author's notes: sorry to everyone who thought Blaine and Sebastian would be meeting soon (i'm really not, i enjoy dragging this out). thanks for the wonderful love and excitement, i'm really excited for this story! for any questions feel free to hit me up on tumblr or here in the comments!

.

(BURNING) ONE HELL OF A SOMETHING;;

chapter two

.

(day one)

Sebastian Smythe.

This can't be happening.

He pinches his thigh again until it bruises but he fails to snap out of his stupor. Somehow his dream sank its claws so deep into him conventional methods for waking up aren't working – he stumbles out of bed as quietly as he can, hoping that proper head-to-toe blood flow might help get his head in check, but the name on his wrist doesn't change, doesn't fade, doesn't disappear.

Glancing back at Tina his heart starts in a panic; his best friend's still sound asleep but he dreads the prospect of telling her what happened. She'll laugh at him, Sam will laugh at him, everyone will point their finger and accuse him of manipulating the system – he got his celebrity crush's name to appear as his soulmark. He swallows hard, the room spinning, and he grabs his phone before running to the bathroom. Once inside he locks the door, and sits himself down on the closed toilet to research a thing or two on his phone.

He opens Google and types in 'hysterical soulmark' with shaking hands, in case that's actually a thing and something the doctor might help him get rid of with a few pills. Unfortunately all the links lead to conspiracy websites created by the kind of crackpots he and Sam like to make fun of, while every fresh glance at the cursive penmanship inked into his skin makes him doubt his own skepticism. Because there's no way Sebastian … he shakes his head, no, it can't be, Sebastian can't be his soulmate. Maybe all his fantasies had somehow convinced his brain that he and Sebastian should be fated together and his body responded in kind. Maybe this could be fixed.

He scrolls through a few more links which fail to provide any answers – as far as the World Wide Web is concerned no one has ever presented with this type of symptom. For all its flaws, the system's pretty straightforward: the name you're granted is the name you're stuck with for the rest of your life. He sinks his face down into the palms of his hands, forcing deep even breaths into his lungs – he doesn't want to be known as the guy who was so hot for a celebrity he actually fooled his body into believing said celebrity was his soulmate; he'll be a laughingstock, the class clown, the butt of every joke.

But he won't be the victim again.

Standing up he walks over to the sink and holds his wrist under the tap, running cold water first, then incrementally dialing up the heat: could this be some kind of practical joke Sam and Tina were playing on him? Had they snuck some kind of psychotropic drug into his food last night? There was a market for drugs that made the soulmark disappear – scientists first developed it during the Cold War under the guise of offering some kind of comfort for those people who never found their soulmates; the same conspiracy crackpots he and Sam joked about claimed the drugs protected the identities and soulmates of government agents and spies.

He soaps up his wrist and scrubs at his skin with a washcloth. There aren't any drugs that can randomly make a soulmark appear though, none that he's heard of anyway. Besides, his friends wouldn't be this cruel, they understood the importance of this, it was a tradition as old as the world, tracing back to Ancient Mesopotamia, so ingrained into every single culture it was a way of life. No, Sam and Tina wouldn't do this.

So could it be? He dries off his wrist and hand and holds it up to eye level, Sebastian's name vibrating on his skin as if it has a heartbeat of its own. Could Sebastian be his soulmate? It seems impossible, it seems like a dream, a fantasy written into the pathways of his cerebellum by his own hand, but he's decidedly awake right now and his skin still reads the same name.

"Blaineydays," Tina sings right outside the door, followed by a few consecutive knocks that make his heart leap up in his chest. "What are you doing in there?"

"I'll be right out!" he calls, but doesn't move an inch. What will he tell everyone? Soulmate or not, Sebastian's name on his wrist will surprise everyone, and all the people in his life know about his crush; there are framed movie posters up on his bedroom walls, he has scrapbooks with articles, he has about a dozen image folders dedicated to Sebastian on his computer. He's read fan fiction for Christ's sake. No matter how he looked at it, this will be an unmitigated disaster.

"What does it say?" Tina squeals, her feet thumping on the ground as she jumps up and down. "Blaine, you're killing me, get out of there."

