Blaine was only five years old the first time he felt it. He was sitting in his bedroom and luckily Cooper wasn't home. It was Tuesday afternoon in the beginning of April, he remembered the time clearly because he had just been writing his wish list for his birthday. He was playing with his ninja turtles, something he only really got to when his older brother wasn't there, because he would always either take his action figures or tell him that they were stupid.

Suddenly everything changed. He wasn't looking forward to his birthday anymore. He wasn't enjoying playing with his ninja turtles. He wasn't even enjoying the sun bathing his bedroom in warm sunbeams. All Blaine could do was drop his figurines and run out of his room to find his mom.

The first thing his mom noticed was the tears streaming down her son's cheeks when he entered her office.

"Baby, what's wrong? Did you hurt yourself?" His mom asked worried as she pushed away her papers and allowed her child to crawl into her lap.

"Mommy, I'm scared," he cried and grabbed a fistful of her blue blouse.

As any mother would do she started rocking back and forth with a hand brushing over his hair and one stroking his back. But as hard as she tried her consoling sounds of cooing and comfort didn't do her much good.

"Why are you scared, honey? Tell me what happened," she tried asking, determined to investigate what could possibly have induced this fear in her baby boy.

"I don't know. I don't know. I'm just so afraid," he wailed, even though it was more because he didn't know how to put it into words. The feeling was too much for his heart and brain to contain and digest.

Which was the honest to god truth. Blaine had no idea why he was scared and felt empty inside. One moment he had been in the middle of a fight with Raphael versus Michelangelo and the next moment he felt alone and sad – and like something very important was missing. He wasn't able to keep the tears back, and there was a pain in his chest that he had never felt before. The feeling of all-consuming despair was so powerful and frightening that all he could do was cry.

The feeling continued throughout the day. Blaine didn't leave his mom for a second, and whenever she had to leave to go to the bathroom or cook dinner he cried even more. Slowly he realized that the thing he was most afraid of was losing his mom.

Blaine stayed home from school the next day and the day after. The feeling of sadness and loneliness didn't go away and he spontaneously burst into crying. The following Tuesday his mom took him to a doctor. He sat in the chair while the doctor examined him and asked him questions. He listened to his mom explain the doctor about the past week but Blaine's only concern was to make sure that his mom didn't let go of his hand. Which was the reason he threw a fit when the doctor said that he needed to speak to his mom in private and Blaine was to sit with the secretary for a moment. It felt like ages before she returned but her face was glowing and when she picked him up she kissed his forehead and said; "You are one lucky little angel!"

That was all Blaine remembered from the first time he had the feelings.

xXx

The first time Kurt felt it he was four.

It was a Saturday and his mom had dressed him in his favorite clothes before they had invited his dad for a tea party in the garden.

He was having fun and for some reason he was feeling just a bit more happy than he used to when his parents gave into playing with him. He figured it was the way his parents cared for him and the way the sun was shining that made him more giddy than usual, but somehow he knew that there was more to it.

He was in the middle of a chuckling explanation to his dad about how to properly hold the teacup when he suddenly got a weird suction in his stomach. It was uncomfortable and his cheeks started flaming. He hadn't done anything wrong so he had no idea why he suddenly felt so ashamed. His dad was playing along, but still it was like no one understood him, even though he saw his dad following his instructions.

"I don't really feel like playing anymore," Kurt mumbled and put his cup to the table.

"You alright, kiddo?" His dad asked and sent his mom a glance. Kurt simply shook his head and got to his feet to go inside.

The rest of the day Kurt spent curled up on the couch with the weird suction in his belly and not feeling like doing anything. It slowly drifted off and he didn't think further of it after.

xXx

Neither of the boys was troubled much by the feelings anymore than that. They went on with their lives in each end of a sleepy town in Ohio. Sometimes they would feel an misplaced rush of emotions – adrenaline, happiness, pride, sadness, or any other emotion. They never knew where it came from, they just knew that it was from something bigger than themselves.

They lived with it. Never knew when it would catch them off guard and never knew what to do about it other than let the emotion in question fill them and let them enjoy it or hate it for however long it would last.

It was only small rushes, though. It was so brief and strange that they often forgot about it. Neither of them had told anyone about these sensations and mostly they just brushed it off – as soon as the moment had passed it seemed insignificant, and sometimes they even wondered if it was all something they imagined.

That was until the August where Blaine was 13. It was his first day of school after the summer break and thereby his last year before high school. As always he found himself with Danny, his best friend since kindergarten. They were sitting in the schoolyard, talking about their expectations for the new year and how they were excited to move on to their teenage lives.

Suddenly everything turned around. Blaine didn't know what was going on, but without warning he started freezing and his face and back was hurting terribly. Quickly a feeling of humiliation and anger started spreading and his mind went hazy. This was not his own experience, this was definitely something else.

He tried to shrug it off by telling Danny he had just had a brainfreeze from his icelollie, but he couldn't blame his friend for looking at him weirdly. He through the rest of the day without too many problems, mostly a tinge of humiliation here and there on the side of a little fear every now and then.

