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When Lilly comes home with them, their focus is the simple matter of not fucking up the whole parenting thing. So focused on carving out space for her within their lives, it takes a while for the lines to blur. For the reemergence of familiarity in the blending the old with the newly established. For the parents’ youth to circle back in the raising of their child.
Inclement weather leaves Kurt, Sebastian, and three year old Lilly stuck in New York for their first Thanksgiving. They were supposed to be gone for a week and their flight is canceled Wednesday night. Instead of kicking around the kitchen making pumpkin pie from scratch while Sebastian and Carole get loaded on whatever wine is stocked in the cabinets, Kurt and Sebastian split up to raid the six closest grocery stores for anything they could throw together that’s not cereal or macaroni.
Thanksgiving morning, Lilly wears an apron Kurt sews together in minutes, helping mix the bowls of mashed potatoes and guacamole with Sebastian while Kurt handles the broccoli and mushroom casserole, the black bean tacos, the vegetarian Pad Thai, and an out of the box cheesecake.
In the end Lilly wants French fries from the back of the freezer, bathed in honey mustard sauce, and a popsicle afterward. Kurt and Bas give into her tiny demands, her face too cute to say no to. The trio plays on the floor in their PJs while the food stores in the fridge. They skype with their family back in Ohio, both sets of grandparents paying zero mind to their children but to Lilly alone. Another stranded Smythe sibling, Lena spends the morning foolishly braving the snow for the drive from Boston, happy to dote on her niece for the night and the remainder of the weekend giving Kurt and Sebastian a few much needed breaks.
It’s not the holiday they had planned, but they have fun stumbling their way through something new.
When Christmas comes they brace themselves for the possibility of plans changing. Luckily, the skies are clear on the day of travel and there’s no need to worry. Lilly falls asleep in the airport and naps all the way to Ohio.
Lena’s flight from Boston lands a half hour after theirs and they meet up by baggage claim. If they’d fit, all other four of Sebastian’s sisters likely would have come to pick them up together, but Lexi must have won whatever arm wrestling match or cinnamon challenge they held to decide. They’re greeted at pick-up by Lexi running full charge into Kurt and Lena. Sebastian’s grateful holding Lilly spares him the same treatment.
The ride to the Smythe home is short and Lexi spends the duration warning them not to let Lilly near Dad’s lollipops because they’re made with some quality medical marijuana, also the brownies for which Lex so generously contributed her own stash. And not to mention it to Mom “because she’d flip her fucking lid, Bas. Just be cool.”
By sunset, every adult but Sebastian and Gemma Smythe are somewhere in the realm of stoned. Gemma reveals she’d long been in the know about her children’s antics and her husband’s involvement and kicks everyone into the garage while she and Sebastian watch over the kids.
Sebastian calls his in-laws, letting them know he and Kurt won’t be over tonight like they’d planned, and instead they’ll drive up in the morning. Once he’s ended the call, he heads off to dig pajamas for Lilly out of the suitcase they shoved in the back of Gemma’s van so they could make an easy exit in the morning.
In the garage, they group has busted out Twister and it’s kind of a mess. Someone must have done a beer run because no one is without a bottle and clearly they’ve upped their feel good game.
Kurt sidles up to Sebastian as he rifles through their luggage. There’s a lollipop poking into his cheek and he’s holding an old snow globe that’s been sitting on a shelf out here forever, shaking it a little and eyeing Sebastian like he’s ready for his next meal. “How’s about we get cozy in the backseat?”
“Mm. Tempting.” Sebastian finds what he’s looking for and closes the trunk. He pulls Kurt in by the neck to give him a kiss on the forehead. “See you in the morning, tiger.”
Kurt pouts, trailing Bas to the door leading back inside. They linger in the doorway, Kurt spellbound by the drifting flakes in the snow globe. “I used to collect these when I was little, you know.”
“Yeah, babe. I did know that.”
Kurt sighs, shaking the globe again when the flakes start to slow. “With my mom.”
“Quite the little maudlin drunk you’re becoming.” Sebastian takes the lollipop from Kurt’s mouth and sticks it in his own. “What happened to slutty Kurt of five seconds ago?”
“His husband ditched him to go be responsible and look after their child. Blah, blah, blah.”
Sebastian’s chuckle ends with a light punch to his arm courtesy of Kurt. He trades the lollipop for the globe in Kurt’s hands, a little afraid if he leaves it, it’ll be in pieces by morning. With one last kiss at Kurt’s hairline, Bas sends him off. “Go. Drink. Be merry. Get all twisty like you do.”
:: ::
In the morning, Sebastian drives and Kurt squeezes his eyes shut behind his sunglasses, groaning each time the rising sun pokes out from behind the trees. Lilly’s still dressed in her pajamas. They skipped family breakfast, snatching cookies from the countertop and heading on their way early.
Carole is up waiting when they arrive. She helps Bas drag in the suitcases while Kurt unloads Lilly from her car seat.
