Hi there! I actually wasn't really planning on writing anything for a while, but I watched this movie the other day and it kind of made me. So yeah, as you can see based on the description, this is based on the movie In Your Eyes, which is a great movie with some great actors. A couple of quick things to note: 1) I don't think the bond will ever be explained. They don't explain it in the movie and I think it worked fine. So, if you need an explanation, well... Soulmate magic! 2) If you have seen the movie, I will be staying somewhat close to the plot of the movie, but not completely. Make of that what you will. Here's the prologue, the actual chapters are likely going to be much longer than this.
There is something to be said about being alone. Even the most social of butterflies needs time alone, to relax and just be by themselves. Nothing but calm and quiet, little moments where you are acutely aware of the sound of the fan hanging from the ceiling or maybe you figure out solutions to all the problems in your life or you make plans for the future.
Anyone who puts up a front in public, anyone who fakes strength or a brave face or a separate identity than who they truly are to stay safe, can let down their guard within the safety of their bedroom walls.
And the thing is, it's not that Kurt doesn't know what that feels like. He has his moments when he is alone – he knows he is alone – and yet at the same time, he isn't and he's sure of it. For as long as he can remember, there has been something (someone?) in the back of his mind, always there even when nobody else is around.
The one time he had said something to Rachel about it, she had gotten a look of confusion and concern on her face. She had then gone on to explain that she had also had some experience with stalkers, and a few nights later proceeded to stake out outside of his house. All through the night, she had given him updates that all amounted to that same thing: there was no evidence of someone creeping around out there. Not that he had expected there to be, anyways. He didn't think that it was a stalker, though apparently that had been how it had come across to her ears (though he wasn't sure whether to blame her or himself for her misconception, given how sometimes she just heard what she wanted to hear). He wan't sure how else to explain it to her.
Kurt had thought plenty about it (in those quiet moments when by all accounts he should have been alone). It didn't feel like he was being watched, though he wasn't sure what did feel like. The closest thing he had come up with to what it felt like was being haunted, but that didn't really ring true either. All he knew was that he had never truly felt all alone, but whatever it was that was constantly in his presence didn't feel menacing. It wasn't a threat, whatever it was. Maybe more of a friend.
He first started noticing it after his mother died. Not immediately after, because obviously his mind had plenty of other things to be focusing on, but in quiet moments when he was curled up against his father's side with no words exchanged between them, he was sure there was someone else there.
As weeks went by and the absence of his mom was still like a gaping wound in his side that no child had any idea how to fix, sometimes he would feel emotions that he knew weren't his own. Curled up in a ball holding a pillow sprayed with her perfume against his body as if for dear life, he would feel a shock of happiness and excitement run through him, as if he was running free and happy on a playground or something. He was almost sure that he could hear laughter in his head, laughter that wasn't his own but still sounded like a young boy's.
As he got older, there were more and more moments where he felt like the connection between him and his – what? Imaginary friend? Ghost? His whatever – was a whole lot stronger. There were feelings and sounds and sights that he couldn't quite explain.
Like when he had been over at Mercedes' house one night having a sleepover with her and Rachel, and all of a sudden he had been overcomes with a nervous feeling, almost like he was about to have a panic attack. He had excused himself, stepping outside and holding himself until it subsided.
Another one that stuck out to him was when he was sixteen, sitting in the middle of a very boring history lecture on one of the last few days of school, he had a very vivid image of the ocean at sunrise. It almost felt like he was really at the beach, and if he focused hard enough he could have sworn he felt the sea breeze against his skin, could hear the crash of the waves in his ears. But just as suddenly as the image appeared, it was gone. He tried to get it back, replaying the image in his head, but by then it was just a misplaced memory. That one in particular had struck him, because tat the time he had never actually seen the ocean in person, but about two years later when he had a few friends from glee club took a trip together to Myrtle Beach, it felt like a flashback instead of a new experience.
He doesn't tell anyone about it, not anyone since Rachel in high school. He knows that there's no good way to explain it, especially since he himself has no idea what it is. He doesn't believe in heaven but maybe he believes in reincarnation and if it is real, then maybe that is what this is? Are these moments when he feels like he's looking out of someone else's eyes actually memories from a paste life or something? The more he thinks about it, the more he's unsure, and some days he feels like maybe he's just making it all up in his head, or maybe there's something wrong with him. Until he has some sort of answers or he knows that he's not crazy, he isn't going to say anything, even if that means never saying anything to anyone about it.
