Blaine crossed his arms tightly over his chest, trying desperately to hide the face of the giggling cartoon reindeer with the light up nose and the jingle bell antlers on the sweater he was wearing as he eyed a man stroll by in a classic black Armani tuxedo. Blaine scowled, lifting his glass of champagne to his mouth, grumbling obscenities into the bubbles that popped against his lips.

Why, oh why did he continue to take Santana's word at face value anymore?

Blaine accompanied Santana every year to the annual Christmas Fundraiser for the children's theater that she chaired, and it had always been a black tie event, so naturally Blaine had been suspicious when Santana mentioned that the theme this year was ugly sweaters.

“It's a gimmick,” she had explained, looking through his closet to find the most ridiculous Christmas sweater he owned (courtesy of his Nana Anderson, who had made him one every Christmas since he was born). “We get a whole bunch of celebs to wear the campiest sweaters they can find, and then we auction them off at the end of the evening. You know, because celeb sweat is so in nowadays.”

As she held the choicest sweater of the bunch up to his frame, he stared her down with dubious eyes, but she simply huffed in frustration.

“Who knows?” she had said. “Maybe you'll find a man with similar taste in knitwear and you'll know he's the one.”

He still didn't comment, letting his judgmental stare speak for him, but in true Santana fashion, she didn't seem fazed.

“Or maybe you could just troll the dessert table,” she had said with a shrug. “I know for a fact that the cheesecake at this party is going to be off the hook.”

Naïve as he was, Blaine had pictured an orgy of people in hideous sweaters, but there wasn't a single one.

Blaine finished his champagne and deposited his empty glass on a waiter's tray passing by. He couldn't really be too mad since he realized that a simple phone call would have exposed Santana's lie, he just trusted her too much to make it. A room full of celebrities in God-awful sweaters was too tempting for him to turn down.

To top things off, Santana hadn't even bothered to show. She had dressed him up like a fool and then stood him up.

Grabbing another drink off a passing tray and planning his vengeance, it struck him that he knew what this was. This was revenge for the dozens of times that she had set him up on a blind date and he had backed out at the last minute, the most recent of these being a few weeks ago. Blaine couldn't help it if he was comically unlucky in love. It was an affliction that Santana took upon herself to try and fix almost daily. But Blaine was too involved in his career – writing music, playing back-up for several Indie musicians, trying to launch his own album - to be concerned with relationships.

Of course, that wasn't entirely the case. It was only the excuse he told himself. The truth was that Blaine had particular and discriminating tastes, and he wasn't willing to compromise. He was a bit embarrassed to admit it, but he had a daydream – had had one ever since he was a teenager – of who his prince charming would be. Blaine just hadn't stumbled across him yet.

Blaine's eyes swept the sea of black tuxedos and elegant evening gowns, and he felt his stomach turn sour.

Fine. Obviously this was a prank. Ha-ha on him. Happy Holidays. Santana got her revenge. She probably had someone in the crowd secretly photographing him – pictures he'd for sure be seeing in the society pages tomorrow. Well, he'd had enough. He tightened his arms around his waist and headed for the exit, keeping his eyes lowered, ignoring the looks of other attendees as he blew by. He put his empty champagne glass on one of the long tables of food he passed on his way to the exit when he spotted the dessert table and took a pause.

He wasn't sure what cheap ass catering company the theater had hired for the hors d'oeuvres (the Tuna Tartar smelled iffy, and the Curried Phylo Triangles tasted like cardboard) but the desserts looked incredible. This table hadn't been set up when he arrived. If it had, he would have been stationed here beside these delectable goodies all night long. It sure as hell would have softened the blow of Santana's joke.

Blaine always did have a soft-spot for sweets. It had nearly rendered him undate-able his first year of college.

Freshman fifteen? More like the freshman forty.

Blaine walked down the length of the table, slowly perusing the variety of pastries, cookies, and cakes, each one carefully decorated, perfectly displayed, categorized by color, flavor, filling – almost obsessively. They didn't just look mouth-watering, they were also insanely aesthetically pleasing.

There seemed to be a pattern in their set-up that Blaine counted off in his head – cookie, cupcake, cake…cookie, cupcake, cake…cookie, cupcake, eyes…

 “Jesus!” Blaine jerked backward in alarm when the eyes blinked. Between the double-fudge chocolate cupcakes and the martini key lime cheesecake, a pair of wide blue eyes stared up at him. Blaine leaned forward to make sure his mind wasn't playing tricks, that he wasn't mistaking a dish of powdered sugar dusted almond snowball cookies for a pair of startling sea-blue eyes.

The eyes blinked again, and Blaine was sure.

“Uh…sorry,” Blaine said when his heart started beating back to normal, “but, are you alright?”

“Um, yes…” A face to go with the eyes rose up from the edge of the table – smooth pale skin that matched the French ivory table cloth perfectly, framed by meticulously styled chestnut-colored hair. Blaine couldn't help thinking that this man hiding behind the dessert table reminded him of The Little Prince. “I'm sorry if I startled you, it's just…”

The man's eyes darted left and right, but he didn't say anything else. His gaze stopped on Blaine's sweater and he stared, the giggling reindeer having been uncovered when Blaine dropped his arms in surprise. Blaine's eyes followed the man's, landing on the light up nose and the bell antlers, and Blaine crossed his arms again, quickly covering it up.

The crouching man sighed, rising up further from his hiding spot, revealing that he was wearing a dark blue sweater bearing a knitted chorus of calico cats dressed in matching Santa Claus costumes, furry heads tilted back, mouths open in song. Above them, surrounded by red and green blinking lights, were the words, “Meow-y Christmas”.

“My name's Kurt,” the man said softly. “Kurt Hummel. I…I made the desserts.”

“They look amazing,” Blaine said, biting back a smile. Blaine would have started giggling if the man standing in front of him didn't look so utterly embarrassed.

So instead, he tried a different approach.

“My name's Blaine,” he said, extending a hand for the adorably flustered man to shake. “Blaine Anderson. Say…you wouldn't happen to know a Santana Lopez, do you?”