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CHAPTER TWO

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(day one)

Sebastian Smythe.

This can't be happening.

He pinches his thigh until it bruises but he fails to snap out of his stupor.

He stumbles out of bed, 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 as the room spins around him, and he grabs his phone before running to the bathroom.

Once inside he locks the door, and sits down to research a thing or two on his phone.

Hands shaking, he opens Google and types in 'hysterical soulmark', in case that's actually a thing easily fixed with a few pills. Unfortunately all the links lead to conspiracy websites created by the kind of crackpots he and Sam liked to make fun of.

This can't be happening.

Sebastian can't possibly be his soulmate.

Had all his fantasies 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. No one on the World Wide Web had ever presented with this type of symptom. Despite the flawed systems in place the concept couldn't be more straightforward: the name you're granted is the name you're stuck with for the rest of your life.

He buries his face into the palms of his hands, forcing deep even breaths into his lungs. He can't be known as the guy 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.

He won't be the victim again.

Standing, 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 played on him? Had they snuck a psychotropic drug into his food last night? There were drugs that could make the soulmark disappear — scientists first developed it during the Cold War under the guise of offering some kind of comfort for people who never found their soulmates; conspiracy crackpots 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.

Besides, his friends wouldn't be this cruel, they understood the importance of this, a tradition as old as the world, tracing back to Ancient Mesopotamia, so ingrained into every single culture as a way of life.

No, Sam and Tina wouldn't do this.

So could it be?

He dries off his wrist 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 definitely awake 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 stands pinned to the ground.

What will he tell everyone?

Soulmate or not, Sebastian's name on his wrist will come as a surprise to everyone, and all the people in his life knew about his crush, if just by looking at his bedroom. There are framed movie posters up on his bedroom walls, he has scrapbooks with articles and about a dozen image folders dedicated to Sebastian on his computer.

No matter how he looked at it, this will be an unmitigated disaster.

"What does it say?" Tina squeals, her feet thumping on the floor. "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 pyjamas, all in the hopes of keeping his wrist covered.

He opens the door and looks Tina in the eye, shoulders hunched and about four feet tall, his wrist weighing him down with the load 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."

Tina smiles brighter.

"I'll fire up my laptop," she says, and sprints towards the end of the bed, where she left her laptop after their Sebastian marathon last night.

"No, Tay–"

When Tina's eyes widen and 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 still dreaming, or slipped into a coma; maybe he ruptured a blood vessel in his brain and he floated up to heaven. There could be 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."

Together they make their way downstairs, and Tina pulls out all she needs to make blueberry pancakes. When she promised to treat him to a festive breakfast two weeks ago he never imagined he'd feel like this. 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 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 for fresh juice and makes coffee for him, tea for Tina, and it's a testament to the Cohen-Changs' willpower that they remain upstairs while they fill 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, from Cooper and Charlie, begging him to visit this summer, Marley and Sugar, even Jake and Roderick 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 to decorate his room with.

The Cohen-Changs join them in the kitchen once they finish up, and let them out of doing the dishes after Tina not too subtly shoots her parents a few pointed looks.

"Come on, show me," Tina says the second they set foot in her bedroom again, 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 off his shoulder, Sebastian's name burning through the fabric.

"I don't really feel like researching yet." He grimaces. "Can't we– watch a movie or something?"

"Why are you embarrassed? Is it someone we know?" 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 him as his soulmate. It would radically complicate a friendship he holds dear, not to mention Sam's sense of self.

"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–"

Tina forces him back against the bed. "Show me!"

He stretches his arm out over his head, a tactic that works for a while, until Tina gets tired of jumping up and down, takes a deep breath while scowling at him, and simply 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 petite 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, and peels back his sleeve.

Her eyes widen. "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. The silence is excruciating, Tina lost for words, 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 tried hard enough.

"I mean– I couldn't have."

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

Tina's eyes pin down his tattoo with a fearful stare.

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

It's a disaster, that's what. How would he even let Sebastian know he's out here waiting for him? Should 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? In his fantasies it worked like that, sure, the same way it worked for thousands of others who 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.

"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 got his mark four years ago, he's known his name all that time so it's simply a matter of getting the both of them in the same room.

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. Going straight to the press would draw too much attention; Sebastian might think he's out for fame and money, which couldn't be further from the truth. He'd rather Sebastian see him free of any media sensation.

