A/N: I wrote this to fill one of the prompts on the Finchel-prompts Tumblr, in which Rachel and Finn babysit for Sam's siblings and Rachel gets anxiety about her parents abilities.
I don't own Glee, Star Wars, or The Berenstain Bears.
The T rating is for some mild sexuality as called for by the prompt. I probably could've taken it more towards M, but restrained myself. (I know. It's a miracle.)
This is unbeta-ed as I am impatient. Feel free to point out any errors.
"Okay, children," Rachel said from her seat on the couch in the sparsely furnished apartment recently occupied by the Evans family. "Kindly quiet down and situate yourselves here on the floor and we'll discuss this evening's agenda."
In spite of her instruction, Sam's siblings continued their impromptu paper-towel-roll sword fight.
"Finn! Why won't they listen to me?" she asked her boyfriend in an anxious whisper.
Finn only smiled at her before turning his attention to the children. "Hey guys? Come over here for a minute, okay?" he asked softly and encouragingly.
With that Stacy and Stevie stopped their sword-fight and sat on the floor in front of the couch.
The Evans parents were out for the evening to celebrate their move out of the motel. Sam had agreed to watch the kids but Mercedes surprised him by recruiting Finn and Rachel to babysit while the newest glee couple went out.
"Okay," Rachel clutched her clipboard and began again once Stacy and Stevie were seated in front of her. "It's now 7 o'clock, and I've designated the next hour for playing house. Then, at 8 o'clock, Stacy and I will color while Finn and Stevie play with Legos. And at 9, we'll get you into bed and read a story before we turn out the light at 9:30. Any questions?"
Stacy looked at Finn warily, then back at Rachel while raising her hand slowly.
"Yes, Stacy." Rachel said eagerly.
"I don't like playing house." The little girl's voice was small and quiet.
"Yeah, playing house is stupid," Stevie added while absently playing with his paper towel roll again.
Rachel looked at Finn a look of near-panic on her face. He stroked her hand soothingly and flashed a reassuring smile before addressing the children.
"What do you guys wanna do?" Finn asked them.
"I wanna finish playing Star Wars!" Stacy shouted, her eyes lighting up.
"Star Wars! I'll finish you Obi Wan!" Stevie exclaimed, jumping up and brandishing his paper towel roll as if it were a light saber.
"Not if I get you first, Darth Mol!" Stacy raised her own cardboard tube and lunged at her brother playfully.
"Finn! What about the agenda?"
"Rach, they're kids, you can't expect them to just follow a schedule. You have to go with it. Make them think they're in charge."
"I- I don't know how to do that!" she exclaimed, still whispering.
"Don't worry about it, I got this." He squeezed her shoulder before turning his attention to the kids. "Ohh no! The clones are coming to get you both!" He stood and walked after the children in a slow, robotic gait. They both squealed in mock terror and cowered beneath him before scurrying off to another corner of the apartment.
Rachel smiled to herself at the display. Of courseher sweet, good-natured boyfriend is good with kids, she thought.
She, meanwhile, had apparently approached the situation entirely wrong.
But it wasn't like she could do anything about it at the moment, given her lack of familiarity with the Star Wars saga. So she sat at the small kitchen table (which was actually in the living room given the small size of the kitchen) and busied herself with one of the Disney princess coloring books she'd brought for Stacy.
After a few minutes Finn and their charges bounded back into the room.
"Hey guys, if we're playing Star Wars, who should Rachel be?" Finn asked.
"Queen Amydala!" Stevie exclaimed. "She's real pretty, like you," he added softly.
"Why thank you, Stevie. So, what does Queen Amydala do?"
"She wants Naboo to be a safe place and for everyone to get along," Stacy instructed.
"Ah, yes. My subjects, I command you to resolve your disputes peacefully and without resorting to violence!" she declared from her seat at the table, with a dramatic wave of her arm. Finn grinned at her encouragingly and flashed a quick thumbs-up.
