His dream was frantic and fevered. In it he was desperate for someone that he had never seen before. Limbs that wrapped around him, pulling him closer. A ghost of lips and the phantom echo of a joyful laugh.
When he woke up he was hard and aching. His heart hammered its way out of his chest and his body was both chilled and on fire at the same time. Shakily he padded out to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. He added three ice cubes to it and then grabbed another to run across his face.
In the morning the burning sensation was still there, only dulled down to a flicker and pulling him in some unknown direction.
"Fuck," Blaine muttered, flopping back into his pile of pillows.
—-
For a week he managed to ignore it. He took time off work, trying to convince himself he had a bout of late-in-the-season flu. But after a week of soup and rom-coms the symptoms hadn't abated and Rachel was threatening to drag him to the doctor's if he wasn't out of bed soon.
"We're just worried about you," Rachel stood over his bed, thermometer in hand in yet another attempt to take his temperature. "You've never been sick for this long."
Blaine patted the empty space next to him in an invitation for her to sit down.
"Oh no," she dropped to the bed. "You went already? And it's serious?" The alarm was evident in her voice. Blaine rarely took more than a day or two off. Even when he had to have his appendectomy he had only missed school on the days he was in the hospital.
"I think…I think I've," he dropped his voice and swallowed hard around the word, "manifested."
Rachel's eyes flew wide opened and she clapped her hands together in excitement. "Blaine!" she squealed. Bodily she threw herself at him in a tackling hug. "I'm so happy for you!"
Rachel had been the first of his friends to find her cor. On the morning of her eighteenth, she had awoken to the letters F-I-N-N delicately scrawled on her left side. It had taken her all of two days to track him down, showing up unannounced at his door at 5.47 in the morning to declare they were going to spend the rest of their lives together.
"Yeah," Blaine sighed. "It's great." His fingers resumed tracing incoherent patterns across his blanket.
Disentangling herself, she sat back, smoothing out her skirt underneath her. "I thought you'd be more excited."
"I am. You know better than anyone that I've been waiting for this my whole life." He reflected on all the failed relationships during his youth. One by one the guys he was seeing manifested and all the nights and mornings spent together dissolved into nothing. It was never enough to make him give up on relationships. After all, the deliriousness of love was almost always enough to outweigh the almost inevitable heartbreak.
"But?"
He shrugged.
"So," she wheedled, poking him in the side, "when are you going to go look for him? Hunt down your one true love and make him regret all the years he made you wait?"
"I'm not."
Rachel's mouth dropped open. "But Blaine…"
"Rach," he sighed. "I just manifested. I'm practically 30. He's probably still a kid."
"Well," she chewed the inside of her lip, "maybe it's a distance thing?"
Manifesting was never an exact science. Most people manifested in their late teens or early twenties, whenever the younger of the two turned 18. Although less common, some people only manifested when they were in close proximity to their soul mates.
For those who hadn't manifested by their early twenties, it wasn't uncommon to take a year or two off to travel the globe in search of their other half. Blaine had taken his when he was 22. For eleven months he had aimless meandered from continent to continent, just waiting for something to happen.
Nothing did.
He thought he had felt something in Australia, but it turned out to be wistful thing combined with a stomach flu.
He knew now how desperate and silly his mistake had been. That he thought the twistings of a stomach flu could possibly be this. This consuming need that burned through him, devouring him from the inside and pulling him out of himself and towards someone else, towards his cor.
"Maybe," he agreed, although deep within himself, he knew it wasn't true.
"So what are you going to do?"
"Wait. Wait for him to find me." He wanted nothing more than to just throw his life away and chase his heart. A night hadn't gone by since he manifested that he hadn't stopped himself from bringing out his suitcase and throwing whatever could fit inside. But he didn't know this kid. Didn't know how he would react to Blaine being nearly a decade older than him and showing up, desperate to claim him as his own.
"What about Zach?" Rachel had come back down from her excitement high and was starting to think practically.
Blaine's stomach lurched at the mention of his boyfriend of three years. "I haven't told him yet. I wanted to be sure first. And to tell him in person."