Two boys fated together by a higher power shouldn't be a spectacle; it should be intimate, a meeting of two souls who'd been wandering until the moment their eyes met and they'd realize they'd been carrying home with them all along — except home wasn't a place at all, but a name printed deep into his skin.

He makes Tina turn on her laptop after all, and they spend a good half hour researching any and all articles relating to Sebastian's soulmark, not that he expected to find much. Celebrities were 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. Some 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 many more condemned him 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 got. The Privacy 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.

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.

Maybe that's why he hadn't thought about Sebastian's soulmark until Tina mentioned it.

Most people his generation were used to celebrities keeping it a secret, so speculation was pointless.

What did it matter to him what some Hollywood actor did with his private life?

So what if Sebastian had been linked to a number of people in the public eye? As a teenager on Broadway he had a relationship with one of his co-stars, Nick Duval, who ended up marrying his soulmate Jeff Sterling; he'd had a torrid affair with Biff McIntosh, a senator's son who broke things off the moment the press caught wind; and last year he'd been spotted kissing Elliott 'Starchild' Gilbert, the famous rock star who'd burned through his own fair share of relationships.

Even some of his friends had tried on other relationships; Sam dated Mercedes before she left for Los Angeles; Tina dated Artie for a few months before they parted as friends; and Marley had the most tragic story of them all — on the eve of her eighteenth birthday she lay in Jake's arms, only to wake up with the name 'Roderick Meeks' imprinted on her skin. Jake and Roderick, friends up until that point, hadn't spoken to each other for several weeks now with Marley caught in the middle, torn between her heart and her soul.

If not for his soulmark appearing overnight Sebastian may well have gone on for years, flitting for one relationship to the other. Who could blame him? He can't imagine going four years without any answers.

So he decides there and then that Sebastian's past didn't matter to him, only his future, one he would be part of soon enough.

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 were probably wondering why he hasn't called with the exciting news yet, but he wants to see their faces when he tells them that the boy plastered on his bedroom walls and their future son-in-law were the same person.

Years ago, when Charlie emailed Cooper a picture of herself, his mom and dad couldn't believe Cooper's luck. At the 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 leave a print on the touchscreen.

"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. This can't go any further. He needs time to figure out how he's going to handle this whole situation and all his friends learning about his predicament 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, her urge to tell the entire world practically pulsing through her body.

"Promise me."

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

At home he sits his mom and dad down in the living room, claiming the small settee for himself. He rubs his hands together, pulling at his left sleeve every few seconds to keep his wrist covered while dread creeps into his every pore.

It's like coming out all over again.

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 after all, yet he can't shake the feeling of a noose tightening slowly around his neck.

Coming out was a rite of passage every LGBT youngster had to go through on top of receiving his or her soulmark. With a mark appearing at eighteen coming out had an eerie deadline for those who were already sure of who they were, while for many others it involved a great deal of fear; many teenagers simply weren't sure until their wrists showed them the truth, and even then it didn't necessarily reveal the complex layers identities could take. 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.

His answers came 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 spots depending on how well they did in competitions. The first time his lips touched Joey's, right after the semi-finals against a rival club, and his heartbeat quickened, his blood seared 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, 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 got 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 other endeavor. His father, so similar to him when it came to expressing his deepest feelings, patted his shoulder and had tears in his eyes. Nothing about their relationship changed; his parents were loving and kind, always there for him when he needed them.

Celebrities, ironically, were exempt from 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.

It's one of the reasons he admired Sebastian so much; he might hide his soulmark like many others but he never made a secret of his sexuality, coming out as gay the moment he piqued the world's interest playing 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 social pressures things get better, in spite of what the world often forced 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 to make the ground beneath his feet finally settle again. His dad throws an arm around his shoulders and his mom holds one of his hands.

"Don't worry, sweetheart," she says, and kisses his temple.

It helps free up some space in his lungs.

"We'll figure this out."

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. Sebastian will understand that 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 when he stayed home sick or felt sad — it offered 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, but stands firmly nailed to the ground the moment the voice on the other end of the line speaks.

"Blaine Anderson? Katherine 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?

A rapid series of bright flashes from outside catches the corner of his eye.

"Just a minute," he tells Katherine Steel, National Enquirer, and follows his parents towards the living room windows.

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

Spots dance in front of his eyes, and 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.'

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