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forabeatofadrum · 8 months

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The Class Menagerie

Summary: Kurt is a pre-school teacher at a school that has a huge variety of animals to care for. Unfortunately, one day, Kurt finds out that ten of them have escaped their cages. Luckily, a new trainee teacher named Blaine, offers to help him out.

Notes: Hello, hello, welcome to The Class Menagerie, my fic for the Klaine Back-To-School challenge, hosted by @the-lima-bean. There are animals!

The title was given to me by an anon on Tumblr, so anon, if you're reading this, thank you!!!!

Also, also, don't try to wrap your head around why this random pre-school in New York has this variety of animals. It is my fic and I get to decide the reality of the situation!

I hope you enjoy.

AO3 | S&C

Kurt is about to lose his mind. He has no idea where it has gone wrong, but it has gone wrong.

"Fuck," he yells, because he's fucked. He is so totally fucked. It's his third year as a pre-school teacher and this has never happened before.

He needs to reel in the swearing before the kids arrive. He also needs to fix this mess before the kids arrive.

They will be devastated if they find out that ten of the classroom pets have gone missing.

"Fuck!" Kurt says again. How did this happen? These animals are all specially cared for. They live here in special cages. This classroom is reserved for them. Kids come here to see the animals, not the other way around.

Suddenly, Kurt hears a voice.

"Everything all right in here?" he hears, "I heard swearing."

Blaine Anderson is leaning in the doorframe and he has no right looking that good while doing so. Kurt knows of him. Blaine joined this pre-school’s staff as a trainee teacher a week ago. He mostly helps out in Mercedes’s class, so Kurt hasn’t gotten a chance to properly talk to him yet. Sure, they’ve exchanged some words, but Kurt would love to get to know him more properly.

Unfortunately for him, Blaine just happened to walk into an awkward situation.

Then he realises that the animals might be in the room.

“Close the door!” he frantically yells towards Blaine.

Blaine is shocked, but he manages to do so.

“What’s going on?” he asks, looking alarmed.

“We lost ten animals,” Kurt gestures around. Blaine takes in his surroundings and he sees the empty cages. His eyes widen when the realisation hits him.

“How did this happen?” Blaine asks frantically.

“I don’t know!” Kurt answers, sounding equally frantic, “I came in around eight, since my class will visit the fur babies first, and this is what I found. I don’t know how long they’ve been out. Or how they got out in the first place.”

Blaine checks his watch and Kurt sees the realisation sink in. They need to find these animals fast, otherwise they will have to deal with a lot of upset and potentially crying pre-schoolers.

“Check every corner, now!” Blaine yells.

It doesn’t have to be said twice.

Both Kurt and Blaine sprint towards the corners, but to no avail. Kurt’s about to tear his hair out, which is saying something cause usually nothing would allow Kurt to mess up his hair.

Then he hears it.

“Shhhh!” he shushes Blaine.

“What?”

“Shhhhhh!”

It is dead silent and that’s when Kurt can hear it more clearly. It’s a squeaking noise. It’s the sound of a little hamster. Kurt and Blaine follow the sound.

“Let me check,” Blaine says and the next thing Kurt knows, Blaine’s on the floor. He’s trying to see if he can spot the hamster underneath the furniture.

Kurt looks at Blaine and he reminds himself that he’s at work.

“I think there is an animal there!”

“Toffee?”

“Toffee?” Blaine asks.

“The hamster is named Toffee,” Kurt says.

Blaine slowly gets up and Kurt holds out his hand to help him. Blaine takes it and once Blaine’s up, he doesn’t let go. He doesn’t seem to notice. Should Kurt comment on it?

“Who are we missing, apart from Toffee?” Blaine asks and Kurt reminds himself to stay focused.

“Uh…”

“Kurt?”

“Right!” Kurt snaps out of it and he gets out of Blaine’s grip. Kurt sees that Blaine quickly looks down to his hand, but he also doesn’t comment on it and Kurt turns away to check the cages.

