D.P.S.

multishipper madness:

anderperry: as two dog lovers, they would get their first dog within a few months of moving in together. neil knows that todd is it for him, and todd knows the reverse is true, and though the latter struggles with saying it, the dog exemplifies it in ways todd cannot put into audible words. it's a golden retriever, and it serves as the biggest source of comfort for the two of them when things get hard. nights spend cuddling with a pooch hopping onto the couch and subsequently their legs are the best nights for them. todd writes a poetry book about the dog (as todd writes a poetry book about everything, the words never stop spewing from his mind, especially with the infusion of love he feels everyday) and publishes it. dog lovers everywhere adore it.

knarlie: charlie comes home one day with an armful of cats (not kittens, as one would expect. charlie went into the shelter and adopted six of the oldest cats without ever asking a question about kittens). knox cannot say no to him. they baby these cats for as long as they live. charlie does the same thing with two dogs later on in their lives together, and knox is so in love with him it hurts is just as happy to baby these babies until they pass on. knox and charlie and their kids would be the family always surrounded by a thousand pets of different kinds, i wouldn't doubt. there is so much love in that household that it could suffocate you if you weren't careful.

mittsie: because of pitts' unfortunate allergy to dogs, they get a cat, and pitts cannot think of anything prettier than meeks, asleep on their bed, with their cat laying on his hip and purring louder than he believed possible. there's also nothing prettier than meeks laughing as he tries to move their cat off of his arms so he could keep writing whatever paper he was fixing up at the moment. there's truly not much of anything prettier than meeks, in pitts' eyes, and it is only bettered by the presence of a cat with fur a familiar shade of orange. meeks also insists on feeding their cat the healthiest food they can manage, but since meeks cannot be allowed into the kitchen as he can burn water, pitts prepares cute little healthy meals for the cat. they're so in love with each other it hurts.

cherry: neil will walk into their apartment with a puppy in hand the same day charlie gets a cat, but there is no argument over which one they keep. "you got a cat without asking me?" "you got a dog without asking me?" "fair... so we're keeping both?" "char." "yeah, why did i even ask." the cat and dog don't get along the best and neil and charlie both have different ways of getting them to befriend each other. they never figure it out, but one night, something clicks, and the cat and dog become cool as cucumbers. charlie nicknames them the most ridiculous things, and neil thinks it's adorable. neil thinks all of charlie is adorable, even though the boy couldn't take a genuine compliment to save his life, but it works.

chadd: todd and charlie go to the shelter together to adopt an animal and somehow end up with an old therapy dog and two cats, thanks to charlie's pleading and todd's pure love and inability to resist him. todd swore up and down they only had the means for one pet, with their lease and all, but he did not complain at all about the two carriers and one leash they ended up putting into their car and driving home. charlie thinks the therapy dog would be most useful for todd, since he can't always be there for him when he has some of his worse panics, but charlie finds a lot of use in the dog too. their relationship is a lot of healing and these animals only serve to help that. the cats are twins and serve their own platter of chaos. todd writes many a poem about their similarities to his boyfriend: no wonder he picked them out.

camtodd: there's a sale at the shelter, and neither of them plan to get a cat, but by some random chance, they both have a break in their day just long enough to go. the shelter is crowded with families who were waiting on a chance to see the animals, and cam almost leaves because he doubts they'll get to, but they do, and when he sits down on a floor, todd scooting against his side, in a room swarming with kittens, he expects all of them to crawl into his boyfriend's lap. and they do. but then one falls into his own lap and pads around, mewing. then another. and another. and then he's swarmed with cats, something he never believed could happen. he doesn't call it crying, but tears do fall down his cheeks. they adopt the first two cats that crawled into both of their touches. cameron cannot believe he managed to get this lucky, he has no idea how. todd doesn't really know, either, but they are so happy together that it frankly doesn't matter.

kitts: pitts goes to visit knox's family, who are all too excited to meet him: of course, knox's family includes their adorable bernese mountain dog, skipper. pitts is not deathly allergic to dogs, but he came prepared with enough allergy medication to drown a horse. he takes one in the morning, one in the afternoon, and one in the evening: thankfully they only make him lightly drowsy and not entirely delirious. knox, who had completely forgotten his boyfriend was allergic to dogs, sees him taking the pills and asks, only to be brutally reminded the man he loves can never be a dog owner: he feels terrible, and offers to go home early, but pitts would never end this trip prematurely for the world. when it does end, though, knox suggests they look for a hypoallergenic dog. pitts laughs. they adopt one a few years later.

kneil: knox is one for big romantic gestures, so he figures, after he and neil had been together for three years, he'd celebrate their anniversary by getting a dog. neil had mentioned wanting to get a pet far more in those past few months than he had the first two years of their relationship, so knox took the logical leap. when he comes home on their anniversary with the cutest dog he could find, neil is just... totally in love with him and the dog and he can't believe it. his boyfriend knew how to take hints, but he did so in the dorkiest ways, sometimes, especially since neil thought his disappearance the entire day meant last-minute anniversary preparations (it did. the dinner neil was expecting would come later that night. along with the proposal, but adopting a dog, for the two of them, was likened to a marriage proposal, so neil sees it coming before knox even has the chance to ask.)

