Disclaimer: I'm just playing in the sandbox. If you recognize it from elsewhere, I don't own it.
Ships: Klaine
Timeline: AU - time travel
Rating: PG
Author's Note: I wrote this story for the Klaine Advent prompt challenge. It was post once an hour on Christmas on my Tumblr, and now here is the full story for you. You can read the daily prompts on klaineadvent. tumblr. com (remove spaces). I hope you enjoy!
It's Time
2012
No one knows what causes it. Some people postulate that it's a recessive gene or subatomic particles or a blessing from the divine. But everyone knows that it's real. There are some special people who can bend time to their will. They can travel backwards and forwards in time, and scientists speculate they could probably travel sideways if they put their minds to it. What they don't understand yet, and won't for another hundred years, is that there are more than four dimensions and "time travel" is far too simplistic a word for this phenomenon.
But this isn't a story about the why and how. This isn't a story about science.
This is a story about forwards and backwards and sideways and stopping and timing.
1758
Snow crunched under Kurt's boots as he picked his way through the deserted street. Beneath the layer of hard snow, ice coated the cobblestones, nearly sending Kurt sliding into a cast iron lamp post casting a warm, orange glow over the night. He regained his footing and shoved his hands deeper into the pockets of his greatcoat. He'd bought the versatile item in 1940, but the nondescript black wool had served him well in four centuries.
At the steps of the church, he paused and craned his neck to peer up at the belfry where they'd arranged to meet today: December 25, 1758. The stars overhead distracted him from searching for the telltale signs of life in the belfry. The sky was so clear in this little German town on this cold winter's night. One day, light pollution and industrial haze will blot out the stars, but tonight the heavens sparkled majestically.
Blaine waited in the belfry already. When he heard the heavy wooden door creak open on its iron hinges and saw Kurt's pale face appear, he leapt up from his seat on the northern ledge and rushed over to his sweetheart.
"You made it, Kurt."
"You always sound so surprised."
They kissed softly, almost shyly. They hadn't seen each other since they'd watched the 1926 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade together about a month ago. Blaine ducked his head to hide a blush. It still amazed him he was allowed to kiss a boy. He spotted the decoration on Kurt's greatcoat. He rubbed his thumb over the school pin.
"Decoration like that will give you away."
"So will this."
Kurt reached for Blaine's hand. He felt the class ring on his boyfriend's finger through the thick wool gloves he wore.
"It's almost time," Blaine said.
He showed Kurt over to the belfry ledge where he'd set up a high-powered telescope Kurt had given to him as a gift last Christmas. The small, lightweight telescope was the economic option in Kurt's natural time in the twenty-second century, but to twentieth century Blaine it was like technology from Star Trek.
"Has Star Trek debuted yet in your natural time?"
Blaine grinned. "We still have a few years. I'm really looking forward to it!"
Kurt chuckled under his breath and took the seat formerly occupied by Blaine while the other boy fiddled with the telescope. The stone had grown cold again without Blaine's body warmth, and Kurt wrapped his arms around his knees. It was a straight drop down to the church steps from the ledge. Kurt shuddered. He loved heights.
"Next year, the Eiffel Tower."
"Really?" Kurt asked breathlessly, his whole face lighting up. "Let's go to 2019. That's the year those hackers got into the mainframe and timed all the lights in Paris to flash like Christmas lights."
"That sounds swell," Blaine promised. He waved Kurt over to the telescope. "Do you want to be the first person to ever spot Halley's Comet?"
Kurt wrapped his arms around Blaine's waist and kissed the sliver of skin exposed between his coat and scarf. Blaine shuddered in his arms and made a contented sound in the back of his throat.
"You're the Poindexter, honey. You should see it first."
Blaine twisted around in his arms and pressed a kiss to his lips. "I'm not a Poindexter."
Kurt patted his butt to get Blaine's attention. "You know, if we keep arguing, Palitzsch will beat us to this historic moment."
"Probably best to let him take the credit. I don't think anyone from any time would be pleased with time travelers zipping around stealing historic moments. We should give him a few more minutes to find the comet, and we can just …."
"Yeah," Kurt said happily, leaning down into the kiss.
2010
Blaine hurried down the circular central staircase with his pocketwatch in his palm. He'd gotten held up in the dorms telling Wes and David another story about war rations for their World War II project. A handsome figure in the skinny jeans and bold prints of the day turned to peer up at him with a grin on his full lips.
"My heart stops when you look at me," Blaine breathed.
Kurt put a hand over his mouth to hide his smile. "I know you're only back here for today, but you really should listen to the radio. I think you'll hear something very amusing."
"Well …." Blaine took Kurt's hand and tugged him closer. "As it turns out, I'm staying for a little longer than I thought."
"Are you sure?" Kurt worried. "You weren't feeling well when you left."
"I've been back to 1954, and my battery is one hundred percent recharged. I'm staying in the twenty-first century for the foreseeable future."
Kurt ran his hands over Blaine's face and gazed into his eyes intently. "Promise me, Blaine. Promise me you're not putting on a brave face again."
"I pinky-promise, Kurt. I'll never do that to you again."
Kurt's face lit up brighter than the winter sun flashing off the blanket of snow outside, and he threw his arms around his boyfriend's neck.
"Blaine, this is perfect! We're almost halfway between our natural times, so it won't take more out of one of us, and this school is a safe space, and … Blaine … we found it. We found our temporal hideaway." He put a hand to his chest over his speeding heart. "We can be together. Like, really together."
Blaine grinned so hard his cheeks ached. "Okay, but …. We keep up our tradition. We go to our natural times from Thanksgiving to Christmas to recharge, but today, every year, we're together."
Kurt nodded. "Every year, any year. As long as I'm with you."
1950
Blaine lived in the same fourth floor walkup in Bushwick that they shared in the 2010s. His name had never been taken off the lease, and it never would be. Kurt lived in the same apartment when he went back to his natural time in the 2100s. The neighborhood had changed – safer in 1950 and 2100 than 2010 – but the apartment had not.
On his way up the stairs, Kurt trailed his fingers over the rough red brick in the stairwell. The rickety steel protested his climb. Sometime between now and then, the landlord had replaced the stairs with concrete. He let himself in with the key they'd never changed, although the ornate brass made his twenty-second century friends howl with laughter.
