Happy Wednesday and welcome to a brand new story!

It's always such a joy to get to share a new Klaine fic with all of you. Thank you for coming back time after time to read more of these two having adventures together. I keep saying this, but it's true: it's the great privilege of my life to get to write for you.

I want to thank Christine, who continues to be my beta after all these years, and who rocks at it. She puts such care and attention to each chapter, and makes my stories look so much better. I'm forever in your debt.

And thank you to Sofi, who reads and encourages and makes pretty cover arts for my stories. Thanks for coming on board on all my crazy projects.

Without further ado, here's True Colors. I hope you will enjoy it!

The two initials were embedded in the skin, a mixture that seemed like half a scar and half a tattoo. They felt nice to the touch, smooth but unmissable, the soft skin of the inner wrist interrupted by its relief.

And what a word to describe it – relief. As Kurt Hummel traced the letters over and over again, blue eyes fixed on them, he thought what a relief it must be, to know someone out there belonged to you and you belonged to them, unmistakably.

Equally blue eyes were staring down at him as his little fingers, once again, began to trace the shape of the B on her wrist. "You really like that, don't you?" His mother asked. Her voice was almost musical, Kurt thought. Like all it lacked was some background melody to be a perfect song.

"Yes," Kurt said. "When do I get mine?" He added, though he knew the answer because he had asked this same question a million times before.

Elizabeth Hummel smiled anyway, and ran her fingers through her little boy's hair. "Not until you're sixteen, baby."

"Will it hurt when it does?" Kurt frowned. Tattoos were made with needles, he knew. They had to be painful. And if this looked just like a tattoo…

"No," she said simply. "It won't. You will just wake up one day and it'll be there. You might not even notice it at first, because it's going to be white, just like a scar."

"But yours is red," Kurt said, and he once again traced the initials on his mother's wrist. "Because you love daddy."

She nodded, sure and full of a kind of quiet joy that made her glow. "Yes, I do."

It was such a confusing thing for a seven-year-old Kurt Hummel – was it magic, that made the marks appear on the skin? How was it possible that they changed colors on their own, just like that, when you found the person you were destined to be with, when you fell in love with them? But it happened, his mother reassured him time and time again. It was white at first, then yellow when you crossed paths, then orange when you actually met them and finally red, when you fell in love. That was the part Kurt was looking forward to the most.

He tried to imagine what it would be like. Maybe it would happen at school, or at the park. Maybe Kurt would be sitting there, minding his own business and, out of nowhere, someone would walk into a room and his heart would stop and everything around him would freeze, and he would feel a little tickle in his wrist as the initials there changed colors. He imagined it would be life-changing, breathtaking, a moment he would never be able to forget.

"I can't wait to meet the boy I'm going to love forever," he muttered dreamily, as he let his head fall on his mom's shoulder.

She seemed to stiffen for a moment, and a little gasp left her, but before he could even look up at her face, she was wrapping her arms around him, almost too tightly, holding him like there was nothing else she would rather be doing. He felt her press a quick little kiss to the top of his head – he loved it when she did that.

"I'm sure he's going to be wonderful," she whispered, a slight tremor in her voice that Kurt was too happy to notice, as he snuggled further into his mother's embrace, surrounded by the scent of her perfume – the smell of home.

That morning, Blaine Anderson was awoken by a loud scream coming from the bedroom right next to his. It startled him and he almost jumped out of bed, expecting to see the house was in flames or something just as catastrophic. He reached for Gregory, his teddy bear – he had pushed him off the edge of the bed accidentally, so he kissed his snout in apology before settling him back next to him, leaning on his pillow – and then got up, not bothering to put on his slippers before he rushed to the door and pulled it open, just in time to see his brother rush past him down the hallway and towards the stairs.

"Coop?" He called, still a little sleepily. "What's going on?"

But his brother wasn't paying any attention to him (he rarely did), and he ran downstairs exclaiming: "Mom! Dad! Mom! Look at this! Dad!"

Won over by curiosity, Blaine trailed after him, taking two steps at a time even though his mom always told him not to. He almost slipped when he was almost all the way downstairs and he managed to catch himself holding onto the banister. He could hear excited voices coming from the kitchen.

Blaine hurried to join them and when he walked in, he saw both of his parents – his dad already wearing an impeccable suit, his briefcase on the table, his mom in an elegant dress because she had a meeting today – surrounding Cooper, who had his arm up and was showing them something on his wrist.