Rachel had never really understood his relationship with Zach. She hadn't approved when the first starting dating; didn't understand how he could commit himself to someone else when he still believed his cor was out there.
But Rachel had been lucky to find hers so early. She had never had to experience the staggering loneliness that came with years of being without his soul mate, exasperated as everyone around him manifested and happily settled down with theirs. He wanted to be kissed by someone who cared for and cherished him. He wanted that one other person who looked at him like he was the only one in the world and knew every part of him, inside and out.
What he didn't want was the continuous string of one night stands the others in his position tended to favor; a body to keep them warm for a night, or maybe a week, if they were lucky.
What he wanted was what Rachel had and since that hadn't made itself available to him, he had been willing to settle for the next best thing.
And Zach was the best of the next best thing.
"When's he coming back?"
"Two days." He had been gone for a month, visiting friends and family at home in North Dakota. Blaine was supposed to have joined him for his last week, but he had cancelled, claiming sickness. It had taken nearly an hour for him to convince Zach he didn't need to come home, arguing that he was probably contagious and reminding him that the last time they had both been sick together they had nearly killed each other from annoyance.
"And are you going to tell him?"
"Of course I am," he said defensively. It had never been a question of telling him or not, he just didn't know how. In the early stages of their relationship he had rehearsed it once or twice, feeling guilty that he would be so excited to move on. But as time passed and their relationship deepened he had stopped, only feebly considering partial words in the dead of the night, all of which were inadequate now.
He and Zach first met when they signed up for the same aerobics class. They had been the only two guys in the class and the instructor had been merciless against them. Blaine honestly didn't think he would have made it through even the first week if it hadn't been for Zach's encouraging smile. After a month, Blaine plucked up the courage to invite Zach out for coffee.
Following a particularly brutal class, they had limped their way to the nearest coffee shop and by the second cup, they were so wrapped up in each other that they had almost completely forgotten their pain.
At that time Blaine had still been clinging to the hope that he had a mate out there somewhere and would make himself known to Blaine any day. Zach, on the other hand, was pretty sure his corhad died before they manifested. He couldn't explain exactly what made him so sure, he just knew.
After realizing that they could be something serious, they had agreed to take things slow, neither really sure they were ready for such a big step. But as the months melted away it became increasingly obvious that, even if they didn't want to be, they were serious.
So they took the risk. They started offically dating and eventually started sleeping together. For the last few months they had been talking about moving in together. They never used the word 'love'; Blaine still hadn't given up on the idea that his cor was somewhere out there and it would have been disrespectful to him. The feeling was there, though, and they both knew it. Everyone who spent any time with them knew it.
Blaine knew that they could have spent the rest of their lives together. Part of him still wanted to. Even though their relationship was sometimes hard, being with Zach was easy. They could talk about anything, and they knew each other better than they knew themselves.
—-
"Something happened." Blaine sat on the edge of Zach's couch, hands twisting in his lap. It had been a week since his conversation with Rachel and the guilt at having concealed this from his boyfriend had been eating at him.
"Do I finally get to know what's bothering you?"
Blaine should have known better than to think that he had managed to hide that something was going on. He was just grateful that Zach had shown uncharacteristic restraint and not pried while Blaine tried to sort everything out for himself.
"I know I should have told you earlier. I just…"
"Hey," Switched off the television and turned towards Blaine, immediately cradling Blaine's hands in his own, "it's fine. I knew you would tell me eventually." His face split into a grin, "I mean I've been dying of curiosity in the meantime. But I knew you would tell me. You haven't been this serious since Katy Perry announced her Absolute-Final-For-Really-Real-This-Time-Retirement." When Blaine didn't even bother to chastise him for bring up Katy's retirement his expression immediately turned serious again.
He had spent days thinking about what to say to Zach. He wanted to impress upon him how important their relationship was to him, to make sure he knew how much he cared for him and how much Zach being in his life had made it better.
"Blaine?" Zach prompted as the silence stretched between them. Despite his calm exterior, a hint of anxiety crept into Zach's voice.
