A/N: This is a re-write.
"So, how are you doing registering for your birthday?" Blaine asks, tagging on the epithet, "The big four-oh," - unnecessarily, in Kurt's opinion, since he'd rather not be reminded, and for that, "Meh," is the only answer Kurt feels Blaine's question deserves.
Peering at his laptop screen, Kurt absently lifts his lukewarm mug to his mouth, but once stale French roast touches his lips, he pulls the mug away with a scrunched face. He lowers it to his knee but doesn't put it down, and Blaine shakes his head, wondering how many times Kurt has done that without thinking. Blaine takes the initiative and relocates Kurt's mug of morning coffee to the end table so his husband can stop torturing himself.
"Meh? But you've been on the computer for hours!"
"Like that's unusual." Kurt flips tabs and brings up his actual list, slightly unimpressed by what's already on it, even though he selected those items. "This isn't as fun as I thought it was going to be."
"Where are you registering?" Blaine asks, settling on a cushion beside him. "Please tell me it's a place that sells that bondage-inspired leather stuff you used to wear in high school."
"Ha-ha," Kurt replies, ignoring Blaine's ridiculous bouncing eyebrows, but makes a mental note to tear apart his closet and find the few pieces he held on to.
"Ooo, Overstock . com," Blaine reads over Kurt's shoulder. "A departure from the tried and true Rue La La, I see. Tres thrifty chic. Your friends are going to love it."
"And that's why I chose it, of course," Kurt grumbles, uncertain whether or not Blaine is kidding.
"Uh, Kurt" - Blaine chuckles a little uncomfortably as he reads over his husband's list - "did you for serious put a coffin on your birthday wish list?"
Kurt bobs his head from side to side, playing it off as if a coffin isn't a big deal, and that one selection isn't part of the reason why he's been staring at his computer screen, motionless since breakfast. "I don't actually expect anyone to get it for me. I mean, it's way too expensive."
"That wasn't really my concern, sweetie," Blaine says, putting a hand on Kurt's shoulder and massaging. "I'm kind of curious why you would put it on your list."
"I don't know. I saw it, I thought it looked … nice, so I put it on there." Kurt notices his husband's alarmed expression and adds: "It's not my fault that they actually sell them. Plus, I am getting older, hence the birthday."
Blaine nods, not necessarily in agreement, but as a place holder for a comment he can't think of at the moment. "I didn't know that Overstock . com sold coffins either."
"Yup." Kurt scrolls down his list to another item he added as an afterthought and points to its thumbnail on the screen. "Urns, too."
"Wow. I … hmm …" Speechless, Blaine slides closer to his husband, nuzzling his neck and pecking small kisses while he considers how best to handle this situation. "You know, you're only turning forty, love. You're not dying."
"I know that," Kurt says with a soft sigh, "but it never hurts to be prepared. I mean, I don't have a will drawn up yet, I've never told you my wishes, what I want to happen after I die, if I want a DNR, a feeding tube, a …"
"Bzzz! Bzzzt!" Blaine jumps in, waving his hands to cut Kurt off. "Forgive me, but I'd rather not think of my amazing, wonderful, gorgeous husband dying any time soon."
Kurt shrugs, but gently so as not to discourage his husband from doing what he's doing, returning to his neck with barely-there kisses. "Whether you like to think about it or not, it is going to happen. And I thought that if I made all of the arrangements, you wouldn't have anything to, you know, worry about."
"Okay," Blaine agrees, "well, you can register for whatever you want, but I'm telling you right now, you won't need a casket when you die."
Kurt looks up from his computer, mildly puzzled. "I won't?"
"Nope. Because I've got it all planned out."
"You do?" Kurt crosses his arms, waiting for an explanation. How can a man who just a minute ago said he didn't want to think about his husband dying have his funeral arrangements all planned out?
"I do. And I'll show you." Blaine reaches over Kurt's leg, types an address into Kurt's browser, and hits enter.
Kurt watches a new homepage come up, furrowing his brow at the website that replaces Overstock . com. "Heavenly Stars Fireworks?"
