"Every 18 minutes in the U.S, someone commits suicide. Every 19 minutes, someone is left to make sense of it."

Two of me

The thoughts, the voices, they all raced through Blaine's mind as he contemplated what to do with his life. "END IT!" boomed the familiar raspy scream from in his head. He clasped his hands over his ears blocking out the noise from his room that threatened to add to what was already torturing his mind. "Please, please don't make me do this to myself" his sobs came rushed and desperate. There could be no reasoning with this. He literally was at war with his own brain, the only difference was very clear to him though; he didn't even have control of his own weapons. "Blaine, sweetie, come here a moment please" he heard his mom shout from downstairs. "I'll be down in a second, just a minute!" he called back, hoping his voice didn't sound like he had been crying. He hopped up from his crouching position on the floor and stared at himself in the mirror. He looked awful. His hair stuck out in untamed curls and his eyes were red-raw from crying. He had to be composed. He scraped his hair back roughly and the remaining gel held it relatively well and he straightened and tightened his bow tie. He was ready.

"Hey mom, what's up?" he sighed as he got downstairs. She jogged lightly into the kitchen and handed him his Blackberry. He glanced quickly at the caller ID on the missed call bar. "Kurt" he said to his mom, she just replied with a nod. Blaine dialled his number and waited. "Honey, hi!" He greeted when Kurt picked up, trying to sound as if he was fine. "Hey, I've been calling you literally all day, where were you?" Kurt replied, sounding a little offended but mostly concerned. Blaine explained about not hearing his phone from upstairs until Kurt cut him off with what Blaine had been dreading. "Sweetheart, are you sure you're okay?" Blaine froze. He did it every time someone asked him if he was okay. "Yeah, fine, why?" he lied, feeling the anxiety creeping up his throat. "You sound, I don't know...distant" Kurt said, almost accusingly, and Blaine could feel that Kurt, even though he wasn't looking at him, could see right through him. Blaine had figured out for himself that they were very different things, seeing and looking. Blaine looked at himself, at others every day but he never saw. He knew that everyone, even Kurt maybe, was hiding something. "Blaine, I've gotta' go, if you need me call me, love you" Kurt chimed, his voice nearly bringing Blaine to tears. "Bye, Love you too" Blaine answered, putting down the phone. "Thanks mom" he said before running back upstairs.

He ran his hands under the warm water, just staring at the way the liquid ran over his fingers. The veins in his wrists stood up as the water went cold. He turned off the tap, drying his hands on his jeans and sitting on the edge of the bathtub. He had done this before and he was somewhat of an expert. Blaine found it slightly crushing that the one thing he could consider himself an expert in, was suicide, and even that didn't work for him. He picked up the razor blade, breathing what could be his last breaths before lining up the sharp side of the blade with the big 'pulse' vein. Two cuts. Two cuts and his pain and misery would end. Blaine screwed up his eyes and hissed as he pushed the blade into his skin and felt the freeing, hot rush as the blood started to flow. Minutes passed and he could feel himself weakening, so he let himself collapse, just waiting to be found.

"Honey, you've been in there for ages, are you sick or something" Gloria Anderson stood there with her hands wrapped around the door knob waiting for a reply. It never came, alarming her further. It was unlocked. She opened it.

"Bl- OH MY GOD, NO!" She screamed, tears beginning their course down her cheeks. He was lying there, pale and slumped against the bathtub. The crimson streaks painted the cream tiles with a grizzly message and she searched for any sign of life. "Don't be dead, please no...No" She sobbed into Blaine's chest. "COOPER! Help" She screamed again and felt something like relief as her older son came bounding up the stairs. His face went stony as he saw the carnage, but he didn't cry. He had to be the strong one, with six months of medical training under his belt. "Ok, calm down mom" he whispered soothingly, "Go call an ambulance". He crouched over Blaine and checked his pulse at his neck. It was slow and irregular but it was there at least. "Mom, he's alive" he called into the next room and he heard his mother's, weak sob of relief. He started CPR, just going by the textbooks he'd read. 1, 2, 3, he counted in his head. 4, 5, time for mouth- to -mouth. Cooper bent down and pushed deep, patterned breaths into Blaine's lungs. Blaine choked out a cough in response. "Come on little bro, deep breaths, by yourself come on" Coop encouraged, putting a gentle hand on Blaine's stomach, partially to see if he was still breathing, and lifted Blaine's slashed wrist up, above his heart . Tears started to run down Blaine's ashen face as he took in a weak, shaky breath, and Cooper knew why. Because it hadn't worked, again.

