A/N: So this takes place in an AU (clearly) with soulmates. Klaine never met in Season 2.
On the back of everyone's right hand is a name.
The name, written in golden script and spindly handwriting, belongs to your soulmate.
By pure chance of fate, people eventually find the person that name belongs to: their one true love.
It wasn't unusual to find your soulmate at a young age.
Most people found their one, their only true love, between the ages of 16 and 23. Of course, there were those outliers that found their loves at 14 or 15, sometimes even as young as 10 or 11. Every once in a while, children would find their soulmates in elementary school, too young to understand their bond, but just old enough to know that they needed each other desperately. The youngest recorded meeting of two soulmates was just hours after their birth: two newborn babies, eyes locked on one another, who cried every time the doctors tried to take one of them out of the room.
Some people found their soulmates a little late. At 24, not having met your one just meant you were a late bloomer. People would just pat you on the back and smile with a knowing look, telling you it was just a matter of time. At 27, you got consoling looks from happily mated couples. At 30, you got pitying ones. At 40, you could just as well assume some tragic accident had befallen your soulmate, and that would be the end of your search.
Blaine Anderson was turning 25.
It was the beginning of a slippery slope for so many people. Hope would fade, optimism and anticipation grow weaker and weaker, until it faded into despair.
His chances of meeting the one were growing slimmer every year.
Having graduated from NYU with a Bachelors in music the year before, Blaine was the last of his friends to remain without a soulmate. Now, working in the music department of a high school and trying to get an internship at a record company, he doubted he had the time to go out meeting people.
But tonight, Blaine wasn't going to allow himself to think about any of that. Tonight, Blaine was going out with his friends and he was going to have fun.
He adjusted his silken bowtie a couple inches farther to the right. He hadn't gone out in a while. Summer had passed him by while he was filing sheet music at the school he worked at, and before he knew it, students were filling the halls and vacation was over.
Pulling a warm coat over one shoulder and then the next, he headed out the door and into the cold winter around him.
"Blaine, old buddy! Didn't think you left your cave anymore!" came Nick's call as soon as Blaine showed his face at Callbacks, the bar they were attending that night.
They were out celebrating tonight, as Wes, Blaine's friend from high school, was having an informal Finding party, as was custom when one found their soulmate.
A loud-mouthed girl named Rachel Berry had served Wes his coffee last Thursday afternoon between his morning and afternoon classes studying law at Columbia University. After inquiring whether there was a last name to go with Wes's coffee order, a loud squeal had pierced the air and Wes Montgomery had an armful of his soulmate, Rachel Berry.
Rachel, a senior at NYADA, had insisted that their Finding party be at the top hangout for her and her friends, better known as a bar named Callbacks. Wes agreed wholeheartedly to her plans between hanging on her every word dotingly.
Blaine and his friends had marveled at the fact that Rachel's name had indeed belonged to a girl louder and bossier than even Wes was.
So there they were, a handful of Wes's friends from high school (including Blaine) and a group of his law school buddies, surrounded by a small army of overzealous, overdramatic NYADA students, otherwise known as Rachel's friends.
Blaine headed over to the end of a long table where Wes sat, a huge smile on his face and an arm wrapped around his soulmate.
"Hey, man. Glad you could make it." Wes warmly greeted as he slung his free arm around Blaine, grinning all the while.
"Blaine Anderson," began Rachel, "I'm always honored to meet another of Wesley's friends. We're so happy you could attend our little gathering. I wanted to much to meet all of you Warbler boys, so it's great that so many of you could make it –"
"Of course he could make it," Jeff, another of Blaine's high school friends, interrupted from farther down the table. "He never has any plans, he just doesn't go anywhere!"
That garnered a chuckle from all around, but Blaine didn't mind. He'd known these boys since they were all two-stepping and singing songs in eight part harmony as a glee club, none of their teasing really hurt him.
Nevertheless, that did not stop Jeff's soulmate, Nick, from running a gentle hand up and down Jeff's arm, a silent request to lay-off.
Thad, whose soulmate hadn't come that night, didn't get as much of a warning.
"So that makes you the last man standing, right Blaine?" Thad joked drunkenly and more than a bit insensitively.
A lull of uncomfortable stillness set down upon the table.
Wes broke the tight silence with a hand clapped on Blaine's shoulder, acting every bit like the council leader he had been in high school. "We've waited together bravely, Blaine-y boy. We all know your man is on the way."
"Yeah, all this means is that you're next!" Jeff reassured with a cheerful smile.
