Work Text:
FIVE YEARS AGO:
The first thing Kurt notices about prison is that it’s never completely quiet.
Prison is not a nightmare, at least not in the way he had thought it would be. He has his own small cell -– thank you, maximum security prison; apparently the judge thought he was an escape risk -– so at least he has his privacy and doesn’t have to be afraid of violent prison fights. The guards have been nice enough to allow him to have a sketch pad and some pencils for his entertainment, and he thinks he could probably even ask for some paints later on, if he behaves well enough. The food is okay, albeit very bland and simple, and he is allowed to borrow books from the prison library. He even gets out of his cell for one hour every day, and he has never suffered from claustrophobia, so the hours he has to spend in his cell are alright as well.
He should be fine with prison. He knew it was always a distinct possibility -– most criminals do get caught at some point, no matter how good they are, and once Blaine Anderson started chasing him, he knew it was only a matter of time before he ended up behind bars. Besides, things could be worse. So much worse.
He just really, really misses the calm and quiet.
There are always footsteps and clanging noises, the security doors being opened and closed with a heavy rattle, murmurs of conversation and distant music coming from the other cells. The cells are supposed to be sound-proof, but even during the night, when the whole prison is dark and asleep, Kurt can clearly hear several people snoring nearby and has to listen to the slow steps of the night guards as they walk through the cell block, the scuffing sound of their feet echoing against the walls.
It’s only his second week in prison after his trial ended, and he already desperately wishes that he wasn’t here, that he could’ve just stayed away from that stupid empty garage and his hopeful memories of Finn. He’s convinced that if the circumstances of his arrest had been different, he would be much more okay with his sentence. The one time he thinks he could find a piece of his past and try being even somewhat happy again he ends up in prison for the next four years, after evading the FBI and Blaine Anderson every other time. How is that fair?
He’s lying on his uncomfortable and narrow bed, staring at the ceiling and listening to the hacking snores coming from the cell next to his, and he just feels so... empty. He has nothing anymore -– no parents, no brother, no friends, no career, no matter how questionable or illegal it was; nothing to occupy his time with except the thoughts running around his head -– and after being trapped between these four walls for two weeks, his thoughts can’t seem to stop coming back to the way things were, before.
Before everything in his life went wrong.
He’s had these thoughts more and more often lately, sudden bouts of nostalgia that make his heart ache even though he tries to push them away. They were probably the reason why he was so eager to try and find Finn when he got that clue about the garage. Those nostalgic feelings made him ignore cautiousness, and now he’s truly and completely alone, locked outside the whole society.
Though if he really thinks about it, he has been that way for a long time already.
“Lights out, Kurt,” Tommy, the night guard who seems to like him, calls out softly as he walks past his cell.
Kurt takes a breath and wipes a hand over his face. “Five more minutes?” he asks.
Tommy must hear the faint tremble in his voice, because he stops for a moment and sighs. “Alright. But only this once, since it’s gonna be Christmas soon.”
Kurt sits up and squints his eyes through the low lighting. “It is?”
“Yeah,” Tommy says, obviously surprised. “Ten more days. Didn’t you know?”
“I...” Kurt glances around his cell. He does have a calendar on one wall, but he only really marks how many days he has left of his sentence on it. It’s a little pathetic, but at least it’s something to do. “I haven’t really been paying attention to the dates, I suppose.”
Tommy leans closer to the bars separating them. He looks like a nice building manager, not a prison guard. Kurt can’t help but wonder if he’s happy in his job. “Well, now you know. It’s even snowing outside,” Tommy tells him, flashing a quick, tired grin.
“Really?” Kurt asks. He hasn’t seen snow in ages – he spent most of last winter in Italy and Spain, and before he got caught he had been staying in London for a few weeks.
