Summary: Soulmates may be rare, but Kurt has a mark and feels inexplicably drawn to the boy at the coffee shop with the cigarette and piercings.
For the prompt: First Kiss, and the prompt by Sofia Michelle: badboy! Blaine / Soulmate! Klaine.
Kurt saw him every day. He always sat at the same little table under the awning over the coffee shop, the boy with the coffee and cigarettes. Kurt had discovered the coffee shop a few days after moving to New York and had seen the boy for the first time then, sitting at that table, cigarette in hand and coffee in front of him, watching the world go by. Kurt had returned to the coffee shop every day since and, like clockwork, the boy was always at that same table.
Kurt didn't know why he was so drawn to him, why he so covertly watched him with fascination while he drank his coffee. Maybe it was the look in his golden eyes as he watched the city thrum around him, or the way the smoke curled from his mouth to hang in the air before him. It could be the silver ring that glinted in his nose, or the swirling tattoo on his collarbone that peeked out from the neck of his shirt. Maybe it was something more than that.
Soulmates were a wishful fantasy for most people. Finding the one person you were destined to be with and with whom you would form the most beautiful, sacred bond with. The bond and love between soulmates was written into books dating back hundreds of years, but they were still incredibly rare. In spite of this, nearly all soulmates managed to find each other, somewhere, somehow.
There were occasionally cases of people lying of being soulmates. It wasn't easy to catch out these liars. Soulmates were naturally drawn to each other and easily formed strong bonds of both love and friendship. Without being one of a paired soulmate, it was difficult to tell who the true soulmates were and who the pretenders were. The only sign to truly tell them apart were the soulmate marks.
A mark was present on each person in a pair of soulmates. They were identical in both placement and appearance, found on any part of the body in varying shapes and sizes. They looked like birthmarks, which caused a big problem: many people had birthmarks. Kurt had one himself: an irregularly shaped mark no bigger than his thumbnail on his right hip; it looked almost like a splatter of ink the colour of strawberry juice. The mark stood out starkly against his pale skin and he hated the imperfection at first, until his dad reminded him that it could mean he had a soulmate. Now the mark caught his eye whenever he looked at his naked reflection in the bathroom mirror. He wondered if someone, somewhere had an identical mark to his own tattooed on their hip. The disheartening thing was that it could just as easily be a birthmark. But still Kurt found himself wondering about soulmates as he watched the dark-haired boy drink his coffee and smoke his cigarette.
Usually Kurt thought smoking to be a disgusting habit, with its associated horrible smell and health risks, but for some reason, with this boy, he found the sight of smoke swirling from his mouth to be attractive. The piercings the boy had in his ears and nose, the rings and necklaces he wore, the ratty biker boots, the tattoo – all were a source of fascination to him, causing heat to pool in his belly. In his mind's eye, Kurt could see his best friend and his dad shaking their heads in united disapproval, but the image was fleeting, like a flutter of butterfly wings. This boy was special, he could feel it.
He didn't think the boy ever noticed him until one day, over two weeks after his first visit to the coffee shop, he winked at him on his way to dump his empty cup in the trash. Kurt's cheeks warmed and he watched the boy walk away with his pulse thrumming.
The next morning, the boy wasn't at his usual table. Kurt felt deflated and disappointed by his absence and the abrupt disappearance of his wishes for a soulmate. Then he caught the familiar scent of cigarette smoke.
He whirled around to face the opposite direction, clutching his coffee tightly so it didn't fly out of his hand. There, behind him, sat the curly-haired boy, cigarette in hand and coffee cup on the table. Relief made a smile bloom across Kurt's face, until he realised the boy was sitting at the table he usually sat at. His smile froze in place.
Before Kurt could make a decision about what to do, the boy looked over and met his eyes. Kurt's pulse stuttered; there was something in those hazel eyes, an invitation and something else, something that reminded Kurt of mornings looking at the mark on his hip. He walked over to the table and sat down opposite the boy.