No one mentioned the way Nick's arm tightened around Jeff's waist or the way Rachel burrowed a bit further into Wes's shoulder. They were all grateful to have their soulmate in their arms.
The fact of the matter was that Blaine was getting old.
No one wanted to say that probabilities of finding your soulmate cut in half every year after 23, but that didn't make it any less true.
Blaine's night had gone swimmingly, after the brief awkwardness surrounding his un-bonded status had passed.
The Warblers (or rather, those that remained in touch after moving to New York together) had all gone up at some point to take advantage of the karaoke stage provided at Callbacks.
Wes and Rachel, as they were the stars of the night, went up to make moon-eyes at each other as they sang a duet version of Hopelessly Devoted to You.
Nick went up and crooned out a clichéd but beautiful version of At Last to Jeff, which everyone rolled their eyes at since Nick and Jeff had been the first to find each other of the group.
The boys joined together to sing Uptown Girl, a song that they let Wes lead that night, to Rachel, resulting in excessive squealing and quickly ending the party when Rachel wanted to head back to Wes's apartment.
Blaine headed out the door after many hugs and promises that the next Finding party the Warblers would be attending would be his own.
He had nodded noncommittally, not wanting to seem like a grouch.
Now, wrapping a scarf around his neck and pulling his coat tighter around himself against the chilly winter air, Blaine had never felt more alone. The party had been a complete reminder of the fact that he was the last, the very last, to be lonely, and now quite possibly the only one who would spend the rest of his life lost, sad, alone and –
Alright, so the party hadn't gone swimmingly.
Blaine's heart ached as he endeavored to keep his tears squeezed within, not wanting to cry lest one of his friends see him on their way out.
His mind wandered back to the rendition of Teenage Dream he had performed for his friends at the bar.
Unlike the song, he had no one to call his missing puzzle piece, and indeed, he was incomplete.
His apartment (his cold, lonely, soulmate-less apartment) was less than a mile away and in a good neighborhood, even considering that it was New York, so he decided to tough it out and walk home to save the few bucks on a cab.
About a block away from his home, Blaine allowed himself to relax his wary posture and give into the tiredness of the day. For someone who never went out for the night, a night full of karaoke and exhausting reminders of his single status was thoroughly draining, and he felt as if he could head straight to bed and collapse into soft sheets.
Despite this, something made him stop.
A sad figure, frozen under a thin layer of snow, lying still in a blanket on the side of the street.
It was a boy, not possibly older than Blaine, and clearly homeless from the state of his clothes and his unhealthily thin body. Impossibly pale skin tinged with blue from the cold, and dark brown hair that would almost certainly lighter if it was clean.
Though the homeless of New York were certainly in bad shape this time of year, this boy seemed worse by far, as most others found shelter under bridges or even on the sides of covered buildings. This boy lay on the street, seemingly too weak to even pull himself to cover.
Blaine felt tears prickle his eyes as he stopped in the street before the tragic sight. Was he already dead?
As Blaine neared the frozen figure, kneeling in the snow at the boy's side, he took in with heartbreaking appreciation that the boy was beautiful.
Snow sprinkled on long eyelashes, brown hair splayed upon sparkling white snow, and long slender fingers clutching at nothing but the whirling cold wind.
It was an inappropriate, terrible beauty to behold.
Blaine reached to feel the boy's pulse at the neck, but pulled back at the last second, feeling as if the motion was too intimate. Instead, he reached for the boy's wrist, hoping for a weak pulse. Even a weak heartbeat would be incentive to help this boy, perhaps take a cab to get him to the hospital, or take him home and call 911, or maybe even–
Blaine's thoughts stopped dead in their tracks.
Spelled out perfectly in spindly gold script on the back of this gorgeous, deliriously tragic, boy's hand was a name. That was normal. But this wasn't just any name.
Blaine Anderson.
This boy was Kurt. This boy was frozen and in pain. This boy was probably homeless. This boy was obviously much more alone in this world than Blaine was.
This boy was his.
A/N: Should I continue? I have ideas to turn this into a multi-chap, if anyone's interested in reading it.
Also, for anyone still reading my Anderbros/White Collar Crossover, I know its been a long time and I'm sorry, but expect an update soon!
Thanks for reading! Please review! :)
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EDIT: OH MY GOD. You guys are amazing! Thank you for the amazing response to this chapter! Every review, alert, and favorite has made me incredibly happy! I will absolutely be updating this fic, turning it into a multi-chap, for everyone interested. :D You guys are the best!