there's an ache in you put there by the ache in me
Sebastian Smythe does not believe in soulmates.
It's not that he doesn't believe they exist. There have been enough scientific studies done in the past decade alone to prove what idiots and poets have been waxing about for millennia before. So it's not that he doubts their existence, it's just that he doesn't believe in them. The idea that you're inexplicably tied to some random person for the rest of your life sounds like a prison sentence. But then on top of that you feel their pain? It sounds like a cruel joke.
As the slushie goes sailing through the air, hitting not its intended target but Blaine—Blaine, who falls to the ground, his screams of pain echoing throughout the parking garage—and as blinding pain shoots through his own eye... Sebastian has enough awareness to think that, yeah, cruel joke sounds about right.
Sebastian knows all about Blaine Anderson before the first time he ever lays eyes on him let alone meets him.
He hears whispers about him in the hallways of Dalton before he even knows who the Warblers are. Then, once he's part of them, he's subjected to tale after tale of their long lost brother—all of their eyes dreamy and their sighs wistful and full of reverence as they regale him of the Blaine Anderson as if he's some mythological figure.
One who, according to some, has the voice of an angel and with the body to match.
Ever curious—and not one to pass up any information he can use to his advantage—Sebastian pulls up videos of his past performances to see if he actually lives up to the hype. Even from the subpar quality of the videos alone, Sebastian can see the way that Blaine effortlessly lights up the space he's in. How his energy brings out the best in the rest of his teammates. The way he can captivate an audience and draw every single eye to him.
Sebastian thinks he can understand how he came to be so revered, admired, beloved.
But it's not love at first sight.
Sebastian doesn't do emotions and he certainly doesn't do love.
The pain doesn't go away so much as it becomes easier to tolerate because, in the end, it isn't actually his. It's Blaine's. It's happening to Blaine. Because of him.
There's a small cluster of New Directions half surrounding Blaine with their focus entirely on him in worry. But the rest stare between him and Blaine, their eyes darting back and forth, faces frowning in confusion and then slowly dawning realization at what their shared pain must mean. He doesn't have to look behind him or to his sides to know that the Warblers are doing the same.
And Sebastian...
Panics. He stumbles backwards, nodding jerkily for the Warblers to follow him. They do.
He doesn't look back.
But it doesn't matter. He can still hear Blaine.
He can still feel him.
The pain... lingers.
It follows him all the way on the drive back to Dalton and back up to his dorm room. It lasts until it doesn't and somehow that's worse than the pain itself had been.
Something in him finally snaps. There's a rational part of his brain somewhere that knows there has to be a reasonable explanation for the lack of pain. Probably something to do with ambulances and emergency rooms and Blaine finally being given something to dull it if not knock him out entirely.
On some level, he knows this must be what happened and that it's a good thing that Blaine isn't in pain anymore.
But all the rest of him knows is that the connection to his soulmate is suddenly gone and he can't stop himself from jumping to the worst possible conclusions no matter how irrational he knows they may be.
He doesn't know what to do.
None of this was supposed to happen.
Not Blaine.
Not feelings.
Definitely not soulmates.
Sebastian isn't even aware he's pulled out his phone until a familiar voice greets him and he confesses all in a rush: "Maman... j'ai merdé."
When Sebastian was a very small child at an age he can barely remember, back when his parents were still together and not separated by an ocean, his mother would come into his room at bedtime and read him fairytales. Her favorite was always La Belle et La Bête.
He can still remember the dreamy way she sounded as she read it to him.
Beauty, kind and virtuous and honorable. The Beast—a once vain, unkind, reckless boy—cursed.
In the fairytale, the Beast eventually let Beauty go free even if it meant he might doom himself and Beauty only realized how deep her feelings for the Beast ran until after she had dreamt of him dying amongst a garden of roses—their thorns piercing him—and woke up to the same echoes of pain throughout her own body.
In the end, Beauty saved the Beast—her love healing him and transforming him back into a man.
They lived happily ever after as it goes.
Happy endings only exist in fairytales, however, and it's his father who fixes 'the situation' for him.
(Apparently laws and consequences and punishments, or the lack thereof, regarding soulmates who've harmed one another are just as much of a joke as Sebastian found the entire concept to be in the first place. A month ago, Sebastian wouldn't have even batted an eyelash at that revelation but now the knowledge leaves a sour taste in his mouth.)
He tries to put everything behind him and move on. Mostly at the behest of his father who insists that there be no further contact between the two of them.
But there's still a constant, low thrumming ache in his eye and the more the guilt inside him grows, the less he can ignore it until he feels like he has to at least tryto do something no matter how ridiculous.
"Blaine, I'm sorry."
Blaine carefully holds a single white rose with the thorns still on the stem between his fingertips. He scoffs and hands the thing back to Sebastian. "Do you really think that makes up for anything?"
Sebastian stares at Blaine, studying the way that he refuses to look at him or how when he does look at him there's nothing but cool anger in his eyes. (Eye, singular—his mind unhelpfully supplies.)