Burt comes downstairs once the smell of bacon has good and fully spread through the house. The apron Kurt made for Lilly has taken the trip with them and she wears it proudly while she helps set the table.
The family spends the next day catching up on the months since summer. Sebastian shows everyone the nice big claw mark on his forearm that came from a tiny little kitten who didn’t seem so vicious when she was first brought into the animal shelter. Carole is slightly horrified at the its size, but Burt shovels a spoonful of food into his mouth and says it doesn’t look nearly as bad as the scratching post Kurt turned Sebastian into the summer after high school. Bas manages to wince and smirk all at once. Kurt is grateful it goes well over Lilly’s head.
On Christmas Eve, Santana and Quinn show up at noon like a support group for temporarily displaced New Yorkers, stealing seats on the couch and bottles of booze. Lilly and Kurt play in the snow, Burt watching on from the porch stoop. Eventually, four tipsy bodies come pouring out of the house. Quinn starts a snowball fight and it all goes to hell from there. At one point or another everyone is scolded by Kurt for using his child as a human shield. Until he does it himself and Santana snatches Lilly away so they can pelt Kurt in unison.
By the time it’s dark outside, Burt and Carole have brought Lilly in from the cold. Santana catches Kurt and Bas making out in the snow fort that Quinn and Kurt made, filming it for her own amusement before she calls them out to say goodbye. They make lunch plans for after the holidays, then go their separate ways.
Oddly energized instead of exhausted, Kurt starts a playlist full of Christmas songs and the husbands split the work in making dinner.
“Whatever happened to that snow globe?” Kurt asks.
“Backtrack.”
“Last night.” Still nothing. “In your parents’ garage.”
“Ah. That snow globe.” He smiles. “Stuck it on the coffee table so you wouldn’t destroy it.”
“I was not that far gone.”
“Babe, you wanted to fuck in the car while my wacky sisters, their husbands, and my dad had a clothes-on orgy five feet away.” Kurt snorts. “What – is that not how Twister works?”
Kurt shakes his head, refocusing his attention on chopping carrots. “Depends on who you’re playing with, I guess.”
“You know, I’ve been saying for ages we should own Twister. It’s not right – practically un-American not to have it.”
“Shut up, Sebastian.”
Lilly nearly loses a limb when she sneaks up behind Sebastian since neither heard her come in. After Kurt and Sebastian both experience an extreme spike in their blood pressure, they sit her on the counter between them. She bops along to the music playing, tries to sing like her daddies are doing but the words aren’t all there.
Kurt’s parents come in. Carole relieves Kurt of his duties with a kiss to the cheek and a shove aside. Burt helps Lilly hop off the counter, then twirls her around the kitchen. Kurt takes Lilly’s place on the counter, nabbing bits of food from Sebastian’s hands and getting kisses as punishment.
They’ll be back before New Year’s, but it’s hard to leave later that night. Kurt’s been out of Ohio long enough that he’s purged himself of his worst memories about growing up misunderstood. He misses his family. Longs for more days and nights like this one.
But home is elsewhere. Home is with Sebastian and Lilly.
Lilly is asleep by the time they’ve returned to Columbus. Most of the sisters Smythe are awake and piled atop one another in the living room. Kurt carries Lilly to bed, then comes back down for midnight movies and more of pot brownies. The snow globe sitting on the coffee table finds its way back into Kurt’s palm. Sebastian falls asleep early and Kurt has to bite Lexi to keep her from drawing a dick on his face. A lifetime of handling Santana prepared him for Lexi. A decade of barely handling Lexi have left him with a strong bite.
As the yawns of those still awake start in, they decide it best not to let the kids find their mommies, daddies, aunties, and uncles passed out under the tree Christmas morning.
With the help of a tickle to Sebastian’s sides, Kurt gets him awake enough to get upstairs. Sebastian falls asleep again quickly and Kurt doesn’t care to expend the energy undressing him, so he undresses himself and curls into his pillow.
Gemma wakes the adults up early. Kurt and Sebastian sneak a shower together that turns out to not be very sneaky at all when they both get horny. Everyone overhears. No one lets it go.
Last night, with only the glow of the TV and strings of Christmas lights, Kurt hadn’t noticed how many presents were stacked under and around the tree. It’s been like this every year since the first grandchild was born, but it’s somehow more exciting now that he and Bas mailed their presents too because they too have a kid in the ring.
Soon the older munchkins come trickling in, sending Bas and others to collect the littlest ones. Burt and Carole arrive halfway through the process, maneuvering through the gift wrap wasteland to join in the fun. They missed the fight between two of Lady’s kids when one got a bicycle and the other didn’t. They show up just in time for Whit’s daughter to lose her shit because she opened all her presents too quickly and now has to sit aside while all the other kids keep going.
Lilly’s just happy to sit in Kurt’s lap toying with a stuffed animal while Bas feeds her pieces of pancake in between shooting the shit with his father.