“Yeah,” Tommy says. He glances to his right. “I gotta go finish my rounds now. Lights off in five minutes, okay?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
Tommy gently raps the bars with his knuckles and then moves on, his heavy footsteps disappearing down the corridor. Kurt crosses his legs and leans against the wall next to his bed, feeling a little chilly all of a sudden. Christmas used to be his favorite holiday when he was a kid. Even after his mom died, his dad always made the effort to give him a good Christmas, with beautiful decorations and homemade cookies (most of them a little burnt) and Christmas songs playing in the background. And then when Burt married Carole, Christmases became even better. Carole loved Christmas as well, and she and Kurt spent hours in the kitchen on Christmas Eve, making sure all the foods were perfect. Kurt didn’t really even mind that Finn ate most of the cookies before dinner and hung the stockings all wrong, even if he did naturally give him a hard time for it, like brothers are supposed to do.
He was just so happy. Always a little melancholy too, of course, since Christmas was his mother’s favorite holiday as well, but mostly he just felt warm and happy.
He hasn’t had a Christmas like that in years. The first year he was in New York, right after his parents had disappeared, Rachel had tried to throw them a Christmas party, probably as a distraction from everything, but Kurt hadn’t showed up. He was on the other side of the country, looking for his parents with Finn, and that Christmas hadn’t been a Christmas at all. By the next year he had already fallen out with Rachel, he and Finn were fighting as well, and the only thing about Christmas that Santana cared about was how many opportunities it offered for picking pockets.
After that he spent each Christmas working a job, or if he didn’t have anything planned out he found a luxurious Christmas party to crash and spent the night drinking free champagne, honing his newest aliases and subtly stealing a few wallets or watches –- nothing that the people he was stealing from would miss, judging by the expensive designer clothes and jewelry they were wearing. It was dull and shallow, but at least it kept his mind occupied, forced him to stay on his game and think about something else than what time of the year it was and how much his life had changed in a few years.
If someone had asked him then, he would’ve sworn that it had changed for the better. That he was living the dream. But deep down he knew that even that was a lie, like everything else about him.
It’s been five minutes already. Kurt reaches out to turn off the small lamp over his rickety desk and curls up on the bed, staring at the shadows of his cell. The noises sound so much worse in the darkness. A door clangs in the distance, and he thinks he can hear someone crying quietly in another cell nearby, the sound of it almost drowned under the cacophony of snores echoing through the cell block.
When he was in high school, he used to be the first one of his family to wake up on Christmas Day. He’d sneak downstairs, make himself a cup of hot chocolate and then just sit in the living room, looking at the Christmas tree and all of its decorations. He can still remember how quiet and calm the whole house was on those mornings –- everyone else was sleeping, and the world outside was covered in snow, the thick white blanket muffling each and every sound. He could feel the anticipation of the day in the air, of spending time with his family, getting presents and eating the food they had prepared the day before, and he just sat there for several minutes, drinking his hot chocolate and smiling, before he got up and started preparing breakfast.
And now, after years and years of pushing those memories away and burying them in the deepest corners of his mind, Kurt stares at the darkness of his tiny cell, and wishes he could go back in time to relive them.
---
The prison lets them send Christmas cards, if they want to -- obviously the cards are checked and double-checked for hidden messages or anything illegal, and the selection of cards they can choose from is very limited as well. Kurt doesn’t think he has ever seen Christmas cards that are as ugly as the ones they’re offered in prison, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s not like he has anyone to send a Christmas card to anyway. Well, he could send one to Santana, but they went their separate ways once Kurt wanted to focus on bigger and better cons and Santana was satisfied with the small petty thefts she was committing. He doesn’t know her current address, or if she even has one.
Tommy has told him that it’s been snowing for days already, so Kurt is sitting at his desk and sketching a picture of a snowy scenery, complete with a frozen pond and tree branches weighed down by thick blankets of snow. He figures he can put it up on the wall of his cell once he’s done, to bring even some winter and Christmas feeling into his current stagnant life. Or maybe he could even give it to Tommy, as a thank-you for all the times he has let him keep the light on for five extra minutes.
It’s kind of sad that the only person he could give a Christmas card to is his prison guard.
Except... Except he does know one address.
