AN: This story is not one of the favorites that I have written, I don't like how it ends. This really was supposed to be my first foray into doing a little Boy!Charlie. It was supposed to be cute, and a series of little one-shots set in the Alpha/Omega world where Charlie was an omega. It didn't turn out well (I think I'm probably going to stop writing fiction where they are teenagers. That might be why), but it's what I have for you. So I apologize. I promise I have more engaging stories incoming. It's not the last you'll see of genderswapped Charlie or Quinn for that matter.

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Song: 7 years Lucas Graham.

"You know they don't need to go to preschool Russell. They're perfectly fine at home with me. It'll be good for them especially Charlie. I don't think he's ready—"

Russell rolled his eyes, of course Judy would say that. "It doesn't matter if he's an omega Judy, he's also a Fabray. He'll be fine." Russell glances back in the rearview mirror where the twins were busy chatting away excitedly in the back. "See—he's excited to go to school. And I've told Quinton that it's his job to protect him. You know as an alpha, everything will be fine."

Judy sighed. It wasn't that she thought anything would go wrong per se, but preschool was a big step for her three year old twins. Charlie still sucked his thumb, and she couldn't help the pang of fear that the other kids might tease him for it. But maybe she was overreacting. School would be good for him. "You're right." She settled on finally. If it didn't work out she could be back to the preschool in under ten minutes, she could take them right home and they'd have another year before she had to worry about it. The boys would probably cry when they tried to leave—at least Charlie would probably cry—and it would break Russell's heart when they clung to her. Russell would probably insist that they come home and try school another day.

"Alright we're here!" Russell said pulling into the parking lot, "Look at that!" He points to the playground outside. "They've got swings! And a slide! You guys are going to have a lot of fun inside." He turns to see that his boys are indeed staring out the window with wonder in their eyes. "You're going to have a lot of fun without mommy and daddy today, there's going to be new kids for you to play with and you're going to get snacks and get to play with new toys." He said with all the enthusiasm he could muster but it seemed to be working. He glanced over at Judy a proud smile on his face only to notice that she didn't look thrilled. "We've been through this with Brittany, it's hard the first day but Brittany made a lot of friends and you wanted to start having birthday parties remember?"

Judy scowled, Brittany had been an only child and needed to learn to socialize with kids her age. Charlie and Quinn had each other. There was a difference. She sighs, trying to remember to keep calm the twins would pick up on her nerves. "I know, but maybe we should think about half-days or something. They've never really been out of sight for so long, and they're my babies!"

"Judy." Russell warned. The last thing they needed was Charlie feeding off Judy's energy. With a sigh he gets out of the car to unbuckle the twins. He had always wanted three kids, but he had never expected twins. He reaches in and gets Charlie first, he probably wouldn't wander off right away. He puts Charlie down on the ground. "Stay," he ordered gruffly watching as Charlie nods. He quickly goes into unlock Quinton before placing him beside Charlie who had begun to suck his thumb again. They had tried everything to get him to stop, but it hadn't done any good. He places Quinton down so he can grab their bags and groans when Quinton takes off. It's enough to set Charlie off as he immediately runs after his older brother. "Quinton."

Judy steps in front of her sons letting Quinton run into her legs. She immediately scoops him up as Charlie slows down and pulls up behind his brother, "Quinton, you know what we said about running in parking lots. It's dangerous."

Quinton's face scrunches up and Judy cringes as Quinton starts screaming angrily. If he wasn't in her arms she's sure he would be stomping away from them. He hates being told no and Judy's getting really tired of the temper tantrums that result from his attempts to push boundaries.

Charlie sighs and watches the display, feeling content and maybe a little jealous that his brother was safe with their mommy. He took the chance to look around, feeling his earlier fear at leaving his mommy and dad melt away as he looked at the brightly colored outside toys. It looked like it would be fun. He cocked his head to the side and pulled his fingers out of his mouth when he smelled something delicious coming from the school. Glancing up to make sure that mommy was focused on Quinton, he slipped happily between a couple of cars and wandered toward the gates only to feel strong hands pick him up and swing him off the ground.

"Hold up there, Sport." Russell grabbed his youngest and pulled him into his arms while shuffling the boys' bags. Even if he had just barely caught the sight of a towhead slipping between the cars, three years of parenting twins had turned he and Judy into a well-oiled machine. Charlie struggled a bit in his hold, especially when he turned to walk back toward Judy and Quinn in the parking lot, but Russell firmly tapped Charlie's bum warningly with the palm of his hand and Charlie quickly fell in line. "I know you're excited, but what have we told you about wandering off?"

"Not to." Charlie's fingers found their way back into his mouth.

"That's right." Russell watched as Charlie opened one of his arms and sighed as he scooped him up. One day they were going to get too big to be held and the very idea would cause them to be embarrassed. Hopefully this need to be carried wouldn't last as long as Brittany's had. Now if only Charlie would stop sucking on his thumb. "You ready to go to school sport?"