Sebastian knows that being soulmates doesn't magically fix things, but the way that Blaine responds to him as if there's truly nothing between them...
"You don't know," Sebastian says slowly as it finally clicks. "Nobody told you."
"What are you talking about?" Blaine asks, confusion written all over his face.
Blaine was in too much pain to notice his surroundings at the time, so he couldn't have known what happened. He wouldn't have seen Sebastian in pain—an echo of Blaine's own. Hummel had to've understood their reactions for what they were along with the rest of New Directions, but he could've gotten them to keep their mouths shut and dressed it all up as some noble thing in Blaine's best interests and not his own selfishness. His father knew, but he had no interest in any of this getting out. Blaine's parents had to know what they were to each other as no charges were pressed yet kept it quiet. The Warblers felt guilty, sure, but not enough to say or do anything.
Everyone knew they were soulmates.
Everyone except Blaine.
Because no one told him.
Before he can think any better, Sebastian squeezes the rose in his fist until the thorns dig into his palm. Blaine starts to make a noise of protest until abruptly letting out a hiss of pain, grasping his own hand. That's when Sebastian stops.
Blaine stares in shock at his hand and then Sebastian's, his face pale. "I don't..."
"Blaine," Sebastian says softly, taking a cautious step towards him.
"I can't," Blaine says, backing away from him, his voice wet and wrecked. "I can't." He shakes his head in refusal, disbelief, denial. "I can't. Please, go."
Already having done more than enough damage, Sebastian leaves.
He isn't sure if the burning pain he feels in his eyes on the drive back to Dalton are from his own tears or not. He's not sure what would be worse at this point, either. If Blaine is crying over him or if he's hurting Blaine by crying over him.
The days pass slowly from one week into the next and Sebastian doesn't think he'll ever see Blaine again with the way things left off between them. So it's ironic that the next time Sebastian sees Blaine is Valentine's Day of all days. He comes back from another tense rehearsal with the Warblers and there's Blaine: in his dorm room, sitting on his bed, waiting for him.
"Kurt broke up with him," Blaine blurts out before he can say anything. He has on a red velvet heart-shaped eyepatch that is so very and endearingly Blaine.
"Okay," Sebastian says slowly, closing the door, and patiently waiting for Blaine to say whatever he clearly needs to say.
"I confronted him about..." Blaine trails off, looking up at him, before continuing, "about what happened and why he didn't tell me and he said it was for my own good." Sebastian is unsurprised and equally unimpressed. "But then he tells me it all worked out in the end because he just found out who his soulmate is, too, and it's better this way and—" Blaine's voice cracks.
"And he broke up with you," Sebastian finishes for him, finally moving to sit next to him on the bed.
"Yeah," Blaine says softly, rubbing at his face. "I'm sorry for coming here and dumping all of this on you—"
"No, Blaine, if anyone's sorry, it's me—"
"I just didn't know where else to go—"
Sebastian grabs Blaine's hand and Blaine abruptly shuts his mouth. "Blaine, I'm the one who owes you an apology. I have no excuses for what I did. It was stupid and childish and I never intended for anyone to get hurt, let alone you. Even if we weren't..." Blaine's hand tenses in his and Sebastian gives him a small, reassuring smile. "You're the last person I'd ever want to hurt, either way."
The silence stretches on between them for a long moment as they sit there on his bed with Blaine's hand still held in his. It isn't an uncomfortable silence. They're simply there together, alone with each other.
"Thank you," Blaine says after a while. "I—"
"You don't have to forgive me," Sebastian cuts in before Blaine can say anything else. "It's okay if you're still angry."
Blaine laughs and Sebastian can hear the tears behind it but he can also hear the relief. "There is a part of me that's still angry, but... I forgive you, too. I believe you never meant to hurt me. I know you're sorry."
The silence stretches on again until Blaine breaks it once again. "It's all—" Blaine gestures to his eyepatch with his free hand. "—It's all healed now."
"May I?" Sebastian asks, nodding his head toward the eyepatch and Blaine nods back in acquiescence once he catches his meaning.
Sebastian lets go of Blaine's hand and reaches to remove the eyepatch, letting it fall onto the bed once he's taken it off. Two golden eyes meet his for the first time in weeks. Sebastian reaches out again but this time to gently touch Blaine's face and Blaine's eyes flutter shut as he trails down his cheekbones with his fingertips.
"We're soulmates," Blaine whispers so softly that Sebastian can only just hear him. "But I feel like I don't even know what that means anymore."
Sebastian cups Blaine's cheek in his palm and strokes it with his thumb. "It doesn't have to mean anything more than what you want it to. It doesn't have to mean anything right now."
Blaine covers his hand with his own and opens his eyes. They gaze into each other, Sebastian's hand still on his face and Blaine's hand still holding onto his, no trace of pain between them.
"I want it to."