He flushes the toilet even though he didn't use it, scouring the bathroom for anything that might keep the inevitable at bay for a few moments longer. Luckily he had the prudence to leave his hoodie here, and he pulls it on over his long-sleeved pajamas, all in the hopes of keeping his wrist covered no matter what wild gestures he's about to make.

He opens the door and stares Tina right in the eye, shoulders hunched and about four feet tall, his wrist weighing him down with the force of a few cinder blocks. Tina waits in trepidation as if he's about to divulge the answer to the universe and it breaks his heart that he chooses to lie to her. "It's– no one we know."

To his surprise, Tina only smiles brighter. "I'll fire up my laptop," she says, and sprints towards the end of the bed, where she deposited her laptop after their Sebastian marathon last night.

"No, Tay–"

When Tina's wide eyes question his entire existence up until then he almost blurts it out, Sebastian Smythe is my soulmate! We're going to get married and have babies one day! but then the truth of it hits him all over again: how the hell will he convince anyone, his parents, his friends, the world, that teenage heartthrob Sebastian Smythe has been fated to him? He'll have to face cameras and reporters and Sebastian, and more than likely end up in magazines and tabloids. There's no telling how his life might change. And that all hinges on the hope that he's not in fact dreaming, or not currently slipped into a coma; maybe he ruptured a blood vessel in his brain and he floated up to heaven, there's a slew of other explanations before he has to accept that Sebastian's name has permanently etched itself into his skin.

"I'm starving," he says, even though the mere thought of food stirs nausea at the pit of his stomach.

Tina leaps up, and claps her hands together, beaming, "I'm going to make you an extra special birthday breakfast, birthday boy."

Soon they make their way downstairs to the kitchen and Tina pulls out all she needs to make blueberry pancakes, his favorite – when she promised him she'd treat him to an extensive and festive breakfast two weeks ago this isn't how he imagined he'd feel. His lies don't digest too well and his worries only make things worse; those two words on his wrist twisted him into a tiny mess, his thoughts racing faster than he can track, his heartbeat not slowing down. Thankfully Tina doesn't notice his distraction, but rattles on and on about Mike and all the double dates in their future, about attending Brown together and doing well, and being lucky enough to share that life with a soulmate. He loves Tina's unbridled enthusiasm, her unapologetic sentiment in every aspect of life and her relentless loyalty as a friend, which somewhat soothes his troubles – maybe she'll laugh, initially, but once his emotional distress becomes apparent she'll be the friend he needs.

He squeezes some oranges and makes coffee for him, tea for Tina, and it's a testament to the Cohen-Chang's willpower that they remain upstairs while they decorate the breakfast table, the scent of fresh pancakes and coffee mixing into an irresistible combination. He eats three pancakes, even manages a few smiles when texts start pouring in on his phone, two separate ones from Cooper and Charlie, begging him to change his mind and visit them this summer, Mercedes from LA as well, Marley and Sugar, even Jake and Ryder took time out of their feud to leave him a message on Facebook.

Tina presents him with a Brooks Brothers gift card for which Sugar, Artie and Sam pitched in too, and a pile of birthday cards he can decorate his room with later. The Cohen-Changs join them in the kitchen once they finish up, and let them out of doing the dishes after Tina not so subtly shoots her parents a few pointed looks.

"Come on, show me," Tina says the second they set foot in her bedroom and closes the door behind her, strategically blocking an escape to both the bathroom or back the way they came.

He tugs at his left sleeve, the hoodie falling crooked off his shoulder, Sebastian's name burning through two layers of fabric. "I don't really feel like researching yet." He grimaces. "Can't we– watch a movie or something?"

"Why are you embarrassed?" Tina asks. "I swear to God I won't tell anyone."

"It's not that."

Tina's eyes skip from his left hand back up to his eyes. "Is it Sam?"

Lord knows why Tina seems to be stuck on this idea of Sam's name appearing on his wrist – he's not in love with Sam, and he has no desire for the universe to divulge the blonde as his soulmate, not only because that would radically complicate a friendship he holds dear, not to mention Sam's sense of self. No, Sam's straight, and one day a lucky girl will be happy to find his name on her wrist.

"No, it's not Sam."