Charlie nods his head and turns as best as he can as they start to get closer to that really nice smell that's coming from the building. Maybe they were having cookies. It didn't smell like cookies, but it smelled like he'd be safe and warm and he'd get good food. He pulls his thumb out of his mouth, "Do they have race cars?"

Russell smiles, "I dunno, we're going to have to find out but I think they have blocks and lego, I think they have lots and lots of lego, and paints and coloring books and books for you to read."

"Really?" Quinton asks finally calming down in his mom's arms to look at his dad.

"Really, you're both going to have so much fun and you're going to make new friends, but remember your best friend in the entire world is?" He prompts looking at Charlie.

"Quinn?" Charlie asks looking at his brother.

"Right and you two need to have each other's backs no matter what. Family is important," Russell says as he opens the door for Judy before following her.

Charlie squirms again. "Can I go play?" He begs.

Russell's torn between reminding him not to whine and encouraging his school directed excitement. He's a little surprised that Charlie seems to be feeling adventurous but nods and lets him down gently.

"Me too!" Quinton yells and Judy sighs and puts him down.

"Quinton there are rules and you have to obey them or they'll ask you to leave," Judy informs him, when he scrunches his face at this she runs a hand through his hair. "Just be a good boy for mommy okay?"

"Okay, bye mommy!" Quinn smiles and runs to follow Charlie. He doesn't notice that his parents haven't left yet as he approaches Charlie pushing him a bit. "Whatcha doing?"

Charlie turns to him and pulls his thumb out of his mouth, "It smells yummy and I'm hungry," he responds jumping to try and reach the handle of the door.

"I don't smell anything." Quinton frowns and tries to help him reach the door. He sniffs the air again and crinkles his nose. "Smells like poop."

"No! It smells yummy!" Charlie insists turning to look at Quinton. He stares at his brother before turning to his parents who were watching the two of them with an amused expression on their faces. The smell was getting closer.

After watching his boys fondly for a moment, Russell decides to take pity on them, pulling down the handle and pushing the heavy door open for the two boys to scamper in. His ears are immediately assaulted with the sound of toddler's playing. He shakes his head, wondering who had the patience for that sort of thing.

It sort of happens in a blur. Judy tries to usher her boys inside only to have a flash of a girl practically knock Charlie to the ground and bite his shoulder. A petite alpha runs after the dark haired girl and smiles apologetically at Judy and Russell. "Santana! Just what do you think you're doing?" She scolds, pulling her daughter off Charlie and holding her by the shoulders to look her squarely in the eyes.

"I want him, he smells the bestest."

It was so innocent and adorable Judy almost squealed. It was unheard of for children to find their mates at this age, but to have a little girl pretend was almost too cute for words. "See Charlie, that's why it's important to stay nice and clean." Hopefully this little interaction would be a positive influence on her son who seemed to hate baths more than anything.

Charlie eyed her skeptically and stuck his thumb in his mouth, clearly thinking.

"I'm Maribel." The woman introduced herself. "I was just about to leave when my daughter attacked your son."

"She wants to play." Russell shrugged, smiling and introduced his family. When he was done, he nudged Judy playfully. "And you were worried that he wouldn't make any friends."

Santana cocked her head to the side at the sight. "My mommy says it's bad to suck your thumb."

"Santana—" Maribel warned.

"It's true. You said."

Maribel was about to apologize to the Fabrays again when Charlie pulled his thumb out of his mouth. "Okay." He tilts his head at Santana and holds out his hand, not noticing that there was drool all over it. "I'm Charlie."

"Santana," Santana says and takes his drool covered hands. She doesn't seem to notice that his hands are covered in spit. "Come on let's go color."

Charlie nods agreeably that sounds like fun, "Kay," he said letting Santana pull him towards the coloring tables.

Quinton frowns. He's not used to Charlie doing stuff without him. He told Charlie when it was time to play with the crayons. He doesn't look back at his parents before running after them.

"And you were worried that they were going to cry when we leave. I told you that you just need to show them something shiny and they'll be fine. They'll probably come back as the most popular kids in class." Russell grinned at his wife. "Now let's go before they notice that we're not here."

"But—" Judy began.

"Judy, they're okay and they're coloring. Which means that we can slip out without them noticing."

"First time parents too?" Maribel asks glancing back at Santana who was talking to Charlie animatedly. She couldn't even bring Carlos to this, he would have stood there crying while he watched Santana.

"No, we have another one. She's in second grade. Her name is Brittany, she was just as bad then," Russell says.

"You cried." Judy grumbles, which had caused Brittany to cry. "Charlie's just a little—well he's a little more sensitive than our other kids."

