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“No.”
“What do you mean no?” Kurt frowns, holding the scarf up to Chris’s neck. “I think it looks great with our skin tone.”
“That scarf costs more than my entire outfit,” Chris responds in a deadpan, pushing the cashmere away from himself. Kurt snorts, turning towards the mirror and draping the soft fabric around his neck.
“That’s not saying very much,” he mutters, lifting his chin as he admires himself in the mirror. Chris rolls his eyes, crossing his arms and looking around the store as if he’d kill to be anywhere else.
“Aren’t we here to Christmas shop?” He asks, impatiently.
“We are.” Kurt loops the scarf a different way.
“Are you buying yourself a Christmas gift now?”
Kurt snaps around to glare at him, and then slips the scarf off.
“Maybe the scarf is for you, big brother,” Kurt says in a sing-song, draping the fabric over Chris again.
“Three minutes older, please stop calling me big brother, it’s weird.” Chris removes the scarf and begins to fold it back up, and Kurt huffs in annoyance. “Come on, when do I ever wear stuff like this?”
“When you let me pick out your clothes.”
“And you spend your entire Christmas budget on one gift.” Chris looks at Kurt, who suddenly looks sheepish, and Chris knocks their shoulders together. “Come on, didn’t you want to get Dad a sweater?” He asks, setting the scarf back neatly in it’s home. “There’s a Gap—”
“Over my dead body. No one in our family is dressing at the Gap if I have any say in it.”
Chris sighs heavily, shoulders dropping. It feels like they’ve been at the mall for hours.
“Where do you suggest then?”
*
“Oh fuck no.”
“Chris!” Kurt scolds, smacking his shoulder.
“You really hit harder than you think you do, did you know that? That’s going tobruise.” Chris rubs his shoulder.
“Drama queen.”
“Really? Coming from you? Are you—Hey!”
“Stop bitching at me and help me shop,” Kurt snaps, wrapping a hand around Chris’s wrist and tugging him into the store. Chris sighs, coming along. He can’t really complain—if they’re going in on a gift together, they can afford to buy their dad something on the nicer side. Not that it matters; their dad can’t tell the difference between brand cereal and store cereal, Chris is pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a designer sweater and a Target one.
But Chris knows better than to even mention Target in front of Kurt; he acts as if the store is contaminated with something.
“So, a swea—”
“Ohmygod, Chris, look at the ties!” Kurt’s gone as soon as the words are out of his mouth, zipping past tables to clothing to a rather elaborate display of ties. Chris just sighs, rubbing at his temples and then giving a dismissive wave of his hand. It’s not like he needs Kurt’s approval to pick out a sweater for their dad, right? He’s Chris’s dad just as much as he’s Kurt’s.
“I can totally do this,” Chris says, striding over towards an area that seems very promising of sweaters. At least, everything looks soft and warm, and that’s what they’re going for, after all.
He’s only browsed through a handful before he’s realized how much he depends on Kurt for shit like this—all of these sweaters look great, how is he supposed to choose one?
“I really need to listen when Kurt talks about complimenting colors,” Chris mumbles to himself. Shouldn’t someone be asking him if he needs assistance? Because he needsassistance.
His mouth thins into a line and he looks around, spotting an employee and then debating for a minute or two before approaching him.
“Um, excuse me?”
The man turns, eyes wide and… Oh, wow, he’s wearing a bow tie, that is adorable.Where is Kurt? He would eat you right up.
“Hi, sorry to bother you, but I’m trying to pick out a gift for my dad, and I’m kind of… Hopeless. At it.” Chris winces, because admitting something like that to a stranger makes him feel kind of pathetic. Then again, it’s better than admitting it to Kurt (who would definitely gloat about being the superior gift giver, but Chris knows Kurt is going to love the boots he got him for Christmas).
“You want me to…?” The boy blinks at him, surprised, and Chris fidgets a little bit. “I, um… I don’t work here?” He admits, sheepishly, and Chris feels his face heat up.
“Oh, wow, that’s… Super embarrassing, okay. I am… Really sorry about that. You just…” Chris gestures at him—the bow tie, the gelled hair, the sweater vest. Mr. Bow Tie blushes though, fumbling with the button up he’s holding in his hands.
“It’s actually not the first time that it’s happened, so.” He smiles, politely, offering a forgiving shrug, and Chris sends an awkward—and embarrassed—smile back.
“Well, always… Nice to add to a tally, I guess.” He needs to get out of this situation. “I, um… Going to find my brother. Sorry! Again, like, really, so sorry.”
Chris takes a few awkward steps back, and then turns on his tennis shoe and walks back towards the tie display—there is no way he’s going to try and approach another worker again, because shit was that embarrassing and he doesn’t want to chance it happening again. Dealing with Kurt’s smugness for the rest of their shopping trip is definitely better than further humiliation.
“Kurt, are you—”
Kurt looks up from where he’s examining bow ties with… Wait.
“Am I—”
“It’s you,” Chris blurts, cutting Kurt off from whatever he was about to say. Because the guy standing with Kurt is definitely the guy Chris had just thoroughly embarrassed himself in front of.
“It’s me!” The guy responds, grinning cheekily. It takes Chris a moment, but… His hair looks different, doesn’t it? And his clothes…
“I…” Chris falters, his mouth falling open and words failing him. Words never fail him.
“Chris, what is wrong with you?” Kurt furrows his brows before rolling his eyes and muttering something under his breath. “Chris, this is Darren, and I’m helping him pick out bow ties for his brother.” He holds them up, beaming, and then frowns at Chris. “Why don’t you ever wear bow ties?” Kurt looks back at Darren. “He never wears bow ties.”
