A/N: I hope this along the lines of what you wanted, honey - it turned out super long and kinda silly, please bear with me. Thanks for the lovely prompt and sorry for taking so long!
This can be read as a stand-alone as long as you accept that, in this verse, Blaine and Quinn are half-siblings and Blaine is thus Beth's uncle. If you want to know the backstory of everything, I recommend reading Everybody Wants To Rule The World and then reading this as a mini sequel. :)
- Day 1 of the Babysitting Weekend Madness -
Blaine cracks an eye open at the sound of soft cries next to him. At first, his sleep-hazed brain makes him think it's Kurt and he frowns at the sleeping figure of his boyfriend next to him, before realization washes over him and he rolls over to face the cradle on his side of the bed.
"Sure, Beth, 6 am is a very reasonable time to wake up your uncle," he mumbles groggily, sliding out of bed carefully lest he startle Kurt, who's snoring adorably despite all the noise. The sight of it makes it really hard for Blaine not to give in to temptation and kiss him awake but Kurt doesn't have to be up for another two hours and Beth's cries are getting louder, so Blaine just pulls on jeans and a shirt hastily and carries Beth out of Kurt and his bedroom.
The privacy curtains in the loft prove to be more and more useless, and if Blaine nearly encourages Beth to be a little louder, it's only so the others will notice their uselessness, too. Maybe having a baby around for the weekend will do the trick.
Not that Blaine doesn't like the design idea behind the curtains – and he's talked this over with Kurt about a million times – but what he actually doesn't like is the eyebrow waggle Santana greets him with after a night that he spent fooling around with Kurt.
She's probably heard way too many things that Blaine would like to keep private. The only thing left to do is hope she'll finally let her coworker Dani sweep her off her feet and inadvertently let Blaine have his sweet, sweet revenge.
After all, he's the king of the eyebrow waggle. Rachel told him so after a drunken night in the loft where they all tried to give each other ridiculous awards.
He kind of loves their living arrangement.
It's funny because when he first planned to go to New York, he didn't have anyone to imagine it with. It was just a far-away dream in the distance, and Blaine maybe wouldn't have gotten as invested in the idea as he did if Kurt hadn't slowly entered the equation. And even then, expectation differed so much from their current reality, it feels like it was ages ago even though they only moved into the loft last summer.
Then, of course, it had only been the two of them and Rachel, as planned, and they came up with a working routine. And as intense as Rachel can be, she is also a pretty amazing roommate. He's pretty sure that their social life wouldn't be half as exciting if Rachel didn't bring new friends to the loft every other week or so.
Though maybe they could have forgone the whole naked-boyfriend-on-kitchen-chair debacle. But, hey, everyone has a lapse of judgment sometimes.
At first, Blaine thought it was a lapse of judgment on all of their parts when they decided, or well, accepted, that Santana was going to move in.
But now? As much as it was an adjustment to incorporate Santana into their daily lives, Blaine can't imagine the loft without her anymore. He loves the little family they've created here, he loves running lines with Rachel, running a snarky commentary on whatever's on TV with Santana and kicking the girls out for date nights with Kurt which then results in awesome nights that don't end in having to wake up to eyebrow waggles from Santana.
Blaine really loves those nights.
Technically, later today they were supposed to have that kind of night – they had planned it for weeks; the girls were supposed to go out dancing and Kurt and he had fancy dinner reservations and two bottles of very expensive champagne at home.
And then Quinn had called and asked them if they could take Beth for the a few days. Blaine's mom was supposed to babysit her while Quinn was on a weekend tour in Washington DC with the Yale Choir but then Pam had been invited to attend an important blogger conference in Boston to step in for a sick keynote speaker.
Of course, they agreed right away – it was the first time they'd get to babysit Beth all on their own but Blaine was dying to spend some quality time with his niece.
And that's how he ends up changing his niece's diaper instead of spending his free day planning out his date night.
Things really could be a lot worse than having a happily blabbering toddler on his lap on this fine Friday morning.
Teasingly matching her incoherent gibberish for a while, he sits her down at her highchair after five minutes of indulging her and making her giggle, and starts making breakfast while she still sort of talks to herself.
It's technically not his turn today, but he'd hate to have to wait for breakfast for another two hours which is exactly what will happen if Rachel does it. The first thing she does each morning after getting up at 6.30 am sharp is taking a long shower, and Blaine has lived with her long enough now to know that she won't even start shampooing her hair until she finishes singing the first act of whatever musical is stuck in her head that day.
A few minutes later that mystery is solved as well – the musical of the day is Hairspray. Blaine sings along to Good Morning Baltimore good-naturedly as he pours flour, sugar and water into a bowl and starts mixing dough for some pancakes.
