Disclaimer: Anything you recognize is not mine. All characters belong to RIB, I'm just messing around with them a little.
Warning: Character death!
This was inspired by This Man. Go look it up if you're interested.
oO0Oo
"Thanks," Blaine said with a smile as he took his coffee order from the barista then headed over to the only open table. For some reason it was really busy that Thursday morning but he wasn't interested in why. All Blaine cared about was getting enough caffeine to make it through his morning classes.
The college freshman plopped down in the padded chair and took a long drink of his coffee. There was still some time before his first class started at 8, maybe he could just rest his head…
"Morning, Blaine!" Rachel said cheerfully as she took the seat across from him. "You look terrible. Didn't you get any sleep last night?"
"Hi, Rachel," Blaine said, sitting up a bit straighter. There was no way he'd be able to take a small nap now. "Actually, I went to bed early. But I kept waking up because of this really weird dream."
Rachel leaned forward with excitement. "What was it about?" his friend asked eagerly but then her smile turned into a small frown. "Wait…" She looked around the filled coffee shop and quickly stood, grabbing her drink. "I can hardly hear you. Let's go for a walk."
Without waiting for an answer, she left the coffee shop. Blaine watched her for a second before giving in and following. Although he didn't want to leave for the cold world outside, maybe she could give him some insight to the dream.
Rachel was waiting outside and smiled at Blaine when the door closed behind him. "So, tell me about the dream."
Blaine zipped his coat up, mentally criticizing himself for not wearing something warmer. "It's just a stupid dream, Rachel," he said as they started to walk towards their first class. "I've been having it for a while and I can't remember all of it."
"Then just tell me what you can remember," she said, squeezing his arm in encouragement.
"Fine," Blaine said with a sigh but also smiled. As they walked towards the English building, Blaine told her the dream he'd been having every night for the past week.
The dream always started differently. A couple times he was just making his way to a class, another time he was actually sitting in class, and last night's dream had started with him waking up in his bed. Wherever it started, the same thing happened after that.
He'd get the feeling that someone was watching him and would look around. Sometimes it took a while to find whoever was staring at him but other times he found the man instantly. The man was always just standing there, looking at him. Even though he wasn't blinking, Blaine wasn't afraid of him. In fact, he felt almost comforted whenever he saw the man.
The stranger always looked the same and wore the same outfit. The fitted suit was black and the shirt underneath seemed to be a dark blue, but it was hard to tell because whenever Blaine tried to get closer, the man would start to walk away.
While the man moved away, he never actually left. He was always just far enough away to make Blaine want to follow him. A few times he gave into the urge and had always been lead to the same place, although he couldn't remember what it looked it.
"What does the man look like?" Rachel asked as they entered the – thankfully – warm English building. It was still a little early for classes to start so the hall was fairly empty.
Blaine couldn't help the smile that formed when he recalled the man from his dreams. "He has stylish brown hair, a little taller than me – I can just tell," he said when he saw Rachel open her mouth to question him. "The same way I can tell that his eyes are a blue, gray, green color."
"Maybe he's your soul mate," Rachel offered, causing Blaine to blush. Of course his friend would say that, she'd been saying that about all the boys he liked since they'd met. Most of the time it was just a joke, but the way she said it this time made him think she really believed it.
He stopped walking and lightly grabbed her arm so she'd do the same. "Why do you think he's my 'soul mate'?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest with a small, playful smile.
The shorter girl blushed at his scrutiny and shrugged, "It's just a thought." She turned around and hurried down the hallway in embarrassment. Blaine chuckled and chased after her.
oO0Oo
That was the last time the two of them talked about the dream. But, by lunch time, Blaine knew that Rachel had told a couple of other people. Finn, her boyfriend, had offered his opinion – "It's just a dream, man. Don't worry about it" – and so did a few other people – "The brain can't create faces; it's just someone you saw on the street" "It could be This Man" "You're just horny."
By the time his last class of the day ended, Blaine had more ideas about his 'dream man' than he'd ever hoped for. Some of them were out there but a few of them were still plausible. All he knew was that there probably wasn't going to be a definite answer.
When he got back to the apartment he shared with two friends, he locked himself in his room in hopes of forgetting about the dream man and all the hypotheses about him. The only time he left was to eat and even then his roommates asked about his dream. He waved off the topic quickly and hurried back to his room with a plate of food.
He just needed to make it through tomorrow for the topic of the day to change from his odd dream to something else.
Hopefully.
oO0Oo
That night his dream started off like it always did, but then it changed…
Blaine was on his way to class when he felt someone watching him. He looked around for a bit until his eyes finally landed on the very familiar stranger standing on the corner. The two stared at each other for a moment before Blaine decided to try to talk with him.