As soon as he sat down the boy stubbed out his cigarette in the table's ashtray, his movements quick and almost frantic. When he didn't speak after looking back up across the table, Kurt cleared his throat.
"Um, hi." He shifted in his chair, a blush heating up his cheeks under the boy's gaze. He set his coffee down on the table to stop it burning his hand. "I'm Kurt."
"Kurt," the boy repeated, his voice soft and lovely, at odds with the harshness of his clothes and piercings. "My name is Blaine." He extended a hand across the table.
When Kurt shook his hand he felt sparks zing up the nerves in his arm from each part of skin where they touched, leaving a tingling sensation in their wake. His pulse thrummed faster and the air in his body lightened, leaving him feeling as though he could lift off his seat and float away in the breeze. The expression on Blaine's face shifted to something like wonder, letting him know he wasn't the only one feeling this way. Kurt wanted to remark on it, wanted to ask Blaine if he had a strawberry-coloured splotched mark on his hipbone, but it felt wrong to ask. Blaine was still a stranger to him, despite their connection. He couldn't ask him about a birthmark right after meeting.
Blaine was struggling to regain his composure. "So what is it? Work? College?" He lounged back in his chair, trying to look relaxed, but far too rigid and tense to pull it off. His eyes were still too wide and bright; they kept sweeping Kurt's face and upper body, drinking in the sight of him.
Kurt pawed for his coffee and took a quick sip to relieve his dry throat. The hot liquid seared some courage into him, like the caffeine was a shot of braveness into his veins.
"I'm in my final year at NYADA," he replied. "I want to be a Broadway actor."
Blaine nodded coolly, though his eyes brightened with interest. "I finished studying music last year," he said, tilting further back on his chair. "I work for Atlantic Records now and am in a band with some friends."
Kurt twitched involuntarily in his seat. Blaine was a musician. He didn't think he could be with someone who didn't share his passion for music – not that he was thinking about him and Blaine being together. But from just those simple revelations about each other he could feel the connection between them strengthening. The desire to know more about Blaine became an ache inside of him.
Blaine was watching him over his coffee cup as he took a drink. "Have you always lived in New York?"
They continued like that: asking each other questions, learning about their lives. They talked until the last few mouthfuls of their coffees had grown cold and they had to get fresh ones, Blaine paying for them despite Kurt's protests. It turned out they had much more in common than Kurt thought, and he was glad he didn't have any classes until later so he could talk to Blaine for longer. Eventually, though, he had to leave. He picked up his satchel slowly, reluctant to go.
"I have to go to class now," he announced unhappily. He felt a small flicker of delight when he saw his own disappointment reflected on Blaine's face.
"So soon?" Blaine watched Kurt get to his feet with eyes dulled of their previous bright spark. "But we only just met!"
Kurt's heart jolted and his breath caught in his throat. He paused in the process of picking up his empty coffee cup, looking at Blaine as a colossal tidal wave of emotion crashed inside of him – surprise, hope, disbelief, wonder… Blaine felt it, too.
As he watched, Blaine's right hand strayed unconsciously to his hip. Kurt felt the jolting sensation in his heart again, along with the return of the tingling.
"I'm going to be late," he said numbly, more on autopilot than actually caring about what he was saying.
"Will you be here tomorrow?" Blaine asked, his words almost tripping over each other in his haste to speak them. His eyes were desperate and Kurt kept looking to where his hand had touched against his hip.
"I will."
Kurt hovered beside the table for a moment longer, eyes locked on Blaine's, and a question rising to teeter on the very tip of his tongue. The connection between them strengthened, feeling almost like the stretched piece of thread described in some of the old soulmate myths, the thread that connected the two halves of the whole.
"I'll see you tomorrow morning," Kurt said when he remembered his class again.
Blaine smiled somewhat shyly. "Until tomorrow."