"Honey, I'm home," Kurt called.
Blaine appeared around the privacy screen blocking the bedroom area. He let out a joyful whoop and ran to Kurt, enveloping him in a hug that conveyed all his loneliness and misery since they'd last seen each other. Kurt caught his husband around the waist and held him tight.
"Kurt –"
"Bed?"
"Oh my." Blaine lowered his lashes coyly. "My dashing husband came all the way to 1950 for some fast action. Don't I just feel like the most?"
"I love it when you use your cute oldies slang."
Blaine laughed. "Relative oldies slang."
They did move to the bed, but only because Blaine had so little furniture, and the mattress was more comfortable than the kitchen table. After what had happen, they needed to talk. They both knew Kurt's question hadn't been a proposition. They sat close together on the mattress, legs pressed together and hands entwined.
"How are you feeling?"
"Better. Kurt, I'm sor –"
"Ssh. No." Kurt cupped his husband's cheek and kissed away the apology on his lips. "You tried to tell me, but I wasn't listening. I insisted we let so many years go by because I was bored of living the same year. I'm sorry, and I'll never do it again."
"We'll figure this out together. Just like we have everything else. For now, let's just be happy we're together on Christmas. Come on. I got you a present you're going to love."
Blaine's holiday cheer was infectious, and even Kurt's guilty conscious couldn't last under the sunniness of his personality. He let himself be tugged over to the tree in the corner and the piles of presents waiting for him.
pre-history
Kurt's eyes bugged out of his head when he took in dense jungle. The moist air rattled in his lungs, and he wrinkled up his nose at the loamy scent of the earth. The blood drained from his face when he looked up and saw extinct flying reptiles wheeling overhead.
"When the hell are we?" he demanded.
Blaine threw his arms wide and bounced around as he said, "Welcome to the Cretaceous! My friend Sam told me how to get here. Look, Kurt! There are dinosaurs."
Kurt screamed and threw his hands over his head, as if he expected a Tyrannosaurus Rex to attack at any moment. Instead, Blaine presented him with a small green amphibian almost lizard-like in appearance. Kurt refused to touch it, so Blaine cradled it to his chest.
"Why should we limit ourselves to human history when the earth is billions of years old? I mean … Look at this place. It's beautiful, it's untouched, it's …. Gee whiz, they don't even know about this little guy," he petted the dinosaur/lizard, "in my natural time. And here I am, holding living, breathing proof that there are things humans don't know."
Kurt nodded tersely. "I agree. It's breathtaking and spectacular and extremely dangerous. Can we please go back before one or both of us gets eaten?"
Blaine held out his hand. "Come with me if you want to live."
Kurt shook his head and fought off a smile. Did he trust the cute gay boy from 1945 who said things like, 'Meet me in 1984. There's a really swell time travel movie playing then that I'd love to take you to see' and 'I'm going to 2007 so I don't have to wait for the last Harry Potter.' No, he didn't. But he wanted to.
"Fine, fine! But if we get eaten by dinosaurs, you are taking full responsibility."
Blaine let the dinosaur/lizard scamper off. He grinned in amusement when Kurt doled out the hand sanitizer, but dutifully rubbed his palms together. Satisfied, Kurt finally took his hand.
They walked a short distance to a small pool of teal water. A red and white checkered sheet lay on the springy ground and a wicker picnic basket sat atop it. Blaine tugged Kurt over, and they settled onto the soft cotton warmed by the ancient sun. From inside the basket, Blaine brought out a small box wrapped in shiny red paper and tied with green ribbon.
"Merry Christmas, Kurt."
"Blaine. You didn't have to get me anything."
"But I wanted to. Open it. Please?"
Kurt untied the ribbon, slid his finger under the tape, and lifted the lid of the white box beneath the wrapping. A smile twitched onto his lips as he slipped his finger through the gold loop on top of the tree ornament. A Tyrannosaurs Rex in a Santa hat spun from Kurt's finger.
"So you don't forget about me," Blaine said softly.
Kurt couldn't hold in his laugh. "I'm spending Christmas in the Jurassic era."
"Cretaceous."
"I don't foresee ever forgetting this. Or you."
"I sure hope not. Everything's gone all topsy-turvy since I started time traveling. You're kind of my anchor, Kurt."
"You'll find another anchor."
"What if I don't want to?"
Blaine's eyes darted to Kurt's lips, and Kurt found breathing difficult. He leaned in towards his new friend and said lightly, "Then you should probably make sure I don't get eaten by a dinosaur."
Blaine ducked his head and laughed. He held out his hand for Kurt and led him into another time and place.
1818
If Blaine hadn't been sitting at Christmas dinner passing the basket of rolls to his brother when it happened, he would have thought he was dreaming. But falling butt first into the sludge of a muddy street and narrowly missing getting run over by a horse-drawn carriage will convince a guy otherwise. Blaine scrambled to his feet, brushed the wetness off his backside, and surveyed his surroundings. He felt like he'd stepped into A Christmas Carol.
A man dressed all in black with a top hat and an impressive white mustache approached him and barked something incomprehensible in German. Blaine shook off his hand and flashed the man a dirty look.
"Don't touch me! My brother lost a foot in the trenches, and my father –"
Blaine's voice broke. He couldn't finish the sentence. It would make everything terrible about the past year seem too real. He stumbled away from the stranger, hugging himself tightly to fight off the chill his cardigan was not sufficient to keep at bay. It wasn't long until he shivered head-to-toe and his skin felt like ice. Of all the ways to find out he was a traveler.
A song reached his ears, and he stopped dead in the middle of the street to crane his head and listen. The choral rendition of Silent Night called him to a church a block over. The radio in the Anderson's living room had been playing a similar version when Blaine vanished from 1945 and turned up here.
The inside of the church could not be called warm. The worshipers wore their overcoats and muffs still, but protection from the wind and snow warmed Blaine's stiff limbs. His appearance had drawn the attention of the priest who hurried over to him, whispering in furtive German. Blaine shook his head.
"Uh. Ich … bin … uh, 1945?"