Just like the other times, the other man watched as he slowly made his way closer. Blaine was surprised when the distance between them shrank more than it had ever been. He was almost 12 feet away by the time he stopped; he'd never been this close before.
"Hello, Blaine," the man said with a beautiful smile.
His eyes went wide at hearing the man's voice for the first time. "Who are you?" he asked in a whisper, hoping he'd remember when he woke the next morning.
The other man just smiled sadly and turned around without an answer. Blaine ran to catch up to him and was amazed to find himself walking right beside the stranger. The scenery around them changed from the campus to the path Blaine used to walk when he was in high school.
"Will I ever find out who you are?" he asked after what seemed like an eternity but he knew it had only been a few minutes.
The stranger chuckled then nodded. "You'll find out tomorrow," he said, looking at Blaine from the corner of his multicolored eyes before everything went blindingly white.
Blaine shot up in his bed, panting heavily – though he didn't know why.
oO0Oo
Unlike the previous dreams, Blaine remembered everything that had happened that time. Including what the stranger had said. "You'll find out tomorrow." He wasn't sure if he should bring it up, though, seeing as no one he talked with that morning even mentioned his dreams. In the end he decided to keep this development to himself.
The rest of the day went by uneventfully. The new topic of discussion was about someone's walk of shame from a Frat house, which he didn't feel like joining in on. His mind was too preoccupied with recalling what had happened last night.
Throughout the entire day, Blaine looked around him for the stranger from his dreams. By the time his classes had ended, he'd almost lost hope in seeing him at all before he would get back to the apartment. He even thought about walking around campus for a while, hoping he'd bump into the man or someone who could explain his weird dreams – though he preferred the former.
Blaine finally decided to head back home when it started to get darker. He wasn't a big fan of riding the bus at night, but it was a better idea than walking. While he waited at the bus stop with a few others, he looked around at them.
An older woman was sitting on the bench knitting something, a mother was reading a story to her little boy with the help of the light from her phone, and the other college student was bobbing her head to the music she was listening to.
A few minutes later the bus pulled up and Blaine was the last to get on. The only seat available was next to a sleeping man in the very front. He tried to keep a little room between them but bumped into him a few times whenever the bus turned.
Blaine stared out the windows as they drove down the road and only looked at the passengers briefly when they got on at stops. It was getting very dark outside which represented Blaine's mood to the tee.
The bus was only a few stops away from Blaine's when someone wearing a dark hoodie got on the bus. The person had the hood over their head and was wearing black sunglasses. Blaine was instantly afraid but the fear disappeared just as quickly when he saw the person coming up behind the hooded figure.
It was the man from his dreams!
Blaine couldn't help but smile when they looked at each other and didn't hear the first person shouting. There was chaos on the bus but Blaine kept staring at the man who looked right back at him.
His gaze was finally pulled away when the person next to him jumped up and pulled a gun out, aiming at the hooded figure. That's when Blaine finally looked around.
The person had uncovered his head and was aiming the gun at the man beside Blaine. There was a pile of purses and bags at his feet and then everything clicked. The bus was being robbed.
There wasn't anything Blaine could do at that moment but the man beside him calmly said, "Get off the bus and we'll forget about this."
The robber shook his head, "Put the gun down and give me all your money. Else I'll shoot."
Before anything else could happen, something crashed into the back of the bus, causing everyone to fly forward a little. The next thing Blaine knew, a gun was fired and there was something warm and wet on his chest.
When he looked down he saw the blood on his shirt and heard people around him panicking. The first gun man was being grabbed by the bus driver and the man who tried to be a hero was trying to stop the bleeding.
All while this was happening, Blaine looked up at the man from his dream to fins him still standing there. He couldn't believe it, he had about to get answers and now he was dying. Someone was talking to him but he couldn't take his eyes off of the brunet.
As the stranger stretched out his arm, it went through the metal panel that was meant to protect the passengers and lightly touched Blaine's knee. That's when his world went white, just like his dream.
When Blaine could see again, he was standing outside the bus, which was now surrounded by cop cars and an ambulance. A stretcher was being lifted out with him on top of it!
"What-" he started to ask but then felt someone grab his hand.
"Come on," the man from his dreams said and smiled sadly at him as the world around them faded to black. "It's time to go."
"Go where?" Blaine asked just as a white door appeared before them.
The man started to walk forward, gently tugging on Blaine's hand to get him to move. "You'll see." Blaine nodded and walked with the man through the white door into a bright light.