It was that second of anxiety that made Blaine abandon his pre-rehearsed speech entirely and blurt out, "I manifested."
The silence was back, creating a gulf between them. A distance that had never been there before now.
"Oh." Zach didn't pull away, but his hands went slack in Blaine's. Blaine held on tighter, convinced his desperate grasp was the only thing keeping them from drifting apart forever. "How long?"
"A few weeks." Guilt twisted in his stomach. "I should have told you when it happened. You should have been the first. But I-"
"You're still here," Zach cut him off.
"Yeah. I am."
"Why are you still here?"
"I'm waiting for him to find me," he answered truthfully. "And I couldn't just leave you, Zach."
"But you're going to." It wasn't a question. Nor was it tinged with pain or resignation. It was just a simple statement. You're out of milk. It's raining out. You're going to leave me."I don't want to."
"Can't blame you there." He winked charmingly, a reminder of why Blaine had fallen for him in the first place.
Blaine punched at the throw pillow. "It's not fair. To any of us, but especially to you," he burst out. "I l-" he was cut off by Zach's lips crashing against his own, smothering his words in a desperate kiss. Words that had been taboo before were now verboten, a betrayal of the worst kind.
"I know." When Zach pulled away his face was twisted in conflict and pain. "I know. And you know too." He cupped Blaine's face in his hands. "But he's your cor. And I'm not anything."
"No." Blaine's head frantically jerked back and forth. "Don't say that. Don't ever say that." He clutched at the hand cradling his cheek, pressing it against him so hard it almost hurt.
They sat breathing each other in for several long minutes.
"I need to think," Zach said at last. "And so do you."
Blaine didn't need to think. All he had done in the last few weeks was think. He knew the decision was up to Zach; whether to stay together until his mystery man came along or break it off now, keeping their relationship from hovering in an abyss of waiting. It could be days or weeks or even months before his corcame looking for him. If he was actually 18, school was still in session and he would be waiting until at least the summer. But if, on the other hand, it was a distance thing, he could be at Blaine's doorstep the next day. He wanted to be selfish and hold on to Zach as long as he could.
"Okay," he said, sounding more confident then he felt. "Okay."
Zach's hand dropped down to Blaine's lap where it gave his thigh a reassuring squeeze. "Just give me a few days, alright?" He stood up and walked to the door, stopping and turning back to Blaine. "I'd be lying if I said I hadn't been waiting for it since I met you." He huffed a laugh at himself and the situation. "Somehow I didn't expect it to feel like this." He smiled, tight and closed off before disappearing out the door.
—-
It was five days before Zach was back at his door. Blaine knew just by looking at him what his decision was, but he let him in anyways. He deserved that, at the very least. The privacy of a closed door and a familiar space.
"I can't just wait around for you to go." He sat at the table, the same one they had spent so many nights eating dinner at. They had joked about whose cooking looked worse, made plans about where they would vacation to if they had the money and time off for it. There was a burn mark on the wood where Zach had set a pot down, fresh off the stove, because Blaine had distracted him with a ridiculous, choreographed dance number that bordered on a strip-tease.
Blaine nodded, unsurprised. They both hated the indeterminate middle. It was why their relationship had moved so quickly, despite their resistance to it. Going from fumbling their way through flirtatious begins to rushing headlong into commitment.
"I really am happy for you, though." Zach's smile held a tinge of heartbreak, but it was genuine. "And I get dibs on meeting him. After Rachel," he conceded, "but before everyone else. He deserves to know who has been keeping you warm over the years and I deserve to meet the man you broke my heart for."
Blaine spluttered a laugh as tears rolled down his face.
Zach started to lean in, as though to kiss away his tears, before thinking better of it and settling on offering him a tissue from the box on the coffee table. "We're still on for karaoke Tuesdays though. And your new boy better like to sing, because he's not getting out of it either. There's no way we can deprive the poor people of The Loon from your gorgeous voice."
Blaine managed a watery smile, "Wouldn't dream of it." He knew there wasn't much else to say. In their own ways, they both had been preparing for this their entire relationship. He couldn't promise to stay with Zach any more than Zach could ask him to. All they could do was say their goodbyes with as much dignity as they could manage and hope their friendship was strong enough to last.
