When the groups’ performance ended and Wes called for all the Warblers to head to the green room, Blaine got up and walked mechanically backstage, eyes never leaving the spot where the tall boy had disappeared through the curtain. When Blaine walked straight into the wall instead of through the door (which would have been really funny except Sebastian wanted to know what the hell was going on), Sebastian decided he’d had enough.

He grabbed Blaine by the shoulders and pulled him aside, “What the fuck is going on with you?”

Blaine’s whole body was thrumming with energy, “He’s my mate.” Blaine spoke almost reverently, still staring over Sebastian’s shoulder at the curtain.

“Wait. What?! Who is what?”

“The boy that sang ‘Blackbird’, that’s who I smelt earlier.” Sebastian raised his eyebrows condescendingly at the blissed out expression on Blaine’s face.

“Oh god, you are serious. I’m going to get the others, we need to get you out of this,” Sebastian waved his hand around indicating Blaine’s total lack of concentration, “trancey thing if we want any chance at winning.” Blaine barely noticed Sebastian leave still thinking of his mate. His beautiful, wonderful, amazing, perfect mate.

He didn’t notice Sebastian return, with Jeff, Nick, David and Wes in tow, or when David called out to him, or Jeff waved a frantic hand in front of his eyes.

He did however notice when Wes slapped him.

“What was that for?” Blaine was rubbing his jaw, trying to sooth the pain.

“I am not losing this competition, which I have spent years working towards, because you found your stupid mate. Get it together, we’re going on in 10 minutes.”

Blaine growled lightly, glaring at Wes in indignation for both slapping him and ordering his own alpha around. He had to fight hard at the urge to lunge at his Second when he heard him call his mate “stupid.” The more logical side of Blaine argued that Wes was probably right in slapping him, but that wouldn’t mean that he won’t play a little rougher at the next full moon as pay back.

“Okay, I’m back, just never slap me again Wes, you’re lucky I needed that or you would be on the ground right now. And never call my mate stupid again unless you want to be running on three legs instead of four. I will end yo-” Blaine was interrupted from the litany of threats he was about to send Wes’ way by a snort from Jeff.

When Blaine turned to glare at Jeff he saw that the boy was cracking up, “Seriously Blaine, only you would meet your mate at a show choir competition. I think we need to revoke all your wolf cards right now.” Jeff kept giggling and soon everyone was joining in.

“Of course Blainers mate had to be a performer, if he wasn’t his mate would have dumped his ass 10 minutes into their courtship out of sheer annoyance over Blaine’s inability to shut up for more than two minutes.” Nick snorted out.

“Oh god, can’t you guys imagine it now? You just know they will be doing duet’s all the time. Romantic, sappy ones too,” David snickered.

As Wes and Nick started to sing “Come What May” in a very dramatic, over-the-top fashion, David realized something.

“Oh god, think of all the musicals we are going to have to sit through with them. Fuck.” As soon as David pointed this out all the boys, except Blaine, who had just been silently glaring at all of the boys laughing at him during the exchange, groaned. The alpha, on the other hand, had a massive grin on his face. He couldn’t wait for the day where he and his mate could do all of that.

Thad interrupted the wolves with a quiet, “Guys?” The boys all glanced his way immediately, “We need to go, we’re on in 5.”

All jovial humour left Wes’s face, “Everyone out of the room, we need to be back stage. Remember if we don’t win this I’m going to make you all stand outside in the middle of winter in your underwear as punishment. And yes Jeff, I know I don’t technically have the power to do that, but you know when I set my mind to something it will happen.”

-

Their performance was a blur to Blaine, he knew the songs backwards and, luckily, he killed it.

As soon as he was offstage he was immediately thinking of ways to meet his mate. He needed to know his name, needed to get to know him, needed to be with him, like yesterday. So it couldn’t be entirely his fault that when they were all on stage waiting to find out who won that he totally missed that they tied for the trophy for sectionals, all he could focus on was the beautiful boy in the group next to him, not three yards away. Really, someone ought to congratulate him on keeping enough focus not to pounce on the boy right in front of what could have been three very frightened show choirs.

Once the hype died down a little and Blaine had given the obligatory hugs and handshakes to his excited teammates, Blaine walked over to the New Directions under the pretence of congratulating the group on their performance.

That all went out the window, however, once he tapped on the boys shoulder and was blindsided by his stunning sparkling-blue eyes. Blaine was entranced. He stared right at the boy, mouth hanging wide open, until he was shaken out of his stupor by the boy’s mellifluous speaking voice.

“Can I help you?” Wow. His mate’s confused voice worked even better than Wes’ bitch slap had to bring him back down to earth.

“Hi, I wanted to come over here and congratulate you on the tie, and to say that your solo was spectacular. Your voice is flawless.” Blaine seemed to remember himself at the last second, he stuck his hand out, “I’m Blaine.” The other boy looked at him searchingly then glanced behind to see what his group was doing, and saw that they were all distracted by their celebrations. He placed his hand in Blaine’s.