He works in peace, smiling at Beth every once in a while as she munches away on a few banana slices. Rachel's singing gets louder and louder, and Blaine wonders for the umpteenth time how Kurt can sleep through all the noise – even the walls in the loft are paper-thin and don't keep much more noise out than the privacy curtains. Then again, Blaine figures Kurt would be much more cooperative on the curtain topic if he was a light sleeper.
He grins to himself at the thought of getting to wake Kurt up with blueberry pancakes and he's just about to start getting to work on the crossword puzzle in the newspaper while the water for the coffee boils when he hears a groan behind him.
"I can hear the bells, too, Rachel," Santana complains loudly, glaring at the bathroom while she slumps down on one of the kitchen chairs. "Everyone can hear the bells because you're the one who's fucking ringing them!"
Rachel only falters for a bit but continues as if nothing happened after just a few seconds, making Santana bury her head in her crossed arms on the table and Blaine chuckle while he pops a blueberry into his mouth.
"Good morning, Santana," he says, voice dripping with fake sweetness.
She peeks out from between her arms and sends him a glare, too.
"Good morning, Baltimore," she drawls, "don't think I don't know you sang along the whole time."
"Someone's grumpy."
"Someone's a traitor."
Blaine shrugs. "In my defense, I knew you were awake," he tells her. "I saw you give her the finger when she went into the bathroom."
"Yeah, she went in even though I woke up first – thanks to monster baby over here," Santana mumbles, glaring at Beth for half a second before her gaze turns soft and she holds out her pinky for Beth to hold. "It's her turn to make breakfast so she doesn't have a right to hog the shower anyway."
She sounds so much like a kindergartner that Blaine almost reaches out to pet her head. Which would be the last thing he'd ever do before obviously dying a painful death, so he refrains.
"Poor you," he comments instead and continues his breakfast work. "But at least it's a fun musical. She could have chosen… I don't know…"
He pauses, and Santana twists her head sideways so it's resting on her left arm, her right hand still on Beth's highchair table, as she smirks at him.
"You're blanking on a musical you wouldn't consider fun, aren't you?"
He scrunches his nose tight, and wills himself to think of something to prove her wrong but comes up short.
"Yeah," he admits.
"Remind me again why I moved in with you nerds?" she asks, sounding only half-exasperated.
"Because we're your bestest high school friends and you love us all more than you care to admit," Blaine sing-songs.
"U-huh."
"And we let you stay here rent-free for a while."
"Theeeere it is." Santana snaps one of her fingers.
Beth lets out a squeal at the sound. "Buh puh tah teeee."
"Same," Santana comments wryly but she does snap her fingers again to make Beth giggle.
Blaine smiles at their shenanigans as he pours some pancake dough into the pan. By the time Rachel starts singing "Big, Blonde and Beautiful" and Santana loudly and bitingly assures her that none of those words apply to her, it's almost 7 am and Blaine remembers he should probably wake Kurt up so he'll be coherent enough to go to his singing class in about two and a half hours.
"I need to go wake up Kurt," Blaine says to Santana. "Can you watch the baby and the stove for a minute?"
"One minute?" Santana calls after him. "You work fast. I like your style, Anderson."
Blaine is about to shout back something witty but he forgets what it is as soon as he sticks his head through the curtain and finds Kurt snuggling his blanket like it's Blaine body and making adorable purring noises. He bites back whatever it was he was going to say to Santana, and finds himself cooing instead.
"Hey, Kurt," he says softly as he sits down on the bed carefully. "It's time to wake up."
Kurt just grunts in response and pulls the blanket closer. Blaine reaches out to scratch Kurt's neck the way he knows Kurt likes it, and it has the desired effect when Kurt mewls in his half-asleep state and stretches his limbs in Blaine's direction.
"Kurt," Blaine repeats. "Time to wake up."
"Nooo," Kurt breathes out, his voice muffled by the pillow he proceeds to smush his face into. "Wanna sleep."
"I know," Blaine says gently and leans down to kiss his boyfriend's nose. "But I know just as well that Miss Tibideaux wants you to get up at least two hours before your singing class and that you always complain about how scratchy your voice is when you don't wake up in time."
"Nooo," Kurt whines again. "I hate you."
"You say that now." Blaine leans down again to place another kiss on Kurt's mouth. "But you'll love me again once I feed you some blueberry pancakes."
"Mhhh."
"Is that a yes?"
"Pancakes."
"That's a yes," Blaine decides and gets up to retrieve a plate of pancakes for Kurt, hoping that Santana hasn't forgotten the pan on the stove while entertaining Beth.
"Where are you goiiiing?" Kurt whines, and tries to catch Blaine's wrist, missing completely and letting his arm plump back down onto the bed uselessly. "Ouch."
"I'm gonna get you breakfast, isn't that what you wanted?" Blaine asks, and suppresses a chuckle at the way Kurt sleepily tries to keep his eyes open.