The kids, however, looked at each other quizzically and didn't acknowledge her attempted portrayal of the character.
"Me-sa Jar-Jar Binks. Me-sa think Jedi council need to see us!" Stevie babbled after a moment, bouncing into the kids' bedroom yet again with Stacy right behind him. Finn started to follow them but turned back to Rachel when he noticed her distraught expression.
"What's wrong?" he said gently, sitting down on the chair next to her and taking her hand in his. "That's exactly what Queen Amydala would say, by the way," he added.
"The kids didn't seem to like it." She looked away and tried to discretely wipe the corners of her eyes.
"Hey..." He touched her chin and tilted her face back towards him. "What's this really about? You're good at so many things, it's not a big deal if babysitting isn't one of them, and -"
"What if I can't be a good mother, Finn?" she cut him off, her voice frantic as she tried to keep it to a whisper. "I don't know what they like to do for fun since I never simply playedwith my peers as a youngster. And clearly I know nothing about communicating with children, thanks to my dads having treated me as a miniature adult since I could walk-"
"Rach," he interrupted. "It's 3 hours of babysitting. You don't want to have kids until you're 35-"
"25," she corrected.
"Yeah, 25. A long time from now. So relax. You always dedicate yourself to getting things right, so when w- you have kids, you'll be great. I know it."
She paused for a moment and looked into his warm, loving eyes. "That's easy for you to say; you've been so good with Stevie and Stacy."
Finn smirked at her. "Well, I think I'm on the same level as them, brain-wise."
"Finn Hudson! You're telling me that in your estimation you operate on the same intellectual plane as elementary-school-age children?"
"What? Uh, no, I guess. But that's my point. I know you've been using big words since you could talk, but not all kids are like that. You have to try to... speak to them in their language."
Rachel raised her eyebrows, and leaned up to kiss him. His lips parted and she easily slid her tongue between them, gently swirling it around his.
"What was that for?" Finn breathed when they broke apart for air.
"You, sir, just gave me some very insightful advice."
"Ah, well, maybe I should be insightful more often..." His voice was husky before her lips captured his again.
Just as he was deepening the kiss and sliding a hand into her hair, the sound of thumping from the bedroom interrupted their blissful moment.
"Uh, I should probably go check on them," Finn remarked. He gave Rachel a quick peck on the cheek before he made off for the kids' room.
Rachel went back to coloring, and a few minutes later Stacy padded back out and sat at the table next to her.
"Do you want to color too?" she offered the little girl the second Disney princess coloring book.
Stacy studied the book and made something of a disconcerted face. "Got any other books besides this one?" she asked cautiously.
With that Rachel produced the coloring books they brought for Stevie. She had gone through a box of Finn's childhood toys and found one with race cars and another that seemed to involve various Midwestern college sports teams.
Stacy eyed the two books thoughtfully before happily selecting the one with the race cars, picking out a few crayons, and starting to color.
"Sammy had another girl come over to play with me once," she remarked after a moment or two. "Her name was... Queen, I think. She kept talking about being a queen, anyway, of something called 'prom.' And she said that I'm pretty enough to be one someday, if I wear dresses and lipstick and become a cheerleader and work hard to make sure that other kids like me." Stacy said all of this very nonchalantly as she colored almost perfectly in the lines of the first picture.
Rachel tried hard not to sigh. She felt confident that Quinn meant well, enlightening a girl with two older brothers about the typical girlish behavior, but all laying all the prom nonsense on someone still ten years away from the whole ordeal was just ridiculous.
"And how do you feel about all that?" she asked, trying to follow Finn's suggestion and mimic the casual tone Stacy had used.
The little girl shrugged, without looking up from her coloring task. "I don't know. It sounds like a lot of work just to get a crown or something. And I don't even like wearing dresses."
"Well, Stacy. You don't have to do anything you don't want to. Just be yourself." Rachel felt guilty, then, for trying to force the princesses on her. As a girl with two gay dads she should have known better than to force her babysitting charge into a traditional gender role. "What are your favorite things to do?"