"A-ha." Blaine slides behind his husband, legs spread to sit behind him. "If you didn't come up with a plan, I wanted to have your body cremated. This company will take your ashes and put them inside fireworks. I'll plan a huge celebration, invite everyone we know that's still around to attend, and then blast you off into the sky! It'll be fantastic!"
Kurt reads the opening paragraph, then looks back at his grinning husband, unsure what to say.
Well, not completely unsure.
"So, you're planning on me dying before you?"
"The way you tend to sweat the small stuff, I thought it might be a possibility."
Kurt fires at his giggling husband with an elbow. Blaine scoots back to dodge it, but with the back of the couch mere inches away, Kurt manages to graze his belly.
"But I thought about that, too," Blaine admits, wrapping his arms around Kurt's torso and pulling himself close to stay out of the line of fire. "If I die first, my will stipulates …"
"You have a will?" Kurt interrupts, feeling stupid and irresponsible that Blaine, with no known major illnesses on either his mother's or father's side of the family, has his affairs already sorted out while Kurt, whose mother died of cancer and whose father suffers from heart disease, waited until he hit forty before he decided to face his own mortality.
"A-ha. It says that I get cremated, with my ashes kept in holding till you die."
Kurt tilts his head, mired further in confusion. "And why's that?"
"This way we can both be made into fireworks, and they can shoot us off together."
Kurt frowns. "But not if I die first?"
"Only because I want to personally ensure that you get the send-off you deserve."
"I want to say this is the most romantic thing you've ever come up with," Kurt says, "but I'm kind of at odds with why you would want to do something like this in the first place."
"I will admit, it's kind of recent." Blaine slips his arms down around his husband's waist and hugs him. "You've been in such a funk ever since we started planning your fortieth birthday party. Then your dad went to the hospital, and I sort of knew this would come up. Every time he gets sick, you get moody, and I'm not saying that I blame you." Kurt bristles for a moment, but he unhinges, winding his arms over his husband's and squeezing. He has been on the verge of tears for days since his father's minor stroke. They flew out to Lima to be with him and, thank goodness, he was fine, but it still weighed heavily on Kurt's shoulders. His father is getting on in years - faster, it seems, with each passing day. He doesn't bounce back as quickly as he used to. Selfishly, Kurt thought Blaine hadn't noticed his change in mood. But leave it to Blaine to notice everything. "I know that you're afraid for your dad, but I also know that you're scared something's going to happen to you, too. That your heart's going to fail like your dad's did, or you're going to end up with cancer like your mom. You're afraid you won't get the chance to do everything on your bucket list while you're here. But even if you don't do everything, don't accomplish everything, you're a star, Kurt. The brightest star I know. And no one's putting Kurt Hummel in the ground when he belongs in the sky. Not while I'm around."
Kurt takes a sharp breath, but he can't seem to let it go. If he does, those tears he's been fighting will start with no way for him to hold them back, not just because of his dad, or his fears about his own health. But because of the thoughtfulness of the incredible man he married; a man who finds new ways to surprise him just when he thinks he has him figured out.
But, in Kurt's defense, they've only been married a little less than twenty years. It's beginning to look like it will take a lifetime to unravel every mystery there is to know about Blaine Anderson.
And Kurt is committed to that task.
"Thank you," Kurt says, managing to keep his eyes dry.
"You're welcome."
Kurt smiles slowly as his husband holds him, searching for a way back from this sweet but somber moment, needing something that resembles normalcy. "So, you admit it."
"Admit what?"
"You have thought about me being dead."
"Not in the last few hours."
Blaine laughs. Kurt pulls away, appalled, but Blaine drags him back into his lap. "Kiss me, old man. We only have another fifty or sixty years left together, and I mean to make the most of it."
"You realize that means you expect me to live to be a hundred?" Kurt points out, moving his laptop off to the side so that it doesn't get crushed during their impending, unscheduled make-out session.
"Less talky," Blaine says, puckering his lips, "more kiss-y."