He knows Blaine Anderson’s address.
Kurt stops, putting his pencil down and leaning back in his chair, blinks his eyes a few times. He memorized the address when he was still on the run, just so he could send cheeky gifts to Blaine as a part of their game of cat-and-mouse. It started out as a way to tease the agent who was in charge of his case, just like the phone calls, but they quickly became a way to show appreciation as well. He followed Blaine’s –- Anderson’s? He doesn’t even know what he should call him anymore –- career, and he was impressed. And if he’s completely honest with himself, he also craved the contact in the deceitful world of white collar crimes. Blaine was... nice to him, even though he had no reason to be, and he thanked him for the cards and gifts during their phone calls, always with a laugh, and Kurt would pretend that he had no idea what Blaine was talking about, even if he was preening on the inside.
The last time he called Blaine was one or two months before his arrest. Blaine had sounded tired on the phone, probably because of the elaborate con Kurt had committed a few days earlier, and he had off-handedly mentioned something about his superiors breathing down his neck and how he had to stay at work after-hours, and Kurt-– He had wanted to apologize, for some odd reason. Blaine’s voice had been low and slow in his ear, comfortable in a way Kurt wasn’t used to, and for a brief moment he had imagined how different everything could’ve been, if his parents had never gone missing, if he had never started his life of crime.
If he and Blaine had just been two strangers in New York, bumping into each other on the subway or in a karaoke bar downtown.
Kurt looks down at the half-finished drawing, biting his lip. He could send a card to Blaine. It might even make Blaine smile or laugh, the way he did on the phone sometimes -– quite often, actually, now that Kurt thinks about it. Kurt knows he’s supposed to hate the agent who caught him, but he... doesn’t. Never has. Blaine was just doing his job, he gets that.
He still remembers the way Blaine shook his hand when he was arrested, steady and reliable, his eyes somehow so kind even though they were surrounded by armed FBI agents. He was wearing that same old vintage tie that caught Kurt’s attention the first time he saw a photograph of him, and Kurt could’ve sworn he saw a flash of sadness in Blaine’s eyes when he closed the handcuffs around his wrists.
Sadness for what, though? For finally catching the interesting criminal he’d been chasing and knowing that the thrill was over? Or for Kurt himself, for... some of the desperation Blaine might have seen in Kurt’s eyes?
Since Finn and Rachel, no one has ever looked at him like that. Like they were hoping things would be different, too.
Kurt straightens up in his chair, flips the paper he’s been drawing on upside down and writes a short message on its backside before he has the chance to question himself. He reads the words over a few times, satisfied with their light and confident tone, and then turns the paper back around again, going back to the drawing. Now that he knows who’s going to get it, he wants it to be perfect.
He can’t really explain why he’s doing this, and he’s thankful that Santana isn’t here to question his choices, but somehow, keeping in touch with Blaine Anderson just feels...
Right.
---
Kurt spends Christmas Eve alone in his cell, reading a book he got from the prison library and listening to the never-ending noises he still hasn’t gotten used to. Tommy wishes him merry Christmas when he walks past his cell late in the evening, probably on his way home already, and Kurt flashes him a smile that falls off his face as soon as Tommy’s footsteps have moved away.
At the same time, several miles away from the prison, Blaine Anderson comes home from work, placing his mail on the small dresser he has in his hall and shrugging off his thick winter coat. Perry gets up from the living room to greet him, tail wagging like she’s still a puppy, and Blaine buries his hands in her fur with a small smile. It’s just going to be him and his dog for the next few days, like always. He lives alone and his parents decided to go on a cruise for Christmas, he isn’t talking to his only brother and Sam and Tina are obviously spending the holidays with their own families. Peterson refused to let him stay at work, though, practically pushing him out of the office because “it’s Christmas, Anderson –- go celebrate it”; and even though Ms. Avninder did ask him to come over to her apartment tonight, he doesn’t want to intrude on her time with her family.