The priest's irritation vanished in an instant, and he summoned a nun who waited in the wings with a blanket, and then they shuffled him into a pew. The nun stood guard over him. With the warmth around his shoulders and the chill slowly seeping away, Blaine turned his attention to the choir.
"They're wonderful, aren't they?"
Blaine started and turned to his right where a stunningly handsome young man in Victorian finery and a top hat on his knee had taken a seat. Not only did he speak perfect English, but he did so with an American accent.
"You realize we're listening to the very first Christmas carol."
"Umm … No. I didn't know that. Are you …?"
"I am. Kurt Hummel from 2193."
"Do you have jetpacks there?"
The nun glared at Kurt when he laughed, so he pressed his lips together until he had control of himself again.
"From that question and the whole Poindexter ensemble, I'm guessing 1950's?"
Blaine bobbed his head in a self-satisfied way. "I must be ahead of my time. Blaine. 1945."
"Well, 1945, let's leave the Lutherans to finish singing their mass. I only came for the carol, but my friend is staying for a while longer." Kurt gestured to a pew up front. "Let's go drink some spiced communal wine to warm up."
Once they were settled in the priest's study with a cup of warm, spiced wine apiece, Kurt turned to him and said, "So, this is your first time."
Blaine stiffened. "How do you know that?"
"Because you came to Victorian Austria dressed like the kid all the greasers make fun of."
Color flooded Blaine's cheeks, and he took a swig of the strong wine to hide his embarrassment. He had so many questions for Kurt, however, that curiosity won out. Kurt answered everything patiently. Yes, Blaine could change the timeline, but someone in the future would change it back.
"You'll have a run-in with the University one day," Kurt promised darkly. "We all do."
Yes, he would live much longer than the average human. No, he would never age again, but he would feel older – far, far older – than everyone else in the world, because he would see the future, but be forced to live in his own time to recharge his temporal batteries. No, the University would not kill him if he tried to use future science in his own time, but good luck because most future technology needed future energy sources to function. Finding a way to charge his eye-pod would be tough in 1945.
"How do I get home?"
Kurt smiled wanly, as if the innocence of the question made him feel young again. "By wanting to be there."
The clattering of hard-soled shoes on stone marked the end of the Christmas service, and Kurt stood from his chair. Blaine panicked. He scrambled to stay on Kurt's heels.
"But … How will I find you?" Blaine realized how presumptuous that sounded and quickly amended himself. "I mean … if I have questions about time travel."
A knowing smile pulled at the corner of Kurt's mouth, and for a moment worry flooded Blaine's stomach. Could Kurt know that Blaine was a little light in the loafers? And if he did, was he smiling because …?
"Meet me back here in three months."
Blaine's mouth felt very dry as he nodded. "Okay. March twenty-fifth … uh, what year is it?"
Kurt shook his head fondly. "No. Come back here to December 25, 1818 after you've been in your natural time for three months. I'll have recharged by then. We can go to some time together when they have coffee shops."
Blaine blinked. He wondered if he would ever get used to the way travelers talked about time. But he understood that on March 25, 1945 in Westerville, Ohio, he would travel to December 25, 1818 in Vienna, Austria, and then Kurt would take him sometime and someplace else for coffee. And that was what really mattered.
"It's a date."
1944
"I thought I might find you here," Kurt said.
Blaine peered over his shoulder through the heavy fog hanging over the Belgian forest. A figure appeared between two phantom tree trunks and emerged into the dim moonlight filtering in through the barren branches overhead. A deep frown pulled at the corners of Blaine's mouth. Kurt took his hand, and they walked slowly along the trench forming the frontline of the American troops in Bastogne.
"Are you sure the Germans won't attack? We're literally walking targets."
"I'm sure. We have a couple hours," Blaine said softly.
"Do you know where he is?"
Blaine nodded, but didn't answer otherwise. They stopped in a space between two trees, Blaine staring straight ahead, and Kurt struggling not to make eye-contact with the soldiers down in the trench and in the foxholes. They were obviously travelers in their strange clothes, but in Kurt's defense they had been planning on spending Christmas in 2406 when metal feathers were all the rage.
"Hey," one of the soldiers whispered. Kurt closed his eyes, because he knew what came next and the depressing answer. "You're a traveler, right? When do we get out of here?"
Kurt pressed his lips into a thin line. He couldn't say, "You won't." He couldn't do that to a man so young and full of life.
"Leave it," someone else said. "You know they can't answer questions like that."
Kurt turned to look at Blaine and followed his line of sight to a raven-haired man in a Captain's uniform drinking coffee and writing a letter down in the trench. Blaine did not look much like his father except for his intense hope. Even now, with the bone-chilling cold turning breath to ice and the horror of the trenches and the looming threat of artillery fire and the distance between himself and his family on Christmas, Mr. Anderson smiled as he wrote.
"When will he …?"
"Two days."
"Did you ever read the letter?"
Blaine shook his head. "It's to my mom. A love letter. I didn't want to ask to see it." His face contorted, and he pressed his fingers into his eyes. "The last part of him we have is love. That's something, right?"
The tears froze on Kurt's cheeks. "You could talk to him."
"No, I can't. He'll always be a ghost to me. Even if he'd lived and come home, he'd be a ghost."
Kurt understood. All time travelers understood because everyone they loved became ghosts in one way or another. One day, they turn up in their natural time and suddenly everyone is different to them because they've seen things no one from their time could dream. They lived in families of ghosts and found flesh and blood only in other time travelers.
"I'm ready," Blaine said. "Let's go sometime peaceful before fathers died in wars."
"Pre-history it is," Kurt said softly.
1911
Blaine closed his eyes as he'd promised he would while Kurt led them through time. He felt the air shift around him and the temperature drop degrees, but most disconcerting was the instability of the floor. He stumbled, his eyes flew open, and he caught himself on the most spectacular staircase.
"Oh my God." Blaine turned around, peering up at the iconic setting. "Oh my God! Kurt, we're on –"
"The Titanic! Come on."
Kurt wound through the corridors as if he'd been on the ship before, and maybe he had. Before they'd traveled everytime together, he'd taken trips on his own to distant times. What traveler hadn't wanted to set foot on the Titanic? Tonight, however, the ship was not sailing, but docked in harbor until her completion in some months and abandoned while the crew celebrated with their families.