"Cuddle first?"
"Cuddle?" Blaine asks, but sits back down anyway. "A few seconds ago you hated me."
"I lied," Kurt says, and yawns a little. "I love you and I want to cuddle."
"Only for a minute," Blaine warns. "I don't trust Santana with the pancakes."
Kurt happily throws his arms around him once Blaine lies down next to him and snuggles up to him immediately, his bare skin still radiating warmth from being under the blankets for so long.
"Missed you," he says with a pout. "I woke up for a few seconds and you weren't here."
"Well, you sleep like a log," Blaine teases. "I can't help it if I get hungry before you finally decide it's time to grace the world with your presence."
Kurt buries his head in the juncture between Blaine's neck and his shoulder and huffs out a long breath in protest. He doesn't respond, though, and after a few seconds, his breathing slows down.
"Kurt, no, you're not falling asleep again."
"Pleeeaaase…"
"No."
"But-"
"You don't want to get up late and miss your singing class, do you?" Blaine asks sweetly.
"Ugh, why are you so chirpy today?" Kurt complains between sloppy kisses to Blaine's neck.
Blaine laughs. "It's like I have two babies this morning."
"Huh?"
"You know," Blaine says, turning his head and kissing Kurt's temple. "Not in the shady two-timing jackass kind of way… more something of the babysitting two whiny toddlers at the same time variety."
"What?" Kurt actually looks a little more awake when he pulls his head back to frown at Blaine.
"A certain sister left her baby on our doorstep yesterday evening…?" Blaine prompts.
"Sister, doorstep, what…?" Kurt looks like he's thinking really hard before realization hits him. "Oh my god, we're babysitting Beth for the weekend!"
"That would be correct," Blaine says happily, and leans in to press their lips together again but he only gets through half a kiss before Kurt pushes him off.
"Is she awake? Did she cry? Does she miss Quinn? Oh my god, did we even buy diapers? Should I-"
Blaine reaches out to get a hold of Kurt's suddenly wildly gesticulating hands.
"Easy there. Everything's fine. She cried, I changed her diaper with the ones Quinn gave us so we don't have to buy any." He smiles. "And Beth can't actually communicate that well yet so I'm just hoping she doesn't miss Quinn. But Santana's entertaining her and I think it's working so far."
Right on cue, there's another round of giggles from the kitchen and Blaine's smile stretches into an even wider one. He watches as Kurt listens to the sound and settles back onto the pillow, looking relieved.
"You know, I'm a little nervous," Kurt admits, his voice barely above a whisper.
Blaine tilts his head in question, waiting for Kurt to elaborate.
"I don't really know." Kurt's eyes are flitting between Blaine's and the ceiling. "I've been sort of on the edge about this… remember how we talked about if we wanted children right before graduation?"
As if Blaine could forget that conversation. He had been so nervous that Kurt was freaking out over his mom's urging to hurry up with it so she could have more grandchildren and Kurt had completely surprised him with the admission that he wanted children someday, too.
He gulps. "Ha- has…" he starts, and trips over his own words. "Has that changed?"
"No, no," Kurt reassures him quickly. "I still want to have kids somewhere down the road. But that's just it. What if I'm really bad at it?"
"Bad at what?"
"Parenting." Kurt sighs. "What if Beth starts crying and I don't know what to do, or she hurts her head and we have to go to the ER… do children that small even go to the ER or would we drive her to a pediatrician? Do we need to call her doctor in New Haven? I mean, those are questions we need to think through and I'm not sure what I would do if it turned out I was actually really, really bad at handling this sort of stuff."
Kurt pauses and looks at the ceiling again. Blaine stares at him, bewildered, and his silence apparently makes it worse.
"Blaine, what if she doesn't like me?" Kurt asks, his head shooting up from the pillow again, and something in Blaine finally snaps.
He moves in to kiss him soundly and doesn't back away until he feels Kurt relaxing against his mouth.
"You need to stop. Don't work yourself up over this before it's even starting."
Kurt opens his mouth to protest but seems to decide he's better off not saying anything at all and gives Blaine an uncertain look instead.
"Kurt," Blaine says softly, "we're just babysitting her. This doesn't have to say anything about our parenting qualities and even if it does, the option of having kids is still far enough ahead in the future to improve our skills until then, right?"
"I guess…"
"Look, I'm nervous, too." Blaine bites his lip. "But I'm really looking forward to spending time with her – with both of you, actually."
Kurt's lips twitch up in a little smile. "Me, too."
"Save the real panic for when I run out of fun baby games, okay?"
Kurt scoffs. "As if. I know you've been researching."
Blaine can't help but duck his head at that. Kurt doesn't even know he downloaded three eBooks as a means of preparation.
