Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Oh my god ,”

Kurt groaned and ran a frustrated hand through his hair as he stared at the monster of a Christmas tree his boyfriend had brought into his house.

Blaine cocked his head as they inspected it, “It’s okay! We can trim it! It’ll be good as new,” he smiled nervously.

“Blaine, it’s touching the ceiling.”

Blaine huffed and flopped back onto the couch, sulking - arms crossed and bottom lip sticking out like a little kid who’d been told they couldn’t get a toy at the store. Kurt smiled down at him and shrugged off his coat before cozying up next to him. He watched his grumpy face, trying to hold back the smile pulling at his cheeks, knowing it would aggravate him even more. After a moment, he playfully tapped at the boy’s nose, “Don’t furrow your eyebrows like that, you’ll get wrinkles. And you’re too pretty to be frowning like that.”

Blaine’s face softened as Kurt gave him a sweet smile and began playing with the little hairs poking out of the gel at the nape of his neck. “What’s the matter, honeybee? It’s just a tree. We’ll get another one,” he said softly.

Kurt instinctively took a hold of Blaine’s hand when he noticed him nervously fidgeting. He leaned on the back of the couch, waiting patiently for him to gather his thoughts. He always needed some time to work through his feelings in his head before he could talk about them.

“It’s just that I wanted our first Christmas living alone together to be perfect. And the real tree was my idea and it looks ridiculous and it’s way too big and there are pine needles all over our apartment and…” Blaine trailed off, looking at the floor in defeat, “I feel like every time I try to do something nice for you, it turns into another mess of mine that you have to clean up.”

Kurt’s heart twisted at the words. He laid a soft hand on Blaine’s cheek, who didn’t move from his position. “Hey,” he ventured, “sweetheart, look at me.”

Blaine lifted his head and turned to meet Kurt’s eyes. The pitiful look on his face made Kurt want to just wrap him in a hug and never let him go. He reached out his other hand to cup his boy’s cheeks. Blaine gave him those sad little puppy eyes that could make even the hardest person go soft.

“Baby, listen to me. First of all, our first Christmas here is gonna be perfect just because you’re with me. I don’t need anything else. I promise,” he spoke as Blaine listened intently, looking at him as if he hung the stars. Like he always looked at Kurt.

“Second of all, it’s our job as partners to help clean up each other’s messes. You’re not the only one who makes them, either. You’ve cleaned up plenty of mine,” he took a small pause as Blaine grasped at his arms, trying to hold his hands. He pressed a gentle kiss to the tip of his nose before locking their hands together again.

“I could care less about the stupid tree, hon. We can pawn it off to Rachel to put in her fancy dressing room at work,” he said, causing a little grin to appear on Blaine’s face for the first time since they’d walked in the door that evening. “There’s that beautiful smile!” Kurt adored how his cheeks still got rosy from simple compliments like that after all this time.

“You don’t need to do things for me to love you, Blaine. There aren’t conditions on my affection. You know that, right?”

Blaine bit his lip in an attempt to keep the tears welling up in his eyes from spilling out. “I know. I guess I just forget sometimes. I’m sorry," he stopped to think on his next words for a second, "Sometimes I just look at everything you've done for me and think there's no way I can ever compare."

Kurt shook his head, "Don't ever think that. You've changed my whole world, sweetheart. You are the best and most important thing in my life and you always will be. You hear me? Always and forever."

Blaine could swear his heart swelled in that moment. “I love you so much,” he beamed up at Kurt. Kurt’s sunshine.

“I love you too,” Kurt wrapped him in one of their tight hugs - the ones that could express all those big emotions that neither of them were too good at talking about. He rubbed Blaine’s back softly and let out a deep breath, soaking up all the comfort he received from Blaine’s head tucked so tightly into his neck that they couldn’t get any closer if they tried. Blaine had always been much more physically affectionate than Kurt was, but he loved it just as much as Blaine did.

Eventually, they’d ended up with Blaine’s head on Kurt’s shoulder and his legs across his lap, snuggled up in a mess of blankets that had been draped across the back of the sofa. Kurt had tugged off the jacket that Blaine had never taken off and shuffled around tv channels until he found one doing a Christmas movie marathon - one of Blaine’s favorite things in the world. They relaxed for a while in silence until Blaine burst into a fit of giggles all at once. “Why would I think getting a nine-foot tree for our little shoebox New York apartment was a good idea?!”

Kurt couldn’t help but join in on the laughter. “Honey, I don’t have a clue,” he ruffled Blaine’s hair and pressed a loud smooch! on the top of his head, pleased that his silly boy was too lost in his giggles to realize what he was doing and swat his hand away. “We’ll get a new one tomorrow, preferably one that doesn’t require the topper to be our ceiling,” he teased.

“I’m an idiot,” Blaine chuckled.

“You’re my idiot.”