He scratches Perry’s ears one more time and then picks up his mail from the dresser with a sigh. It’s going to be another night of leftovers and reading an old mystery book. Or maybe there will be a game on, perhaps even a new one and not a rerun he’s already seen several times.
He starts going through the mail as he walks towards the dining room, Perry following him -– there’s the newspaper, a few envelopes that look like bills or advertisements, a letter from prison...
Blaine stops. He drops all the other envelopes and papers on the dining room table and opens the one from prison, his brows furrowed in confusion. Inside is a beautiful sketch of a snowy forest, done so well in pencil that it almost looks like the snow is glittering on the paper, as if it’s a black and white photograph instead of a drawing. Blaine stares at it for a while, baffled and amazed, and then turns the paper around. A wide smile lights up his face as he reads the words written in the familiar handwriting he’s spent the last few years studying -- the handwriting he thought he would never see again once its owner was sent behind bars:
To the agent who managed to catch me––
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!
I hope the criminals you’re chasing now let you have a peaceful Christmas! ;)
xoxo Kurt
NOW:
It’s late when they finally get home from the FBI’s annual Christmas party, stumbling through the doorway even though neither one of them is drunk. Blaine is a bit tipsy, though; Kurt can tell it from the way his cheeks are a little flushed, his eyes a little brighter. The party was wilder than any of the Christmas parties Kurt went to as a con-man, and his ears are still ringing from all the Christmas songs that were playing loudly over the intercom all through the evening. Jingle Bell Rock seemed to be a big hit among FBI agents, for some odd reason.
He had heard rumors about the party during the weeks leading up to it, but he hadn’t really believed them, finding it hard to imagine the calm and collected FBI agents he knows letting it loose and partying in their office till the small hours of the morning. But he was so wrong. So, so wrong. He spent most of the night either trying to stop Sam from showing everyone his “famous stripper moves” or listening to Tina telling him drunkenly about the troubles she’s having with her boyfriend. He’s pretty sure he also saw several different pairings of their probies making out in the conference room, especially the two who have been flirting for months already. He feels a bit sorry for the conference room table, to be honest. Hopefully the cleaners will do a thorough job the next morning.
“That was wild,” he exhales once the door is closed behind them.
Blaine laughs. He’s still wearing the reindeer antlers Sam placed on his head, and his holiday-themed tie with little mistletoes on it -– the one that Kurt gave him as an early Christmas present -– is crooked under his collar. “I told you,” he says. “Agents tend to get a little wild whenever there’s an office party.”
Kurt shakes his head in amusement and bends down to pet Perry’s ears as she walks up to them, looking a little sleepy, her tail wagging more slowly than usual. They must have woken her up when they came home.
“Was Sam really a stripper when he was younger?” he can’t help but ask as Blaine puts their coats away.
Blaine laughs again. “He really was! It was a very short stint, but he still brings it up whenever he’s had more than a few drinks.” He ruffles Perry’s fur and then walks further into the apartment. “Did he show you his signature move?” he asks over his shoulder with a grin.
“He did. I tried to get him to stop, but he was very adamant,” Kurt admits and cringes. There are some things he does not need to know about the people he works with. He gets up from the floor, following Blaine, and then snags the antlers off his head, placing them on the dining room table with a smile. “I don’t think you need these anymore, now that the party’s over.”
Blaine takes the antlers in his hands and strokes his thumb over the brown felt they’re made of. “You had fun, though?” he asks and leans against the table. “I know it was probably different from the parties you’re used to, but...”
“I did have fun,” Kurt says, rocking on his heels. It was wild, he can admit that, but it was also fun and warm and happy. Everyone was so relaxed, especially after a few drinks, and there were so many laughs. “Thanks for inviting me,” he adds.
Blaine looks up at him through his eyelashes. “You’re our CI. Of course you were invited.”
Kurt smiles. “Still. Thank you.”