—-
The days lengthened and became bathed in the golden glow of summer. The school year ended in armfuls of children crying and promising they would be back to visit him in the fall. Several students even promised to come by in August to help him set up for the next class.
He rejoined the same summer theatre company he had been with for years. They had four shows planned for the summer, including a musical which the director assured him he would be the lead in.
Tentatively he accepted, with the whispered stipulation that he might have to leave mid-season due to personal reasons. Within an hour the entire company knew and everyone took it upon themselves to be the ones to find Blaine's missing half. Every night as the theater filled, they all watched Blaine anxiously, waiting for a sign that his cor was somewhere out there. Lucy, the youngest member of the company who had an over-excitable and over-imaginative disposition took to dragging single men backstage and shoving them in Blaine's path as he headed to the bathroom or back to the dressing room.
None of them were his cor, but he made sure to appreciate her efforts despite that.
The summer melted away and then another school year. Over time, the fevered burning in his chest transformed into a chill that he couldn't shake. Even in the hottest week of the year, he was forced to wear a sweater in order to keep the shivering at bay.
"I'm fine," he insisted through teeth clenched to stop them from chattering, whenever anyone asked. "Just a cold."
A cold that he couldn't shake, that lasted throughout the summer and into the school year. By October the cold had turned into bouts of actual illness that showed themselves every couple of weeks.
—-
"You better savor the time between when you meet this punk and when I do." Rachel was back at his bedside for the fourth time that winter. In his defense, he didn't think he needed to be bed-ridden this time. He could still walk, albeit slower and more unsteadily than normal. But Rachel had insisted the moment he thoughtlessly messaged her to cancel their plans because he was feeling under the weather. "Because," she continued to glower, "I am going to kill him."
"It's not his fault," Blaine sighed. It was an argument they seemed to keep rehashing every time they saw each other.
"He's hurting you!"
"Both Dr. Black and Dr. Gause agree that this," he gestured to himself and the bed, "is very unusual, and is probably only happening because I'm… older. He probably has no idea anything is wrong."
"No idea? NO idea?" She laughed mockingly. "I know when Finn so much as sneezes," she clasped her right hand to her chest, as though to indicate exactly how deep the feeling went. "And here you have been practically dying-"
Blaine rolled his eyes. "I'm not dying, Rachel. I take these," he picked up the pill bottle besides his bed and shoot it in front of her face. "And in three to four days I'll be good as new."
"-Practically dying," Rachel picked up where she left off. "And you're trying to tell me he doesn't know?"
"You two have been together for years. You're," he bit his lip as he searched for the right word, "attuned. It's like, remember, after you first met, and your appendix almost burst? And Finn thought he had eaten something funny for dinner. It's like that. All I know is that my cor is somewhere out there."
Rachel sat back in her chair. "I'm still going to kill him."
Blaine mustered up the best, pathetic sad-eyed look he could manage and pulled back the blankets so she could climb in next to him. With a heavy sigh and look that said she still wasn't changing her mind, she crawled in a curled up next to him, resting her head on his chest.
"I still don't see why you aren't out there looking for him."
"Yes, you do." Although it was more than that now. He knew, just as surely as he had known that he had a cor, that, whoever he was, he wasn't interested in finding Blaine, at least not yet.
It wasn't unheard of, waiting a while after your manifestation to find your other half. Jeff, his friend since high school, had firmly believed that teen years were for being a teenager and he had had no interest in settling down until he was at least twenty. It had been easy enough for him; like Rachel his cor'sname had appeared tattooed on his skin on the day he turned eighteen. Since tattoo links could generally only be felt after the first Union, there was an on-line database where you could register your mark and search for the person whose mark matched yours. Jeff, and others like him, simply put off submitting their names and marks to the registry until they wanted to be found.
It was more difficult for people with a filum- an emotional thread that connected them to their other half- to keep themselves hidden. The connection could be felt both ways, and there was no way to stop your cor from looking for you, even if you weren't ready to be found yet.
