"Something smells absolutely delicious," Kurt said, unwinding his scarf and stomping the snow off his shoes on the mat by the door.
Blaine kissed Kurt and took his scarf to hang it on the hat stand. "I'm making risotto. It's nearly done."
Kurt hurried to the bathroom to freshen up a little first, and decided to change into comfier clothes while he was at it. Only, he had to squeeze himself through stacks of cardboard boxes to get to the walk-in closet.
Ten minutes later, Kurt joined Blaine in the kitchen, circling his waist and burying his still ice-cold nose in Blaine's neck. Blaine shivered but kept stirring the risotto.
"What's with all the boxes, honey?" Kurt asked.
Blaine chuckled. "My mom has been cleaning out her attic the past few weeks and now she's sent me all my childhood toys and books. I'll need to sort through them and throw out what's in bad repair and donate the rest."
"Aww… Can I help you? I'd love to see what you played with as a child."
Blaine took two deep plates out of the cupboard and filled them with risotto. "After dinner, love. It's possible that some of it is Cooper's, though. Mom sent me an awful lot of boxes."
After doing the dishes together, they went to the bedroom, and each took one box to check out the contents. The first couple of boxes were all books.
"Matilda!" Kurt cheered. "I've got that one too. And aww, you have an autographed copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets? I'm SO jealous! Hmm, there's a lot of overlap with my books, but you have hardcovers and mine are nearly all paperbacks, so we're keeping yours."
Blaine smiled as he thumbed through a picture book that had clearly seen better days. "I made my mom read this to me every night, when I was little."
Kurt looked over his shoulder and cooed. "Aww, it's Guess How Much I Love You! We're keeping this one for when we have children ourselves."
Blaine closed the book and grimaced at its tattered spine. "I don't know, love… I think we'd better buy a new copy. This one looks as though it's going to fall apart any minute now."
"It has history. We're keeping it, end of story. Okay, next box. Ooh, this one is a lot lighter."
It was. The box hardly weighed a thing. When Kurt opened it, he found out why: it was full of stuffed toys.
"Wow, you still have all your plushies? I don't have a single one left. I sold them all one summer because I needed money for a Burberry trench coat."
Kurt took out the stuffed toys one by one, and made two piles on the bed, one for the plushies that were salvageable and one for those who were clearly not.
The box was nearly empty when Kurt saw a teddy bear that looked very familiar. He could have sworn it was Dr Tuffykins. He examined the bow tie the bear was wearing, and he gasped when he saw the clumsy K that he'd stitched on there all those years back.
"It's your work of art, Kurtiepie," Elizabeth said. "So mark it with your initial, so that people can tell it's a Kurt Hummel original. It might be worth an awful lot of money one day."
Kurt giggled. "You think so, Mommy?"
"I sure do. It's beautiful, and you made it all by yourself. What do you want to try next?"
"Can I make an apron, Mommy? The ones you make me use when we bake together are all much too big. I want to make one that's my size. Can I, please?"
Elizabeth laughed. "Of course you can!"
Kurt's mother had died not long after that, and Kurt had ended up finishing the apron without her assistance. Not to use it for baking with his mom, but to help his father cook. Burt was great at a lot of things, but a master chef he was not, so Kurt's input was more than welcome.
"Kurt? Sweetheart, are you okay?"
Kurt looked up at Blaine, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed with an Operation board game in front of him, holding the tweezers in his right hand.
Kurt quirked an eyebrow and Blaine ducked his head with a smile. "I used to play this with my brother, and he'd get mad because I was much better at it than he was."
"I wasn't much for board games," Kurt said. "I liked jigsaw puzzles, though."
"Oh, me too. I think there's a whole box of those as well. What's that you're holding?"
"That's Dr Tuffykins," Kurt said.
Blaine cocked his head to the side. "How on earth do you know his name? I don't think I told you about my childhood plushies?"
"No, you didn't. But I know what I named MY stuffed toys, and this is one of mine."
Blaine's mouth fell open. "You mean to say…"
And then they chorused, "You're the boy from the yard sale!"
"You're the boy who bought all my plushies!" Kurt said.
"You're the boy who made his teddy bear a bow tie!" Blaine gasped. "I can't believe this! What are the odds?"
"Well, that clinches it," Kurt declared. "You and I are clearly soulmates. We must be, or else we wouldn't have found each other again after all those years."
"Soulmates," Blaine echoed, and he smiled from ear to ear. "I like the sound of that. So I take it we're keeping Dr Tuffykins?"
"We are," Kurt grinned. "Any chance I'll find Mr Wiggles in the box as well?"
Blaine jumped off the bed and rummaged in the box until he found the dog plushie he was looking for.
"Sorry, he's not as pristine anymore as he was when I bought him from you. He was my favourite plushie until Margaret Thatcher dog replaced him."
"Aww," Kurt cooed. "Do you still have Maggie, too?"
"Of course I do. You gave her to me! She's been a great comfort to me during our break-ups."
Kurt's face fell, and then he threw his arms around Blaine in a fierce hug. "I'm never letting you go again. I'm miserable without you."
"Me too," said Blaine, nuzzling Kurt's neck. "You give the best cuddles, even better than Maggie. I don't need plushies when I have you."
"But we're keeping them anyway, right?"
"Right."
Blaine threw Mr Wiggles onto his pillow and flopped backwards onto the bed, tugging Kurt along with him. "Can we take a break from unpacking?"
"Sure. You might want to put that board game somewhere else first, or you'll…"
"Ouch," Blaine said, and plucked a pair of tweezers from under his back with a wince. "Good point."