He leans in to kiss Blaine, and Blaine accepts it easily, dropping the antlers back on the table so he can wrap his arms around Kurt’s waist. They kiss slowly for a long while, Blaine’s fingertips drawing abstract patterns on Kurt’s back through his shirt and Kurt humming happily into the kiss. It’s comfortable, in a way they can’t really be at the FBI, not with their professional relationship, and Kurt lets himself savor it, memorizing the heat and feel of Blaine’s body and the taste of his lips. He’s been missing them –- him -– all day.
Blaine moves his hands to Kurt’s chest, his fingers playing with the buttons of his shirt. “Bed?” he asks in a low voice, his eyes closed and his lips still caressing Kurt’s.
“Bed.” Kurt tugs at Blaine’s tie. “You know, you’ve been basically wearing a mistletoe all day, and yet this was our first kiss since this morning.”
Blaine grins and pulls Kurt closer. “You mean I owe you some kisses?”
“A lot of kisses,” Kurt corrects. “A whole night full of kisses.”
Blaine giggles and buries his face in Kurt’s chest. “If I’d known that Christmas parties would make you this cheesy, I would’ve dragged you to one right at the beginning of December.”
Kurt shrugs, his fingers sliding down to the waistband of Blaine’s pants. “It’s not the Christmas party that’s making me cheesy.”
Blaine lifts his head, his lips turned up in an amused, soft smile. “Oh?”
“It’s just you,” Kurt finishes and cashes in another kiss.
---
The next morning Kurt gets up early, carefully disentangling himself from Blaine and sliding out of bed as slowly and quietly as he can. Blaine shifts in his sleep, his eyebrows furrowing for a moment, but then he relaxes again, nuzzling his pillow and letting out a soft hum. Kurt rearranges the blanket so that it’s covering him properly and then just stops for a moment, staring at Blaine’s toned arms hugging the pillow, his sun-kissed skin practically glowing in the low lighting. His eyelashes are fanned over his cheeks, a small sleepy smile playing on his lips, and his hair is a mess of soft dark curls that Kurt wants to run his fingers through.
He looks so beautiful, so inviting, that Kurt is tempted to ignore the idea he got late last night and just go back to bed, pull Blaine’s body close to his own and stroke his fingers down the strong muscles of his back. But he resists the temptation and only bends down to press a kiss on Blaine’s curls before slowly tiptoeing out of the room and closing the door behind him.
He makes himself a cup of coffee in the kitchen –- not hot chocolate anymore, not when he’s an adult -– and adds a bit more milk in it than he usually would. Perry is sleeping in front of the refrigerator, her paws twitching a little as she dreams about something that Kurt can only guess at. She usually alternates between sleeping in the bedroom and the kitchen, always looking for the coolest spot, even in the winter, and Kurt is careful to move around her in the cramped space, not wanting to wake up anyone.
He takes the coffee to the living room and settles down on the couch, not bothering to turn on the lights. Blaine hasn’t had a lot of time to decorate his apartment yet, but there is a small Christmas tree in the corner, waiting for its decorations, and a few strings of Christmas lights are hanging from the windows, their glow providing just enough light.
Kurt wraps his fingers around the warmth of his mug, closes his eyes and just breathes in the scent of his coffee, listening to the silence. New York will never be as quiet as Ohio, but it’s so early that even the distant hum of the city and its never-ending traffic sounds faint, and no one else in Blaine’s building seems to be awake at this hour. Kurt opens his eyes and feels a smile spreading over his face when he looks out the living room window and sees that it’s snowing outside, big white flakes floating down and covering the whole world in white, even more than it was last night when they came home from the party. It started snowing a little when they left the FBI, and it must’ve been snowing all through the night, judging by the thick blanket of snow.
They don’t have work today or tomorrow, or even the day after that, because Peterson had practically forced everyone to take some time off for the holidays. Kurt has planned to stay at Blaine’s apartment for the whole Christmas -– if anyone checks his tracking data and asks, he can always say that they were just keeping each other company for Christmas, since they both live alone. Friends can do that. Agents and CIs can do that. It’s not like anyone else has to know that he plans on spending the Christmas with his boyfriend, not his handler.