Kurt quickly makes a list of all the missing animals and his frustration only grows. He knows that ten are missing, but now that he knows who are missing, it becomes more real. They’ve already found Toffee, but they need to find two baby rabbits, a baby ferret, a baby meerkat, one guinea pig, a chinchilla, a rat, a hedgehog and a mouse. Usually, Kurt is proud of this school’s boastful collection, but now he wishes that they weren’t known for this.

“Kurt, help!” he hears and when Kurt turns around, he sees that Blaine is stuck.

“What happened?”

“I tried to reach Toffee, to no avail! I tried to reach through this gap between the cabinet and the wall,” Blaine says, “Could you help me move this cabinet?”

“Oh Blaine,” Kurt laughs, “This cabinet has wheels!”

“… Oh.”

Kurt takes the brake of the wheels and Blaine uses his free hand to push the cabinet aside and Kurt has to stop himself from laughing. Blaine looks so bewildered.

“Well, Toffee is accounted for,” Kurt says as he reaches down to pick up Toffee, “Although I am afraid it’s not going to be as easy to find the others.”

Blaine checks his watch.

“What are we going to do?”

“Let me send a message to Rachel,” Kurt says, “She can welcome my class.”

Rachel isn’t a full-time teacher. She sometimes gives music classes to the kids, but Kurt happens to know that she doesn’t have a class this morning and she’s at school. She likes to get here early to prepare.

Kurt quickly sends her a message, explaining the situation.

Meanwhile, Blaine is listening attentively for more sounds. He’s following something.

“Kurt, I think I found something,” he whispers.

Kurt presses send and he hopes Rachel sees it in time, otherwise they’ll be in big trouble.

Blaine’s crouched down in front of a bookcase. The bookcase is filled with informative children’s books about all the animals in the classroom, including the one who is currently sleeping behind the bookcase.

It’s Waffle, the chinchilla.

“Waffle!” Kurt whispers excitedly.

“Did you all name them after food?”

“I didn’t name them,” Kurt answers, “Some kids named them and they aren’t all named after food. Most are, though.”

“What name would you give to your pet?”

Kurt stops and think. He doesn’t really know. He’s never thought about it, since his landlord doesn’t allow pets and even if they did, Kurt wouldn’t have the space.

“I don’t know. You?” he casts the question back.

“Mimi,” Blaine answers.

“Mimi,” Kurt repeats, “I like the sound of that.”

“Thanks, I’ll tell her.”

“You have a pet?”

Blaine nods happily.

“Yes, wanna see a photo of her?”

Kurt would love to, but just at that moment, Waffle chooses to wake up. Kurt and Blaine’s heads jerk back towards the bookcase. They can hear Waffle making noises. It seems like the chinchilla hasn’t moved yet, so now is their chance.

The bookcase doesn’t have wheels, though, so Kurt carefully stars taking books off the lowest shelf. He hopes that Waffle won’t be scared. Blaine is in position to grab Waffle.

It works and Blaine carefully puts Waffle back in the cage. Two down, eight to go.

“This is a nightmare,” Kurt groans out.

“At least we’re together,” Blaine laughs.

“Huh?”

“I mean, the two of us. Here. Two is better than one. We’re faster!” Blaine says quickly.

“Exactly,” Kurt says.

“So, uh, do you want to see a photo of Mimi?”

“Absolutely.”

Blaine whips out his phone and his background is a photo of Mimi wearing a rainbow bandana, so he doesn’t have to sift through photos. Mimi is a cute light brown cavalier king Charles spaniel. Kurt focuses on the bandana.

“Oh, yeah, she wore this for Pride.”

Kurt already heard through others that Blaine is gay, but this confirms it for him.

“Very stylish,” Kurt says back.

“How about this? Let’s have some fun!”

Kurt raises an eyebrow.

“For every animal we find, I show you a Mimi photo.”

Kurt lets out a laugh. Blaine is adorable.

“Deal.”

The two of them continue to search the classroom and Kurt thinks he can hear some stomping coming from one corner. He moves the furniture so that he can get a better view.

“Oh!”

“What?” Blaine asks from the other side.

“You should see this for yourself.”

Blaine moves to stand next to Kurt and his eyes also widen. Then he looks amused.

“This is why they call it breeding like rabbits,” he says.