Chapter Text

  Kurt checked his hair in the bathroom one last time before venturing back out to his boyfriend’s room and plopping down on the bed. He smiled at Blaine who was standing in front of the mirror beside him, working on the bow tie that Rachel had gifted him a few days prior. He pretended to be checking his texts and snapped a sneaky picture of him. He wanted to show Rachel and knew Blaine probably wouldn’t be in the mood to take pictures today.

The silence in the room was odd. Usually, Blaine would have a record playing and be dancing around the room, trying to get Kurt to join in. Serenading him and giggling, saying ‘spin me!’ Right now, you could hear a pin drop. The big smile that usually resided on Blaine’s face had been replaced with that look. The one he got when he was thinking way too much about not-so-good things. The one he’d had when Kurt got voted prom queen or when Cooper had shown up at school out of the blue that day and taken over everything.

“Are you suuure you don’t wanna skip? I’ll even take you to that cheesy skating rink at the mall that you’ve been asking to go to,” Kurt ventured.

Blaine sighed, but didn’t move from his spot. “Kurt, I told you already. It’s my parents’ stupid holiday party. I’d love to skip, but I’m obligated to go be paraded around in front of a bunch of snotty rich people all evening while my dad pretends he doesn’t hate me and my mom gets hammered and shoves her hundred-dollar cheeses down everyone’s throats.”

Yeah. Kurt had definitely had the right idea about that look. There wasn’t anything he could really say; he knew Blaine was right. He’d only been around them a handful of times, but that had been plenty.

Blaine was still tugging at his tie. His hands were shaking and Kurt could tell he was ready to explode.

“Here, love. Let me do it,” he said quietly, coming up behind Blaine and taking it from his hands. Blaine immediately softened, taking a deep breath and watching Kurt in the mirror. He tied it perfectly, straightening it out and wrapping his arms around his boy’s neck - now decorated with little red reindeer.

“You look very handsome,” Kurt smiled as he peppered little kisses around Blaine’s face and neck, making Blaine scrunch up and giggle. Kurt finally felt the weight come off his chest. He hated seeing Blaine so sad and not being able to help made it even worse. He knew the feeling of pain he’d had for a long time after his mom died, but he couldn’t begin to comprehend what it must feel like to think your parents don’t love you. He didn’t understand how anyone couldn’t love the precious boy standing in front of him.

Blaine’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts, “So do you. You really don’t need to go, you know? I don’t want to drag you into this mess too.”

Kurt shook his head as Blaine turned around to face him, “Nope. You may be going out of obligation, but I’m not. I’m going because I want to be with you. Plus,” he gestured down to the red velvet ankle boots he had on, “these shoes aren’t only fabulous, but also have a little chunky heel that’s just perfect for kicking your dad right in the warblers if he starts with those snarky comments about us.”

Blaine laughed and took Kurt’s hands in his. Kurt kissed him gently and tilted his head so that their foreheads were pressed against each other. Blaine soaked it up, feeling a million times better than he had a few minutes ago. He had Kurt and that’s all that mattered. They’d get through everything together. “Thank you,” he whispered, “you always know how to make everything better.”

Kurt walked them backwards so they could sit down, pulling Blaine into his lap. They stayed there for a while, sharing sweet kisses and enjoying the closeness. Kurt peered up at his honeybee - a nickname that he’s used and had stuck ever since they were just friends. He’d always thought people were being so dramatic when they’d talk about how perfect their partners were. No one is perfect , he’d said. But he absolutely thought this boy was perfect. And Blaine felt the same way about him. It took him back to the time they’d first said I love you. Blaine had been looking over at him with this dopey look on his face for probably twenty minutes as he babbled about New York. ‘ Why are you staring at me? ’ He’d asked. Blaine didn’t bat an eye - ‘ Because you’re beautiful. ’ He’d said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Kurt had blushed so hard he thought his cheeks would catch on fire.

He smiled at the memory and tuned back in to hear Blaine complaining about how they had to go downstairs. “Alright. Up, up,” he prodded playfully at the boy who climbed off of his lap begrudgingly, “let’s go play nice for a couple hours and then we’ll be free. We can go to my house - Dad and Carole are in DC. Finn’s having Rachel over and I was thinking of inviting the rest of the group for some holiday festivities.”

Blaine smiled as he shrugged his suit jacket on, “That sounds really nice.”

“Well, then it’s settled. I’ll text them all.”

Blaine started heading out the door, but Kurt grabbed his arm before he could get all the way out. “Just remember I’m right beside you the whole time, okay? I’m not gonna let them push us around. If they start, we’re leaving,” he said, pressing one last kiss to Blaine’s cheek.

Blaine nodded slowly, giving Kurt a smile that was full of unspoken I love you ’s.

“Okay, now let’s go shove some hors d’oeuvres in our faces and pretend we’re at some stupid Hollywood awards show afterparty,” Kurt said, grabbing Blaine’s hand and leading them down the hallway, starting on a speech thanking the cast and crew of his new Bond movie for helping him win Actor of the Year.

Blaine just laughed, wondering how he got lucky enough to have this stupid, wonderful boy all to himself.