"This is the only Christmas Titanic will ever see," Blaine whispered.
Kurt didn't hear, and that was for the best if he didn't want to spoil their day.
Eventually, they came to a door Kurt liked, and he led Blaine into an elegant stateroom furnished with such elegant taste he almost forgot they were on a ship, which he supposed was the point of the opulence. Kurt clicked the key-sized silver device he always carried in his pocket, and the air in the room turned warm.
"We should take more trips to the future," Blaine said. He stripped off his peacoat and tossed it over the back of a chair.
"Keep going."
"What?" Blaine looked to his husband for a clue and saw he'd settled himself in a plush armchair and balanced a sketchbook on his lap. His lifted his brows. "Kurt …. Are you going to draw me like a French girl?"
Kurt leaned forward and kissed him lightly. "Yes."
2192
Blaine leaned back in his chair and sipped his iced coffee while watching Kurt scroll through the morning news. In the next room, Carole fiddled with the brightness dial on the Christmas tree while Finn played with the base to make sure none of the wires were loose. Outside, a hummingbird fluttered by the bird feeder.
"You're staring."
"Yes, I am."
Kurt laid down the electronic paper and regarded his boyfriend. "Any particular reason?"
"I'm just happy you brought me home for Christmas. Even if it isn't a white one."
"I had to go to 1997 to see snow for the first time. Have you ever been to 1997?"
"Can't say that I have."
"Good year for movies."
"I'll take your word for it."
"You don't have to. You could go there yourself."
Blaine regarded Kurt for a minute. "What if I don't want to go alone?"
Kurt stayed silent as their eyes met across the table, and an arsenal of unspoken, but understood words breached the invisible, but very real, wall between them and their natural times. A smile turned up the corners of Kurt's mouth.
"Then take me with you."
1909
"I've never seen anyone so scandalized in my life," Kurt laughed.
Blaine shifted under the heavy covers and rolled onto his side to gaze lovingly at his husband. He ran a thumb over Kurt's flushed cheek and kissed his bruised lips, drawing out a pleasant hum from deep in Kurt's throat.
"Well, it is 1909, and we are two men."
"We're travelers. They can't think things will always be the way they are now. They've got to accept that society changes, and their rules will be meaningless in a few years."
"They're aristocrats, Kurt. They can't imagine their rules being meaningless any more than they can imagine passenger spaceships touring Mars and what first contact with aliens was like."
"Will be like. It happens in the future."
"Was. We've already been there to see it."
Kurt decided not to pursue the topic any further because they never agreed on temporal vocabulary.
"Anyway, I think this was a very good Christmas, and thank you for bringing me here."
"Well, we both love Downton Abbey so much …."
Kurt poked Blaine's side until he turned over again and could be wrapped up in Kurt's arms. He kissed the soft skin on the back of his husband's neck and let the warmth from the fire and laziness from their lovemaking pull his eyelids closed.
"It was a very nice present. So was the brooch."
"Hmm. I think Lady Charlotte was very jealous of you."
Kurt laughed. "I think all the ladies were very jealous of me. Your 1940's charm appeals to them."
"But their feminine charms don't appeal to me."
"Thank God."
Blaine twisted around for a proper kiss that he wanted to last forever, but the room was so warm, and he was so tired from a day of making merry and dancing and lovemaking that he couldn't stay awake any longer.
"I never want today to end."
Kurt smiled against his neck. "That's the beauty of being a traveler. It never will for us, not if we don't want it to."
1892
The bell signaling the end of intermission rang across the lobby. Women in gorgeous frocks with fur drapes and muffs and men in their finest tails made their way back into the theatre where ushers turned down the gas lamps. In one of the boxes, Kurt and Blaine held hands over the arms of their chairs.
"Can you believe we're among the first people to ever see The Nutcracker?" Blaine asked excitedly.
"Can you believe you actually talked me into coming here?"
"I thought you'd like ballet."
Kurt gave his boyfriend a droll look. "Honey, there are about fifteen new styles of dance invented between our times. Ballet is so … passé. I appreciate its historical significance on dance, but as for watching it …."
Blaine kissed his cheek. "Oh, the things you put up with for me. I'll make it up to you after the show."
"Oh? And how will you do that with the howling Russian winter beating down the doors?"
"Well, I was going to suggest ice-skating."
Kurt laughed, and it earned him a sharp shush from the back of their box. Blaine pressed his lips together to keep himself under control. They giggled through the entire second act, because although Blaine was loath to admit it, ballet didn't quite do it for him either, especially not when it followed Iolanta. He was itching to move around after so long in the theatre.
"Okay, ice-skating it is," Kurt conceded. "But not in St. Petersburg. I'd prefer to be alive next Christmas, not die of exposure in 1892. Let's go to New York. Bryant Park. We can ice skate with the city lights all around us and no threat of frost bite or hypothermia."
Blaine grinned brightly and took his hand. "What year?"
"Hmm. I think 2012 sounds good."
2651
Blaine's lips twitched into a laugh, and he looked aside quickly to hide it from the waiter standing behind the counter effusively explaining that his diner was an exact replica of a real 1950's soda shop. Beside him, Kurt's shoulders rose and fell with his silent laughter.
"You said you wanted to go to something like Medieval Times for Christmas," Mercedes said, peering around Kurt. "In my natural time, this is what you get."
Blaine glanced around at the atrocious set. The jukebox spun microdiscs instead of records, and the album covers glittered like 2300s holograms. The soda fountain was – much to his glee – literally a fountain of soda, and he couldn't look at it without breaking into fits of fresh laughter. They'd done a fairly decent job with the booths and barstools, despite using synthetic metals.
"What can I get for you today? How about a traditional 1950s American Christmas dinner?" the waiter asked.
Blaine agreed because he wanted to see what people in the 2650s thought they ate in the 1950s. He prepared himself to be offended. After all, he'd learned first-hand that people in Medieval Europe did not usually gnaw on giant turkey legs at dinner.
"I don't know how funny this really is," Mike said pensively. "It's a little sad that our natural times are forgotten so easily, especially with us around."