"Yes," she agreed tentatively. "And it is very noble and chivalrous of you. But this is your health. Whoever he is, you know your well-being is more important to him than his youthful freedom." She poked him pointedly in the side. "If it gets worse- No," she amended, "if it doesn't get better," she emphasized the words, twisting herself around so she was staring into Blaine's eyes, "you're going to go find him. Even if I have to lock you up in the back of my car and go looking myself. Promise?"
He sighed.
"Promise?" She prompted again.
He stared down into her face, which was wrinkled in concern. "Promise," he relented. "I'm sorry I've made you worry."
"If you were really sorry you would find a way to stop me worrying altogether," she returned, but more playfully then she had been. "Now that's settled," she flipped her hair over her shoulder and cuddled in closer, "I met Santana's new protégée." There was a liberal amount of sarcasm around the word protégée, Rachel had never had much regard for the fresh-faced youngsters that Santana surrounded herself with as she taught them her ways and inspired them on their budding career paths.
"Oh?" His eyes lit up, in general their group was very short on gossip.
"Tell me all about him."
"He's a jerk. And I still have no idea what they 'learn' from her. When I ran into them, she was giving him tips on how cage dance."
"An important skill, I'm sure. Imagine where my career would be if only I knew how to do that." He grinned. "Is he cute?"
She shrugged. "If you like the holier-than-thou, asshole type."
"So he fits the normal bill?"
Rachel held up her hand to tick of the qualifications on her fingers. "Asshole-cute. Single. Fresh off the place from the homeland; Ohio, again, although I think he moved around before. Wears a permanent look of superiority. Just turned 19."
"19? That's a little older than her usual."
I think the last one wore out her patience for wide-eyed kids just out of high school."
"18 isn't a kid," Blaine said defensively, fingers curling in frustration.
"Yes, because your 18 year old is proving himself to be the height of maturity."
Blaine made to pull himself away in anger, but Rachel held him firmly in place beside her. "Sorry," she apologized. 'We've talked about that enough tonight." She waited until he relaxed again before saying, "Santana's girl from last year, Lilian?"
"Leanna," corrected Blaine. She had been particularly difficult to be around, convinced her high school mean girl routine would carry her as far in the real world as it had done while she was still in school.
"Right," Rachel nodded her head. "She just got a record deal."
"Really?" Blaine settled back into the pillows, eyes drifting closed as he listened to his best friend hypothesize about Leanna's upcoming career. Even as he grunted in agreement to something Rachel was saying, he found himself drifting off to dreamland.
Rachel stopped mid-tirade when she realized she had lost her audience. Gently she reached out her hand to press against Blaine's forehead, sighing because his fever hadn't gone down. Slipping away to the kitchen, she prepared him another cool compress. When she returned to the bedroom, it was to find Blaine's hand unconsciously grouping across the mattress in search of the body that had just been lying next to his.
Her heart clenched in anger at whoever the selfish asshole was that was causing her best friend to suffer.
"Fuck him," she muttered. Humming quietly under her breath, so that Blaine might at least know she was in the room, she rifled through his drawers in search of something more comfortable than her skirt and sweater combination to sleep in. She settled on a pair or faded black shorts that looked almost as old as their friendship and a shirt Blaine had gotten at a 10K he had run a few years before.
Carefully she folded up her clothes and laid them on a nearby chair and smiled fondly at the fact that the shirt and shorts were only slightly too big for her.
The moment she was back in bed, Blaine was reaching out and pulling her to him. Tenderly she kissed his cheek. "We're going to find him," she promised. "Even if he doesn't want to be found."
Despite Rachel's whispered promise, there was nothing she could do to speed up the process of finding Blaine's cor.But the vitamin's he had finally been given by Dr. Gause seemed to be helping. He still didn't quite feel like his old self, but he was feeling better than he had in over a year.
Rachel even manged to keep her comments to passing snipes every third time they saw each other. Blaine was so grateful for this restraint that he let her have her moment and managed a placating nod that was hiding a grimace.
