“Morning, Charlene, grande nonfat mocha please,” Kurt said, hitching the folder of designs higher beneath his arms, fidgeting agitatedly with the band on his wrist as his favourite barista prepared his order. “Keep the change,” he added as he slid a ten-dollar bill to her.

“My my, do we have an Oscar-winning actor in here that I don’t know about?” Charlene asked, her eyes focused on the crowd of reporters beyond the glass. “Jesus, I’ll have to go out there and ask them to clear off, it’s far too early for so many flashbulbs.”

“They’re all here chasing me because my stupid soulmate tweeted a picture that clearly showed his damn mark and reporters have been knocking down my door and calling my landline and my mobile for six hours,” Kurt said, fury building in his tone as he viciously ripped open the sugar packet and emptied it into his coffee cup. “The headline on JBI Gossip is ‘When Guitars And High Fashions Collide: Kurt Hummel and Blaine Anderson’s Torrid Romance’. Torrid romance my ass, I’ve never even met the guy, I just know he’s mine and I’m his and maybe I don’t want him anymore because he’s a certifiable dumbass.”

“Oh come on, Kurt, he’s your soulmate, he’s meant for you, you’re not going to break a bond like that because he made a mistake, even famous people like you and him slip up,” Charlene assured him, taking the sugar away from him. “You’re going to add more than you like, and I’ll double the charge for making you another one, what a waste of perfectly good coffee.”

Kurt turned on his heel, glad that the shop was mostly empty and no one had seen his little outburst. The only other customer was a woman in a black suit sitting at her own table, typing on a laptop and hitting the keys so violently every crack echoed through the entire room. “Kurt Hummel?” she asked, looking up at Kurt with shrewd eyes. “My name is Santana Lopez, and I’m Blaine Anderson’s manager. I have to try and keep that crazy boy in check, and even I am out of my depth with this situation. I can’t cope with all the calls and I can’t stay in my house, reporters are knocking down my door, I had to call a bodyguard just to get to the car without being buried in a sea of those vultures, and I believe you are in the same situation.” Kurt nodded and slid into the chair opposite her when she gestured. “Come with me, I have a proposal for you that will probably help both of us.”

Blaine awoke to a pounding on the door, searing straight into the morning fog of his mind, and he grumbled to himself as he staggered out of bed, grabbing his old Dalton, Class of ’08 hoodie and pulling it on, sliding the leather band waiting patiently on his nightstand straight on out of habit, padding barefoot over the hardwood floors to open the door.

An irate Santana stood on the doorstep, already perfectly composed in her black suit and hair scraped neatly back, glaring at him as she stormed past his outstretched arm into the house, hitting him over the shoulder with her briefcase. “Are you a fucking idiot?!” she screamed, punctuating every word with another smack of the leather into his skin. “How could you do this? People have been knocking down my door all day and I had to smash my phone into the wall to make it stop ringing and the internet has literally exploded! You are a dumbass, Blaine Anderson!”

“What did I do?” Blaine asked, ducking another blow and darting into the kitchen. “Explain it to me while I make you the coffee you so clearly need. Do you want muesli or waffles or anything?”

“I’ve already done my best with an apple and a cigarette while I was in the car on my way to clean up your mess, I’m fine as long as you give me more coffee,” Santana said, slamming her briefcase down onto the desk. “Last night, that picture of yourself you tweeted after the show, you didn’t have your cuff on because you were by yourself. In that picture, everyone could see your mark, and no one failed to analyse it and publish it and make it the top story in every major media outlet in the damn world!”

The clink of china echoed around the room as the mug slipped from between Blaine’s fumbling fingers and smashed against the countertop and Blaine swore, sucking the little cut on his finger where the jagged edge of a piece had dug into the pad of his finger. “Oh my God, San, I’m so sorry, I never meant for this to happen, is...does Kurt know?”

“Try ‘has Kurt been getting harassed by reporters for over six hours now’,” came a voice, familiar and sending jolts of joy through Blaine’s entire body, heard before now only in recordings, and Kurt Hummel strode into his kitchen, long legs and perfectly coiffed hair and arms toned and exposed in his skin-tight T-shirt when he shrugged off the long cardigan he wore, and Blaine’s mouth went dry at the sight of him. “Okay, you can take that band off, everyone knows what’s under it anyway.”

Blaine tried not to moan when Kurt’s hands landed on his skin, pulling the worn leather band off his wrist and exposing his mark, a white-hot flash of belonging and wanting arcing through Blaine when Kurt’s fingers traced over his own name, carved in curling letters into Blaine’s skin. “Okay, boys, here’s what we’re going to do to try and make this less of a publicity scandal,” Santana said sternly. “You two are going to tell the media you’ve been dating for three months now, but continued to keep your marks and your relationship private for personal reasons. Don’t elaborate on that no matter how much people push. And you will have to act like boyfriends in public. Is that a problem for either of you?”

“Not at all,” Kurt said sweetly, head on one side as he sipped at his coffee, and Blaine couldn’t help wanting to move closer to him, drawn to his soulmate, need calling out from the point of his mark against the pulsepoint of his wrist.

“Me neither,” he echoed, a second late and a little hoarse.