"I just want to get this uncle thing right," he mumbles, scooting closer to brush a strand of hair from Kurt's forehead.
"I'm sure you're already a very good uncle." Kurt chuckles. "Even though you currently left her with a very scary woman to wake me up for cla- class! Fuck, I have class! What time is it?" He turns his head to look for the alarm clock on the nightstand. "Shit, I need to be up right now, why didn't I get up earlier?"
Kurt jumps out of bed hastily while Blaine rolls his eyes with a fond smile and lets his head sink back onto the pillow.
"You know what?" he says and doesn't even bother pretending to sound annoyed, grinning brightly at Kurt instead.
"What?" Kurt asks, looking back to the bed from where Blaine is watching him pull up his pants and purposely not pointing out that Kurt didn't put on underwear so he can enjoy watching him get out of the pants once more once he realizes.
"You're my favorite person."
Kurt stops in his movements, pants dropped somewhere around his ankles, and scoots over to the bed to brush their foreheads together.
"And you're mine," he answers softly, before kissing Blaine with fervor.
Blaine could really get into this – if Santana wasn't waiting for his return to the kitchen.
"Cupcake, don't even think about it!" she shouts. "I swear to god, I'll let the pancakes burn! Not to mention Beth will be traumatized forever!"
"Go," Kurt whispers against his lips. "We'll come back to this later, if we can."
Reluctantly, and feeling like a true hero, Blaine leaves his half-naked boyfriend behind to save breakfast and his niece's sanity.
When Rachel finally emerges from the bathroom and makes way for Santana, Kurt is already sufficiently fed and readying his messenger bag for his voice lesson.
"Where on earth did I put my sheet music?" he wonders out loud, looking around the living room area and their room, which is in open sight now that the curtain is pulled aside.
Blaine wordlessly holds up a huge stack of papers that he finds sitting neatly on Kurt's nightstand, which, of course, is the one place he hadn't thought to look.
"Ah, you're the best," Kurt gushes happily and presses a quick kiss to Blaine's cheek. "What would I do without you?"
"Get a good telling-off from Miss Tibideaux?" Blaine teases.
Kurt glares at him for a moment before he shrugs. "Possibly. I like to think it's my talent that entices her but you might play a minor part in her not throwing me out of the program."
"Like she did with others," Rachel grumbles from the sofa where she's rocking Beth back and forth.
"Come on, you decided to quit, don't blame it on her."
Kurt coming to Miss Tibideaux's defense on this topic isn't news to Rachel, so she just ignores him.
"You know what, Beth?" she tells the toddler in her arms. "A good education isn't everything."
Beth nods solemnly, and Blaine groans.
"Rachel, can we not teach my niece how to drop out of school before she even tries it?" he asks in a pained voice.
"Uncle Blaine is a real party-pooper, isn't he?" Rachel says sweetly and Beth starts laughing for no reason (at least Blaine hopes it's not because she enjoys Rachel making fun of him).
Kurt rolls his eyes at them as he shoulders his bag and drops by the couch for a second to bid Rachel and Beth goodbye.
"Behave," he tells Rachel, and then turns to Beth, "and you too, young lady. Bye-bye!"
He shakes her tiny hand and bops her nose, and Blaine's stomach does a little happy flip at the sight, doubling in speed when Beth makes a high-pitched noise accompanied by a few syllables that sound a lot like, "Buh buh."
"Did she just say bye-bye?" Rachel asks, astonished.
"I… I know she can almost say a few words now," Blaine says, just as dumbfounded, "but Quinn told me it's usually just stuff like 'mama,' 'papa,' which they don't really know if it stands for Papa, Puck, or Pam, and… don't ask me why… 'money'."
Kurt laughs in disbelief but Rachel's eyes start to sparkle.
"Money?" she exclaims. "See, she's got her eyes set on her career!" She grabs Beth's hands. "Beth, look at me, I'm gonna teach you how to say 'Streisand.' Strei-saaaaand. Strei-saaaaaand."
"Saisai," Beth repeats and Rachel clasps her hands together in front of her face in obvious delight.
"O-kaaaay," Kurt says, his eyebrows almost reaching his hairline. "On that note, I'm gonna go." He shoots Blaine a quick, half-worried, half-amused look, and Blaine returns it before puckering his lips into an air kiss.
Love you, Kurt mouths, and heads out the door.
"What do you think we should teach her next, Berry?" Santana asks as she steps back into the room with a towel wrapped around her hair. "How about 'My uncles are so fucking gay'?"
"Ha ha," Blaine says, a little miffed. "How about we save the cursing for way later when we can drop the 'baby' in 'babysitting'?"
"Effin' gay, then."
"No, she needs to learn 'Broadway' now," Rachel says excitedly. "Or… oh my god, what if I teach her how to sing?!"