"I did no such thing." Russell lies. Based on Maribel's quirked brow she doesn't believe it either but he's not going to admit defeat. "Charlie is our only omega so we get a little—"

"Overprotective." Maribel nodded. "I understand, Santana is our only child. I don't know that I could handle another terror like her." She jokes. Mostly. The chance to have Santana run off her extra energy with kids her age has almost brought her and Carlos to tears.

Russell laughed, and guided the two women out of the classroom feeling only the slightest pang when none of the kids even looked in their direction. School was going to be fine. It's not like life changing events ever occurred in preschool anyway.

Quinton frowned, growing bored with the coloring and grabbed Charlie's arm, "Come on—let's go play lego!"

Charlie turns to him and is about to get up when Santana grabs his other arm. "No. We're coloring." She insists.

Charlie glances between the two nervously and sits back down. Maybe if he was quiet they'd leave him alone. "Uh—?"

"He's my brother. That means he has to do what I say." Quinn stomps his foot. If his Daddy was here, he'd probably get spanked for saying that, but it's true. Charlie has always done what Quinton wanted him to and it's not fair that some girl thinks she can boss him around.

Santana grabs Charlie's hand and bites it, hard. She can't explain what makes her do it, but she just knows that she wants to bite him. Charlie smells good and he's supposed to be Santana's. It's not like a toy at the store, but Charlie is hers.

Charlie cries out in pain which is enough to draw the teacher's attention. Miss Pillsbury starts toward them but is too late to stop Quinn from pushing Santana as hard as he can in retaliation. "You're mean," Quinton snaps at Santana who falls down and glares at him. "He's mine."

Charlie stares at them for a minute, as Santana lunges at Quinton and gets up and moves over to where there's a boy playing with some hot wheels. He kneels down and picks up a discarded car. "Vroom," he says making the noise as he drives the car around.

Quinn pulled on Santana's hair as hard as he could. Flinching when Santana smacked him hard in the face. "Charlie's my brother."

"He's mine." Santana yells back as Miss Pillsbury forcibly separates them. She struggles to beat the mean boy up but she can't seem to reach him.

"Stop. Both of you, right now." Miss Pillsbury tries to be firm and both children calm a little. It's one of the benefits of being an omega teacher, alphas this little tend to be much more obedient for their omega caretakers—she can't imagine dealing with kids older than three. "You're not allowed to hit each other. We don't fight in this school, so both of you are going to go for timeout for five minutes."

"But—but he started it!" Santana whines. She wasn't even being naughty this time.

"I don't care who started it. But what matters is that this behavior is unacceptable." She insists. She puts both kids in the timeout chairs in the corner, paying specific attention to keep them far enough away that they can't bother each other but close enough that they know they are being punished together. It's not uncommon for alphas to be a little bossy, especially on the first day and it's best to curb this behavior right away.

Quinton bites down the urge to cry, not willing to let Santana see him cry. He doesn't like being in trouble, especially when he didn't even do anything wrong.

Santana huffs and sits down on the chair and makes a face, it wasn't fair she was always in trouble. This time she hadn't even done anything. She turns to watch Charlie playing with the cars and looks at Quinton who was sulking in his seat. "He's mine but we can share."

Quinn scowls at this, "I don't like sharing."

Santana face scrunches up and she shrugs finally deciding to watch her new friend playing cars. He was hers even if he didn't really seem to understand what was going on. She grins and waves at him when he finally turns to look at her. If Quinton didn't want to share that was fine, he'd be all hers.

~O~

"Um, Mrs. Fabray and Mrs. Lopez, since you're both here, it'll probably be wise to tell you that there was a bit of an incident earlier this morning soon after you left. Quinton and Santana got into a fight, I separated it of course before it could escalate. It seems that they were arguing over who got to play with Charlie."

Maribel paled. She should have known Santana would cause problems on the first day of school. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what's gotten into her, she normally gets along great with other kids at daycare." She's going to have a long talk with her daughter tonight.

"If I know Quinton, he was probably just as much to blame." Judy frowns.

"It's normal for alphas this young to get in small arguments." Miss Pillsbury placated. "Santana seems to have developed a fondness for Charlie and I think Quinton was feeling a little left out."

"A fondness?" Maribel asks. Sure Santana's a little bit of a trouble-maker, but while she normally plays well with the other kids she tends to not make friends easily.

"She didn't want Charlie sleeping alone at naptime." Miss Pillsbury smiles at the memory. "Neither of them would really settle down until we gave in and let them share a mat."

"That's adorable." Judy gushed. She felt a surge of relief. All day she had visions of Charlie crying in the corner because the other kids were being mean to him.

Maribel had to agree, "Still, I'm sorry that Santana wasn't following instructions. We'll talk with her." She turns to look for her daughter so she could give her a scolding only to notice that Santana was pulling Charlie along.