"Oh my God, where is he?" Kurt nearly cried as he jogged into the waiting room. The sign reading 'Resuscitation Ward' made his stomach drop. He was red-faced, panicked and exhausted; emotionally and physically. "He's just through there, Sweetie" Gloria sighed, standing up and pulling him into a hug. Kurt knew Gloria well. He saw her whenever he stayed at their house and she and his father were good friends, mainly through Kurt and Blaine's relationship. Kurt knew, even though Burt would never admit it, Gloria bought him comfort over his wife's death. Gloria's acidic separation from Blaine's father delivered them a common ground that gave them both some sort of closure. Kurt's eyes fell to Cooper. "Hey" Cooper mumbled monotonously, not looking up from his hands and sniffing back the tears that hung thick in his voice. Cooper must have looked like his father because there was hardly any trace of Blaine in him, besides maybe colouring. Even his curls were looser. Gloria, however had obviously passed on a lot to Blaine because they were the spitting image of each other. Same build, same glossy, chocolate ringlets, same olive skin and the same beautiful, dusky hazel eyes. But Gloria looked torn in pieces. Her eyelashes were gummed together with tears and she looked altogether haggard. A nurse came up to them, breaking the agonising silence. "We've stabilised him, he is still critical. He'll be on 72 hour watch because of the nature of his injuries" She frowned on the word 'nature' "We're calling for a transfusion." Gloria nodded, not really taking in the medical jargon in its full significance, judging by the wince, Cooper had. "Can I...can I see him?" Gloria choked nurse just shook her head, shifting her weight onto the other hip and writing something on her clipboard. "That's my son, my child, and your telling me I can't even see if he's okay?" Gloria said hoarsely, her voice climbing with the anger that was bubbling up slowly. "We can't until he's stabilised." The nurse replied, earning herself a steely glare of disbelief. "You just told me that you had stabilised him! What are you going to tell me now, that it isn't actually my son?" The nurse tried to reply but Gloria cut her off again. "But you know what, it isn't my son, my son wouldn't do that to himself, and you know what else?" Tears started down Gloria's cheeks again, "You can tell me that I can't see him, and you won't have any feeling about it because I'm guessing from your reaction that you haven't been through this before!" Gloria's voice was loud now, not quite a shout but loud enough to show the devastation. The nurse gave an apologetic look but knew better than to say anything, and Cooper took his mother's hand and pulled her lightly down to sit. "I can't cope" she whispered dryly, defeated and crumbling. "That's my baby, in that room, that's my boy!" she sobbed, making Kurt feel like a dagger had been plunged into his chest and twisted. "Shhh, Mom, he'll be fine, he's the strong one" Cooper soothed as he held her. "But Coop!" she replied, desperate for him to have an answer that would make it okay again; she had nothing for an explanation. "He will be fine, listen to Cooper, he wouldn't lie to you" Kurt lowered his voice to a croaky whisper in an attempt to sound, not protective, but almost 'motherly', if that was possible. She nodded, wiping her tears and the eyeliner that had drawn its own twisted path down her face. So they all waited, minutes feeling like hours.

"Honey?" Kurt approached tentatively, not sure if Blaine was awake or not. He didn't look right. He just looked so vulnerable. He had a nasal cannula that went behind his ears and his left wrist was bandaged up. He was pale and there was a drip that ran from his right wrist up to a bag filled with what was obviously blood. Blaine's eyes flickered slightly before opening. A weak smile pulled at the corner of his mouth when he saw Kurt and an almost guilty expression when he saw his mother and Cooper. Kurt looked at Gloria to cue the speech that they all knew each other had been practising in their heads; Kurt just thought she was the best one for it. "Baby, I promise, we all promise, that no matter what happens, we aren't going to make you feel uncomfortable, and you don't have to speak about it right now if you don't want to" Kurt could tell she was trying to hold it together. Blaine nodded and tried to speak but no sound came out. "I-I just don't know who I am anymore, like there are two of me." He croaked out, sounding close to tears himself, broken. He looked down at his hands, tears falling onto his lap and soaking into the sheets. "Baby, please tell us why" Gloria pressed, sounding a little desperate. Blaine nodded, composing himself, maybe even trying to find a reason; he didn't look like he even knew why. "It's just too much. No one else gets these voices." Blaine choked on his tears, but he carried on. "I can be happy one day, but then the next I just feel...finished, like I literally have nothing left!"He was getting panicked, his voice climbing. "You'll always have Kurt" Cooper piped up from the doorway where he was standing. "I know we argue sometimes, but Bro, I accept you. You know that, right?" Cooper stepped forward, putting a hand on Gloria's shoulder. "I know it looked like I wasn't all for you being gay...it was just a little bit of a shock" Cooper had come forward more, put a hand on the hospital bed and was staring into Blaine's eyes with a 'that's my little Bro' look. Blaine hadn't seen that for years.

"Are you alright?" Kurt wrapped a hand around Blaine's for the brief moment he didn't need to use the gear stick. Blaine nodded, obvious exhaustion swimming behind his eyes and pulling him down. "Go to sleep, I can wake you up when we get close to home" Kurt rubbed Blaine's shoulder, pushing him into sleep gently. He knew the bipolar meds would work. He wouldn't ever have to lose him again.

"Don't run from help, sometimes the people you run from have the answers."