Blaine even found himself having a social life again. On the Tuesday nights he wasn't buried under a pile of papers to grade, he was back at The Loon for karaoke; every other Friday was spent out with Rachel, Santana, and Santana's protégée, Hunter; and Saturdays he was with Zach, cup of coffee clutched in his hand as he fought off the headache from the night before that was caused in equal parts from his hangover and listening to Hunter and Rachel argue with each other while Santana cackled in the background.
"How you doing there, cowboy?" Zach put his book down and looked down at his ex-who-was-now-just-his-friend. Blaine's head was pillowed in his lap and every time Zach shifted and the sun hit his face, he would grimace.
"Just. Move less," Blaine grunted. He groped around for his cup of coffee and took a long drink from it before settling back in Zach's lap.
The park around them bustled, filled with other people out enjoying the sunshine as well as those just cutting through on their way somewhere else. Being with Zach wasn't the same that it had been, but the comfort was still there, even if it was now tinged with a dulled pain.
"You always were so sensitive before you finished your first cup," teased Zach. "Well drink up, my friend, because we have a long day of people watching ahead of us."
The morning dragged on and Blaine felt his humanity claw its way out of the depths of his hangover.
Zach was in the middle of a running dialogue between a couple some thirty feet from them who were having a very intense discussion when Blaine realized exactly how hot it was outside. He had been freezing when he left his apartment that morning, but suddenly the sweater and long-sleeved shirt was too much for the warm mid-April sunshine.
Even after he had pulled off his sweater , he still felt it; a burning coming, not from outside, but inside. Flames that were licking away at his innards.
Blaine sat bolt upright, nearly hitting Zach in the face with his flailing arms. "He's here." His eyes frantically scanned the crowd, locking in on every face he could see before flitting to the next one. "He's here," he repeated in a whisper.
"Who?" Zach's head whipped around to follow Blaine's gaze. "Who?"
"Him." The feverish burning was diminishing. "Come on!" He jumped up and grabbed Zach wrist, pulling him along behind him as he pursued the flickering feeling of his filumup tourist crowded streets.
"I generally like to know who it is I'm chasing after," Zach grumbled between ragged breaths, the hand that Blaine wasn't holding clutching at the stich in his side as their feet pounded up the sidewalk.
"Fuck!" Blaine slammed to a stop as the invisible thread he had been following disappeared again. "It was him. He was right there."
"Who?"
"Him. My cor," he burst out in frustration.
"Are you sure? Shouldn't he not be running away from you?"
The crumbling realization slammed into him, the one he had been trying to deny and hide from himself since he first manifested. "He doesn't want me," he whispered, knees buckling.
With an easy step forward, Zach caught him. "Hey, now. You know that's not true," he soothed, letting Blaine knot his hands in his shirt. "We were in a crowded park. He was probably just scared of being around so many people. But," he poked Blaine's nose playfully. "You know what this does mean?"
"That you're willing to say anything to make me feel better even when you know it's an awful lie?"
"Close," Zach laughed, "but no. What it means," he said excitedly, "is that he's here. And he's looking for you."
—-
Over the next month, Blaine found himself wandering the city, in hopes of feeling that feverish spark light back up inside of him. It wasn't so much a search for his cor, at least that's what he told himself, but rather seeking an affirmation that he had actually felt that spark and that he really was somewhere nearby.
Sometimes he felt it, although it always was a pale imitation of what he had experienced in the park. It was like they were circling around each other and the few times it did feel like they were getting closer, the feeling disappeared almost as quickly as it came.
He got used to it, just like he had gotten used to the chills and the sickness before. He taught himself to more or less ignore the stuttered flickerings he sometimes felt while he was out, knowing that they would always amount to nothing in the end.
—-
"Nope," Santana burst into his apartment after he cancelled for the third Friday night in a row. "No more feeling sorry for yourself, Anderhobbit. You're getting up. We're going out. And you're getting laid."
Whenever they got together she always insisted it was going to be the night she got him laid. He was pretty sure she had mostly given up on it actually happening, but she continued to say it with as much determination as she had the first time. Ignoring his protests, she made a beeline for his closet and began rummaging through it while he helplessly trailed behind her, dodging a stream of flying shirts and shoes.