"I've got lotsa toys and my abuela makes a ton of food!" Santana explains as she pulls Charlie with her. "Mami, look I made a friend. He's coming home to see my puppy."

"You don't have a puppy." Maribel reminds her daughter. She spares a glance at Judy who looks to be fighting a smirk.

"I know, that's why we have to get a puppy." She says as if it were obvious. She frowns when Maribel laughs and pulls Santana up and settles her on her hip.

Charlie frowns a bit and seems to finally notice that his mommy is around and runs to her. "Can Santana come play?" He asks pleadingly.

"No!" Quinton said stomping his foot angrily, he didn't want Santana playing with his toys. He feels even more mad that Charlie doesn't even seem to feel bad for ignoring him all day.

Judy frowned, this was a first. The twins very rarely disagree on anything and she's a little torn. Part of her wants to just take both of her boys and lock them in the house until they're thirty, but she knows that's not practical. Judy turns back to her youngest son, "Maybe you can come visit Santana this weekend?"

"No! I don't wanna share!" Quinton yells again glaring at Santana who smiles at this.

"Can we get a puppy?" Santana tugs on her Mami's shirtsleeve and grins excitedly. They had plenty of time to get a puppy so that Charlie could play with him. Then Charlie would never have to leave.

"No mija." She turns to Judy and feels the need to explain. "Santana stays with her abuela on most days until her dad and I get home from work. I took this week off to help her get used to school but a puppy—"

"But I want one." Santana whined.

"Santana, stop." Maribel scolds.

Quinn grins when Santana gets in trouble. She's mean and has stolen his brother all day. Quinn wanted to go home and never come back and eat cheese sandwiches for snack time.

Santana huffs. "But Charlie can still come home with me, right Mami?"

"Charlie has his own home to go to." Maribel shakes her head, smiling. "But we have school again tomorrow so you can play with him then."

~O~

They were one song, a glass of water, a potty break, another glass of water and two stories deep into bed time but Charlie couldn't seem to fall asleep. They had tried telling him to lay quietly, but he had wandered out of bed three times already. Russell had enough. "Sit down. It's time to go to sleep."

"But I didn't say g'night to Santana."

Russell pinched the bridge of his nose. "You've slept just fine without saying goodnight to Santana your whole life. She'll be at school with you tomorrow." He had been thrilled to hear that his youngest boy was a ladies man, and he had quickly realized what a mistake that had been.

"Daddy—"

"Enough Charles." He commanded in the voice that usually cowed his son into obedience. It had worked before, it didn't seem to be working now.

But Charlie just cocked his head to the side, watching his father with a trembling lip.

It was so damn infuriating! Charlie was supposed to be the easy one. And yet, Quinton had fallen asleep hours ago. Brittany's bedtime came and went without a fuss. Two children down and one to go. "I mean it. It's late and you're tired. I'm tired. It's time for bed."

It was enough to send crocodile sized tears spilling down his cheeks.

"Russell?" Judy poked her head in, holding her phone away from her ear. Even from across the room he can hear a high pitched wail. "Apparently we're not the only ones having a tough time with bedtime?"

"Let me guess, Santana?"

"SANTANA!" Charlie stood up on his bed and shouted. "I'M HERE."

"Sit down on the bed." Russell scolds. They shouldn't be rewarding bad behavior, but he's at his wits end and Judy isn't managing much better. She hands over the phone and Charlie grabs it eagerly. Almost instantly the screaming stops and Charlie chatters quickly for a few minutes.

"Maribel said she's been screaming for nearly half an hour straight."

Russell frowns and glances at Charlie, it almost seems like he's found his mate while Charlie yawned and flopped back onto his bed, he couldn't help but check his shoulder. It was impossible, for them to have accidentally mated. Sure enough his suspicions proved to be incorrect, there wasn't a mark on Charlie's chest. It just seemed as if he had grown attached to this particular alpha.

"Well," Judy began dryly watching as Charlie curled up with the phone, still chatting away with Santana even as he yawned. She watched as he moved to suck his thumb only to realize what he was doing and put his hand down. "It seems we're going to have a new routine and we're going to have to invite Santana over for play time."

Russell groaned, "Are you sure we're supposed to reward him for bad behavior?"

Judy wanted to agree with him but Charlie was currently sleeping cuddling the phone like it was precious to him. It was adorable in of itself. "Well, I think we should just try and work with him a bit. He seems rather attached to Santana. The only way this is problematic is that Quinton's not used to Charlie not following his instructions immediately. We'll have to figure it out so that Santana and Quinton don't keep on fighting."

Russell sighed. "This is just a phase, right?"

Judy chuckles and carefully extracts her phone. Apparently the late night conversation was enough for Santana too and she quickly ends the call, vowing to talk to Maribel tomorrow so that they don't have to go through this again. She has a feeling it's more than just a phase, but only time will tell.