“Do we… interrupt them?” Kurt asks.

“Maybe we’ll come back to these later. At least we know where they are now.”

Kurt moves the furniture back, now in a way to prevent them from easily running away from that spot, and Kurt and Blaine continue their search.

They find Noodle the hedgehog in the open cupboard with all the food. Kurt carefully wraps him in a towel so that Kurt won’t get hurt. Blaine cleans up the bag of food that Noodle demolished.

Afterwards, Blaine shows Kurt a photo of Mimi wearing a raincoat.

Blaine then has the idea to use the leftover food to potentially lure an animal out of hiding. He places it on the ground and he and Kurt move behind the cages. Lo and behold, Crumpet the guinea pig crawls out of a box with toys.

Even though Blaine is the one who came up the plan, Kurt still feels like he’s being rewarded when Blaine shows him a photo of Mimi sleeping with her head tucked between her paws.

“It’s so dark in here,” Kurt says, “Maybe some additional light will help the search.”

Kurt then draws the curtains open and Nathaniel the rat jumps on him from the windowsill. Kurt shrieks in shock and Nathaniel jumps off him and runs away.

“Bad girl!”

Blaine runs after her and dives to the floor in order to prevent her from hiding in another tight spot.

“I got her!” Blaine yells, “I got- Ouch! She bit me!”

Luckily, instead of hiding in that tight spot, Nathaniel zooms across the classroom. Kurt tries to catch her. He feels a bit bad for her, because she is clearly stressed, so Kurt makes a mental note to tell the kids to give her an extra treat later.

“Nathaniel, please just work with us!”

“She’s named Nathaniel?”

“Yes! Again, kids named these animals!”

Eventually, both Kurt and Blaine push her towards a corner. Luckily, she doesn’t jump on Kurt again, or Blaine, so they manage to carefully pick her up. Blaine places her back into her cage and Kurt’s left behind to clean up the poops, because Nathaniel pooped in fear.

By the time everything is clean, the bunnies have also finished their business, so Kurt and Blaine put them back in their cages as well. Luckily, they were too tired to run away. Besides, Kurt suspects that they don’t mind being in the cage as long as they’re together.

“That calls for 3 Mimi photos!” Blaine says.

“We fucking need it,” Kurt says back.

“Language, Mr. Hummel!” Blaine laughs.

“The kids aren’t here yet. Let me have this.”

“You can have this instead,” Blaine holds out his phone to show him a photo of Mimi running in the grass. Then he swipes to one of Mimi chewing a toy, and then to one of Mimi with a squirrel.

“That’s Watson,” Blaine explains, “He lives in Central Park and he’s Mimi’s best friend.”

Kurt coos. Of course Mimi has made a friend in the park.

“Alright, three left,” Kurt says and he quickly checks his phone. Rachel has sent him a thumbs up emoji and Kurt lets out a sigh of relief. He’ll deal with the repercussions of all of this later, but first he and Blaine have three more animals left to catch.

“Where the hell could they be?” Blaine ponders out loud.

He has a point. Kurt feels like he’s scoured every nook and cranny of this classroom, but he is still missing something. The windows have been closed this entire time, and apart from the moment Blaine came in, the same goes for the door. They must be somewhere.

There are some more cabinets with closed doors. They never checked that, because how the hell would these animals get in there?

Still, it doesn’t hurt to look.

Kurt and Blaine go through all the cabinets and indeed, they find Cookie the ferret sleeping between some blankets.

“How did this even happen?” Kurt asks.

“I have no clue,” Blaine says, as he carefully lifts Cookie out of the cabinet.

“These blankets do seem more comfortable than the cages,” Kurt says.

Blaine puts Cookie safely away and then shows a video of Mimi. She’s singing along with Blaine, who is playing some simple piano melodies and Kurt’s heart swells at the sight of Blaine. And Mimi. Mimi, too, of course.

Luckily, watching the video has an added benefit. Bear the mouse reacts to the sound by peeping. Kurt and Blaine follow the sound and find Bear in another closed cabinet. It’s an old one, so Kurt can see that Bear ate part of the door to make an entrance.

“Bear the mouse?” Blaine asks.