And it's easy, most of the time. Occasionally he'll have a moment where he feels plunged into this other entity's life, something intense enough happening that he shows it outwardly, but it's relatively easy to make up a viable enough excuse that no one really questions him too much.
He's happy with the way things are, really. Sometimes he might start to hear a voice coming from whatever other side this is, but a lot of the time when it happens it is easy enough to simply block it out. Hell, from time to time the little moments of secondhand excitement are what gets him through long days.
So, things are good. There have been a few hiccups along the way, sure, but he would pay money to meet someone whose life worked out exactly as they wanted it to precisely. He isn't on Broadway and his name isn't written in lights anywhere, but that's alright. He has a good job with a major fashion designer that is sometimes overly demanding but always rewarding. He lives in New York City in an apartment that he never would have dared to dream of until he was actually living in it. He had told himself once that he wanted to be married by thirty, but here he was, twenty-five and happily married. His husband was a bit older, a fresh new doctor who was making a point of equipping Kurt with all the finer things in life.
He is comfortable, no, happy. He is happy. He is significantly ahead of his life plan, the way he sees it, and so there's no reason to complain. And if he stays busy, usually he doesn't take all too much notice of anything he can't explain.
On the other side of the country, Blaine Anderson isn't really sure how his life got to be how it is now.
If you had asked him ten years ago where he wanted to be by now, he would have told you that he was going to go to New York. For a long time, that had felt like a foregone conclusion.
And yet, here he is, living in Los Angeles where everyone is fake and there is no such thing as seasons.
Okay, it's not all bad, and he really shouldn't be complaining. He's living with Cooper, meaning that he gets to spend more time with his brother than he has in a long time, and rebuilding that bond has been good. And really, for an aspiring actor, he knows that there are a whole lot worse places that he could be.
So no, it isn't really ideal and it is nowhere near where he had wanted to be by now, but things could definitely be worse. He contents himself with where he is, picking up any small role wherever he can (no matter how embarrassing) and taking advantage of the ability to go to the beach in the middle of the winter but still never get too hot in the summer.
Still, though, he can feel the pull to get back to what he had originally planned, that pull sometimes feeling like something more literal than anything else.
He has always been a dreamer. The way Cooper put it was that he was only ever about half there, wherever he was. Back in school, there were certainly a few times that he had gotten asked a question then got in trouble for not knowing the answer, much less the question, due to his daydreaming. It was a blessing that he was a pretty smart guy and a good student most of the time, otherwise his life would've been a lot harder.
It just feels so real sometimes. One second he would be there in his room, everything normal, when all of a sudden he would blink and upon opening his eyes it was like he was in New York, making his way down a crowded sidewalk. He would find himself gazing out windows of tall buildings down at the people below, or leaning up against the wall of a subway cart with people packed in around him like sardines. He isn't quite sure how he could have such lifelike images in his head of somewhere that he has never been, but he's willing to accept it because of how he has always had an active imagination.
There were other things he had seen, though, that he can't as easily explain. One time he was in the middle of washing dishes when his hands stopped holding a plate and sponge and instead were holding a pencil and a sketchbook, and he could feel a phantom frustration. He hadn't been able to make out what exactly was on the page, but whatever it was, he is fairly certain that it wasn't anything he had ever drawn, especially considering 1) he is left-handed and the pencil is in his right hand in the vision, and 2) he isn't much of an artist and he has never pretended to be, either.
Overall, though, he doesn't really think too much of it. Sure, sometimes he will feel things that aren't there or maybe he will get overcome with some emotion he has no reason to feel, but who doesn't, right? It doesn't seem like something he should be too concerned about, anyways.
What it does seem like is a person. That is all he could say with any amount of certainty. When he was a kid, he had at times attributed these images and feelings to being an imaginary friend. Now that he is older he is fairly certain that it isn't something he's consciously making up, half the time thinking that it is a part of his subconscious close to wherever dreams come from, the other half thinking that maybe it is something else entirely.
For the most part, he is happy to leave it at that. Nothing good ever comes from questioning a good thing, right? And he is fairly certain that this is a good thing, whatever it is. Sure, sometimes it weighs on him and even if he is having a good day there is a quiet pool of dread in his stomach, but those times are rare and the good days outweigh the bad by far. And that is good enough.