A/N: After the presents are wrapped and under the tree, Kurt and Sebastian sit back for a quiet moment to enjoy Christmas Eve when Sebastian gives Kurt a gift that makes his holiday perfect. Written for the Kurtbastian Hiatus Project prompt 'gifts' and my 'Daddies' series. Romance, fluff, AU, future fic.
Kurt yawns, lifting his arms over his head one at a time to stretch his back, every muscle in his spine and his sides aching from being bent over wrapping paper all night long. But it's a satisfying ache – an ache that was part of the planning and implementing of their son's first Christmas as part of their family.
The Hummel-Smythe family.
Even now, eight hours before sun up, Kurt knows this holiday is going to be a tremendous success. He sits on the sofa where Sebastian waits with two glasses of egg nog, having gotten a head start on the Christmas celebrating now that the presents have been wrapped and stacked under the tree.
"We did good, Kurt," Sebastian says, handing Kurt a glass and wrapping an arm around his husband's shoulders. He looks up at their Christmas tree over the rim of his nog glass, eyes sweeping over all the carefully wrapped packages underneath, each one with a coordinating ribbon and bow.
"We?" Kurt asks, looking at his husband with an eyebrow cocked. "What exactly did you do besides sit on the couch and watch porn on your laptop?"
"I picked out the wrapping paper," Sebastian says, looking shocked and offended that Kurt would overlook his contribution.
"Big whoop," Kurt says. "Thomas's school was selling it. You just marked off the first thing on the form and wrote a check."
"So what?" Sebastian scoffs. "We still got all this beautiful blue and silver paper."
"It's Chanukah paper!" Kurt exclaims with a chuckle.
"Don't be a hater," Sebastian says, pulling on Kurt's shoulders till he reclines against Sebastian's body. "Besides, it all worked out. It even matches your whole Winter Wonderland aesthetic."
Kurt turns his head and playfully sticks his tongue out at his husband because, dammit, he's right. In that infuriating way that everything always seems to go unintentionally right for Sebastian Smythe, the blue and silver iridescent wrapping paper matched Kurt's holiday theme perfectly. Kurt opted out of using the paper with the dreidels and the Star of David print, so he had to supplement last minute with paper he bought at Target, but yes, everything worked out.
In fact, everything turned out perfectly, down to the smallest detail – well, all except for maybe one thing. Kurt's favorite ornament had gone missing. Apparently, it hadn't made it into the ornament storage container after last Christmas. It's a small thing, really. They had so many other beautiful ornaments – old and new. These things just happen, with no explanation. He had to accept that some things go missing. It's a way of life.
But it's also another sad reminder of all the things in his life that he's lost, during a time of year when his only focus should be the people that he has around him to love.
That includes the insufferable man placing a trail of nutmeg-scented kisses up the side of Kurt's neck.
"Sooo, are you going to give me a present?" Sebastian asks, drawing the question out, the bourbon in the egg nog doing its part in helping him get his buzz going.
"Yes," Kurt says, only taking a sip of his own drink. He doesn't need a hangover when their son wakes them up at the evil crack of dawn, "and I told you that I was giving it to you tomorrow. We never did that open one present on Christmas Eve thing at my house."
"Well, it doesn't have to be something from under the tree," Sebastian says, finishing his drink in one gulp. "Holiday head is always an acceptable gift."
Kurt rolls his eyes and shakes his head.
"I thought it was forbidden to have sex on Christmas Eve."
"I thought you were an atheist," Sebastian counters, putting down his glass and re-attacking his husband's sensitive neck.
"I am," Kurt giggles, jerking away when Sebastian licks a ticklish patch of skin. "It just seems…I don't know…wrong for some reason."
"Well, I have a present for you," Sebastian says, picking Kurt up by the upper arms and moving him aside as he scrambles to get off the sofa and crawl across the floor toward the tree. Kurt shakes his head as he watches a tipsy Sebastian sloppily negotiate his way over to their Douglas fir.
"You're not going to do that dick-in-a-box thing from SNL that you tried to pull on me last year, are you?" Kurt asks.
"Not this year babe," Sebastian says, picking out a small, square box from beneath the tree and crawling back to the sofa with it in his grasp, veering left and right occasionally in the process. "I couldn't find a box big enough."
"I don't know," Kurt says, watching Sebastian climb up onto the sofa. "That box looks plenty big enough."
Sebastian looks at Kurt with slightly unfocused eyes and a frown as Kurt throws his head back and laughs.
"You know, if you're going to be a bitch…" Sebastian grouses, dropping down on his hands and knees and threatening to crawl the gift back over to the tree, but Kurt grabs him by the arm.
"No, no, please," Kurt begs between chuckles, "I'm sorry. You're right. That was mean. But you walked into it, love. I had to say it."
Sebastian stops trying to crawl away and grins with a renewed appreciation for Kurt's sense of humor.
"That's true," he says, sitting back on the couch and holding the box out to Kurt. "Here. I got this for you in the hopes of bringing back some fond memories."
Kurt looks at his husband's face, intrigued by his expression of sincerity and enthusiasm, but that could be a ruse. Kurt still finds it hard to read Sebastian sometimes, and Sebastian has a long history of giving gag gifts – which might explain why he wants Kurt to open this one early. It might not be child appropriate. Kurt holds the box to his ear and gives it a listen.
"If this is some kind of dead animal, I'm going to pinch you so hard."
"Just open it," Sebastian says, apparently deciding that pinching was a good idea and delivering one to Kurt's side.