"I already told Rachel I wasn't interested."
"Which is why I am here and she isn't." She emerged from the closet with her outfit selection clutched in her hand. "Now change." She thrust them at him. "And don't think I'm afraid to pin you down to the bed and do it for you. My boy, Hunt, has been teaching me more than a few tricks he picked up from that fancy military prep school he went to." She took an intimidating step towards him, flexing her muscles as she advanced.
He weighed his chances, he was faster than she was and could probably get to the bathroom and lock himself in before she could stop him. But that determined glint in her eyes meant that she would be more than willing to stand outside the door all night, assuming she didn't know how to pick locks. And if he couldn't get there in time, he was probably going to be dive-tackled into his own bedroom floor and forcibly stripped of both his sweatpants and his dignity.
"Fine," he grumbled. "But I'm wearing that shirt," he pointed over Santana's shoulder to a simple black button down that she dutifully pulled from the closet and threw at his face.
"Fifteen minutes." She pointed a threatening finger at him. "And I'm counting." Looking smugly pleased with her own accomplishments, she sashayed out the door.
Just because he was being forced into going out, didn't mean he had any intention of enjoying himself. In fact, just to punish Santana for interrupting his planned night in, he was going to spend the entire night sulking into whatever drink she forced onto him.
Despite it still being on the early side, the club was nearly packed. Immediately he regretted not just wearing the short-sleeved shirt Santana had suggested for him, because the minute he started trying to wriggle through the dance floor, he was sweltering and by the time he made it to the back corner where Rachel and Finn had secured them a booth, he was starting to drip with sweat.
"Where's Hunter?" He shouted at them over the thumping base of the music.
Rachel shrugged, unconcerned. "Probably sucking face with some innocent," she shouted back. "He looked extra-predatory tonight."
"Actually," Santana plunked her drink down on the table, pushing Blaine towards the inside of the booth, "he's already on his way to the bathrooms. And his conquest didn't look that innocent."
"To the glamorous life," Blaine hoisted his glass into the air in a sarcastic salute. Santana clinked her glass against his, either not noticing his sarcasm or choosing to believe that he was genuinely enthusiastic about Hunter's Clarington's bathroom-based sex life.
Immediately Santana was off, talking about the house-party Hunter had had the week before and how both of them had missed out by not being there. Nothing about it sounded that exciting, it was just like every other house party he had that Blaine declined to go to. Rachel had made the mistake of doing it once and complained about it for a week afterwards- the beer-sticky floors, the people having sex in any semi-private area they could find, and senseless music that thumped through the apartment in decibels that discouraged talking.
"Stop looking like someone set all your bowties on fire," Santana chided. "Come dance with me." Without waiting for his agreement, she grabbed his hand and pulled him from the booth and over to the dance floor.
They squeezed their way through the mess of sweating, gyrating bodies to claim their own spot. With an overly-sensual twirl, Santana whipped around and so they were facing each other, wrapping his arms around her waist and draping hers across his shoulders. She began twisting her body in time with the music. The way they were pressed together combined with her steely glare forced him to move with her.
She was a good dance partner and Blaine normally enjoyed dancing with her, although they both did have a tendency to get a little handsy after a few too many drinks. It didn't take long for him to settle into their familiar rhythm, even if his movements were more mechanical than usual.
For six songs she stubbornly held him there until at last she shouted into his ear, "You looking fucking miserable."
"Thanks," he shouted back.
He felt fucking miserable. He hadn't wanted to leave his bed in the first place and the club was making him claustrophobic. He didn't know if it was because it had been so long since he'd last been to one, or if he had finally outgrown the stage in his life where he found being jam-packed into a room with hundreds of strangers enjoyable. Whichever it was, he felt like he was seconds away from a panic attack. His heart was thundering in his ears, he couldn't seem to draw enough air to catch his breath, and his skin prickled, burning up and stretch too tight over the rest of him.
"Leave," she sighed. "You're killing my buzz."