"G.L," Pamela said in a whisper. "Oh Coop, this is amazing. You're almost a grown-up now!"

"She will surely be a formidable girl," Robert said, patting his older son's back.

"What do you think G.L. stands for?" Cooper asked, almost bouncing on his feet. "Grace? Giselle?"

"I don't know, but we're happy it finally appeared," Pamela said, turning back to the stove, where the scrambled eggs she was making had almost burnt. "Go get your brother now, sweetie. You'll both be late for school…"

"I'm here," Blaine said in a quiet voice. They hadn't seen him standing at the doorway. "Did you get your mark, Coop?"

"I did," Cooper replied proudly. He extended his arm so Blaine could see the white markings on his wrist.

Blaine wanted to touch them but he didn't dare. "That's so cool. I can't wait to get mine."

"You're a baby," Cooper said with a laugh. "You won't get yours at least for ten more years, if you even get one, because you're a bother most of the time."

Blaine frowned and glanced up at their mother. "Mom, is it possible not to get a mark at all?"

"I haven't heard of it happening," Pamela said, distractedly. "But maybe, yes. Anything's possible."

It felt like Blaine's stomach was suddenly hollowed out. He felt empty. "Really?"

"Blaine, stop asking stupid questions and go upstairs to get dressed," his father told him, without looking up from his briefcase, where he was stuffing some files.

Blaine opened his mouth to protest but decided against it. He wanted to know more, wanted to know if there was a possibility that there was no one for him out there. He marched up the stairs feeling miserable and scared. What Cooper had just said felt like a thorn in the middle of his chest, and he didn't know how to get it out.

It wasn't exactly unusual for him to feel like that. Sometimes, it happened because his father talked to him brusquely, like he had just done back in the kitchen. Blaine had noticed that Cooper didn't get the same treatment, and he didn't understand why his dad didn't like him just as much as he liked his brother. Sometimes, it happened because his mom didn't pay attention to him – she was busy, Blaine knew, distracted, with her work and her friends and all the events she liked to attend. Sometimes it happened when Cooper was particularly mean to him, which was more often than Blaine cared to admit. Cooper was ten years older than him, and they didn't have much in common, and his brother rarely missed an opportunity to let him know how silly everything he liked was, how annoying he found him, how happy he had been when he was an only child. When he was particularly angry, Cooper had screamed at him that he had been an accident, and, even if Blaine wasn't sure what that meant, he could tell it was a hurtful thing to say. He was really good at figuring out hurtful words despite not knowing their meaning. They made him feel a very nasty kind of stomachache.

Just like it had happened last week, when he was playing with Angela during recess and he had chosen a particularly beautiful doll to play with. She had really shiny hair and Blaine had felt so happy holding her. But then Tommy had looked at him, frowning, and said "you're a fag" and though Blaine didn't know what that meant, he could feel that weird stomachache.

He had put the doll down and didn't play with her again. He sat by himself across the room and watched how Valerie grabbed it to play with her. No one picked on her for it.

Even though he knew he had to hurry as not to be late for school, he closed the door when he got to his bedroom and then sat on the edge of his bed. He looked at his wrist – there was nothing on it, except for the faint blue of the veins underneath his skin. He wondered what letters would appear there. He wondered if he would stop feeling that stomachache if he found the one person who was going to like him more than anyone in the world.

It didn't even matter if it wasn't a girlfriend, Blaine thought. He wasn't sure what was so special about that. He wanted a best friend, more than anything. Someone who would be happy whenever they saw him. Someone who would hold his hand when he got scared. Someone who wouldn't call him ugly words when he wanted to play with dolls. It could be a boy, he thought. It didn't have to be a girl.

There was a loud knock on the door and, before he could say anything, Cooper pushed it open and looked inside. He seemed annoyed. "Mom said to come downstairs already. You're not even dressed?"

Blaine hurried to put on his clothes and get ready. Cooper was already waiting outside in the brand new car their parents had gotten him for his birthday a few months ago. He looked very cool, like those famous actors in the movies, with his sunglasses on and the music blasting loudly. Blaine climbed into the car and let himself watch Cooper for a bit, wishing he could be more like him.

Cooper's sleeves were rolled up, his new mark on display. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove.

"Can I touch your mark?" Blaine asked.

Cooper scoffed at him. "No. Don't be weird."