Kurt could feel Blaine's eyes on him as he hurried away towards NYADA. When he rounded the corner and disappeared into the crowds swarming the adjacent street, he could still feel Blaine with him, like some ethereal part of the boy from the coffee shop had been lodged deep inside of him. Kurt wasn't sure, but he thought he remembered something from the texts on soulmates about being able to sense your partner after the first meeting.
He didn't pay much attention in his class. With his head filled with the insistent thought of soulmates and the feeling of Blaine coursing through his veins, he spent the lecture scouring through the internet on his phone, reading up on all the official accounts and first-hand descriptions of soulmate meetings. His breath came faster and his pulse raced when he recognised the emotions and sensations written in each account he read. His fingers traced the spot of his mark on his hip.
The next morning at the coffee shop, he felt Blaine before he saw him. His heart skipped and his stomach bubbled with delight and anticipation when he neared the little café and spotted Blaine sitting at his usual table. He was looking in Kurt's direction, an eager smile on his face.
"Kurt!" he greeted happily. "Good morning!"
"Morning!" Kurt replied, stopping by the chair opposite Blaine. He noticed the two cups of coffee sitting on the table and the lack of a cigarette.
Blaine nudged the cup closest to Kurt, pushing it a little closer to him. "I got you coffee. Is a non-fat mocha alright?"
Kurt paused in the process of setting his satchel down. "How did you guess my coffee order?"
For a second or two, Blaine looked mildly puzzled, and then he shrugged. "I don't know; I just…knew."
Filing away that fact for research later, Kurt sat down and picked up his coffee. "Not smoking today? Every morning I've seen you here you've smoked a cigarette."
A small smile lifted one corner of Blaine's mouth. "I don't smoke much; the cigarettes I smoked here in the morning were the only ones I had all day. I smoked to settle my nerves and calm my buzzing head before the day began, but today…" He paused, meeting and holding Kurt's gaze. "I didn't need it."
Kurt struggled to pull in a breath.
From then on they met every morning for coffee and to share their lives with each other. Every day the bond between them grew stronger, until Kurt could sense how Blaine was feeling even before he got a good look at his eyes and face. As with Blaine knowing his coffee order, he found he instinctually knew things about Blaine as well. He didn't know how to describe it; it was like they'd know each other their whole lives.
Kurt desperately wanted to ask Blaine about the mark, but every time he went to, shyness and nerves muted him. Although deep down he knew that they were soulmates, that they couldn't be anything but, he would keep doubting it until he saw the physical proof. He just couldn't believe that Blaine was his; that he was one of the lucky few with a soulmate. It felt like the fairy tale he had always thought it to be.
They had traded phone numbers now and regularly texted each other throughout the day and called one another at night. So when Kurt saw the graffiti decorating a wall near the subway station by the coffee shop, he texted Blaine to ask him to meet right away.
The graffiti was of two hearts joined by what Kurt presumed was an artery or a vein. Instead of the red paint of blood flowing between the two hearts, another brightly coloured substance swirled in the blood vessel and the chambers of the hearts. From a distance it looked like chaotic swirls of every colour imaginable, but when he stepped closer to the wall, his breath caught in his throat, he saw that the colours formed dozens of tiny images. His eyes scanned the entire piece, seeing love hearts, coffee cups, a scarf, the New York skyline, and a tiny bird amongst the innumerable little drawings. Such tiny images could only have been painted on with a brush. People pushed past him on their way towards the subway, but still Kurt stared at the stunning artwork before him, entranced. He didn't know how long he stood there before he suddenly understood the painting, but when he did, he gasped out loud.
It was life shared between two people in the deepest way. It was soulmates, represented in painted image in the most beautiful way. And there was something else familiar about it, almost like he himself had spent hours painting the bond of soulmates on the wall. With his pulse thumping behind his ears, he searched the wall for an artist's signature. He let out his held breath when he saw it: the initials, B.A.
It could have been anyone in the city with the name B.A., but Kurt knew it was Blaine.