Blaine's smile slipped, and he clapped a hand on Mike's shoulder. Mike was older than most of their traveler friends. He'd jumped back into his natural time enough that everyone he loved there had lived out their days. When he went back now, he repeated days with ghosts or lived fresh days alone.
"Well, that wasn't depressing at all," Mercedes said.
"Sorry," Mike said sheepishly.
"Don't worry about it," Blaine insisted. "We're a family, and we will be long after we've lived enough years in our natural times to think the same thing. We might not get it yet, but we will one day. Travelers always understand each other in the end."
"Well said." Kurt kissed Blaine lightly. "Oh! That wouldn't have been allowed in 1950, would it?"
"Neither would a milkshake machine with Russian writing on the side, and yet here it is right beside the most literal interpretation of a soda fountain to ever exist."
"That is kind of ridiculous," Mike agreed.
With the mood sufficiently lightened, they were free to guffaw over the '1950's Christmas Dinner' that arrived ten minutes later: noodles made out of chicken, flattened baked potatoes, and a handful of plump cranberries.
"Merry Christmas!" Blaine said, raising his glass.
They clicked their glasses, drank deeply, and gagged. Kurt recovered first.
"That's not eggnog."
3413
Kurt tilted his head back and gazed into the corner of the room where the insect fluttered at the joint of two walls and ceiling. Against the stark silver of the room, its wings seemed impossibly white, purer even than the clouds below.
"Hey," Blaine said, a laugh in his voice. "I thought we came here for the view."
"I did," Kurt answered distractedly.
Blaine turned away from the spaceport window overlooking the blue and green planet blanketed with wispy white clouds. He joined his boyfriend in staring at the fluttering creature.
"What is it?" Kurt asked.
"You've never seen a moth?"
"Not a white one."
When the moth fluttered low enough, Blaine stretched up and captured it in his palm. The brush of wings in his palm felt wrong, and he knew why. Everything on the spaceport was metal or plastic. Even the plants weren't real. The mechanical moth's motor whirred as Blaine opened his palm and presented it to Kurt.
"Think we can slip away with the moth?" Blaine wondered.
"It's not organic. I don't see why not."
"Will you hold it against me if I steal your Christmas present this year?"
A smile turned up one corner of Kurt's mouth. "You don't have to steal the moth for me. I can always come back and see them again. Or you could show me a real one."
"I could," Blaine conceded, "but I want this one. I want a memento of the first time I saw Kurt Hummel totally, completely amazed by time travel."
Kurt stroked his thumb over Blaine's cheek. "Then you only need to look in the mirror. I was pretty infatuated with you right from the start. Even if you couldn't tell it then, I was."
Blaine grinned widely. "But I'm still taking the moth."
2011
Kurt let out a shriek as the snowball exploded in his face and he tipped backwards into a fluffy snowbank against the side of the school. Across the quad, Blaine whooped and jumped around in victory.
"Bl – ARGH!"
Kurt collapsed into the snow again, this time pressed deeper into the cold by the boy on top of him. Blaine gazed down at him breathlessly, ice crystals forming in front of his mouth and eyes sparkling with happiness and mischief.
"I win."
"No," Kurt said flatly. "You don't win a snowball fight by hitting me once and pouncing on me."
"I win, I win," Blaine singsonged. He dropped his head for a kiss that stole what breath the cold had not from Kurt. "Do you want to get warm now? Hot chocolate, cuddling by the fire, Christmas duet? I think everyone else has gone home now."
Kurt wiggled under his husband – a word he couldn't use in 2011, not when they were pretending to be seventeen-year-old high school students – to get his attention. Blaine's eyes darkened, and he ducked down for another kiss.
"Or that," he murmured against Kurt's mouth.
A handful of cold, wet snow shoved down Blaine's sweater made him sputter. Kurt shoved him off, leapt up from the snowbank, and bolted across the quad. He scooped up snow as he ran and packed it into a loose ball like Blaine had taught him.
"I will never admit defeat!" Kurt cried.
His snowball missed Blaine by a foot, but no matter. There was plenty of snow this year, and he had years of a childhood without snow to play in to make up for. Blaine's second snowball sent him tumbling backwards again, but he only laughed with it this time, rolled over onto his stomach, and made a snowball like that, lying there on the ground.
How long they ran around the yard, cackling and pelting snow at each other, Kurt didn't know. Eventually, the cold hurt his lungs too much to continue, and he let Blaine catch him around the waist and press in close behind him.
"Too cold for you?"
Kurt rubbed his bright red nose with his snow-crusted mitten, but shook his head. "You still haven't showed me what these snow angels are and how to build a snowman and what a snow cream tastes like."
Blaine's breath tickled his ear when he laughed. "We have forever, Kurt. Come inside before you catch a cold. We can sneak into the kitchen, and I'll make you tomato soup and grilled cheese."
Kurt brightened. "You know my weakness for twentieth century foods."
"I do." He kissed the skin behind Kurt's ear. "Snowmen tomorrow, I promise."
1958
Blaine swallowed thickly when Cooper opened the wreath-decorated door. He looked so much younger than Blaine remembered, like in the months that had passed since they'd seen each other, he'd aged backwards. Lifetimes sometimes blurred together to Blaine, and while his body naturally knew his precise temporal location, his imprecise human memory couldn't always separate 2010 from 1958 from 1945.
"Merry Christmas, little brother!" Cooper cried, enveloping him in a hug. "Or should I say little brothers?"
Kurt stepped up for a hug too.
In the living room, Cooper's wife shifted uncomfortably on the couch. She had trouble comprehending two men being married despite Cooper explaining again and again that the future was different. She poured them each a cup of tea while they took off coats and put presents under the tree.
"It's good to see you again," Blaine said warmly, kissing her cheek.
Kurt accepted the cup and stirred in two sugars without comment. It wasn't that they didn't like each other; they simply couldn't understand each other. Too much time separated them.
Cooper limped over to the couch, leaning heavily on his cane. Even years later, the prosthetic foot bothered him. He sat down with a sigh of relief.
"Tell me about the wedding." Kurt and Blaine exchanged a sidelong look. "What?"