“Kurt.” Kurt knew he had to remove his hand from the other boys grasp at some point, but for some reason he couldn’t even bring himself to imagine taking his hand away from the warmth this boy emitted. “Thanks, you were amazing as well, you’re a born performer,” Kurt replied breathlessly.

Blaine grinned and squeezed Kurt’s hand where it still lay in his.

Blaine’s reply was cut off by the sound of a shrill voice, “What are you doing?! Kurt, get away from him! He’s still the enemy!”

“Rachel! He was just congratulating us. Calm down!” The damage had been done, though. The entire group’s focus was now on Kurt and Blaine. Blaine could see two of the bigger guys sizing him up ready to defend their friend if they have to. Blaine wanted to laugh out loud, both at the challenge and at the idea that anyone would have to protect Kurt from his own mate. He decided it was probably best if he didn’t aggravate his mate’s friends so early in their courtship, though.

Blaine decided that his best course of action would be to introduce himself.

“Uhhh, Hi guys! My name is Blaine. Your group’s performance was fantastic! You have some amazing voices,” Blain offered, glancing at Kurt.

“Don’t you try and butter us up, you no-good cheater! I know exactly what you are planning! You probably trying to lure Kurt into a false sense of security and then right before Regional’s you will break his heart in order to hurt our chances of winning the competition!” the short, rather frightening, girl continued.

“Isn’t that a little extreme? I mean I love show choir as much as the next gay man but nobody’s that intense about it,” Blaine chuckled. The New Directions just stared at him blankly, completely silent.

As if on cue, the group burst into chatter, all at the same time.

Blaine couldn’t be entirely sure, but he was pretty sure half the group was arguing to let him stay and the other half were arguing to make him leave.

Blaine stared at the chaos, the uncontrolled group making him just the tiniest bit tense, but the New Directions were definitely not Blaine’s problem.

Blaine shrugged, now was as good a time as any to get to know Kurt who was still standing in front of him.

“Are your friends always this crazy? Or is it just a competition high?”

Kurt looked at him with wide, almost confused eyes for a second before shaking his head and coming back to himself.

“My friends don’t need a competition high to make them act insane. But yes, that does add to it,” Kurt sighed in a long-sufferingly.

They both looked up as the black girl who had (rather impressively, Blaine thought) belted out the last few notes of the group number and an alarmingly tall male started shouting at each other. It seemed that the girl was telling the boy to “back off and let Kurt get his man,” while the boy was mumbling something like “Kurt’s my bro, and I’ve got his back.”

Kurt looked embarrassed.

“You don’t need to hang around, this is probably going to take a while.” he finally sighed, glancing back at Blaine.

“Are you sending me away? I’m a little hurt,” Blaine grinned. A blush covered Kurt’s cheeks, and Blaine decided he would do anything to make that happen again.

“N-no,” Kurt stuttered, “I just didn’t think you would get much conversation in with them now that they are in ‘Let’s All Argue Endlessly With Each Other Even Though No Good Will Come of It’ mode.”

“Well to be honest, I came over here to talk to you. And now that your friends are otherwise entertained, I guess that means I have a chance to now?’

Kurt blushed even deeper.

“I guess you do have that honour now.” Kurt smiled coyly.

They chatted for a few minutes about the competition, Blaine revelling in the sound of Kurt’s musical voice and his intoxicating smell, when suddenly Blaine’s phone vibrated with a text from Sebastian.

Hurry up, lover-boy. None of us want to wait around for you to mumble out attempts at flirtation at the guy who is unfortunate enough to be your mate. You have the rest of your life with him and I’m fucking hungry. Get his digits so you guys can meet up to be all sickeningly adorable later.

“Listen, I’ve got to go but do you maybe want to meet up for coffee tomorrow? Can I get your numb-”

“No you don’t! You stay away from my little brother!” the freakishly tall boy came charging at Blaine. Blaine took a step back, looking at Kurt from around the hulk of a teenage boy.

“Okay, look I don't know what your problem is, but it's a little frustrating that you are all assuming I'm going to hurt him when I've only just met him, not that I don't want to know you Ku-”

“Save it, hobbit,” a boy with a mohawk stepped up threateningly, “while I understand the need to get some not even the Puckasaurus would do it for a competition. And I am not going to let you use my boy, Hummel.” Blaine felt his anger flair up in the back of his mind at the possessive phrase.

“Finn! Noah! Oh. My. God. First of all Finn, I am older than yo-” a member of the New Directions, yet again, cut across someone else as they were speaking. Blaine was starting to think that they were really quite rude.

“Ladyface, trust me, the hottie’s just trying to get in your pants. Although, I think you should let him. Maybe you wouldn’t be so damn uptight all the time him you had a good fuck,” a pretty hispanic girl shrugged casually. Blaine didn’t like the way she talked to Kurt, and was about to step forward and say something but was distracted once again by his mate.

“Santana!,” Kurt squeaked indignantly. He looked mortified.

He glanced around at Blaine. “Just go before one of them murders you or I murder one of them,” Kurt sighed, incredibly disappointed. At the miserable expression on Kurt’s face, Blaine wanted to rush to him. Kurt was his mate, and he never wanted to see that expression on his face ever again. To hold him in his arms, to protect his from any sadness his teammates might have inflicted on him.