carry: cam is the one to surprise neil, this time around. sort of. though everyone else is great at surprises, cam is constantly worried that the other person won't like it, so the moment he seriously considers getting a pet to try and bring more comfort into their lives, he asks neil. neil is all too quick to agree, and they have a cat by the next week. cam made sure, time and time again, that neil was okay settling for a cat instead of a dog, because he could handle a dog, he could, but neil did not think he could handle a dog (and the sharp cacophony of their barks) all too well, so they take home the large white cat that curled up in the brunet's lap and fell asleep while cam was sifting through paperwork at the shelter. this cat brings them comfort at their roughest times, when human touch and words are too much for the mind, as well as many happy memories.

parlie: pitts' allergy stikes again, though not to his boyfriend's dismay, and after much deliberation over whether they could handle a pet together, their question is answered for them when a kitten appears on their doorstep and they immediately take her in. watching your partner nurse a little kitten back to help is the most adorable thing to watch, they'd both agree. it makes them think about the impossible. once the kitten is healthy and older, they love having cooking competitions to see whose food the cat likes more: it's an even split, since pitts can cook amazingly and with heart while charlie creates on instinct without any semblance of intent and yet still produces beauty. the cat doesn't mind and lives heartily on both of their delicious productions.c

gingersnaps: they are totally the couple to get a dog that is almost as tall as the both of them and take them for walks all around town. they are both cat people, a fact that cameron mentions the moment meeks sees the puppy and cameron knows they are going home with a dog. the worker at the shelter warns that the dog is going to grow tall, sending cautious glances at their nowhere-near-six-foot selves, but they shrug it off. the dog does grow quite big, and they just barely manage to keep them adequately contained and healthy on top of maintaining their own health, sanity, and savings, but they make do. meeks tends to get attacked with kisses by their very tall dog often while he's trying to relax on the couch, and cameron tries to help him, only to get "attacked" as well. their rest only comes when their puppy tires out and falls asleep and they can curl up in each other's arms, notably covered in dog slobber as they do.

meekx: to combat knox's usual big romantic gestures, meeks is the one this time to surprise knox with an animal. he gets a puppy with eyes the same shade of brown that he's seen in the eyes he's come to fall in love with. knox is almost moved to tears, and he hugs his boyfriend and their dog close to his chest when he first sees them together. there's something so endearing to him about seeing meeks attempt to hold a squirming puppy in his arms, and knox presses several kisses to his curls and to the puppy's adorable head once he pulls away from the hug. this new love is fast and immediate, kind of like how the two of them fell in love in the first place.

a bundle of nerds: their dog, because even with two cat people, they end up with a dog, has bronze fur, increasing the number of orange-haired dorks in this grouping to three and leaving the sole brunette outnumbered even further. they let the dog onto the bed at night with the three of them, though it was already a squeeze before, since pitts tends to be colder than the cam or meeks and they need to supply for the lost heat. pitts finds it easiest to play with and "wrangle" the dog when they're being a tad too energetic, but meeks has a way with training them, and cam has a way with soothing them, that perfectly balances their care and love between all of them. pitts buys a gross variety of different toys for the dog, and cam and meeks love watching their boyfriend play with the dog from their porch/balcony, while simultaneously falling even more in love with him, if that were possible.

mittsiedd: college and career life is tough, and as everyone starts working later hours to try and provide in the grueling and failing economy, they start spending less time together, and todd's and pitts' anxiety starts to worsen. they're typically together for the hard nights, pitts silently holding todd as he gets him to mimic what he can remember from his own therapy sessions while he does it for himself, with meeks trying his best to provide comfort from his graveyard shift with whatever he can think of. when his coworker tells him that her cat had a litter and she needs to rehome the kittens, the answer to his problem bursts into his head as if it had been obvious the entire time. he does ask first, though, and todd, who had a calm night, easily agrees, as does pitts, with the little convincing it took of meeks saying "studies show that petting an animal can lower your blood pressure." cuddles with a kitten do not supplement cuddles with your lovers, but the cat really does help them make it through this tough stretch of their lives.

camderperry: cameron has always been afraid of getting a pet with neil and todd, because he thinks their mishmash of a relationship will not last as long as the animal's life. todd and neil disagree. enter: mx. whiskers (charlie, a part of the entire plan to get cameron out of his goddamn head, c'mon, didn't he see how annoying it was in school, was responsible for the name). cameron admits to breaking out in a stupid sob when he comes home form work to a text saying "surprise!" and a cat bundled in todd's arms, because its there, its real, it means something. neil pulls him into his arms before he can start bawling, which he still does, and todd immediately supplies him with the kitty, and suddenly, for a moment, a long and dear moment, everything is right in the world. the cat snuggles into cam's arms, and he rests his head atop of their warm head, and todd presses a soft kiss to his cheek, followed by neil planting a kiss to the both of his partners' foreheads, and everything is good. everything is right.