“Again, kids!” Kurt says as he puts Bear in the cage, “Someone thought it was funny to name a small animal after a big one.”

“I wouldn’t call Mimi Hedgehog or something.”

“You’re no fun,” Kurt teases.

Mimi is indeed a small dog. The photo of her standing next to a big tree illustrates that.

“One more!” Blaine says cheerfully.

Kurt smiles. His eyes fall on the clock. School has started, but it’s alright. Rachel will keep his kids entertained and all things considered, they’re doing this fairly quickly.

Right?

Twenty minutes later, Kurt realises he was mistaken.

They cannot find Sebastian the meerkat.

Meanwhile, Rachel is trying to message him, asking for how long it’s going to take. She obviously has to be discreet, since she cannot be on her phone while teaching the kids, but it makes it all a bit more complicated, since they can’t just call.

Blaine’s bowtie is untied and he looks stressed. Kurt’s certain he also looks messy. They’ve uprooted so many pieces of furniture in these past twenty minutes and that is exhausting.

“Can I go on the record and say that I fucking hate Sebastian,” Blaine says.

“Who’s swearing now?” Kurt says with mock horror.

“You were right. It is necessary.”

“Where could he be, though?” Kurt sighs.

“Maybe we need to change our approach,” Blaine says.

Kurt raises an eyebrow.

“What do you suggest?”

“Maybe we need to startle him, so that he comes out of hiding. We can make a loud noise.”

“Hm. That’s an idea.”

“There’s one downside, though.”

“Hm?”

“We will disturb the other animals, and I don’t know if I can handle that. Emotionally.”

Kurt looks around and he also doesn’t like the idea. Cookie is still sleeping peacefully and Nathaniel has finally calmed down.

“I don’t think I can handle it either, but what choice do we have?”

“Yeah…” Blaine nods solemnly.

“What noise do we make, though?” Kurt asks, “We also can’t make too much of a mess, because it might scare the kids.

“I have a whistle.”

“Why do you… carry a whistle?” Kurt asks.

“It’s to remember my marching band days,” Blaine says and he reaches for something in his pockets. It’s his key ring and there is indeed a small silver whistle attached to it.

“I didn’t know you marched!” Kurt exclaims.

“I mean, we haven’t really gotten the time to get to know each other yet,” Blaine points out.

It’s true. There’s a lot that’s left to discover and Kurt likes the idea of that. He wonders how Blaine will react when he finds out that Kurt was on the football team for a short while and that he was a cheerleader for a little bit longer.

“Maybe after all of this, we can hang out more,” Kurt suggests.

“You can come and meet my dog!” Blaine immediately says.

“I’d love to!” Kurt beams.

“How about this? If we find this meerkat, you can meet Mimi in the flesh!”

“How will that work? Is she here at the school?”

Blaine turns a bit red.

“Erm. Uh. I meant you could come over to my place after work.”

“Oh.”

“I- You don’t have to, if you have plans! Or whatever reason! You don’t have to justify a no if it’s a no-”

“Blaine, it isn’t a no!” Kurt quickly says.

“Ah,” Blaine looks relieved, “Good.”

“We better find this meerkat, then, if me meeting Mimi is the pay-off.”

Blaine nods and he blows his whistle. As expected, a lot of the animals react and Kurt feels like a terrible person, but it has the desired effect. Sebastian the meerkat shows up from God knows where and starts running around the classroom, jumping on furniture, throwing off things, and creating chaos in general. It doesn’t help that Kurt and Blaine are frantically chasing him.

“Fuck!” Blaine yells as he trips over something and goes down.

Since Kurt was running right behind him, he, in turn, trips over Blaine and lands right on him.

“Ouch!” Kurt says.

“At least you landed on me,” Blaine groans.

“Are you hurt?” Kurt asks.

“Nothing is wrong. I managed to catch myself. I just lost some of my dignity.”

Kurt rolls off Blaine. Blaine also rolls on his back, and to Kurt’s surprise, Blaine starts laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Kurt asks, aghast.

“Just… You know…” Blaine laughs some more.

“What?”