Maybe they could even decorate the Christmas tree together, since Blaine hasn’t done that yet. Cook a nice Christmas dinner and snuggle up on the couch with their bellies full, take Perry for a long walk through the snowy streets of Blaine’s neighborhood, maybe watch a few old Christmas movies...
“Kurt?”
Kurt blinks his eyes. Blaine is standing in the doorway, scratching the back of his head, his striped pajama pants hanging low on his hips. His eyes are still bleary and full of sleep, his curls pointing in every direction, and there’s a pillow mark on his right cheek. The old tank-top he’s wearing is stretched tightly over his chest, the faded Quantico logo on it barely visible.
“Hey,” Kurt says in a low voice and places his mug on the sofa table. “Sorry, did I wake you?”
Blaine shakes his head and shuffles closer, his bare feet almost completely swallowed by the too long legs of his pants. “I just woke up and you weren’t there.” He lets out a yawn, his voice still gravelly and deep, and sits down on the couch next to Kurt. “What’re you doing out here this early in the morning?”
“Just thinking,” Kurt answers. “Planning Christmas decorations.”
Blaine smiles and shifts closer to him, curling up against his side. “Mmm, I like that. I was hoping you would help me decorate the tree. We can make new Christmas traditions together.”
Kurt’s heart warms instantly, expanding inside his chest with happiness. “Of course I will,” he says, and then sniffs mock-haughtily. “You would probably hang little FBI badges and files of paperwork on the branches if you were left to your own devices.”
Blaine snorts. “Ha-ha, very funny.”
Kurt grins and grabs the soft throw blanket from the arm rest of the couch, spreading it open and wrapping it around them both. Blaine sighs happily at the warmth and burrows closer to Kurt, resting his head on his shoulder and placing a hand on his stomach. When Kurt looks down at him, he notices that his eyes have already slipped closed, a small smile playing on his lips.
“It’s snowing outside,” he comments.
Blaine snuffles, rubbing his cheek against Kurt’s shoulder. “Is it? That’s nice,” he answers in a quiet, sleepy voice.
“It’s going to be a white Christmas,” Kurt adds and wraps his own arm around Blaine’s waist, stroking a hand down his side.
“Good. I love snow.” Blaine smacks his lips. “Perry loves it too.”
Kurt places a kiss on top of his head, making Blaine let out a pleased hum. When Kurt looks up, he notices a new picture on Blaine’s mantelpiece, right in the middle of it, rimmed with a rustic wooden frame. He hasn’t seen any pictures there before -– Blaine usually just keeps a pile of those old mystery and detective novels he loves so much on it, but maybe this one is a part of his seasonal decorations. Kurt squints his eyes in the glow coming from the Christmas lights and makes out the lines of a pencil drawing, a snowy forest and a small frozen pond, and all of a sudden his heart stutters in his chest, skipping a beat.
It’s his drawing. The one he sent years ago, when it was his first Christmas in prison and he was feeling more alone than ever before. And there it is, still in good condition and right in the middle of Blaine’s mantelpiece, after all these years and Christmases apart.
Kurt swallows against the lump in his throat and tightens his hold on Blaine, who makes a small, questioning sound in his throat.
“I love you,” Kurt says softly, managing to keep the overwhelmed tears that are pooling in his eyes out of his voice.
Blaine turns his head a little and kisses the curve of his neck, a sleepy, open-mouthed touch of his lips. “I love you too,” he breathes out, sliding his hand over Kurt’s heart and leaving it there. He’s a steady and reliable weight against Kurt’s side, loving and caring with all of his heart and all of his body, and Kurt suddenly feels so incredibly thankful for having him in his life, and not just as the agent that caught him. “Merry Christmas, Kurt,” Blaine adds, probably already halfway back to sleep.
It’s quiet in the apartment, the way it can only be at this time of the year. Kurt closes his eyes, feeling a lone tear slipping down his cheek, and smiles. “Merry Christmas, Blaine.”