“Hey.” Kurt squeezes Sebastian’s leg for his attention. “I want to go out shopping tomorrow.”
“Go with Mads. She always makes a morning run for discount candy.”
“Hunny Bunny Boo Bear, that wasn’t you-optional.”
Sebastian raises an eyebrow while he sips at his coffee. “Yes, sir.”
:: ::
Mads, Lena, and Whit invite themselves along the next morning. Good things rarely come from a carful of Smythe siblings. Thankfully Lexi’s not a morning person and Lady is off visiting with her husband’s family. Still, the van seems a lot smaller when Lena’s tickling Sebastian’s neck, Whit’s kneeing the back of his seat, Mads is assaulting their ears by singing along to the radio, and Kurt has decided not to pick this battle.
Lilly eats it up, giggling the whole way to the mall. Almost makes the misery more tolerable.
Whit jumps on Lena’s back when they’re out of the van. They make it a whole ten steps before they topple over.
“Break a bone at your ages and you’ll need a replacement.”
At that, they jump on his back. Lena clings like the strongest of all little monkeys, choking the life out of him until Kurt chomps down leaving teeth marks on her arm.
“Remember no biting, Lilly,” Sebastian teases in baby talk, earning a slap to the arm from Kurt. “Or hitting.”
“Shut up.”
Sebastian bends way down to Lilly’s eye level. “And don’t say shut up.”
Kurt huffs and takes Lilly’s hand, leaving Bas to the wolves.
“No. Please no.”
With a quick look back first, Kurt holds out his free hand and snaps in rapid succession until Sebastian comes running. A smug grin splits Kurt’s face in two as Sebastian slips their fingers together.
Mads drags her sisters off in search of candy. Lilly pulls her daddies toward a toy store. And then another. They all meet up later in the food court, before heading off to find any place that sells snow globes. Kurt hopes even though the holidays have passed that the seasonal store is still here, but he’ll settle for anything.
Lena spots it first and Kurt practically skips getting there. Mads pokes around the candles, sniffing every last one of them and then shoving them under her sisters’ noses.
There’s a row of snow globes lining a shelf in the back. Kurt leads Lilly by the hand and Lilly holds onto Sebastian.
“Okay,” Kurt begins, lifting Lilly and settling her on his hip. “I wish I’d thought of it sooner, but I haven’t done this since the year my mom died.”
“I know.” Sebastian picks up a small globe and hands it over. Lilly shakes it with help from Kurt, delighted when it starts to snow inside. “That was when we first met.”
Kurt cocks his head to the side, but a memory stirs at Sebastian’s words. It especially helps when Lena, Mads, and Whit burst into laughter where they’re playing with garland, and then ask Sebastian if he still has his homemade Justin Timberlake ornaments, to which Bas sticks out his tongue and proceeds to ignore them.
“Holy shit.”
Sebastian covers Lilly’s ears. “Language, Hummel.”
“How long have you known?”
“Well, how long have we been together?”
“Bull.”
Sebastian smirks. “Since the other night.”
“How?”
“I, uh.” He rolls his eyes. “I wrote your name on the bottom. Twenty years ago. And, I don’t know. You’d brought up your mom, I saw your name. It just came back to me.”
“I… holy shit.”
“Keep that up, you’re gonna need a spanking.”
“Let me!” his sisters chime in.
Kurt spends the rest of the day stunned, looking at Sebastian like he’s making it all up. But when they get to his parents’ house, Kurt turns the globe upside down and sure enough, in the imperfect handwriting of a child, is his scribbled name. He ignores Lexi’s suggestion they get matching snow globe tramp stamps to commemorate the discovery, but lets her draw one on Sebastian when he falls asleep early again.
It still seems unreal, even when Kurt finds the exact same one in a box in his parents’ attic. They could’ve spent their whole lives unaware.
:: ::
Once they’re home from vacation, they have an extra suitcase filled with Lilly’s and their gifts to unpack. Lilly’s new clothes and toys are lazily left inside, but Kurt pulls out the three snow globes they brought home with them, two an identical match poached from Ohio.
“Do you think it was fate?” Kurt asks as he clears space for the globes on top of a bookcase.
“Does it matter?” Sebastian turns off the light and pulls Kurt towards their bedroom. “Either way I’d say we’re lucky.”
Kurt hides his smile in the way he takes off his shirt. “Oh yeah. You definitely lucked out. Me on the other hand…”
“What, like you’re a slice of heaven on a daily basis,” he scoffs.
“Stop. I’m swooning,” Kurt deadpans, pulling back the covers and sliding into bed.
“Love you,” Sebastian says, getting in beside him.
“As well you should, Mr. Smythe. As well you should.”
“Jackass.”
“Be careful what you say within tickling distance.”
Sebastian lays his head on Kurt’s shoulder, this time whispering. “Jackass.”
“Love you, too, Bas.”