“This is the weirdest things that has happened here at work,” Blaine says through his laughter, “And we work at a pre-school, Kurt. Kids do crazy shit.”

“Like naming a mouse Bear,” Kurt says and he also starts to feel a bit giddy. This is ridiculous.

“Exactly!”

The two of them lie on the ground, just laughing. They can’t wait to tell the others in the staff room. Kurt turns his head to Blaine and he’s surprised to see Blaine staring back. Kurt wants to say something else, but he doesn’t know what. The laughter has been replaced by a comfortable silence.

Kurt wants to reach out. He’s no longer on top of Blaine, since that’s the appropriate response, but he realises he misses it. That’s weird.

But before Kurt can even make up his mind about it, he feels something on his legs.

He looks at his leg and he sees Sebastian the meerkat crawling around.

“Uh.”

“Stay still,” Blaine says and he slowly gets up.

Sebastian the meerkat walks up towards Kurt’s face. By now, Blaine’s crouching next to Kurt, waiting to grab this damned animal.

Unfortunately, the meerkat must have crazy reflexes, because the moment Blaine tries to reach, he jumps off Kurt and runs away. Blaine loses his balance and falls face down on Kurt.

“Fuck this meerkat!” Blaine yells against Kurt’s chest.

“This meerkat seems to have a secret agenda to have us fall on each other,” Kurt jokes, “Now you’ve landed on me.”

“There are worse things to land on, I guess,” Blaine says and he lies there.

“Uh. Blaine?”

“Yeah?”

“We should get up and find Sebastian.”

“Right!” Blaine says as he gets up. He holds out his hand to also help Kurt up.

Sebastian is once again nowhere to be seen, so Kurt and Blaine look around, but he’s gone. Or so it seems. Where the hell can a meerkat be?

Blaine takes out his whistle.

“I can do this again…” he trails off. He doesn’t want to and Kurt understands. It was a last resort and it scares the other animals.

Maybe they need to give up. Kurt can explain to the principal what happened and all ‘animal care’ lessons have to be put on hold.

Kurt sighs and he checks the other animals to see if they’re alright. He pets everyone, apart from Noodle, because the spikes would hurt him. He gives Nathaniel an extra treat. He chuckles when he sees that the rabbits are cosied up together. He says hi to Sebastian. He is happy to see that Cookie is still asleep. He-

Wait a second.

He backtracks.

He stops in front of Sebastian the meerkat’s cage.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kurt hears Blaine from behind. Kurt can understand the sentiment. Sebastian is in his cage. They couldn’t find him the second time around, since Sebastian straight up moved back on his own.

Kurt quickly closes the cage door.

“Well… At least all animals are accounted for.”

“Oh my God,” Blaine says.

“Does this still count for the Mimi photo requirement?” Kurt asks to lift the mood. It has its desired effect because Blaine loves the photos and the photo of him and Mimi on the beach does not disappoint.

And just like that, it’s over. Kurt quickly fixes his hair and Blaine also ties his bowtie. They have places to go. Kurt has a group of pre-schoolers to look after and Blaine also has to prepare some stuff for work. They’ve already lost valuable time, so they need to get going, but a part of Kurt doesn’t want to. As wacky as this was, it was also kind of fun.

Blaine coughs.

“Anyway. See you later? We can meet up in the staff room, or I can send you the address.”

“What?”

“For the Mimi meeting.”

“Oh, of course!”

Blaine opens the door. He waves and then walks out of the classroom. There’s nothing left for Kurt to do, so he leaves as well.

When he arrives at his own classroom, the relief on Rachel’s face is evident. They play it off in front of the kids and they don’t ask a lot of questions. It’s time to get to work.

Blaine’s apartment is very small, but Kurt likes it. The best part is that Mimi immediately runs towards them.

“Did you miss me?” Blaine coos as Mimi jumps against him and Kurt’s heart swells, “I missed you too!”

Kurt crouches down and Mimi tilts her head.

“This is Kurt, he’s a friend, and we had quite an adventure today,” Blaine tells her.

Kurt holds out his hand for Mimi to sniff it. He passes the test, because Mimi licks it.

“She likes you,” Blaine says.