Blaine turns to Santana with a horrified expression on his face and he's thankful to see that Santana shares his aversion to the mere thought of Rachel giving his niece singing lessons.
"You wouldn't wanna do that, Rachel," Santana says slowly, obviously trying to make up a good excuse for why that would be a bad idea. "Just think… she…"
"She might turn out to be a better singer than you were at her age!" Blaine cuts in.
Rachel eyes Beth with sudden distrust, and Santana gives Blaine a subtle, impressed nod.
Over the course of the day, though, Blaine learns not to trust Santana with Beth, either. He knows from the minute he turns off the shower and there's a lot of suspicious giggling coming from the living room, that he made a mistake in leaving the girls alone with her.
His hand is on the doorhandle when he hears, "Auntie Snix is gonna teach you some tricks."
"Nooo, what are you do-" he starts, pushing the door open and stopping in his tracks when he lays eyes on Beth, now wearing a miniature red tube dress, matching lipstick and a soft blush.
Santana's make-up kit is lying on the coffee table, forgotten, and Rachel is taking a video on her phone while Santana has slipped onto the floor to be on eye level with Beth who's still perched up on the couch.
"Oh god, why is Beth dressed like that?"
Rachel giggles. "Santana is trying to make a video with a miniature version of her."
"No, no, no," Blaine whines, picking up his niece from the couch. "What are you teaching my poor baby girl?"
"Relax," Santana says all casually, sitting back to let her weight rest on her hands on the floor. "I was gonna teach her how to wink and say 'wanky'."
"Oh my god."
"You're overreacting, cupcake."
"Is she wearing your strapless bra as a dress?!" Blaine shrieks, rubbing the material of the cloth between his thumb and his index finger.
"No." Santana gives him a duh look. "I had a miniature version of my signature tube dresses made just for the occasion."
"Ugh, I hate you." Blaine looks over at Beth's shoulder. "Rachel, are you still filming this?"
Rachel lowers the camera. "I… this might be really fun to watch on her eighteenth birthday."
"Oh god, Quinn is not gonna hear a word of this, okay?" Blaine asks. "She'll never hand Beth over just like that ever again!"
His phone starts vibrating in his pocket just as he finishes the sentence. He fishes it out and lets out a long sigh. "Speak of the devil."
He swipes the screen and holds his phone up to his ear, resisting pinching his nose in annoyance just because in order to have a free hand, he'll have to give Beth back to the girls.
"Hi, Quinn."
The girls snicker, and he shushes them with a glare.
"Hey, brother bear, I have a small-ish break and I just wanted to check in. Everything okay?"
"Yup, peachy."
"Are you sure?" Quinn asks worriedly. "You sound… distressed."
"No, everything's fine!" Blaine insists, trying to keep his voice from going too high-pitched but failing when Kurt comes home right that second and bursts out laughing at the sight of Beth. "I… she's a handful, that's for sure, but we're doing… great. Awesome, even."
"Blaine…" Quinn warns. "Put me on speaker."
"No, I-"
"Do it."
Reluctantly, he tears the phone away from his ear and pushes the button.
"You're on speaker." He cringes. "What's up?"
"Hello, everyone," Quinn says. "Mind telling me what's eating away at Blaine?"
Kurt, who obviously hasn't gotten the memo that they're all sworn to secrecy, snorts nonchalantly, and either doesn't care or doesn't see that Blaine is waving his hand in an abort-mission kind of way.
"It's probably the fact that your daughter is currently dressed like a tiny hooker."
"What?!"
"I swear it wasn't me," Blaine says meekly. "I was just taking a shower."
"She looks awesome, Quinn," Santana says, leaning closer to the phone. "She's rocking the color red, she really is. And I was just teaching her-"
"Did you know she can say bye-bye now?" Blaine interrupts, desperately signaling for Santana to stop. He really doesn't want this to be the last day he gets to spend with Beth in his life.
Thankfully, he knows just how to distract Quinn. He's had enough phone conversations with her to know she goes absolutely crazy when Beth says something even remotely resembling a word.
Sure enough, a delighted "She can?!" rings through the speaker, making Beth squeal and say "mama" excitedly.
"Hi, baby," Quinn says, voice going soft, "do you miss me?"
"Mama."
"I know, Beth. I miss you, too. It'll only be for the weekend, I promise. I'm picking you up on Sunday."
Santana rolls her eyes at the phone and grabs the lipstick from the table to apply some, thankfully to her own lips this time.
"Lolo," Beth says, and Blaine's a little impressed at how she seems to know just what to say – well, babble – because Quinn lets out a teary laugh.
"I love you, too, baby."
"Money."
"Jesus, I swear I do not know who taught her that word."
"Greedy little sh-" Santana agrees, realizing just in time that she should probably watch her language while Quinn is still on the phone. "Sugarplum."
