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Something that Noah Puckerman had learned twelve hours into dating Kurt Hummel was that he was big on anniversaries. They had first gotten together at Quinn and Rachel’s engagement party, when they had both made a drunken confession of love to each other after much prompting from Santana. They had both slept the next day away, with Kurt waking Puck up to murmur a “happy twelve-hour-iversarry” into his ear. Kurt had intended it as a joke, of course, but Puck still made sure to make a big deal out of anniversaries to make Kurt happy.
Their one month had featured Puck flying them out to Ohio and breaking into McKinley so they could sing a duet on the stage where they had shared their first kiss. For their two month anniversary, they had gone to Paris for a weekend, as the date had fallen on the same day as Kurt’s birthday, so they had decided to splurge a little. Kurt’s favourite anniversary of theirs was their six month, when Puck had arranged for them to go to Disneyland. Kurt had loved it there so much that Puck had had to bribe him to go back home.
But now they had almost been officially together for a year. Puck knew that one year was a big deal, which meant he had to go all out. After this, they would only celebrate the ongoing years, plus engagement and wedding anniversaries, if they ever reached those milestones.
But Puck had made the mistake of planning amazing celebrations for their previous anniversaries, and he couldn’t come up with anything for their one year. When it came to being a week before their anniversary, Puck still had nothing. He knew that he could go to Rachel for advice, given how often Quinn gushed about the quality of her wife’s gifts. He called Quinn and told her that he would be coming over soon.
“Why? Is it important? Rachel and I have dinner plans,” Quinn replied, sounding exhausted. “She’s been working so much lately and we barely get any time alone together.”
“Uh, it’s for mine and Kurt’s one-year anniversary and I have no idea what to do.”
“Wait, that’s next Thursday, right? You idiot, why didn’t you plan anything sooner?”
“It needs to be perfect and I couldn’t come up with anything that seemed good enough for him. One year is a big deal, right?”
“Definitely.”
Puck was sitting opposite the two women. He rubbed his hands together nervously; they were both glaring at him.
“Kurt is my best friend,” Rachel said. Puck sighed, knowing where this was going. “When you first got together, do you remember what you promised me?”
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
“Uh, some crap about promising to do whatever I can to make Kurt happy-”
“And to never hurt him.”
“What’s your point?”
“My point is that you don’t have anything planned for your one-year anniversary! Do you really think that will make him happy?”
“Look, I tried!” Puck exclaimed. “I didn’t forget, I just couldn’t think of anything good enough. What grand gesture is there that can beat Disneyland?”
“Kurt doesn’t care about grand gestures,” Quinn said. “He would love a cheap, intimate dinner for two.”
“He loves you, Noah,” Rachel said.
Puck raised his eyebrow. “Really?” he replied dumbly. “A dinner? That’s it? I’ve been stressing for nothing?”
“Yes, you idiot.” Rachel laughed.
Puck’s mind was racing. Now that he had his options narrowed down to a meal, he had to decide where they were going. “Should we go to Lima? We can go to Breadstix, and then we can spend the night at Burt and Carole’s. Kurt’s been wanting to see his dad for a while now, anyway.”
“That sounds great. We can all have a good time at Breadstix, can’t we, Rach?” Quinn said, looking fondly at her wife.
“A-All?” Puck stuttered.
“You didn’t think we’d let you do this alone, did you?” Quinn said. “We have been meaning to visit Lima anyway.”
Puck held his head in his hands. This was going to be a disaster.
Everything was going to plan. The reservations were in place, Puck had convinced Rachel and Quinn to get the table behind them, rather than the one with them, and he had the perfect anniversary gift. Now all he had to do was tell Kurt the amazing news.
“Oh,” Kurt had said once Puck had told him. He didn’t seem as excited as Puck had thought he’d be.
“What’s wrong? Do you not want to go home?”
“It… It’s not about going to Lima,” Kurt confessed. “I don’t want to celebrate our anniversary at all.”
Puck narrowed his eyes. Something had to be wrong- this was Kurt Hummel he was talking to. “Why?”
“Because…” tears formed in the corners of Kurt’s eyes, “I’m scared. If we celebrate our one year, then we have to start talking about our future, right? And then we’ll disagree on things, but we won’t address it until later, and then we’ll have a nasty break-up which will make it super awkward when we meet up at reunions and-”
“Whoa, whoa, Kurt. Who said anything about us breaking up?” Puck put a hand on Kurt’s shoulder.
Kurt shrugged the hand off. “But you have to admit, we are so different. It surprises me how often we’re on the same page. But I feel like as soon as we start thinking about our future, that’ll be it for us.”
Puck let out a small laugh. “You think that I haven’t thought about our future?”
“You have? What have you thought about?”
“What haven’t I thought about? I figured that we’d get engaged some point down the line, and after we’re married, we could adopt a kid. Maybe a girl, we could name her after your mom. Then we’d take it from there.”
Kurt put his arms around Puck and kissed him gently. “That sounds amazing.”
“Yeah?” Puck went into their bedroom quickly and went into his sock drawer, taking out the ring box.
“Is that what I think it is?” Kurt asked when Puck had returned.
“Probably not.” Puck opened the box and took out a beautiful ring.
“Puck, if you want to propose, I’m not stopping you.”
“I’m not proposing we get engaged,” Puck said carefully. “However, I am proposing that I make a promise to you.” Puck slid the ring onto Kurt’s finger.
“A promise?”
“I promise to always love you, be honest with you about how I feel, to compromise and try my hardest to not be too selfish, and to always love you.”
“You said that thing about loving me twice,” Kurt whispered.
“I just need to make sure you know.”
Kurt kissed him passionately. “I love you, so, so much.”
“I know.”