He knew that it would only make things worse, though. “Uhh maybe I’ll see you around, then?” Blaine mumbled. Kurt thought for a second that he might have heard the slightest wobble in Blaine’s voice, as if he were close to tears.

Kurt nodded sadly and waved as Blaine backed away. When Blaine’s back disappeared he immediately turned to his friends with a glare.

“Who do you think you are? What is your problem? Are you so homophobic that I’m not even allowed to talk to another gay guy?!” Kurt could feel the tears in his eyes, whether from sadness or frustration he wasn’t really sure.

“No. dude! It’s not that! We’re totally cool with the gay thing! You know that!” Finn tried. And Kurt heard the genuine concern in his voice and sighed.

“Look guys, I understand. You don’t trust him, that’s fine. But I really need to go to the bathroom if you expect me to make it all the way back to McKinley, so if you’ll excuse me.” Kurt turned the corner to head towards the bathroom, but as soon as he was out of sight from his friends he found a pen and scrawled his number into the program he was holding. Now all he needed to do was find Blaine, he would be in a sea of blazers so hopefully that would help him narrow his search.

It was just his luck that he saw a Warbler walking towards the exit, “Excuse me?” The boy turned around and as soon as the Warbler saw him, the guy broke out into a grin.

“Hey! You must be Kurt, right? I’m David.”

“Yeah, I am..” Kurt confirmed, a little confusedly. Had Blaine already told his friends all about him? “I was wondering if you knew where Blaine was? My friends kind of scared him away earlier and I need to apologise.” Kurt was wringing the program between his hands.

“Oh yeah, come with me! He’ll be stoked you came to find him, he was all grumpy and pouty when he didn’t get your number.” Kurt felt his face heat up again. “Right, he’s just over there. “Oi! Blainers! Someone came to find you” David finished in a sing-song voice.

Blaine snapped his gaze up from where he was glaring at the floor, “Kurt?”

Kurt smiled shyly and waved, “Hey!” Blaine immediately stood and placed a hand on Kurt’s arm to lead him away from the group of boys that were all staring and smiling in a rather off-putting manner at the two boys.

After they were a safe distance away Blaine stopped and turned to Kurt, his hand unconsciously remaining on Kurt’s arm, “I honestly thought I wouldn’t get a chance to talk to you again. Your friend’s are a little over-protective.”

“You’ll have to forgive them, they aren’t usually as crazy as they were back there.” Kurt was wringing the program again, before handing it to Blaine, “That’s got my number in it, if you still want it.” Kurt’s hand lingered on the program until Blaine skipped all pretences and reached for Kurt’s hand. Kurt immediately felt an odd sense of relief, of safety, of home. Kurt stared at their entwined hands with a small smile on his face.

Blaine squeezed his hand and bent down to make eye contact as Kurt continued to stare at their entwined hands, unable to tears his eyes away. “I definitely still want it.” He glanced back and the guys and saw Sebastian pointing at his stomach and mouthing ‘hungry.’ “I’ll call you tomorrow, and we can catch up and get coffee, and maybe catch a movie?”

“Okay, sure, I have to go now, I lied to my friends about where I was going and no doubt they will be wondering about what’s taking me so long,” Kurt rolled his eyes, “So I’ll.. umm talk to you soon.” Kurt turned around to leave when he felt Blaine tug him back around and into a hug. Blaine couldn’t keep his hands still, rubbing Kurt’s back trying to surround Kurt in his scent. He felt Kurt shiver at his touch which in turn made Blaine grin, loving that he could already affect his mate so soon after meeting him.

“It was fantastic meeting you Kurt.” Blaine whispered in his ear as Kurt fully relaxed into the embrace. Kurt turned his head towards Blaine’s neck, wanting to experience Blaine’s hug fully. That’s when he finally put a name to the Blaine’s smell, it could only be described as Christmas, with a hint of cinnamon. Kurt knew at that moment that he was completely gone for this boy that gives quite possibly the warmest hugs in the world.

“You too, but I really have to go.” Kurt pulled away, but Blaine kept his hands on his waist for a few beats longer, looking into his sparkling blue eyes. He saw Kurt’s friends glaring at him behind Kurt and he finally convinced himself to let go. Kurt grinned and sent a small wave to Blaine before turning and rushing back to his friends.

Blaine had a moment of silence before his friends were all upon him congratulating him, he turned to hug Seb first burrowing his nose into his neck to take in the familiar scent of home, family, pack, as Sebastian whispered a congratulations close to his ear. Blaine was so ecstatic that he didn’t notice Kurt look around one last time or the hurt look that stole across his face when he saw the seemingly intimate hug shared between Blaine and Sebastian.

Maybe he had interpreted Blaine wrong, either he treated all his friends like that, which Kurt highly doubted, or, as his friends had predicted, he might have just been played by Blaine.

Kurt turned the corner before he could see Sebastian and Blaine break apart, or hear Sebastian complain, “Well finally lover-boy, I’m starving, let’s goooooo.”