Hello! Once again dropping off a fic that I had to write to get stuff out of my head. Writing stuff acts as a release for me. I sometimes tend to write fics on how I'm feeling and this one I wrote because I was in very low and very, very empty. Obviously, not to this extent. I also wrote One Of THOSE Nights because I wanted a cuddle ahaha. That was my stimulus, I had no plan and just rolled with it! Nice snippet of information there.

I also wrote this because I hit a block in Glass Bones & Paper Skin. The chapter's nearly done but I just got to a bit and couldn't get past it. I'll try remedy that at the weekend.

Anyway, lyrics in this story are from Cobra Starship's The World Has It's Shine (But I Would Drop It On A Dime) which is my favourite of theirs. HUGE Cobra fan and I would be delighted to meet Klaine Cobras! Also title and the summary are from the song too (although summary is clearly adapted ok)

Also happy birthday to my best friend Shannon who's birthday is in... 25 minutes and counting. Although she'll never see this because she isn't a huge angst fan and refuses to read some of my angst aha. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, GIRL!


Not long ago, I gave up hope but you came along, you gave me something I could hold onto...


How can one describe depression?

There's the dictionary definition for starters:

de•pres•sion [dih-presh-uhn]
–noun
1. the act of depressing.
2. the state of being depressed.
3. a depressed or sunken place or part; an area lower than the surrounding surface.

Then there's the definition which the doctor would tell you, if the courage had ever been found to extend a hand for help:

Depression is a mood disorder marked especially by sadness, inactivity, difficulty with thinking and concentration, a significant increase or decrease in appetite and time spent sleeping, feelings of dejection and hopelessness and sometimes suicidal thoughts or an attempt to commit suicide.

And if you ask someone who is suffering from it will just tell you:

I don't know how to describe it. I just feel so... empty.

If anyone ever asked Kurt Hummel 'what do you think depression actually is?', he would reply 'well, I don't know, I've never experienced it firsthand... what a stupid question'. Because really, it was a stupid question. How would he know what depression exactly is? He'd never felt it, never suffered from it, never been swallowed by its intense powers to make you feel so empty and so worthless. He'd never had depression. So how would he know?

Well, that's what everyone else thought, anyway.

In fact, Kurt spent every night in his bed, tangled in the sheets that his fists clenched painfully tight. He'd lay there for hours, unable to sleep, crying until his tears were dry no longer sending him to sleep for once. There was always that temptation of a bottle of vodka in the liquor cabinet and his dad's prescribed tablets for his heart on the top shelf of the cupboard in the bathroom. There was always the temptation of the razor on the side of his sink in the en suite. There was always that temptation. It was always there. Always screaming out DO IT, DO IT NOW. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO LIVE FOR?

Kurt Hummel had a lot to live for. But that's where depression is so skilful and so cunning. It tricks you into feeling worthless and alone. It tricks you into thinking that there's nothing left. It tricks you into believing that living and breathing and existing are just a waste of everybody else's time and effort. It implants these thoughts of paranoia into your brain. Thoughts that can push you to the edge, until your toes are overhanging the mark and you have to use your arms to balance so you don't plummet face first down into nothingness.

Sometimes depression can push you so far that you can't understand the point of balancing for much longer.

This is how Kurt felt. This is everything he went through. Day after day of dumpster tosses and slushie facials and locker slams and homophobic slurs on top of all of this. How did anyone expect him to feel after those tough days? Did they expect him to brush the dirt off his designer jacket and carry on walking, head held high? Did no one else see what was happening? Is this why everyone else presumed that Kurt could never understand what depression truly was?

They all turned a blind eye to it all. The signs were all clearly there. Not to mention the dramatic weight loss, the dark, purple circles beneath his eyes that couldn't be solved by his intense moisturising regime or covered by layers upon layers of concealer. He slowly stopped smiling and singing. He no longer proudly stood in front of his class, belting out his heart to the music. There was nothing to sing about anymore. And certainly nothing to smile about any more.

