Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or any of its characters; Ryan Murphy and Co. hold that honor. I'm simply writing this for fun, not profit.
Kurt was convinced that the purest form of love was the radiant look on Blaine's face as he held three squirming Labrador puppies in his arms.
"They're a bit of a handful sometimes," Sam was saying in the background, corralling the other four puppies behind a puppy gate and smiling over at Kurt and Blaine, "but we really love having them around, don't we, 'Cedes?"
"Speak for yourself, honey," Mercedes said, touching up her hair as she stood in front of a mirror. "I have had the longest week and the little ones don't always sleep through the night," she added, directing her attention at Kurt as she sidled up to him and linked arms.
One of the two chocolate labs and the yellow lab had both started lapping at the underside of Blaine's slightly stubbly jaw. Kurt could only describe the look on Blaine's face as euphoric. At a tiny yip from the third puppy, Blaine laughed and cuddled them even closer, entirely oblivious to the sharp little claws raking his chest for purchase. "Oh my God, Kurt," he said, encapsulating half a dozen feelings into four short words as the puppies squirmed in his arms, tails wagging energetically.
"Take as many as you want," Mercedes entreated, a playful edge to her tone as she added, "whichever ones you can't pry off are yours; that's the rule."
"Don't be fooled; she loves them. I totally caught her cuddling them the other night while I was supposed to be at a photo shoot," Sam conspired, leaning in to whisper it in Kurt's ear. He wasn't quite subtle enough; Mercedes whacked his arm lightly as he passed, heading back into the kitchen.
"You didn't tell me it was cancelled until you got home," Mercedes reminded him.
Sam hummed as he packed away their cold sandwiches in a cooler for their picnic lunch, adding the final touches from the fridge. "I didn't even think you'd be home," he admitted. "What happened to girls' night out?"
"Someone has to watch the babies," was all Mercedes said.
For his part, Kurt couldn't stop smiling as he watched the two banter back and forth, Blaine still holding the puppies as though he couldn't imagine a happier predicament to find himself in. Kurt had known about the lab puppies for weeks– Sam and Mercedes had taken them in shortly after returning to New York after Sam had found them on the street, boxed up and abandoned – but he hadn't realized just how big they'd gotten until Blaine and he had made time to visit for a much-needed break from the stage life. Even though Mercedes had sworn that she would never take in a litter of puppies, there hadn't been a suitable alternative – the local shelters refused to take them – and neither Sam nor she were capable of dropping them off in the same way that they had found them.
And so they became proud puppy owners. For almost a month, Kurt had been so busy with work on his latest Broadway show – and Blaine with his teaching – which meant they hadn't had a good opportunity to interact much beyond a handful of Skype calls.
The grainy screens hadn't been able to capture the full magnitude of cute that eight-week-old Labrador puppies were.
"When are you going to start adopting them out?" Kurt asked, padding over to the puppy pen and leaning over to scoop one of the yellow labs up. "Hi," he cooed, bouncing it a little as he added, "you're so cute. Yes, you are."
"We're planning on putting up an ad in the paper this week," Sam explained, carrying the cooler into the living room and looking fondly at the puppies. "It's been crazy having them around, but I'm really going to miss them."
"We won't give them away to bad people. Promise," Mercedes reassured him, leaning up to kiss his cheek. "Ready to go?"
"Uh huh." Looking over at Kurt and Blaine, Sam added, amused, "You guys, uh, need a minute?"
"Please," Kurt said.
"Just lock the door behind you and make sure all four puppies make it to the pen," Sam instructed, leading Mercedes outside and shutting the door to their apartment behind them.
The puppies in Blaine's arms had settled down quite a bit, lapping at his neck with scratchy puppy tongues and nipping his arms whenever they could. Looking up for the first time since they'd arrived, Blaine met his gaze and laughed. "Kurt," he said. "Look at them."
"We're not adopting three." Kurt's lips quirked upwards in amusement at the thought of having to wrangle three of them around their own apartment.
Closing his eyes and hugging the puppies underneath his chin, Blaine said again, "Kurt," and then just stood there in happy silence for a long time, the puppies whimpering and twitching their tails in uncontrollable excitement.
Holding up the puppy in his own arms at eye level, Kurt smiled as she squirmed closer, lapping at his cheek. "God, they are cute, aren't they?"
"Mmmm." Blaine sighed as he gently, reluctantly set his armful of puppy down behind the gate, the three labs scampering farther into the mid-sized room to join the others in rough and tumble play.
Bouncing his own armful of puppy, reluctant to let her go so soon, Kurt smiled when Blaine padded over to him and rubbed the puppy's ears, eliciting more nips to already well-nipped fingers. "Hi," he crooned, oblivious to the sharp-pointed teeth digging into the space between his thumb and index finger. "Hi, sweetheart. Want to come home with us? Hm?"
With a loud, startling yelp, the puppy wagged her tail until Kurt had no choice but to surrender her to Blaine, who gleefully cuddled the squirming, clawing little pup to his chest.
"What do you think, hm?" Blaine asked after she'd resorted to chewing on his bow tie instead, directing the question at Kurt.
They'd already discussed it in depth, of course, complete with charts and numbers. A puppy was a lot of work. A lot of work. And mess and stress and everything in between.
Reaching up to rub the puppy's head, Kurt mused, "We'll have to pick out a name for her."
There was a beat, and then Kurt was convinced that no definition of love could fully capture the joy on Blaine's face as he smiled.
They had to join Mercedes and Sam for their picnic eventually to catch up and finalize the decision, but for now the yellow lab with the blue collar was theirs, and neither Kurt nor Blaine could be happier about it.