“I like her too!” Kurt says and he’s beaming. Mimi is very playful and Kurt pets her. She revels in it. At one point, he scratches her head and her head tilts back and she squints her eyes. Kurt’s about to burst.

He looks up and he sees Blaine looking down with adoration written across his face. Kurt gets it. He’s only known Mimi for a few seconds and he’s already willing to go to war for her. Kurt’s certain he has the same smitten look on his face.

“You can carry her, if she wants you to,” Blaine says.

“How do I know?”

Blaine kneels down next to Kurt and Mimi.

“Just kneel in front of her and stretch your arms. If she’s willing, she’ll jump into your arms, so you must catch her.”

Kurt tries it and Mimi is eager to be loved, so she leaps into his arms.

“Look!” Kurt turns to Blaine, with Mimi pressed against his chest.

“I’ve never seen her warm up to someone this quickly,” Blaine sounds a bit amazed.

Blaine helps Kurt get up and Kurt carries Mimi to the living room. Blaine gives him a small tour of his place and he asks if Kurt wants coffee. Kurt can’t say no to that!

Kurt cuddles Mimi and Blaine talks from his kitchen. He tells Kurt how he adopted Mimi. A friend of his had a dog who unexpectedly got pregnant, so Blaine and his friends adopted all of the babies. They still have reunions with Mimi’s mom and siblings.

“I have pictures!”

“Please show them!”

Blaine returns with coffee and the two of them spend the remainder of their time together looking at pictures of adorable dogs. It starts with Mimi and Mimi’s family, but then Kurt learns that Blaine also volunteers at a shelter when he has the time and he has many pictures of animals there.

“That’s partially why I hoped to do my traineeship at our pre-school,” Blaine explains, “I like that this particular pre-school has the animals. I want to become a teacher because I love working with kids, so it’s a win-win.”

“Well, it’s important to learn kids from a young age how to care for other life.”

“Exactly!”

“My three-year-old niece once wanted to pet a friend’s rabbit, but she just started slamming that poor animal’s back. Luckily, my sister-in-law stopped her.”

“That sounds unfortunate.”

“How did you get into teaching?” Blaine asks.

Kurt lets out a sigh. It isn’t a big marvellous story. Teaching wasn’t his dream growing up, but that is fine. Sometimes you work hard on something, only to realise that it isn’t what you want after all. That’s what happened to Kurt. He was enrolled in a drama school, but he wasn’t feeling it. This only stressed him out, because he’d worked hard to be accepted into the school. He thought that acting on stage was his dream, so it really messed him up when he realised that it wasn’t true.

Still, he saw no way out. He was committed to finishing his degree. Then in his second year he had to do an internship and he did it at a school. He helped out in a drama department and it was as if the clouds in his head parted. He realised that he was still young and that he had his life ahead of him, so he made the big decision to quit drama school to learn to become a teacher.

During that time, he realised he preferred the pre-school age.

“And here I am,” Kurt wraps up his story.

“Here you are!” Blaine laughs and it’s a nice laugh.

“I’m glad I ended up at this school, even though our principal makes, uh, questionable decisions sometimes,” Kurt says, “But don’t tell principal Sylvester I said that!”

“My lips are sealed,” Blaine pretends to zip his mouth shut, but then he immediately says: “I am also glad I ended up there, even if I am just a trainee. It’s a great place, with amazing extracurriculars and other extra ‘classes’.”

Kurt hums in agreement.

“And, uh, I met you.”

Kurt looks up in surprise. Blaine is staring back, looking a bit nervous. Is he trying to flirt?

“I’m glad you joined our team too!” Kurt says, just to be safe, but then he adds: “I’m even glad that the two of us had our little adventure this morning.”

“Yes, although I will forever detest Sebastian.”

Kurt shrugs.

“I don’t. Because of him, we had more time together.”

Kurt really, really hopes he isn’t overstepping and that he understood Blaine correctly.

“Yeah, that is one way to look at it,” Blaine says back with a smile.

Kurt wants to say something more, but then his phone beeps. He knows what it is. He set an alarm for himself. He’s meeting up with some other people, but he so desperately wanted to meet Mimi and see Blaine, so he added this to his already busy day.