"Well … it's just … I don't think we should spoil it for you."
"I was there?" Cooper asked excitedly. "Was I your best man, Squirt? Oh, wow. That must have been hilarious to see. It takes 'older brother' to a whole new level."
It had been a sight to behold, the seventeen-year-old groom with the eight-five-year-old brother. It had cost Blaine a lot to see his big brother that worn and frail, just as it had cost Cooper a lot to let his little brother bask in his youth while he, Cooper, neared the end of his life.
"All right. Tell me about the other wedding."
"That we can do," Kurt said, producing photographs from the 2202 ceremony when his family had been present.
Cooper flipped through the stack with wonder in his eyes. Non-travelers got that look sometimes when they thought too much about time travel.
"It's too bad I couldn't have been young and handsome in your wedding pictures like Kurt's brother," Cooper mused.
"We picked the earliest year we could," Blaine promised. "I only wish mom could have been there, but it took too long for the world to realize love is love."
Cooper tried to hand the pictures back, but Blaine waved them off.
"I know … I know it's hard on you and mom when I disappear for too long. I want you to have some of our wedding pictures – the ones we can show you – so that you can look at them and remember that even when I'm not here, I always have family with me."
Cooper brushed a finger under his eye. "I will. Promise. And I guess you already know if I kept that promise or not," he laughed.
"You did," Blaine assured him. "You always did, Coop."
1430
"I'm not entirely sold on this being a good idea," Blaine said.
"It's fine. I do this all the time."
"Yeah, but on Christmas?"
Blaine pulled at the uncomfortable – what was it even called? A doublet? Medieval hoodie? – shirt Kurt had forced him into. He felt like a deranged cosplayer stumbling around the French countryside in this getup.
"When else can we see her not covered in blood?"
In the time before the Enlightenment, when time travel had been discovered a physical reality (even if no one understood how it happened yet), people who turned up in strange clothes speaking a strange version of English generally found themselves locked away or mobbed as demonic presences. The locking away part was not a problem, as a time traveler could simply vanish to whenever he wanted, but the mobbed part tended to involve extreme duress and blows to the head, which made disappearing difficult.
"You should listen to your friend."
Kurt and Blaine spun to the stranger who spoke perfect English, if a bit accented in the way they pronounced words in the distant future. The man dressed all in black with a weapons belt snapped around his hips.
"Not you," Kurt moaned.
"Yes, me." The stranger held out his hand to Blaine. "I don't believe we've met. Jesse St. James. I'm from the University."
Blaine took his hand warily, remembering perfectly well what Kurt had told him about the University being the master of time travelers. They controlled all things temporal, and if something should go amiss in the past, they intervened.
"Have we done something wrong?"
"If by 'wrong' you mean screw up the timeline, then yes. Or, at least, you're about to in the next twenty minutes, which means I need you both to come with me to a time when we can keep an eye on you. 6781. Or do I have to hold your hand to get you there?"
Kurt flipped him off as Jesse stepped into the future. He sighed wearily.
"I know it's not an ideal way to spend Christmas, but you really don't want to piss off the University," Kurt said apologetically.
"I … kind of didn't want to meet Joan of Arc anyway," Blaine said.
Kurt shook his head. "You'll drag me to the Jurassic –"
"Cretaceous"
"– but whine about 1420. All right. Let's go listen to Jesse drone about how his time is superior, which means he's superior."
"As long as we're together, right?"
"Always the optimist, huh? As long as we're not trying to meet a legend."
"That's not …"
Kurt faded with a wave, and Blaine followed him into the future with an argument on his lips.
1963
They sat in the nearly empty movie theater with a bucket of popcorn between them while the animated film played on the screen – "big screen" in Blaine's vocabulary; "miniscule" in Kurt's. The Sword in the Stone was not one of Kurt's favorites, but Blaine loved Arthurian legend, and "it's the premier, Kurt" he'd whined.
"What is it with you and this movie?" Kurt whispered.
"Ssh."
Kurt gaped at Blaine, but shook out a couple more jujubes that he swore could survive a nuclear winter and went back to watching the film he'd seen dozens of times before.
When they left the theatre bundled in their winter gear with their heads ducked against the snow blowing in from the east, Kurt asked the question again (and cheekily shushed Blaine when he started to answer).
"It's a movie about a prince?" Blaine tried. "The princess movies are great, but … boys can like Disney too."
"We couldn't have seen The Emperor's New Groove?"
"That's not about a prince. That's about a llama."
"Who is a prince."
"Emperor. What about the title is confusing to you?"
Kurt shoved him playfully, and then tugged him closer again so they walked arm-in-arm down the lonely sidewalk under the Christmas lights in store windows and the tree in Times Square.
"Honestly, though, he's Arthur. The Once and Future King. He's like us, isn't he? He was here, and he had to leave, but he'll be back one day."
"Hmm. King Arthur as a time traveler?"
"There are crazier theories."
"Are you referring to the jujubes?"
"A nuclear winter? Seriously, Kurt?"
7939
Kurt and Blaine lay on their backs with the wet grass tickling their cheeks and poking through their cotton-covered backs with their hands entwined by their heads and their new engagement rings resting together, cold metal against cold metal. Overhead, the red heat lightning touched the distant ground.
"How is lightning that color?"
Kurt shook his head against the grass. "I don't know. Some artificial element in the atmosphere now. I think it's emissions from the ships."
"Hmm. We should see them sometime, the ships."
Kurt grinned. "And to think, just a few years ago, you were fanboying over some dinosaurs. Now listen to how calm you sound about spaceships."
Blaine laughed lightly. "I'm calm because I'm with you, because I'm happy."
Kurt rolled onto his side and pressed an upside down kiss to his fiancé's lips. He settled back down into the grass with his temple leaning against Blaine's and watched the heat lightning sizzle through the night sky. He always thought he'd be more impressed with the phenomenon. It turns out, everything paled in comparison to the man he'd promised to spend the rest of time with.
1944
"Do you really want to be here?"
Blaine peered over his shoulder at Kurt. The mist over the frozen Belgian soil curled around his legs. Bastogne was bitter cold tonight. Soldiers – the same soldiers Kurt had avoided speaking to the last time they'd come – huddled in their foxholes, trying in vain to keep warm. Kurt hunched down into his faux fur-lined winter coat.