"I like art class. And gym. I can run faster than almost all the boys in my class!" she said excitedly, looking up from her coloring book and grinning at Rachel.
"You arecoloring beautifully, so I'm sure you'd make a wonderful artist someday. Or who knows? You could be a famous and successful athlete."
"I hope so..." The little girl sighed somewhat dramatically as she continued to color.
For some reason, Rachel thought back to her encounter with Patti Lupone. "You will. But you have to promise me you won't give up, even when things seem too hard. When you decide what you want to be, don't let anyone tell you that you can't."
"Okay!" Stacy replied, smiling.
The two girls went back to coloring in silence until Stevie ran back into the room.
"Cool!" he exclaimed, grabbing the sports coloring book and some crayons and situating himself at the table. Finn joined them as well and helped Rachel color her princesses. Before they knew it the clock read 9:00.
"Time for stories!" Stacy exclaimed excitedly, taking Rachel's hand and leading her to their bedroom, where they helped the kids change into pajamas.
Stevie and Stacy sorted through a stack of Rachel's old Berenstain Bears books, and each selected one for their babysitters to read. Rachel started off as the narrator, and read the spoken lines of female characters while Finn assumed the males. She couldn't help but giggle at his articulate portrayal of each character – he used a playful for the younger ones, a very sinister tone for the villain, and a stately demeanor for the old-and-wise bear. Stacy and Stevie reacted accordingly and by the end of the two short books their eyelids were falling closed.
"G'night guys," Rachel whispered as she and Finn crept out into the hallway and shut the bedroom door behind them.
Once back in the living room Finn sat on the couch while Rachel quickly stacked the coloring supplies and children's books into a neat pile.
"I heard what you said to Stacy," Finn began once she settled next to him, nuzzling her ear. "You're going to be an awesome mom."
Rachel felt herself blushing slightly. "Well what about you?" She pressed a soft kiss to his lips. "Seeing you interact with children, being so playful and paternal..." She kissed him again, more forcefully this time. "It made me feel-"
This time Finn initiated the kiss, cutting her off, and she increased the intensity by slipping her tongue into his mouth as she had earlier in the night.
"It made you feel that good, huh?" he asked huskily before resuming their mutual oral assault and snaking his arms around her so that his hands were splayed across her back.
After a few minutes their kisses had become almost frantic and she wriggled away from him slightly so she could slip a hand up the front of his shirt. Finn smiled against her lips, enjoying Rachel taking the initiative and touching him like that. Since their reconciliation he'd been careful not to pressure her into being too physical too quickly.
They continued making out, with Rachel's hand lightly brushing his stomach and chest. Then her hand started moving lower, towards Finn's belt. His eyes widened in shock when it moved pasthis belt and settled directly on top of the bulge at his crotch.
Rachel giggled and released his lips from hers, kissing along his jaw until her lips were on his ear. "I really, reallyliked seeing you play with the kids," she whispered hotly, grasping his manhood through his jeans.
Finn groaned quietly and looked up at the ceiling, losing himself in the feeling of her tiny hand on him.
"Aww, hell-to-the-no!"
Finn and Rachel started in surprise and separated from each other's embrace at the telltale sound of Mercedes' voice. She stood in front of the couch with a hand on her hip, next to Sam who was failing miserably at hiding his smirk.
"Uh, hey you two." Finn cleared his throat awkwardly and stood from the couch. He silently thanked Cheesus that his shirt was long enough to cover any evidence of what was going on in his pants.
"Thanks for helping out, I really appreciate it." Sam extended his arm and engaged Finn in a bro-style handshake. "We've got it from here."
Meanwhile Rachel grabbed her purse and took Finn by the hand as she ambled in the direction of the door.
"Good night guys! Have a lovely evening!" she exclaimed in a cheerful singsong voice, winking at Mercedes and practically yanking Finn along behind her.
He merely grinned at their friends and allowed himself to be pulled through the doorway, and down the hall towards the building exit and his waiting truck.