“Ah. I… have to go.”

Kurt puts his empty coffee cup down and he lets Mimi jump off his lap. He already misses her warmth.

“Okay.”

“But thanks for having me.”

“Always. Mimi loves you.”

“And I love her,” Kurt says and on a cue, Mimi barks.

Blaine walks Kurt to his front door and Kurt realises he really doesn’t want to leave, and that he wants to stay here with Blaine and Mimi, but he’s made these plans with the others weeks ago so he really cannot bail.

“Will I see you again?” Kurt asks as he puts on his coat.

Blaine has an amused look on his face.

“We will see each other tomorrow at work, remember?” he says.

Kurt lets out a small laugh. He knows that, but that’s not what he meant.

“Outside of work, dummy,” Kurt clarifies and Blaine turns red, either from embarrassment or something else.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“With Mimi?”

Kurt thinks about that. He loves Mimi and he’d love to see her again, but the idea of just going somewhere with Blaine sounds appealing as well. He tells Blaine that. Blaine turns even redder and Kurt’s pretty certain he must look the same.

“Are you, uh, asking me on a date?” Blaine asks.

“Yes,” Kurt says, “Interested?”

Blaine nods eagerly.

“Definitely. I’ve been meaning to get to you know me ever since I first saw you!”

“Ah well, as I said, maybe it’s a good thing that 10 animals escaped this morning,” Kurt says.

His phone beeps again. Shit, he really needs to go if he wants to catch his train.

“I’ll text you, okay?” Kurt asks.

“Okay.”

“Yeah.”

And with that last eloquent word, he leaves Blaine’s apartment.

They have their first date the weekend after. It’s nothing glamorous. They have coffee at a local place and then pick up Mimi to go for a walk.

It’s absolutely perfect.

Blaine’s also picked up a picnic blanket and the three of them bask in the sun in the park. There’s a fenced off area for dogs, so Mimi can roam free and Kurt and Blaine take a lot of photos, because they can.

But all good things come to an end.

Blaine’s rolling up the picnic blanket and Kurt’s holding Mimi and scratching her behind her ear.

“See you on Monday, huh?” Kurt says.

“Yup.”

Kurt holds out Mimi so Blaine can take her. It’s time to go.

And Blaine does want to take her, because Kurt’s pretty sure he wouldn’t get away with kidnapping Mimi. Kurt moves closer so that he can put Mimi in his arms.

Once Mimi’s settled, she nestles herself in Blaine’s embrace and Kurt’s heart melts. He wishes he could just kiss Blaine.

And then Kurt realises that maybe he can.

He can’t help it. Blaine’s so close and Kurt leans in.

Blaine realises what Kurt’s aiming for and he doesn’t seem opposed to it, which is a win.

Kurt presses a kiss on Blaine’s lips as a goodbye. Blaine kisses back. Mimi lets out a bark, which makes Blaine laugh. It’s a bit awkward, because there is still some distance between them, since they don’t want to squash Mimi.

So Blaine puts Mimi down, much to her annoyance, but Kurt sees that as an invite to pull Blaine closer and he kisses him again.

That Monday, Kurt and Blaine see each other at the pre-school again. On their way to the staff lounge, they pass the classroom with animals.

“We should thanks them,” Blaine says, which makes Kurt adore him even more.

He’s right. They should.

Kurt opens the door so that the two of them can take a peek inside. For a split second, Kurt’s worried that some of them have gotten out again, but once he looks inside, he sees that all the animals are peacefully in their cages.

“Thanks guys,” Kurt whispers.

“Yeah, thanks! Even you, Sebastian!”

Kurt closes the door and the two walk to the staff room, hand-in-hand.

End notes: I hope you enjoyed. And that you love Mimi as much as I do. You can check my meme tag for memes about her, because I am me. And a shout out to @cerriddwenluna for naming Bear the mouse (kinda, she suggested naming a small animal after a big one) and @raenestee for naming Noodle the hedgehog and Nathaniel the rat.

#klaineb2schallenge2023 #holy fuck I wrote #2023 #glee #klaine #one shot

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