#paulcolfers

Yes, Santana Lopez-Berry's son is a nerd. And it is all Rachel's fault.

"You want who to be the father?"

"Artie," Rachel replied matter-of-factly.

Santana's face scrunched up and she crossed her arms, reclining back  on the sofa in the New York City apartment. "So you want our kid to get beaten up on a weekly basis? At least with Trouty Mouth, he might have the build of a football player."

Rachel rolled her eyes and flipped to the next page in her script. She appeared casual and nonchalant but Santana could see the tenseness in her hands, her nervousness at potential impending motherhood. She wanted to get it right.

"Is that all you care about?" Rachel asked. "Your future child's physical build? And what if it's a girl? And besides, Artie is sweet --"

"So is Sam," Santana interrupted immediately.

"And intelligent."

A pause. "Sam is sweet."

"And capable."

Santana scoffed. "Whatever, this is the same guy who told you get laid in high school so that you could play a character in a musical."

Rachel closed her script and dropped it on the coffee table, moving towards the sofa as she did so. She dropped down carefully next to Santana and placed a light kiss to her cheek, one of her legs resting against Santana's and her fingers splaying over the bare skin of Santana's thigh.

"It's not a competition," Rachel told her. "Both Sam and Artie are good guys and perfectly acceptable candidates for sperm donation. They're our best friends and they'll both be a part of our child's life no matter what."

Santana considered her words for a moment, wrapping her arm around Rachel's shoulders and pulling her into her embrace.

"Also, dylexia runs in families," Rachel added hastily. "So we should go with Artie."

"But --"

"Just think about it, Santana," she said, her fingers sliding up Santana's thigh slowly, skimming inch by painful inch up her leg. Rachel shifted in Santana's embrace, swiveling towards her in order to press achingly slow kisses to her neck. She parted her lips, letting them linger against Santana's skin. Santana's hips moved over their own accord, sliding forward on the sofa.

Fuck it. With Sam and Artie as uncles, their kid was probably going to be a nerd anyway.

See? Rachel's fault. Santana was seduced (easily.)

And don't misunderstand. Santana loves her son. Blake is a sweet kid with her smile and Rachel's heart. So he's a nerd? That just means he'll be everyone's boss one day; or maybe he'll invent some crazy machine that will make him enough money to buy his mothers a nice house on a beach somewhere.

It's just that when she sits in restaurants and watches Blake act out scenes from the latest comic book movie (some millionth reboot of a franchise that she can't remember the name of) with Sam, she has a hard time resisting the urge to roll her eyes.

Blake jumps up on the bench in their booth, four-year-old arms flailing about until Sam wraps an arm around him and laughs. "Mom, watch out! Blorgons!" he says loudly, pointing to a waitress. "I'll save you!" He pew-pews at the waitress walking past them and then nods triumphantly.

Rachel laughs and pulls Blake back down on to the bench, straightening out his sweater and tie. She kisses his cheek. "My hero!" she plays along.

Santana really does roll her eyes at that, but there's a small smile playing on her lips. She places her hand on Rachel's leg, palm pressed flat against her jean-clad leg, and squeezes.

Across the circular booth, Sam stretches a hand out towards Artie, who is outside the booth and further away from the rest of them. His fingers brush over Artie's for a moment. "Hey, little guy, I think I spotted some Blorgons over by the dessert table," he says. "Why don't you go with Uncle Artie and see if you can find them?"

Blake nods seriously and Sam lifts him up, moving him over his legs to the open space at the end of the booth. Sam lowers his voice. "The fate of the universe depends on it."

"You got it, Captain."

He climbs across the small gap between the booth and Artie's lap. Artie chuckles and reaches forward, helping the little boy into his wheelchair. "Strap in, cadet," he says. "I have made some excellent new technical modifications to the ship."

Sam grins boyishly and winks at Artie, licking his lips. "Good luck, soldiers."

Artie and Blake fix their glasses at the same time and both of them nod. "Come on, little Bluetooth," Artie says, wheeling away from them.

Santana turns to Sam, the same small smile fighting its way across her face as she rolls her eyes again. "What have you done to my son?"

Sam shrugs, still grinning at Artie's retreating form. "We just have fun with him," he answers. "We're the cool uncles, you know? We took him to see a movie and Artie got him some video games to take home. I gave him some cool old comic books. Oh! And we had a totally awesome dinner last night at this restaurant near the laser tag place. They bring you soup that you can drink through a straw and the waiter let us have dessert for free."

Santana opens her mouth, but Rachel cuts her off. "It sounds like you boys had a wonderful time," she says sweetly. "Thank you for taking him for the night, Sam. We really appreciate it."

Across the establishment, Blake was holding on to Artie as he spun around in place a couple of times, laughing and firing off imaginary lasers with his fingers. Santana watches them, Blake's infectious smile spreading similarly across her own features.

"Yeah, thanks," she grudgingly admits, still smiling. "He loves you guys, even though you're both kind of nerds," Santana added.

Sam rolls his eyes at her and nudges Rachel, sharing a smile with her. "Next weekend, we're gonna marathon all of the Star Wars movies with him."

"No," Santana shakes her head immediately. "No way. I draw the line at Star Wars. There are limits, Trouty Mouth."

Sam chuckled and Rachel rolled her eyes. "Sweetie," she said politely, fingers curling around Santana's hand, which was still on her leg. "You're just going to have to learn to live with our son's inquisitive nature and love of science fiction."

Santana sighed in an over-exaggerated manner that they all knew was fake. She was still kind of smiling. Just a little bit. Blake was a nerd but he was a cute one. And more importantly, he was her little nerd.