“Aw, but bow ties are cool!”
“Doctor Who,” Chris says, functioning on a more subconscious level since he still seems to be floundering a little bit. The boy—Darren, Chris supposes—raises his eyebrows in surprise and then grins.
“Yeah.” He looks vaguely impressed, and Kurt just huffs a breath in annoyance.
“Wait.” Chris shakes his head a bit. “You… Did you change what you were wearing?” In thirty seconds? Are you Clark Kent or something?
“I… No?” Darren looks down at his sweater-and-jeans combo, looking curious. “I don’t think I did, at least.”
“But you were just…” Chris gestures behind himself, vaguely aware of how Kurt is glaring daggers at him for embarrassing him in front of this… Well, this unfortunately attractive guy. “And your hair…” Chris makes gestures over his own hair, almost going as far as to pat it down against his skull. Darren’s staring at him quizzically, and then he snaps his fingers with sudden realization.
“Oh! You mean Blaine.”
“Blaine?” Kurt asks, eyebrows raising, voice laced with both curiosity and confusion.
“My brother, the one I’m picking the bow tie out for. I’m pretty sure he knows, because I, like, never come in here otherwise. He’s addicted to this store. It’s all kinds of adorable.”
“Blaine,” Chris repeats, dumbly. “So you’re…”
“Twins, yep. Cool, huh?” Darren bounces on his toes like he thinks it’s the coolest thing in the world. “Fuck, and you guys are twins! What are the chances of that?”
Slim. Chris can’t even get over how ridiculously slim those chances are. He’s almost suspicious he’s on some kind of gameshow or something…
“BLAINE!” Darren suddenly yells, and Kurt’s so startled he jerks back against the tie display, holding a gingham printed bow tie close to his chest in his surprise. It’s the loudest sound in the entire store, and it’s so out of place that Chris almost starts laughing.
“Darren.” Wow, their voices are so similar, it’s eerie. Is this what it’s like to be around him and Kurt? “What did I tell you about yelling in the stores?”
“Blaine, but look, Blaine!” Darren is bouncing again, and Chris can feel Blaine walk up next to him more than he can see (not that he plans on looking—he’s still getting over his mortification at the earlier event). “More twins!”
“This is weird,” Chris says, all four of them making a square and it’s just too much likeness to not make something in Chris feel all… Uncomfortable.
“But the cool kind of weird,” Darren agrees.
“Chris, don’t be rude.”
“Darren.”
Chris eyes ping to every corner—he’s used to seeing Kurt. It’s like looking in a mirror, except that Kurt and him know every distinction that exists between them now. Chris has significantly more freckles than Kurt does, and the way Chris styles his hair is significantly more lazy than Kurt’s style of choice. They’re little things, like Kurt’s jaw being the tiniest bit more defined, and Chris’s nose sloping up just that much higher than Kurt’s—things they notice, but that no one else does.
It’s the hair and the clothes that make them easy to tell apart, and the same is true for Darren and Blaine. Still, their faces are the same, with the same big, open, earnest brown eyes—although Darren looks more excited where Blaine’s look slightly tentative.
“I’m sorry about my brother, I really can’t take him anywhere.” Blaine glares at Darren, but Darren just respond by laying his head on Blaine’s shoulder and cooing out an, “I love you.” Blaine sighs. “I’m Blaine.” He holds his hand out to Kurt, and Kurt looks surprised.
Chris watches as Kurt shyly extends his hand, and can’t help grinning at the shy way Kurt responds with his name.
“Hey Darren, do you like pretzels?” Chris asks, jarring everyone’s attention.
“Is that seriously a question? Are there people who don’t like pretzels? Because they’re fucking wrong.”
“I’m going to take that as a yes.” Chris looks at Kurt, who is staring at him suspiciously. “Darren obviously needs some sort of walk—”
“I’m standing right here!”
“Darren, stop yelling.”
“—and I am hopeless at picking out a sweater for dad. Do you think you and Blaine can do it?”
Kurt’s entire mask falters, and Chris sees the rare person who only comes out when there are four solid, familiar walls around them.
“Me and…?”
“Meet you in the food court?” Chris smiles softly at Kurt, and Kurt glances away, giving a small nod. “Nice meeting you Blaine!”
“Um—”
“Come on, Darren!” He grabs the sleeve of Darren’s sweater, and begins to tug him along.
“I’m not a dog—”
“Do you want a pretzel or not?”
“Fuck yeah I want a pretzel.”
Chris laughs, running his hand over his face and rolling his eyes. It occurs to him that he’s literally dragging someone he hardly knows from a store, but blind people probably saw the way his brother looked at Blaine. Chris smiles happily to himself, tugging on Darren’s sleeve with a bit more enthusiasm.
It’s not until they’re actually getting their pretzels (and Darren tries to buy Chris’s, and that is so not happening) that Darren looks at Chris with a mouthful of dough and asks, “You totally saw what I saw, right?”
Chris wrinkles his nose, but then laughs, nodding.
“It was written all over Kurt’s face.”
“I have never seen Blaine look at anyone like that.”
Chris hides his smile behind his pretzel, because Kurt deserves some happiness like that. Sure, Chris would love to find it for himself, but who’s he to deny his brother that kind of chance?
“Oh god, they’re going to be disgustingly adorable together, aren’t they?” Chris asks, leaning back against a planter, and Darren laughs.
“Vomit inducing,” he concurs, and then holds out his pretzel. “To our brothers?”
Chris raises his pretzel, toasting it against Darren’s and smiling.
“To our brothers.”
And maybe to their blooming friendship, too.