"You visit your family's graves once a year," Blaine said. "I want to visit my father's."
Kurt's lips dipped into a deep frown. They'd been alive so long now that everyone they'd loved in their natural times had passed on and rested in the ground. But there was a distinct difference between this and visiting a grave marker.
Off to the left, two men moved through the trees in strange, futuristic clothes covered in metal feathers. Kurt sucked in a breath. Decades had passed since the Christmas he'd come to Bastogne to find Blaine, but they looked identical to their younger selves. Except for their eyes. Their years showed in their eyes.
"We shouldn't cross our own timeline. Let's go back home."
"Home," Blaine said flatly. "An apartment we hardly live in with no furniture, no pets, no children? That's not home, Kurt, that's a hotel."
Kurt said nothing for a long time. "Blaine … are you … Are you asking for us to have a baby?"
"We can't have a baby, Kurt. We have to go back to our natural times to recharge. We can't leave a baby for a month at a time."
"We … Blaine, we could talk about it. We could work out a schedule or …. Just, please, don't torture yourself like this. Don't dredge up the ghosts in your past because you think we can't have anyone new in our future."
Blaine turned to his husband with tears in his eyes. "How do you always get me?"
"You think I've never slipped off to watch my dad work in his tire shop? Or to watch my mom dance around the backyard? I have. I know you've gone back to times you shared with Cooper and your mom. That's normal for travelers, but this, Blaine, this scares me. This is not a happy memory."
"I miss them all so much."
Kurt drew Blaine to him and wrapped his arms around his husband's shoulders. "I know, honey, I know. It's never okay, it's never the same as it was, but you have me. You'll always have me."
1922
The band in the drawing room could be heard through the entire house. The blaring trumpets and quick dance beat drew partygoers onto the dance floor. The flappers' shoes pounded on the tile like a steady drum.
Kurt wandered through the crowd with an empty martini glass in hand. He searched for the familiar head of sculpted curls. Blaine was supposed to meet him here, but his new time traveling shadow had failed to appear as of yet. A passing cigarette girl paused and flashed him a flirty wink.
"Sorry, doll, I'm waiting for my Sheik."
The girl lifted her brows, but flashed him a smile. "Aren't we all, daddy?"
She moved on to the next well-dressed man who might pluck her out of her life and elevate her to high society. Kurt wished her well. The next decade would be for ambitious people like her.
"What does that mean?" an eager voice asked.
A smile broke across Kurt's lips. "Blaine! You made it."
Kurt's hug caught him off guard, but he responded with a tight squeeze.
"That word? What does it mean?"
Kurt's cheeks turned pale pink. He couldn't tell his very new, very handsome friend that he was sexy. He couldn't.
"It's just 20's slang. Come on. Let me give you a tour of the house."
Kurt led the way through the drawing room where the party raged into the quieter corners he'd become familiar with on other days when fewer people inhabited the mansion. They ended up in the music room where a fire crackled in the ornate hearth. It cast elongated shadows onto the walls and drew Kurt and Blaine into its pleasant warmth.
"This place is swell," Blaine said, craning his neck to take in the sweeping architecture of the room. "It's like something out of a dream."
"The owner is a friend of mine. He's an architect. He designed the house himself. When we go back to the party, I'll introduce you. I think you'll really like him. He's ahead of his time."
"Should I be jealous?"
"Of Dalton?" Kurt laughed. "No, no. Dalton is about fifty-years-old, and even if he wasn't, he's protective of anyone who looks like a kid. He lost his to the Spanish flu. He said that when he's gone, he wants this place to become a school so it's full of happiness again."
"It feels like it's already full of happiness. Or maybe I just feel that way when I'm with you."
Heat flooded Kurt's cheeks again. When he glanced up at Blaine, he found the other boy staring at his mouth. Kurt's stomach exploded with butterflies. The societal rules of Blaine's natural time warred in him, and Kurt saw the battle ebb and swell in his eyes. And then soft, warm lips pressed against his, and he drew in a deep breath through his nose, so surprised and delighted and infatuated with this boy. He cupped Blaine's strong jaw, held him closer for just a few seconds more.
"We should go celebrate," Blaine said, flushed and embarrassed.
"I thought we were," Kurt breathed.
2005
Blaine jumped out of his seat, arms flailing in the air, whooping with joy. Kurt's eyes flicked back and forth, but he couldn't discern exactly what had happened on the football field. He really only understood the kicker's role. Clearly, however, Blaine's favorite team had won. The scoreboard said it had been a fairly close game, 23-17.
"I didn't realize you were so enthusiastic about the … uh, Cardinals?"
Blaine cast him a side-eye. "Ravens."
"Right. Ravens."
"And I wouldn't say I'm enthusiastic about them. I just really hate the Vikings."
Kurt had no comment for that. He looped his arm through Blaine's as they joined the pressing crowd filing out of the stadium. As travelers, they could line jump to wherever, whenever they wanted to be, but the physicality of the thrown elbows and trodden on toes grounded them, kept them connected to the majority of humanity that could not time travel.
"Thank you, Kurt. This was a fantastic Christmas present. I've always wanted to see a Christmas game, but I know how you feel about football. So, just thank you for giving up part of our day. I promise I will buy you scarves. Lots and lots of scarves."
Kurt bopped his nose. "We're not done yet, silly. Or does the sports fan not realize there are two football games today?"
Blaine's glee swelled into jubilation. He gave a happy laugh and threw his arms around Kurt.
"Are you serious? We're going to watch the Bears and Packers too?" Kurt produced two tickets from his pocket. Blaine threw up his arms in triumph. "Oh my God, Kurt! The Bears and Packers!"
Kurt grinned at his husband and shook his head. "Well, you certainly do fit in with the locals. Want to take off your shirt and paint a giant letter on your chest?"
Blaine pulled a face. "That only works if you have several guys spelling something, silly."
"Oh, right. How silly of the scarf-loving, twenty-second century man to not know that. My sincerest apologies."