Tina makes a grab for his arm, but he takes a step back, barely maintaining his balance. "Tina, don't–"

But Tina forces him back against the bed, "Show me!" she demands.

He's necessitated to stretch his arm over his head, but it only makes Tina more tenacious as she jumps up and down. The tactic seems to work for a bit, until Tina gets tired of jumping, takes a deep breath while scowling at him, and just pushes him back onto the bed.

"Tina!" he screams as she clambers on top of him and clutches his arm close to his chest, but his wonderfully petite best friend proves much stronger than she looked – she tugs at his arm until he has no more fight left in him. Straddling him around the hips, Tina slowly pulls his arm up, peeling back his sleeve.

Her eyes go wide. "Blaine…"

Tina blinks in much the same manner he had an hour and a half ago, stroking her thumb over Sebastian's name to make sure it's not a hoax, and the silence is excruciating, Tina as lost as he felt, scrounging for answers or an explanation that might help calm his raging panic.

"How did you do this?"

"I didn't." He struggles free from under Tina and sits at the far edge of the bed. His skin itches right below Sebastian's name and he scratches at it again, as if it might yet disappear if he wished hard enough. "I couldn't have, right?"

"I don't know." Tina shrugs, hands folded neatly in her lap. "I don't think so? But– Blaine."

Tina pins his tattoo down with two tersely set brown eyes.

"I–" He sighs, running a hand through his hair. "I know."

It's a disaster, that's what, Sebastian doesn't even know he exists, how would he let him know he's out here waiting for him? Does he show up at one of his red carpet events and hope for their eyes to cross so they could have that one magical moment that'll bind them together? He's fantasized about it, sure, the same way thousands of others have dreamed about waking up with a desired soulmark – he can't count the amount of One Direction fans who'd stood up and claimed to be Zayn Malik's or Harry Styles' soulmate, but so far they'd all turned eighteen without the tattoo of their dreams showing up on their skin. Much to their dismay.

But here he is, and if he's completely honest he never truly wanted Sebastian's name to appear anywhere on his body. He had a crush, a silly crush like there'd been before and like there'd be after.

"Well, at least you know," Tina says.

"What do you mean?"

"Think about it." Tina faces him. "Yesterday you were still worried you might have to wait to find him. But Sebastian's the one who waited all these years."

The revelation hits him like a ton of bricks.

Of course. There's no need to panic, Sebastian received his mark four years ago, he's known his name all that time so it's all simply a matter of getting the both of them in the same room. Then again, how would he insert himself into Sebastian's life? How do people usually go about meeting celebrities?

"Blaine?" Tina asks, a hand on his shoulder. "You okay?"

This will be tricky no matter what – he doesn't want to draw attention to himself by going straight to the press, that would put him in the spotlight and Sebastian might think he's out for fame and money, which couldn't be further from the truth: he wants Sebastian to see him free of any media sensation, they're two boys fated together by a higher force and that shouldn't be a spectacle, it should be special, a meeting of two souls who'd been wandering until that time, that moment where their eyes meet and it's like home was a place he'd carried with him all along – except home wasn't a place at all, but a name printed deep into his skin.

He instructs Tina to turn on her laptop after all, and they spend a good half hour researching any and all articles relating to Sebastian's soulmark. In truth he already knew the answer, celebrities are protected by agents and managers, an army of lawyers and contracts stipulating that any tabloid that snapped a picture of their soulmate's name and published it could be sued from here to high heaven, which, historically, had not ended well for the magazines in question.

Congress voted on the Soulmark Privacy Act in 1944 after the infamous Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart affair – as the story goes Bogart and Bacall met on the set of their first movie To Have and Have Not and sparks flew between the two co-stars. No one thought much of it beyond the usual early Hollywood gossip; Bogart didn't have a reputation of sleeping with his leading ladies and entered his third marriage a few years previous, and Bacall was barely nineteen years old, a bright and promising career ahead of her. When one lucky photographer took a picture of the name 'Humphrey DeForest Bogart' on Bacall's wrist however, opinions divided into two camps – there were those who pitied Bogart for having to wait that long for his soulmate to walk into his life and never blamed him for trying to find happiness with others, and there were those who condemned Bogart for giving up so easily.