When he came home he stuck to his bedroom and didn't come until dinner. These drop bys of emotions were starting to freak him out and he didn't know what to do about them, or even how to feel about them.

"Mom? Can I talk to you for a minute?" Blaine asked when his mom had told him goodnight and was about to leave his room. He didn't really know what he was going to say, but he had reached a point where he needed to get it off his chest.

"Of course, sweetie. Is everything alright?" She asked and came in so she close the door.

Blaine sat up in his bed and watched as his mom crossed the floor so she could come sit down on the dge of his bed. She was looking concerned, and he was honestly afraid that it would increase once he told her what was bothering him. Clearly she was going to find him utterly crazy.

"That's the thing... I don't know," he said, and now he wished that he hadn't opened the subject, because there was no real way to say this and still avoid the stretchers and straight-jacket – which, for the record, would never go with a bowtie.

"I know this is gonna sound... odd. But sometimes I get these feelings. Like – it's just they're not mine. I know it's strange, but I can't help it. Today I was just sitting talking to Danny and suddenly... suddenly I was scared and ashamed and... it hurt. Mom, my back and my face just hurt. And it was cold and -" Blaine blabbered out, his voice cracking.

He couldn't help hearing how insane he was sounding when the words left his mouth. He couldn't even imagine what his mom could be thinking about him.

To Blaine's astonishment his mom didn't run away screaming for help. She didn't cry or tell him that he was losing it. She tilted her head and smiled as she let a hand over his cheek.

"Honey, I really hoped that you would figure this out before I would have to tell you, because I though it better that way. But I understand why you need to know what's going on with you," she said softly.

She drew a heavy breath and crossed her legs over the edge of the bed. Blaine knew his mom, and he knew that what she was about to tell him would be big. Life-changing.

"It first happened when you were five. Do you remember that? When you were sad and scared without knowing why? When it was so bad that I needed to take you to the doctor -" she started. Her eyes were eager to continue, to get to the punch line of the story, but she waited – slow and softly to let him grasp her words little by little.

"Mhm, vaguely," Blaine said truthfully.

"I took you to the doctor and he confirmed what I have always known; that my son is special. I didn't believe it at first, but the doctor told me that... honey, you have a soulmate," she explained.

Now that was just stupid. Really anti-climatic. Everyone knew that soulmates were just the excuse young people used to convince their parents that their boyfriend or girlfriend weren't as bad as it seemed. No one actually believe in soulmates anymore.

"Mom, that's all just stories. Even if it actual was a real thing the phenomena died out a long time ago. It's just – I'm just being weird," Blaine sighed, surprised and disappointed at how his mom was handling something that was weighing so heavy for him.

"I know it's a lot to take in, sweetheart. Like I said; I didn't believe it at first either, but it's true. The mood changes, the strong bursts of emotion without knowing why, the feeling of something being missing. It's all a part of it. Somewhere out there, there is someone who feel the same way, someone who is a mirror for your soul – someone you belong to, belong with," she explained.

It was amazing that she was even able to contain herself, because her joy and excitement was filling up her entire face and her eyes, all of it ready to explode in front of him.

"You know that little mark you have on your chest? At solar plexus? That's not just a freckle – that's your mark. This person that you are somehow connected to will have a mark just like that. Only it will fit your mark perfectly. It will be a mirror of your mark," she smiled and Blaine noticed that her eyes were teary.

Blaine pondered at that for a moment. He had honestly never thought about the mark he had on his chest. To him it was just a birthmark, but he knew that it wasn't quite dark enough to be a birthmark, but it had turned darker over the years. Now that he thought about it he had come to his mom and asked her if there was something wrong with it when he was 12. In school they had talked about skin cancer and the teacher had told them that if they had birthmarks that changed they needed to get it checked out at their doctor's. So he had mentioned it to her, but she had only smiled and shaken her head just to tell him that there was nothing wrong and his mark was perfect as it was. Now it made sense. At least sort of made sense.

"I don't know, mom. It seems pretty – far stretched," he shrugged.

"It's alright. You have so much time to get used to it. But one day, one day you will be lucky enough to find this person and you will have a best friend for life. You are blessed, Blaine."

She leaned in to kiss his forehead before she put her glasses back on and stood up to leave his room. When she closed the door Blaine turned on his side and closed his eyes with the hope of getting some sleep. He didn't – on the contrary he kept turning his mom's words over and over again in his head.

There was no way he could actually have a soulmate. Soulmates were a myth, everyone knew that. It was something they heard about in relation to fairy tales and legends. He knew about the special marks soulmates were said to have at their solar plexus and the connection between their emotions and occasionally their physical feelings if those were related to strong emotions – but it was just something kids joked about in school, or something that was referred to in movies to highlight a romantic comedy.

But sure, he wouldn't deny that the thought of having a soulmate would be amazing had crossed his mind a time or two – but it wasn't like he had ever thought it would be reality. Because it was all just a fairy tale.