"Nice save," Quinn comments.
"I try."
"Good to know. Aw, I gotta go, dress rehearsal is starting. Give Beth a kiss from me, okay? And please, for the love of god, dress her like a normal child?"
"Will do," Blaine replies immediately. "You know that I love you and Beth and that I was totally innocent in this whole thing and that I'm a really good babysitter and that you should definitely let me babysit her again sometime, right?"
"Be more of a kissa- backscratcher, Blaine," Quinn says, and Blaine can feel her eye roll all the way from Washington. "Anyway, really gotta go, love you all!"
"I liked my save better," Santana says after Quinn has hung up on them.
Blaine readjusts Beth on his hip and fixes all three of them with a glare. "I should ground you all."
"Excuse you but even if you were our dadd-" Rachel stops as soon as the word leaves her mouth. "Ew."
"And we barely did anything," Santana adds hastily.
"Me especially," Kurt defends himself when Blaine turns to him. "I just came home and Beth looked like a hooker, was I supposed to just magically know you were trying to keep that little detail from Quinn?"
Blaine eyes his boyfriend like he's gone mad.
"Yes!" he exclaims.
They're all silent for about half a minute before Beth breaks it with a very long-stretched syllable.
"Gaaaaa-eeeeee."
Blaine frowns. "Did she just say 'gay'?"
Rachel's eyes widen for a split second and Santana bites her lip guiltily before they both collapse laughing on the couch and Blaine knows that when Kurt's lips start twitching, he's done for as well. He bursts out laughing, and actually has to hand Beth to Rachel when he leans his body into Kurt's and starts clutching his stomach from laughing so hard. He's pretty sure that above him, Kurt is wiping tears of laughter from his cheeks.
Beth just sits on Rachel's lap, looking around herself happily, and giggles before repeating, "Gaa-eee."
Santana lets out another howl of laughter and Rachel gasps, "Oh my god, I have all of this on video!"
This whole weekend turning out to be so much more ridiculous than when Blaine imagined it.
- Day 2 of the Babysitting Weekend Madness -
They somehow survive their first full day as babysitters even though by the time Beth has already fallen asleep, they're all so tired they end up watching TV and falling asleep on the couch one after another.
Kurt, having slept the longest in the morning, is the one to wake them all up when it gets too late, and makes them all go to bed, claiming they will thank him in the morning.
Nobody does, though. If they were planning on thanking Kurt, it's all forgotten by the time Beth wakes up brawling at 5 am for the first time.
"Somebody shut up the monster baby!" Santana yells from her room, and Rachel starts a half-assed attempt of singing "Hush little baby, don't you cry," to no avail, though, because she doesn't even bother getting up for it.
It's even loud enough to stir Kurt from his deep sleep, and he ends up getting up even before Blaine, and taking Beth out of the cradle to cuddle and sooth her.
"Diapers are on my desk," Blaine mumbles sleepily, making himself sit up but not quite ready to actually get out of bed.
Kurt hesitates.
"Can you…" He bites his lip. "I've never done this. Can you show me how?"
Blaine is so torn between letting sleep engulf him once more and feeling utterly domestic with Kurt, but one more look at Kurt's slight blush makes him get out of bed and mutter a small and giddy, "Sure."
They manage to make changing diapers fluffy and fun instead of icky and disgusting, though Blaine has to admit it still isn't his favorite thing to do. At least it's funny to watch Kurt wrinkle his nose as he flings the dirty diaper in the waste bin.
"Think you're ready to do this every day in a few years?" Blaine teases him.
Kurt moves to stand behind him and wraps his arms around Blaine's upper body, pressing a kiss to his neck.
"Yup." Blaine can feel him smile against his skin. "We'll handle it just fine."
Blaine holds his breath. "Yeah, we've got, like, what… five more years to prepare?"
"Are you trying to ask me when I want to have kids for real?" Kurt asks, huffing out an amused breath against Blaine's ear.
It's probably good that Kurt can't see Blaine's face right now.
"Maybe," he murmurs, cheeks on fire.
He tries to focus on doing the final touches and Beth's new diaper instead of obsessing over what Kurt might be thinking.
"Mh." Kurt tucks his head over Blaine's shoulder. "Five years sounds good to me. I mean, mid-twenties is a good age to get a kid, right?"
Blaine gulps. "I guess so."
"Well." Kurt presses a kiss to his cheek. "Five years then."
"Five years," Blaine repeats and turns his face to catch Kurt's lips with his own.
They dress Beth and make breakfast for everyone, entertaining themselves with trying some of Blaine's baby games on Beth.
The girls get up two hours later, both looking sleep-deprived and ready to kill the source of their troubles, so Blaine is glad Kurt already made coffee to appease them.