The whole affair tore through Hollywood like wildfire, every studio executive, manager and star got their say until politicians caught on as well – new technologies and the rising star culture were creating the need for new privacy laws, and like much else, what the stars wanted, the stars usually received. The Act passed Congress faster than any other before, and when a similar scandal arose around Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton's on-set affair, two magazines ended up going bankrupt.

Unsurprisingly, celebrity culture had the highest divorce rate in the world.

Not all celebrities bought into the privacy thing – some came out and said it, which had resulted in the most lasting relationships in Hollywood, Bacall and Bogart's included, while others, like Angelina Jolie, gave the system the middle finger by having her soulmark tattooed over before her career even took off; the world cried outrage, but that wasn't anything Jolie wasn't used to, until last year, when Brad revealed his soulmark to be Angelina's name.

Strangely, he never thought about Sebastian's soulmark until Tina mentioned it. Most people his generation grew up knowing celebrities rarely came forward or even talked about it, so there was no point in even speculating. Sebastian may well have gone on for years, flitting from one relationship to the other; he'd been linked to several celebrities since his rise to stardom – back when he was on Broadway as a teenager he had a relationship with Nick Duval, one of his co-stars who ended up marrying his soulmate Jeff Sterling; he'd had a torrid affair with Biff McIntosh, a senator's son who'd broken things off the moment the press caught wind; and last year he'd been spotted going around with Elliott 'Starchild' Gilbert, the famous rock star who'd burned through his own fair share of relationships so far.

He never heeded Sebastian's reputation, what did it matter to him what some Hollywood actor did with his private life, and it wasn't his place to judge him for that – this was celebrity culture through and through and he hadn't ever known that to be any different either. Even some of his friends had tried on other relationships; Sam dated Mercedes before she left for Los Angeles (her wrist had revealed a name unknown to any of them); Tina dated Artie for a few months but that didn't work out; and Marley had the most tragic story of them all – the eve of her eighteenth birthday she lay in Jake's arms, only to wake up with the name 'Ryder Lynn' imprinted on her skin. Jake and Ryder, friends up until that point, hadn't spoken to each other for several weeks now, and Marley stood caught in the middle, torn between what her heart felt and her body told her to feel. No one has so far dared to predict how that story would end.

So Sebastian's past didn't matter to him, he decides there and then, only his future, one he planned to be a part of before long.

But how to proceed?

"I should go talk to my parents," he says, and gets up, grabbing his overnight bag for a fresh outfit. They'll probably wonder why he hasn't called with the exciting news already, but this is something he should do face to face – he wants to see their expressions when he tells them that the boy plastered on his bedroom walls and their future son-in-law are one and the same person. Years ago, when Charlie emailed Cooper a picture of herself, his mom and dad couldn't believe Cooper's luck – at that time Charlie worked as a model and practiced photography as a hobby, two pursuits she now got paid for. His mom extolled Charlie's beauty every chance she got to anyone she came across – he wonders if she'd react the same way to Sebastian.

Tina reaches for her phone on the nightstand. "I'll call Sam."

"No, don't you dare." He snatches the phone from Tina's dainty hand before she can press a single key. "He already makes fun of us for liking Sebastian so much."

"But–"

"Tina Cohen-Chang." He grabs around both of Tina's wrists and sinks down to his knees. He doesn't want this to go any further than it needs to; he needs time to figure out how he's going to handle this whole situation and all his friends knowing won't hasten that decision. He needs a game plan, and his parents are masters at that. "Promise me you won't tell anyone until I've talked to my parents."

Tina averts her eyes, and he can practically feel her urge to tell the entire world pulsing through her body.

"Promise me."

Tina's mouth pulls down at the corners, signaling she's none too pleased with this, but eventually amends with a quiet, "Okay", replacing her phone on the nightstand.

Telling his parents about Sebastian feels like coming out all over again, that inevitable dread creeping into every pore as he sits his mom and dad down in the living room, claiming the small settee for himself – he rubs his hands together, his wrist covered up by the long sleeves of his shirt. The tension in the room rises as he searches for the right words, his parents holding hands while he works up the courage to share his news; he's more excited than scared at the prospect of meeting Sebastian, they're soulmates so there's nothing for him to worry about, yet he can't shake the feeling of a noose tightening slowly around his neck, ready to ensnare him at any moment.

