Notes: Inspired by a news story I read about a similar program in El Paso :)

"This feels … so wrong," Kurt complains, face pinched as he's presented (through a thick wall of glass) with a box of brown, wriggling, Madagascan "delicacies".

"Why?" Sebastian chuckles when his squeamish boyfriend takes a subconscious step back and knocks into his chest. "It's just a bit of harmless Valentine's fun. If you ask me, we should make it a yearly tradition."

"It's gross!" Kurt yelps as the box comes closer. He points quickly to the largest of the roaches to make them go away, then shivers into his coat, doing his best to retreat as far as he can from the scene unfolding before him. "And I don't really have anything against Blaine. Not anymore. I don't think he's done anything to deserve being given a cockroach namesake, which will then be eaten by a hungry meerkat."

"Meh. I can think of a few things," Sebastian grumbles. "Also, it's not just any meerkat. Don't you think it's sort of ironic that that meerkat's name is Kurt? I mean, what are the odds?"

"I think it's ironic that it's a meerkat at all."

"Exactly," Sebastian agrees, recalling the reference Kurt once made to his 'smirky meerkat face'. "Even more reason to make this a tradition. If you ask me, this was meant to be!"

"Who thinks up this stuff?" Kurt asks, watching as Blaine, the doomed hissing cockroach, is prepared to meet his maker.

"I don't know. Lonely, embittered divorcees? What does it matter? You wanted me to put my money to better use, like charities and stuff." Kurt turns his face away from the roach and glares up at his smugly grinning boyfriend. "Wish granted."

Kurt sighs, defeated by the knowledge that he indeed said that, and that he never offered any options along with his criticism because he figured, like most normal people, his wealthy boyfriend would uncreatively and unceremoniously cut a check to the first reputable charity he could think of. It wouldn't take much effort. Rich people have newsletters filled with that sort of information. Kurt's seen them.

But boy, was he wrong!

He also knows that Sebastian is bizarrely proud of this activity they're partaking in, so much so that while other participants are watching their roaches being gobbled via Facebook live stream, Sebastian paid extra – almost ten times as much – to get them a front row seat to the feast. So before they do anything even remotely romantic, Kurt is going to have to watch this poor roach get ingested.

"Promise me that after this we get to do something a little more romantic … and less roach-centric."

"We live in New York City, babe. I can't really promise that last one." Sebastian kisses the crown of Kurt's head. "But I'll do my best."

"Now …" A voice from behind the thick glass pipes through an overhead speaker "… we'll put a colored dot on your roach's back with this special marker so you know which one's yours."

"Great," Kurt groans.

"Ooo! Can you make it look like a bowtie?" Sebastian asks, giggling moronically at his own suggestion.

Kurt rolls his eyes.

The keeper laughs. "I think I can do that," she says, carefully painting one line with her red marker, then another, then filling in the spaces until cockroach Blaine indeed looks like he's wearing a little red bowtie.

"Perfect!" Sebastian squeals with toddler-esque amusement. "Too bad they can't glue a tiny candy microphone to his leg or something. Then he'd look just like Blaine!"

"Yeah. Too bad."

"Aw," a second keeper coos as she passes by, carrying another box of roaches. "He's a fancy lad!"

"Yup," the first keeper agrees. "He dressed for dinner." Both ladies laugh in a way that makes Kurt's skin prickle.

They are definitely enjoying their jobs a bit too much today.

Kurt wraps his arms around himself as he watches the keeper bring roach Blaine up to meerkat Kurt and hold it out to him.

"Ugh. I can't watch," Kurt moans, but ironically, he can't make himself turn away. Between wondering what type of exotic insects their other plans might include and thinking, "Oh my God! What if Blaine is watching this right now!?" meerkat Kurt lunges for roach Blaine. But instead of snapping its jaws around it, he knocks it out of the keeper's hand. The roach, either out of instinct or impulse, heads for the hills.

"Ah! He dropped him!" Kurt yells, jumping back as if the roach is going to scale the glass wall of the enclosure and come for him, seeking revenge.

"Blaine's getting away!" Sebastian cheers, snorting with laughter.

For a moment, a confused Kurt-kat watches roach Blaine bolt for a crevice in the wall of the enclosure, but then he gives chase, racing after the roach scuttling to get away as fast as its creepy, hairy legs can carry it. Kurt and Sebastian go quiet, locked in a tense moment as they mentally take bets over whether or not roach Blaine will escape. When it seems he might make it, that he might reach that crevice and make a break for freedom, meerkat Kurt leaps on it. He traps it under foot, grabs it by its pulsing rear, and shoves it in his mouth head first. Kurt-kat doesn't chew right away, content to sit there with this poor, squiggling creature trapped between his teeth, antennae searching frantically for a way out, legs twitching in an attempt to get away.

"Oh, God!" Kurt gasps, and Sebastian belches a laugh. "Do you think … he's just going to torture him? Maybe … maybe bite him in half and leave him there, writhing in agony?"

"I don't know that cockroaches can writhe in agony."

"Oh. Well, that's a relief."

A sickening crunch, magnified by the overhead speaker, interrupts Kurt's guilt-ridden mulling. As Kurt-kat chews, human Kurt throws his hands over his mouth.

Sebastian, on the other hand, has laughed so hard, he's brought himself to tears.

Kurt-kat ends up eating Blaine roach in one go, chewing the bulk of him, then swallowing the rest whole. One leg, fighting to the very last, clings to the fur on Kut-kat's cheek, vibrating in vain until Kurt-kat brushes it off and eats it.

"I think I'm going to be sick," Kurt whimpers, turning a pale shade of green.

"Great! Lunch should be cheap."

"Not necessarily. Depends on what we're having."

"Lobster."

Kurt turns greener. "I'll pass."

"More for me then," Sebastian says, rubbing his boyfriend's trembling shoulders.

"So, did you name any roaches after any of your exes?" Kurt asks, on the verge of puking.

"Yup."

"Which ones?"

"Do you see that bowl over there?" Sebastian motions with his chin to a far corner where the rest of the meerkats have started to gather around a soup-bowl sized vessel, filled to the brim with a crawling mass, blissfully unaware of their inevitable fate.

"Welp …" Kurt pats his boyfriend on the shoulder as he steps past him in search of fresh air and a lack of exoskeleton crunching "… at least we know they're going to be well-fed."