I suddenly have the urge to run. I don't know where to. Somewhere that feels like home. But home isn't here for me anymore. He is my home. But I can't live there. He wouldn't want me to.

He wouldn't want me to leave. He wouldn't want me to stay. He wouldn't want me at all. And I can't blame him. The familiar feeling of guilt is beginning to retch in my throat. I made him the guilty party. I gave him an ultimatum he couldn't make. I lost him anyway. I pushed too hard. I wanted too much.

I told him.

So now the bus is rumbling closer. It offers the release I've been seeking. Do I take it? Am I strong enough? Am I good enough?

He was light and dark. Breathing in and breathing out. Food, warmth, shelter and love, he was life itself. And now he knew what he meant to me. Now he understood. And now I did too. Now I could barely breathe from the thought of having lost him. Now my life felt like the sweet-smelling bouquet of death that now lay abandoned on the ground. Perhaps my deathly version of life could smell just as sweet. Perhaps I could still be treasured. But never again could I feel alive. Never again could I bloom in radiance at that smile meant just for me. Perhaps I was better as a memory.

The bus pulls to a stop. The front tire stops an inch from the flowers; an inch from the end of their displayed death; an inch from the end of a memory. I remember back a few weeks. Being handed those flowers was the happiest moment I can remember sharing with anyone; his smile now. The memory of it cut my heart to ribbons as I realized I would never see him smile at me like that again. I had ruined it; had ruined him; had ruined us. I suddenly realize I've been crying.

The doors on the bus swung open as the fat tears roll down my cheeks onto the hot, red dust.

I had two choices.

Short I know, but the next chapter will be up today :)

Enough to hook you in?