He'd grabbed his phone, texted Blaine to meet him at the coffee shop, and then made his way over there, his head full of the image on the wall.
As soon as Blaine arrived, he knew. Whether it was the look on Kurt's face or some deeper, instinctual knowledge, Blaine knew that Kurt had seen the graffiti. He took his time sitting down opposite Kurt, his body stiff with nerves at the truth that had still gone unsaid. Because Kurt had seen the tiny images within the hearts and the vessel – the coffee cup, the scarf, the dressmaker's tape, the intertwining swirls in shades of blue and grey and green; he'd seen the patterns in them, understood what it all meant. The graffiti wasn't just an image of soulmates; it was an image of them.
Blaine cleared his throat quietly. "You saw the graffiti," he said. He didn't need to ask, he knew.
Kurt opened his mouth to simply agree, but changed his mind mid-sentence. "I- It's beautiful." His right hand shook where it rested on the table top, so he dropped it down to his lap, out of sight. "I don't think it's possible to use words to describe soulmates, but somehow you've done it through art. It's breath-taking."
Blaine's throat bobbed as he swallowed and he swivelled a ring he wore on his right hand around his finger. It was still a little odd to Kurt, seeing Blaine this nervous and unsure of himself. Blaine was someone who had always been so cool and collected, with sharp eyes and a grin like the edge of a knife blade, but in spite of his unchanged appearance, he looked a different person to Kurt. He knew Blaine a lot better now, better than he knew anyone else in the world, better than anyone else would know him. He knew there was a lot more beneath the leather jacket, messy curls, and nose piecing, more than first met the eye. In contrast to his tough exterior, Blaine was the sweetest soul he had ever met. He couldn't have dreamed of a better person to be his other half.
"I have a mark on my right hip," Blaine whispered. "A small, uneven mark."
Kurt exhaled, his eyes filming over with tears. "Me, too," he breathed.
Blinking against his own tears, Blaine huffed out a tiny, delighted laugh. "You're my soulmate." A smile crinkled up the corners of his eyes, causing a tear to trickle down his cheek. "Kurt Hummel," he said, holding his hands out across the table and smiling wider when Kurt took them. "My soulmate."
Kurt made a small noise of joy, of elation, of completeness – of every soaring emotion bubbling inside him. He stroked a thumb down the side of Blaine's hand, thrilling at the softness, the warmth, and the familiarity. They gazed at each other for a long moment, drinking in each other's smiles and watery eyes. Blaine squeezed Kurt's hands gently.
"I think this is the part where we kiss," he said. A soft blush immediately followed his words.
Kurt laughed. "I think so."
"Um." Looking at the space separating them, Blaine shifted his chair round the table towards Kurt. He winced at the drag of the chair legs against the ground and stopped, getting up and hurrying to stand in front of Kurt instead. The blush on his cheeks had darkened and his hands were raised slightly in front of him, as if he wanted to touch Kurt but wasn't sure where to rest them.
Scooting to the edge of his seat, Kurt reached for his hand.
"Blaine," he said gently.
Blaine met his eyes, their golden colour darkening slightly, and then he bent to kiss him.
An emotion Kurt couldn't put a name to surged through his body. It wasn't lust, it was far greater than attraction – it seemed deeper even than love. If he'd had any remaining doubts about Blaine being his soulmate they would have been erased. There was no doubt that this was who he was meant to be with, this was his perfect partner, his best friend, his love, his soulmate. The ghostly piece of Blaine that had clung to him since the day they'd met resolved itself into something precious, woven into his very being. He could never find greater love, nor comfort, nor friendship than what Blaine gave him, He was Blaine, and Blaine was him; they were two halves of a whole.
Tilting his head, Kurt deepened the kiss, the hand not entwined with Blaine's sliding up Blaine's chest to rest over his heart. To where Blaine carried a piece of him. To where Blaine's heart beat to the same rhythm as his own.