Coming out was an added rite of passage every LGBT youngster had to go through on top of receiving his or her soulmark. With a mark appearing at eighteen there was a distinct deadline for those who were already sure of who they were, while for many others it involved a great deal of dread; a lot of people simply weren't sure until their wrists showed them the truth, and even then it didn't necessarily reveal their identities. He can't imagine what it must be like to wait for the answer to a question that's enough to give anyone a nervous breakdown.

He knew at fourteen, when he fell for Joey Walker, a boy he met playing tennis with a cute button of a nose and a lisp that started butterflies in his chest. They competed for the number one ranking in their age class throughout the year, alternating between the number one and two spot depending on how well they did in competitions, but a clear winner never arose. The first time his lips touched Joey's, right after the semi-finals against a rival club, and his heartbeat quickened, blood searing through his veins like hot lava, he knew he'd be destined to kiss boy lips for the rest of his life.

Joey and his family moved away right before his freshman year at McKinley, and they soon lost touch, but he'd discovered a part of himself so important the tiny burn of heartache didn't matter much – in the grander scheme of things he stood one step closer to his soulmate, and whether or not that turned out to be Joey he would be out there, proud and head held high, because this is who he was, who he was meant to be.

His parents took it as well as he expected, his mom smiled sadly but pulled him into a tight hug, and he never got anything other than her full support, the same way she supported him in every endeavor he undertook. His father, so similar to him when it came to expressing his deepest feelings, patted his shoulder and had tears in his eyes, but long after his confession took place he still had the exact same parents he'd always had, loving and kind, always there for him when he needed them.

Celebrities, ironically, were exempt many of these social pressures – the protection of their soulmate's name often went hand in hand with secrecy about their sexuality. Not that he believed anyone should be forced out of the closet, but the rich and famous lived in a world above the one of mere mortals, and the industry didn't encourage any teary-eyed coming out stories.

That's one of the reasons he admired Sebastian, he might hide his soulmark like many others but he never made a secret of his sexuality, coming out as gay the moment he peeked the world's interest when he played a young entrepreneur in The Road to Success. The world needed more celebrities like Sebastian, like Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka, Ellen and Portia, to show young people that despite the social pressure there's a future for them, that things get better in spite of what the world forces them to believe.

Once he's done talking his mom pats the spot on the couch between her and his dad, and he complies without question, yearning for some sound adult advice, anything really, so the ground beneath his feet might start feeling less like quicksand. His dad throws an arm around his shoulders and his mom holds one of his hands.

"Don't worry, sweetheart," she says, kissing his temple. "We'll figure this out."

It's not the advice he'd hoped for, but it helps free up some space in his lungs – his parents will have his back no matter what, and as soon as he calls Cooper he's sure his worries will seem futile; the soulbond is a powerful thing, something Sebastian will understand too.

His dad gets up. "I'll start making some calls," he says, but he's no sooner spoken the words or the phone rings.

He drops his head to his mom's shoulder, who cards her fingers through his hair softly, like she did often when he stayed home sick or felt sad for whatever reason – right now it offers the reassurance that he's not in this alone. He's never alone.

"Blaine, it's for you," his dad calls.

He stands up wondering who'd call him on the landline rather than his cellphone, but stands firmly nailed to the ground the moment the voice on the other end of the line speaks: "Blaine Anderson? Kim Steel, National Enquirer, how do you feel about being fated to hottie Sebastian Smythe himself?"

His heart almost gives out from shock. How the hell did the media get a hold of this so soon?

Something in the corner of his eye catches his attention, a series of flashes succeeding each other rapidly, coming from the front yard. "Just a minute," he tells Kim Steel, National Enquirer, and follows his parents towards the living room windows.

His dad pulls back one of the curtains, revealing a small army of journalists out on the lawn, some crews still setting up their cameras, others already excitedly reporting whatever information they'd been able to find.

Black spots dance in front of his eyes. His heart sinks to his stomach.

"Tina," he whispers. He should've really pushed her harder to say 'I promise' rather than settle for 'okay.'

.

.

to be continued

.