Life had been so cruel to Kurt Hummel. But sometimes the universe can be giving. Sometimes. Somehow it dropped something precious in the lap of someone who suffered. Threw them a lifeline. Showed them a way out. Gave them a reason to live.

A reason to live...

Thankfully, the universe dropped something right in Kurt Hummel's lap. His palms, even. And the timing couldn't have been more perfect. Couldn't have been more... more needed, than ever before.

The voice was screaming in his head DO IT, DO IT NOW. WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO LIVE FOR? YOU'RE WORTHLESS, YOU'RE HOPELESS. WHO WOULD MISS YOU IF YOU WENT? that day. Implanting thoughts inside his mind. He was home alone. The other New Direction guys sent him off to spy on the competition. Make yourself useful, they said. Useful? Ha. Even his friends saw him as pointless. A piece of furniture that they had meant to throw away long ago, yet had never gotten around to do it. That's what Kurt was, right? A piece of furniture. Because that's how we felt when he was ignored, kick around, forgotten.

Anyway, Kurt was home alone. He had been sent off just so he wasn't underneath everybody else's feet. Well, fuck that. I've had enough. I'm out. Out. Gone. Finished. He'd had enough, this was a step too far. Hello, bottle full of tablets, long time no see. A locked bedroom door, the curtains drawn, a scrawled goodbye letter left upon his bedside table, a pillow hugged to his chest as he lived out his last moments curled up against his headboard before he slipped the tablets past his lips.

His laptop lay open on the side and he slipped over towards it, intent on deactivating his Facebook and anything else that left traces of him upon this Earth. It would make it easier for everyone else if every single scrap of my existence had gone. As the cursor hovered over the deactivate button, his attention was captured by a sponsored advert on the side. Dalton Academy... that was why he'd been sent away by the boys. To go spy on the Garglers. Fuck you, Dalton. You're part of the reason I feel like this right now...He knew he was being irrational but right then... he didn't care.

But curiosity got the better of him and he clicked on the link, a new window flashing up with the words 'Dalton Academy For Boys', with a crest in navy and red. Kurt had heard stories about Dalton. They were famous for their Warblers and their zero-tolerance, no bullying policy. Huh, interesting... how amazing this place seemed. How perfect it was for Kurt. No bullying? No discrimination? This was... this was what Kurt needed. No, it wasn't going to make this dark cloud go away. Wasn't going to make it all better... but if he fit in, no longer an outcast... if he got away from the bullies and the faces that loomed in his dreams...

Next thing he knew, he was on the staircase of Dalton, edging through the flood of bodies that all rushed in the same direction... there was a boy... thick curls held down by gel... smart uniform fitting his body nicely... Blaine, he had said... Blaine... they were holding hands... running down a corridor... singing, dancing... Katy Perry's Teenage Dream... the smile on Blaine's face infectious as he sung across the room... as he sang to Kurt...

Was that... was that a smile upon his face? It felt alien to him. But it was there. He could feel it. And he could still feel the burn of Blaine's hand against his... it felt good. Better than good. It felt amazing. How something so small can seem so significant...

Then suddenly Blaine was back, standing right in front of Kurt, speaking of trading phone numbers, grinning up at the boy who had been on the verge of ending his life just hours beforehand.

Yep, the universe was giving that day. It gave Kurt Blaine. It gave him something for him to hold onto. Someone to live for. A reason not to end everything. And Blaine was that reason. Blaine saved his life, even if Kurt never told him that. His lifeline.

That night, when Kurt returned home, he pushed the tablets one by one back into the bottle. The drink returned to the cabinet. The goodbye letter sat torn up in tiny pieces in the bin. The door remained unlocked. The curtains open. And as his phone vibrated on the side, flashing up the message 'Fancy meeting up for coffee sometime? - - Blaine', Kurt smiled... a full genuine smile. Suddenly, everything felt that little bit better. The universe had given him something he could hold onto.

And I want to hold on, more than you could ever know...

And Kurt definitely wanted to hold on.