"Alright, alright, don't get violent," Kurt says, scooting out of the way of any more attacks. Kurt looks the box over. It's wrapped in different paper – a blush pink paper that shimmers in the lights from the tree, and a big, puffy silver bow with curly ribbons spilling over the side. Kurt lifts the bow off carefully, not wanting to rip the lush paper underneath.
"Oh, here we go," Sebastian says, taking Kurt's glass of egg nog from where he set it down on the floor and sipping it while Kurt works through the tape with agonizing slowness. Sebastian finishes the glass of nog as Kurt finally relieves the box of its wrapping, folding the paper and putting it on the floor at his feet. The unwrapped box in his hands is a plain white cube, unmarked and unbranded, giving Kurt no clues as to the item hidden inside.
"What the…" Kurt mutters, opening the lid of the box and looking inside. He reaches in and pulls out a bottle of transparent gold-colored liquid. Kurt looks up at Sebastian, who has suddenly gone sober, looking at him expectantly, waiting for Kurt to react.
"Cologne?" Kurt asks, turning the bottle over in his hands, confused by the strange diamond cut of the glass, the bulb pump at the top, its distinctly feminine appearance. Kurt sees from the corner of his vision a smile bloom on Sebastian's face – his signature one-sided smirk that usually accompanies his pranks and schemes. As Sebastian's smirk grows, Kurt's frown deepens until it sours his whole face.
"Perfume!?" Kurt snaps. "You bought me women's perfume? Really mature, Smythe! I mean, didn't we leave the princess jokes behind in high school?"
Sebastian shakes his head and sighs at the pigheadedness of Kurt Hummel. As Kurt's tirade continues, Sebastian grabs the bottle along with Kurt's arm. Kurt tries to pull his arm out of Sebastian's grasp, but Sebastian pulls Kurt's arm straight and sprays. As soon as the mist leaves the atomizer and hits the air, Kurt goes silent. Kurt takes a deep breath in through his nose, his eyes going cloudy as the scent starts to register. He pulls his arm out of Sebastian's hand and lifts it to his nose, breathing in one more time.
"Did you…is that…" Kurt can't stop the tears that gather in his eyes as he starts to remember. "That's my…mother's perfume."
"A-ha," Sebastian affirms with a nod, returning the bottle to Kurt when he reaches out a hand for it.
"But they discontinued it, not long after my mother died," Kurt says, staring at the bottle in his hand, questioning his own eyes. "How did you ever find it?"
"Well, I contacted the company," Sebastian starts, moving closer to his trembling husband, "but the only bottles of perfume they had in storage had turned, and the batch was ruined. So they directed me to a company that can recreate a scent if you happen to have a sample."
Kurt looks into Sebastian's eyes, bewilderment furrowing his brow, his fingers curling protectively around the bottle in his shaking hand.
"Where did you get a sample, though?" Kurt asks in a breathy voice, on the verge of tears.
Sebastian doesn't answer. He reaches a hand beneath the sofa and pulls out another small box. He opens it for Kurt and the item he pulls out starts the tears in Kurt's eyes rolling their way down his cheeks.
Kurt's favorite ornament – his mother's perfume bottle, hanging on a makeshift hanger that he had made the first Christmas after his mother died. Kurt gasps, taking the bottle gently from Sebastian's hand.
"They took samples from inside the bottle," Sebastian explains. "They swabbed it out, and they analyzed the air, I think. They wanted to crush the bottle and get a better sample, in case the perfume had seeped into the glass, but I wouldn't let them. I couldn't let them destroy your mother's perfume bottle."
Kurt looks from the empty bottle to the full one, opening his mouth to speak but finding it harder than it had been before when they were joking about wrapping paper and inappropriate present choices.
"But…how did you know?" Kurt asks.
Was it just a coincidence, or did his husband actually have a clue how much Kurt had been missing his mother's smell?
Sebastian puts a comforting hand on Kurt's knee, resting his forehead against Kurt's so he can look in his husband's eyes when he speaks.
"Last Christmas, when your father sent you your mother's vanity, we put it in the bedroom and you wanted a moment alone…" Sebastian takes a pause when he hears Kurt sniffle, catching a few of Kurt's tears on his finger. "I knew what you were doing. You told me how you used to open all the drawers so you could smell her again. But you came out a few minutes later, and you were so upset. You wouldn't talk to me, you were short with Thomas, and I knew. I checked after you went out for your walk that evening. The vanity didn't smell like anything. Just wood." Sebastian looks up at the ceiling and laughs, pushing back his own urge to tear up. No need for the two of them to start crying.
"I...I can't believe you did that," Kurt says with joyful disbelief. "All of that. I just…"
"Yeah, well, I still have a mother," Sebastian cuts in, saving Kurt from struggling to find the words to explain. "All you have is your memories and that smell, so I'm going to make sure you have it. Now, I know it might not smell exactly the same, but…"
Kurt's lips on Sebastian's mouth cut his sentence short, his whole body shuddering as he cries against his husband's lips.
"Thank you," Kurt says. "Thank you so much."
"You're welcome, love," Sebastian says, kissing his husband again, collecting Kurt's bittersweet tears with lips pressed to his cheeks.
"But now I feel like a jerk," Kurt says with a tearful laugh, breaking away to stand and put his mother's perfume bottle on the tree, in the spot he left empty, hoping for its return, "since I didn't give you a present yet."
"Well…" Sebastian says, coming up behind Kurt and wrapping his arms around Kurt's waist, "if I remember correctly, holiday head is still on the table."
"After a beautiful gift like the one you gave me, I think I'd rather make love to you," Kurt says, turning his head to capture Sebastian's lips again. "But then I'll get two presents, and you'll only have one."
"Just don't cum then," Sebastian says, taking Kurt's arm and leading him away, "and we'll call it even."