They emerged from the press of bodies into the parking lot at last and sucked in deep breaths of chilly air. They stepped off the sidewalk, allowing other spectators to return to their cars while they faded into the past to the beginning of another football game in another city.
"So … two football games. Does that mean you're buying me twice as many scarves?"
Blaine rolled his eyes playfully. "Yes, honey. I'm buying you twice as many scarves."
1997
The tears froze on Blaine's cheeks.
For the first time in their life together, he and Kurt couldn't be together on Christmas day. Despite their promise to never stray too many years from 2010, their perfect hideaway, they had done and now they had to pay for it with a long and painful separation while Kurt was stuck in his natural time.
Blaine sniffed and swiped over his cheeks with his gloved hands.
It was his fault for suggesting they go back to 2000 instead of living the same decade one more time. Ten years had taken such a toll on Kurt, and now he was alone in his time, too old now to have any living relatives or friends left there.
Sometimes Blaine thought it would have been better if he'd never stumbled into that Austrian town in 1818. Like right now, as he sat on the park bench with the snow piling up on his shoulders and tears freezing to his skin.
The young man a hundred feet away threw his arms wide, lifted his face up to the snow, and spun in circles, his high laugh as clear as ringing bells. Though he hadn't aged in centuries, the boy hardly looked like Kurt at all. His eyes were so young and carefree. He hadn't experienced the endless series of funerals, the dogmatic University, the bouts of temporal sickness that came with loving someone from another time.
"You would still be laughing today if it wasn't for me," Blaine whispered.
"Not true."
Blaine started and spun around on the bench. Kurt – his Kurt, his centuries old Kurt – looked pale and sweaty despite the cold. Dark circles ringed his eyes, and he shuffled when he walked, like it caused him pain.
"I wouldn't be any kind of happy without you."
"Kurt, you can't be here! We have to take you home."
"You can't come with me. It's too far for you."
"And this is too far for you! We're taking you home right now."
Panic pitched Blaine's voice high. He scrambled around the bench to grab Kurt's arm. His husband sagged against him, and it tore at Blaine's heart to feel him so sick and weak. With the snowflakes in his hair and the shadows on his face, he almost looked physically old.
"Okay, okay. I'll go back to my natural time. But, Blaine, don't ever call it home. It's only home when you're there with me."
Kurt pressed a light kiss to Blaine's lips. "Promise me."
"Promise."
"I love you."
"I love you too," Blaine called, as Kurt faded into another time where he could recover his strength.
Crying again, Blaine sagged onto the bench with his head in his hands. The strange hair-raising feeling of being watched settled over him, and with a shock, he found the younger Kurt standing over him and holding out a monogrammed handkerchief.
"Uh, thanks."
"I seem to care about you very much in the future," Kurt said lightly.
He sat on the bench next to Blaine.
"Too much. Do yourself a favor, Kurt, don't ever go hear the first Christmas carol sung. You'll save yourself so much pain."
Kurt's brow drew together. "The first Christmas carol …. I'd never really thought about that as a destination. I'll bet Mercedes would love to hear that."
"Kurt," Blaine begged.
"I'm lonely," Kurt admitted softly. "I'm so lonely, and as sick as I looked just now, I did not look lonely. I looked happier than I've ever felt, so … I'm going to leave now and figure out when the first Christmas carol was sung, and I'm going to go find you then."
Blaine shook his head, the tiniest of smiles pulling at his lips. "You've always been so sure we could find a temporal hideaway, that we could survive anything. Is it because of this moment?"
"I … have no idea. You'll have to ask me in the future."
"You know this isn't the end of the story. This is the middle. There are no guarantees past this moment."
That brought Kurt up short and seemed to unsettle him. It reminded Blaine that as much as he thought of Kurt as his mentor in this time traveling business, the truth was that Kurt had not been doing it for much longer than Blaine, and they had figured most things out together.
"Just think about it before you go running off into the past."
But he knew what Kurt would do. Because a part of him had always known that Kurt already loved him when he sat down next to Blaine in that church pew in that Austrian town in 1818.
1986
"I still find this problematic," Kurt said.
Blaine looked to the left at the illuminated nativity scene in front of the Austrian church.
"After all these years, I thought it would be easier to believe in something, but faith seems harder to find the more you've seen, and we've seen so much."
They had never truly lost track of the number of years they'd traveled together, but they'd been rounding up for the last several hundred now. Kurt rarely commented on the religious origins of Christmas (those having all but disappeared by his natural time), but he knew Kurt did not believe in higher powers.
"Or maybe faith just doesn't come naturally to me," Kurt mused.
Blaine started. "I wouldn't say that at all. You have an incredible amount of faith, Kurt."
Kurt lifted his brows in argument, but didn't say anything. He didn't need to really, not after so many years together. Sometimes, they held entire conversations in silence, eyes shifting and mouths twitching. They didn't need to hold hands or specify a date when they traveled anymore; they could feel each other in time.
"What do I have faith in? Science? The University?"
"Yes. And in people. Even after everything we've seen, you still think people are inherently good. In me. When I think about it now, dragging you into the Jurassic –"
"Cretaceous."
"– was ridiculous even for me. Kurt, I don't know if we'll live forever – and at this point, I kind of think we will – but if we do, I know you'll always be by my side."
"I made a vow."
Blaine smiled softly. "I don't think they had immortals in mind when they said 'until death do us part.'"
"Probably not," Kurt conceded.
"But, what I'm saying, Kurt, is that that kind of loyalty takes an incredible amount of faith, and I'm so touched that out of all the time travelers in the world, you're with me."
"There's nowhere else I'd rather be."
"Me either. Not ever."
They sealed their promise with a kiss on the steps of the church where the first Christmas carol was sung, where they'd been married, where their love began.
2012
The University knows what causes it. But they're not telling, not yet. It's dangerous for the time travelers if ordinary humans know too much, so they guard time and the people who travel it. But the University knows. These special people who can travel backwards and forwards and sideways in time are time, and like time, they have no beginning and no ending. They continue forever, unchanging except within themselves. And some of them are lucky enough to find a companion to travel eternity with, a soulmate from whom they will never be parted.
And this is what's important because this isn't a story about the why and how. This isn't a story about science.
This is a story about lives and families and happiness and Christmases and loves.