The rest of the morning is pretty quiet and Beth is playing with her toys peacefully, which means they all actually get some time to themselves, either reading and checking their emails or just talking about their week.
They even get Santana to open up about her last date with Dani but when it gets too inquisitive, Santana jumps up from the couch and suggests they all go out for a walk at Central Park.
Taking a baby on a walk is a lot less private than Blaine thought it would be and after about half an hour, he's a bit tired of people walking up to them and congratulating them on the baby, usually either mistaking Rachel or Santana for his girlfriend and making Kurt grind his teeth in silent frustration next to him.
"It's like walking around with a baby invites them to get all up in your business and make wrong assumptions left and right," Kurt mumbles, clearly annoyed, as Santana pretends to throw up into a nearby garbage can after the fifth elderly lady told her that she and Blaine make a cute couple.
Blaine gives his boyfriend an apologetic look.
"Do you want to go home?" he asks.
"No, it's fine," Kurt insists.
Blaine considers him for a moment before motioning towards the stroller.
"You take her for a while," he says.
"What?" Kurt shakes his head. "No, no, I know you wanted to spend more time-"
"Don't be ridiculous, I'm still spending time with her even if I'm not pushing the stroller." Blaine takes Kurt's hands and places them on the handle. "There, now they'll assume you're her father. And I'll make sure to be all kinds of disgustingly cute with you so there won't be any wrong assumptions."
"Besides the one that we're her fathers?" Kurt retorts, but the crinkle around his eyes tells Blaine he's okay with the idea. He starts pushing the stroller back into motion. "Well… say hi to your new captain, Beth."
"Ha," Beth says, stopping biting her little teddy bear to death for a second.
"Almost there," Kurt tells her with a little chuckle, and Blaine loves the way his chuckle goes high-pitched when Blaine slides his hand into the backpocket of Kurt's jeans.
"Wha- what are you doing?" Kurt asks.
"Being disgustingly cute and painfully obvious," Blaine replies, kissing Kurt's cheek and winking at the cooing girls who pass them by.
If that's all it takes to make people get the right – well, right-ish – idea of their relationship, Blaine figures it's a very small sacrifice to make, flashing Kurt a brilliant smile when Kurt slides his left hand into Blaine's backpocket and lets Blaine's left hand take the other side of the stroller handle.
A very small sacrifice indeed.
Once they get back to the loft, he makes sure Beth is left with Kurt when he leaves to take a shower this time. He doesn't need a repeat of yesterday's events, even though he's entirely more relaxed today and even starts humming in the shower. The walk and Kurt and his morning discussion have left him in a good mood.
His positive streak only lasts about three hours, though. Everything works out great at first but as he is, after all, slowly running out of games to play with Beth (and he doesn't quite feel like looking up more in the eBooks), she seems to be close to crying whenever she feels that she isn't entertained properly.
"Money!" she says. "Money!"
"Wow, you're such a brat," Blaine murmurs, exhausted, and Kurt chuckles softly from his place on the opposite side of the couch.
The girls both have to cover a shift at the spotlight diner, and at first, Kurt and Blaine played with Beth at the same time, but they soon found that she seemed to concentrate on only one of them at a time anyway, so Kurt decided to sketch some of his design ideas for the Vogue summer collection that he wants to pitch to Isabelle at the office meeting next week.
"Are you sure you don't want me to take over for a while?" Kurt asks again, and it is so tempting to take him up on the offer but Blaine knows Kurt is much more productive right now than he could ever try to be with his own homework, so he waves him off.
When he's calmed Beth down and she's stopped repeating her favorite word over and over again, he can't help but fall asleep with her propped up on his chest, sinking deep into the couch cushions.
He only wakes up when he hears a hesitant, "Uh, Blaine?" from Kurt and feels a sticky, goo-ish something on his chest.
"What's going on?" he mumbles.
Kurt sighs. "I think Beth just threw up on you a little."
Blaine looks down at his niece, the milky substance still dripping from her chin. "Okay. Ew. Thanks for that, Beth. Great, there's a stain on the couch as well."
"Here, let me take her," Kurt offers, and bobs her up and down while patting her back lightly. "I hope she's okay."
"I think it's normal but I'll check with Quinn once I've changed," Blaine says.
He cleans up and calls Quinn who tells him it should be fine but that they should call her again if it happens more than once or twice.
"Okay, gross," he hears Kurt's voice as he pulls back the privacy curtain.
"Did she puke again?" Blaine asks worriedly.
"No." Kurt wrinkles his nose. "She farted."
Blaine chuckles. "I think that's more than normal. Lunch was probably a little much for her."
"Still… gross. There's a stain on the couch, your shirt is probably ruined, she burps more than Finn, I've cleaned the kitchen table at least three times this morning alone and now she farted."
"Rethinking the whole children in five years thing?" Blaine asks, only half-joking.