"I just want to know what it feels like," Blaine said.

"Wait until you get yours to find out," Cooper said, as he stopped at a red light.

"But you said maybe I won't get one," Blaine added sadly. "What if I don't, Coop?"

Cooper rolled his eyes, clearly already over all his questions. "You won't know until you're sixteen. All you have to worry about now is the first grade, Blaine. Whatever weirdo is destined to be your girlfriend won't know she's doomed to be with you for another decade, at the very least."

Blaine looked out the window. It was a really beautiful day. There were very fluffy clouds in the sky. He liked that. "I don't want a girlfriend. I want my soulmate to be a boy," he exclaimed. "He can be my best friend. And maybe he could also be my boyfriend!"

The light changed to green but Cooper didn't drive. The car remained still at the corner and Blaine glanced at his older brother, frowning, wondering why he was suddenly no longer in a hurry.

Cooper was looking back at him, and even with the sunglasses on, he could tell his brother was very serious. His mouth was a straight line on his face. "Blaine," he said.

"What?" Blaine tilted his head, curiously.

"Don't ever say that again," Cooper said firmly. "Don't say you want your soulmate to be a boy."

"Why not?" Blaine asked, frowning.

"Just don't, okay?" Cooper said, and someone behind them was getting impatient, so Cooper stepped on the pedal and the car jerked forward. "Don't say that again. Especially not to mom and dad, you hear me?"

There it was again, the stomachache. Blaine couldn't explain it. He just knew everything felt wrong.

"But…"

"No buts," Cooper interrupted. "Promise me you won't say that to them, or to anyone."

Blaine felt like crying, but he held back the tears. His father was always telling him boys didn't cry. He always seemed really mad whenever Blaine got upset enough for the tears to track down his face, even though he couldn't understand why. "Okay…" he said faintly. "I promise."

Cooper kept driving and they didn't talk about it again.

Kurt was never going to forget what it felt like, sitting in the empty classroom, trying to entertain himself and not worry about his mother forgetting to pick him up. Every now and then, Miss Diana would sigh heavily and look up at the clock they had on the wall – Kurt still found it hard to read time, but he could tell it was late, very late, and they both should be home by now. They had tried calling Kurt's mom, but no one had picked up at home, and when they tried getting his father at the garage, he didn't answer either.

Kurt was starting to panic. They had read a story today, about two aliens who came to Earth and found a stray kitten. They had taken it on their spaceship to visit other galaxies, and in the end the kitten liked it so much that the aliens adopted it. What if something like that had happened to his mom and dad? What if no one could find them? What if aliens – or worse, monsters – had gotten hold of them? Where was Kurt going to live? He didn't think Miss Diana was fond of him at the moment, so he didn't expect she would adopt him like Miss Honey had adopted Matilda.

Plus, he didn't want to live with Miss Diana. She always wore floral dresses with patterned cardigans. It was an eyesore.

"Well, I guess I'm going to try calling your parents again," Miss Diana said after a while. She got up and left the classroom, and it was then that Kurt heard heavy footsteps, like someone was running in the hallways.

He could hear his father's voice, and he immediately perked up. He grabbed his backpack to go out and join him, but something made him stop. He was speaking in a very low tone, like he didn't want anyone to overhear, and Kurt had trouble picking up the words. He only heard a handful of them, the scariest one being accident. He wondered what that was about.

Miss Diana opened the classroom door and almost knocked him down. She apologized but her face was sad and serious. "Your dad's here, Kurt," she said and then leaned down and held him tightly without saying anything else.

Burt Hummel was a big man. Kurt had seen some of his classmates stare at him, something similar to fear in their faces, thinking that someone so big had to be mean. But Kurt knew that his father had, as his mother often said, a heart of gold. But something on his face made Kurt stop abruptly – it was pale, paler than his own, and that was saying something. Sometimes when kids wanted to make him cry, they called him Casper. He kept telling them he wasn't a ghost, but when they didn't pay any attention to him, like he didn't even exist, sometimes he wondered if maybe he was.

Burt's eyes were red, like Kurt's got whenever he cried. Kurt didn't understand what was going on. "I'm so sorry, kiddo," he said in a very soft voice that didn't sound like his own. "I'm sorry you had to wait for so long."