He smiled at her and pressed a grateful kiss to her cheek. He knew her constantly harassing him to come out with them was her own way of expressing that she cared about him and most nights he was more than willingly to tolerate it.
"You owe me though. A whole night of good dancing. Not this weak-ass shit you brought to the floor tonight."
"Half a night," he bartered.
"And two rounds of drinks."
"And two drinks," he agreed, knowing to make the clarification. Many a poor soul had made the offer to buy Santana Lopez a round of drink only for her to order three or four drinks, insisting they all went well together and drinking from each in turn, devilish smirk on her face.
"Deal. Now get out of here, Anderson. And if you see Hunter on your way out tell him to come find me. Auntie Snix don't like to be ignored all night. Even if it is for a hot piece of tail."
Figuring the least he could do was to actually track Hunter down and give him the message, Blaine wound his way along the outskirts of the floor, feeling like a voyeur as he tried to stealthily ascertain whether he was part of any of the couples who had created their own secluded niche in the crowded club.
"Hunter!" He exclaimed, finally spotting him basically pawing a stranger in a half-curtained alcove. "Hunter!" He yelled again, louder and more impatiently this time as he battled against the crowd to get to them. He was feeling worse by the second and just wanted to leave. His head now felt like there was an iron clamp around it and his heart was trying to race its way out of his chest.
He was five steps away when Hunter pulled back from his partner, turning around to either growl in annoyance that he was being interrupted or to jovially greet Blaine and invite him to join. With Hunter, it was always a toss-up.
Whatever his greeting was, Blaine didn't hear. He was too busy striding the last few steps towards them and physically tearing Hunter away from the tall green-eyed man who had been so thoroughly enjoying his attention.
"Blaine," Hunter nodded quickly. "Do you two know each other?" He asked, looking back and forth between them in bemusement.
No, they didn't. Blaine had never seen this man before. And yet. And yet.
"Don't ever touch him again," growled Blaine.
He didn't know what he was feeling anymore. Everything was too hot and too cold, too big and too small. Time was had either come to a complete stop or was racing forwards, pitching them eons into the future. .
The stranger grinned. "Possessive. I never thought I'd like that in a man. But on you? Super hot. I'm Sebastian Smythe."
Blaine flushed. Possessive had never been a look he had worn before, at least not since he was seven and Cooper had tried to steal all of his toys claiming them as a 'big brother tax.' But he couldn't help himself. Not when there was someone else wrapped around hiscor, his other half. Not when he had never had the pleasure of being in the same position, claiming the other man for his own and being claimed in return.
"Blaine Anderson," he offered, reaching his hand out to shake Sebastian's, just like he would if he were any other person he met. Amusedly, Sebastian shook his hand in return, both of them trembling at the sensation of their first physical contact.
Sebastian leaned closer to Hunter and stage whispered an appreciative, "You never mentioned he looked liked that."
Hunter rolled his eyes and shrugged.
Blaine's mind whirled, struggling to keep up. It was clear that Sebastian and Hunter had known each other longer than just the night. Clear that, not only were they familiar with each other, they also knew each other well enough that Hunter would have reason to talk to Sebastian about Blaine, even though Blaine was a virtual nobody in his life. He was a friend of a friend that Hunter talked to for a maximum of thirty minutes twice a month and Sebastian had heard of him.
He felt his brain trying to stutter to life and groping around for anything to say. "D-do you need a drink?"
Sebastian's kiss-swollen lips smirked. "Do I look like I need a drink?" He held up the nearly full bottle of beer that he had probably gotten when he first came in and forgot about once his mouth had become sufficiently distracted by other pursuits.
"I-," his mind had short-circuited and the rest of his sentence came out as nothing more than garbled sounds, tripping over each other as they rushed to escape his mouth.
"Well, while this is certainly precious-," Hunter teased, annoyingly nonchalant for someone that had just been manhandled away from his conquest in a public.
"Go find your sugar mama, Hunt," Sebastian said breathlessly, unable to tear his eyes away from Blaine. "And make take care of Lex. You know where the food and everything is." He reached out for Blaine's hand again and this time didn't let it go. "I'm not sure when I'll be home."