Kurt bites his lip. "No…" he says but it sounds a little hesitant.
"Because I am," Blaine says truthfully, hoping that it's not too forward of him and that he's not crushing whatever idea Kurt has made up in his head by now.
"You are?" Kurt turns to him, obviously trying to read his face. "But you still…?"
"Want kids? Of course," Blaine mumbles. "But… maybe not in five years? Just- maybe just until we're done with school and have a stable income and-"
"And don't live with Santana and Rachel anymore because as fun as it was seeing Beth in a red dress and lipstick, I think I can survive without having my own children exposed to that torture."
"Definitely." Blaine bumps their shoulder together. "Maybe six years instead of five?"
Kurt nods. "Or seven."
"Yes. Agreed."
"However long it takes to get less grossed out by all the bodily functions of the tiny human body."
Blaine chuckles. "I think that goes away as soon as it's your baby, you know?"
Kurt smiles the kind of smile that exposes his teeth, and it's Blaine's favorite look on Kurt.
"As soon as it's ours," Kurt says.
"Exactly." Blaine stretches his limbs lazily. "This babysitting thing is really exhausting, isn't it?"
"Yup." Kurt bobs Beth on his knees again. "You, Miss Beth, are a true handful. I don't know how your mommy handles it."
"Money?" Beth says, looking a bit hopeful. "Money!"
"Seriously, what is it with her and money, I-"
"Blaine," Kurt interrupts.
"What?"
"I think she's trying to say mommy," Kurt says.
"Money!"
Blaine's eyes widen and he's already got his hands on his phone.
"Oh my god, Quinn will be delighted," he gushes, dialing his sister's number.
"Blaine, oh my god, is she alright? Has she not stopped vomiting?" Quinn's worried voice comes from the other line after just one beep.
"Oh, no, actually," Blaine says, berating himself for not just texting her when he knows she's probably fussing too much over whatever's happening at the loft, "we just figured out what 'money' meant. She's trying to say 'mommy,' Quinn. She misses you."
Quinn's quick breathing can be heard over the line before she lets out a, "Aww, baby. Can you put me on speaker?"
"You already are, Beth is here."
"Hi, Beth," Quinn says quietly. "Do you miss me?"
"Mama!" Beth squeals. "Money!"
Kurt grins at Blaine, and Blaine returns it happily, miming giving Beth a little high-five.
- Day 3 of the Babysitting Weekend Madness -
"Back away from my niece, Santana, I see that nail polish in your hand!"
"I was just trying to make her look fancy for Quinn!" Santana whines, making another step towards Beth but Blaine growls at her. "Okay, okay. You're no fun."
Blaine wraps up Beth in his arms. If everything goes according to schedule, Quinn is coming by in about ten minutes, and he's made it thus far without having any more embarrassing things happen to her – or well, him – so he really hopes Quinn will let him babysit Beth again in the near future.
Yes, it was an exhausting weekend, if the way Kurt is currently passed out on the couch and Rachel is sipping her fifth cup of coffee are any indications.
But he really loves Beth, and he doesn't want to let too much time pass until he sees her again.
Ten minutes later, there's a knock on the door, and Kurt startles awake when Santana gets off the couch to get it.
"You know who that is, Beth?" Blaine mumbles, and as soon as her eyes flit to the figure of her mother in the doorway, she perks up.
"Money!"
"Just for the record, Quinn, your daughter is hilarious," Santana drawls, but she gets ignored on favor of a hearty mother-daughter reunion.
"Hi, baby," Quinn says, showering her in kisses. "And you're dressed so properly, I'm impressed."
"Well, like I said," Blaine says, giving Santana a pointed look, "I was completely innocent and nothing even remotely horrible happened after that little incident."
Santana smirks at him. Ugh, Blaine is so not having children as long as Kurt and he live under the same roof as her.
"Hey, Beth, what did Auntie Snix teach you? Uncle Blaine is so effin'…"
"Gaa-eee!" Beth yells happily.
Quinn turns to Blaine, eyebrows raised high on her forehead.
"My daughter is one year old and now she knows how to say mama, mommy, papa, and… gay," Quinn says, an amused smirk playing around her lips.
Blaine yearns for a nearby surface to bang his head against, and is only comforted a little by the way Kurt comes over to hug his waist and kiss his cheek in obvious pity.
"She can say bye-bye, too," Kurt adds, probably to come to Blaine's aid.
"And Saisai, which obviously means Streisand," Rachel pipes up with a proud smile.
Santana grins. "And she's mastering the 'ky' part of 'wanky,' so I'd say this weekend was very educational for her."
Yeah. Maybe they should wait until Santana moves to a different city to have children.
A/N: Thank you for reading and (hopefully) liking and commenting. Prompts are always welcome, too! :)