Deep down inside, Kurt had been planning to throw a bit of a tantrum and ask his parents to take him out for ice-cream to make it up to him. But now, seeing his dad, he suddenly didn't care about that at all. "It's okay," he replied quietly. "Did mom forget to come get me?"

His dad's lower lip seemed to wobble. Kurt had never seen it do that before. "No, kiddo. She didn't forget."

Burt was completely silent on the way home. In other circumstances, Kurt would have asked him a million questions, wanting to know what was going on. But everything felt so weird, he just wasn't sure he wanted the answers. There was a funny feeling in his belly, similar to a stomachache, just a lot worse. It seemed to spread up to his chest.

His mom's car wasn't in the driveway when they got there. The stomachache intensified as Burt opened the front door and Kurt entered a very obviously empty house. By this time of the day, there was usually music coming from the kitchen. His mom liked to sing and dance as she cooked.

Everything was silent.

"Where's mom?" He asked at last, hoping that at least voicing that would help him get rid of that horrible feeling in his tummy.

Burt went into the living room. He turned a lamp on, so slowly that he seemed to be clinging to that very simple, very trivial action, as if the world made sense as long as he was flicking the switch. He sat down on his favorite armchair, falling onto it like his body felt too heavy.

"Come here, Kurt," he said.

Kurt took careful steps towards him until he reached him. He pressed his little hands to his dad's knees, as if already anticipating that he needed the support. Burt reached to squeeze his shoulder before his hand fell on his thigh, like even keeping his arm up required too much effort.

That's when Kurt noticed it.

"Your mark," he whispered, reaching to touch the inside of Burt's right wrist. He could see the edge of it under his flannel shirt's sleeve. It was no longer red.

It had somehow turned black.

Kurt didn't know marks could be black. He had never seen that. His mom and his dad had found each other and fallen in love, so why wasn't it red anymore? It was supposed to stay like that forever…

Burt lifted up his sleeve a little, his finger touching it carefully, as if it hurt to do so. He stared at it for a moment, before tears welled up in his eyes and he seemed to break down. He started crying, his big chest shaking with the force of it, and he pulled Kurt into his arms.

"I'm sorry, kiddo," he said into Kurt's hair. "I'm so sorry. Your mom… she got into a car accident. She… she didn't make it…"

Kurt loved delicate things – porcelain tea cups and glass figurines and pretty flowers – and he could tell his father was trying to be delicate right now, in his choice of words.

For once in his life, Kurt didn't want something delicate. He wanted nothing but the pure truth.

"She's dead?" He asked brusquely, in a very high voice.

He expected his dad to correct him. He wanted him to say that not making it meant something else. She didn't make it to school to pick him up because she got distracted at the grocery store, or the car ran out of gasoline, or she had to visit someone or…

Anything. Anything but this.

"Yes, Kurt," Burt said, pulling away to look at his son. "She's gone."

It was hard to say how long Kurt cried. It felt like he cried until he had nothing left in him, no strength, no tears, no breath. He eventually found himself tucked into his father's side, head resting on his shoulder, big arms around him, sniffling quietly, completely exhausted.

All he could do was trace the letters on his father's wrist, now black. There was something charred about them, and they felt slightly warm to the touch. They seemed almost unfamiliar – they had always been red, for as long as Kurt had lived. They looked so wrong now. He wondered if everything was going to feel wrong from now on.

"What are we going to do now?" He asked very softly, because he was scared of what the future held. How could there be a future without his mom in it?

Burt sighed. He seemed as exhausted as Kurt felt. "I don't know, buddy. I guess… I guess we'll have to hold on tight to each other. I guess we'll have to get used to not having her with us anymore."

Kurt burrowed a little closer, hiding his face in his dad's neck, where it smelled like comfort and safety. "I don't think I can get used to it."

"Me neither," Burt admitted sadly. "But we'll learn how to cope. One day at a time."

He wanted to ask his dad what it felt like to lose your soulmate, but he didn't dare. He was only eight years old, but he already knew there was possibly no pain greater than that.

Although right now, as he slowly fell asleep, too tired from all the crying, he thought maybe the pain he felt at losing his mother was just as bad.

He traced his dad's mark one last time, as if he was saying goodbye, and let his eyes fall close.

It wouldn't be one of my stories if it didn't start with a bit of heartbreak. Little Kurt and little Blaine need a few hugs.

I hope you guys enjoyed the first chapter! Can't wait to hear what you think of it!

See you next Wednesday.

Love,

L.-