fanfic: The Pregnancy Chronicles - Part 2, PG (Artie/Quinn)
Title: The Pregnancy Chronicles - Part 2
Author: ipickquinn & backitup_baby
Pairings/Characters: Artie/Quinn
Rating: PG
Word count: 5,723
Spoilers: none
Summary: Quinn and Artie feel the baby kick for the first time and get exciting news at their doctor's appointment. Cue extreme fluff with a dash of angst.
A/N: This fic was written by ipickquinn (as Quinn) and backitup_baby (as Artie)!
( Artie/Quinn 'verse masterlist)
The Pregnancy Chronicles - Part 2
After her recent melt down about stretch marks, she had been reassured numerous times and finally come to terms with the fact that she was pregnant and in order for their baby to be healthy she needed to gain wait and if stretch marks were a part of that, it just had to happen. Therefore one evening Quinn had no trouble cooking a large dinner for her and Artie.
She had just finished putting together the lasagna and as soon as the oven was preheated, put the pan in. Next task was to prepare the salad. While she was spinning the lettuce dry she felt a little flutter in her stomach. At first she just ignored it. Her stomach was doing all kinds of crazy things since she was pregnant. But again she felt it, a bit stronger. Finally she lowered a hand down to her stomach, wondering if she was going to get sick. She didn’t feel like she needed to be, but pregnancy was so unpredictable sometimes. Instead she felt ... Oh my God she thought to herself, eyes wide.
“Artie! Oh my God, Artie! Where are you?” She called out frantically.
He looked up and over in the direction of the kitchen from where he was sat on the living room couch, putting some bids on some vintage polo shirts on eBay. “What’s up?” he asked, kind of distracted (he had 10 minutes to go and then the shirts were his!). “Did you burn yourself?”
She followed his voice, walking as quickly as she could with her hands on her stomach. “No. I’m fine. I just. Oh my God.” She stopped in front of him, too distracted and amazed to articulate any further.
Artie checked how much time he had left, then looked up at Quinn. “Are you okay?” he asked, not really sure how to read the look on her face.
“Give me your hand,” she demanded, holding one of her out expectantly.
“Hold on,” he said, checking eBay again. There were only a few minutes left! “Okay, what’s up?” he asked, holding his hand out to Quinn and keeping his eyes on the computer screen.
“Hey! Focus!” Quinn snapped at him, immediately grabbed his hand and placed it on her stomach. “Do you feel that?”
Artie waited impatiently to feel something, to no avail. “No... did you feel something?” He kept his hand on her stomach and continued waiting.
“Of course I felt something. Otherwise I wouldn’t have come out here freaking out,” she said impatiently as she moved his hand around to a new spot. “Anything?”
“Like a kicking something?” he asked, just to make sure they were both on the same page. He reached out with both hands so he could cover a wider range of possible kicking locations. He waited a little longer, then pouted. “I don’t feel anything. Our baby hates me.”
“That’s not true. The baby can probably just tell you’re distracted,” she said, slightly annoyed and glared at his computer.
“Probably because you’re annoyed that I’m distracted, so the baby is picking up on your annoyance,” Artie reasoned out, his hands still on her stomach. “So you should relax and then maybe the baby will get happy again and start kicking you.”
Quinn focused really hard on not getting annoyed at Artie for telling her why the baby in her belly wasn’t kicking and instead concentrated on taking deep, even breaths. “Okay, I’m calm,” she said after a few more moments.
Artie really wanted to check the times on his eBay bids again but knew that if he did, Quinn would probably decapitate him. “Okay,” he said, looking at her stomach expectantly before all of a sudden he definitely felt something under one of his hands. “I. Was that. Did you feel that?”
A grin broke over Quinn’s face and she placed one of her hands on top of his. “Yeah, I felt it. The baby is literally kicking me,” she said, amused. “Isn’t it awesome though?”
He stammered a little, his eyes wide. “Quinn, we made a person.”
She felt herself starting to get choked up and nodded, still smiling at him. “Yeah, we did,” she said quietly, her voice thick.
Artie leaned in on a whim and, after moving his other hand out of the way, kissed her stomach. “This is so awesome.”
Quinn brought a hand up and ran it through his hair. “I love seeing you so excited like this,” she said, still feeling quite emotional. She just knew he was going to be a great dad.
While Artie could tell Quinn was getting really close to crying, he was just too excited and couldn’t stop grinning. “Of course I am. I can’t wait.” He finally looked up and smiled at Quinn. “Love you.”
Quinn sniffled a few times, feeling pretty pathetic but smiled back. “I love you too. And I can’t wait either.” She moved her hand back down on top of Artie’s again. “The baby can probably feel how happy we are right now. With all the kicking...”
“Hell yeah, my kid is psychic,” Artie said immediately, before realizing that that wasn’t really what she meant. “And, you know. Physiologically speaking the baby can probably tell from your nervous system or something,” he added, trying to backtrack.
Rubbing her hand over his, Quinn rolled her eyes slightly. Psychic? He was so odd sometimes. It was rather endearing though. “You’re such a dork,” she grinned at him.
“Yeah, I know,” he said, grinning back. “I think I won some new shirts, too.”
Quinn looked between Artie and his computer then rolled her eyes. “That’s what was almost more important than feeling your baby kick for the first time?” She asked, only half joking.
Artie shook his head, though he was sure that Quinn knew he was completely full of it. “I, uh, did that before you came here.”
Quinn rolled her eyes again. “Okay Mr. eBay addiction.” It was really quite ridiculous at times, though also amusing. Except right now she just wanted him focusing on her and their unborn child so it was more in the ridiculous category at that moment.
He shrugged a little, not even bothering to keep up his charade. “When’s the next appointment, again?” he asked, rubbing her stomach a little as he waited for her to reply.
She oddly liked when he rubber her stomach and was interested in the pregnancy like this. A lot of the time he just made fun of her crazy cravings and pretended to complain about how she wanted on him all the time (and even if it was true, Quinn remained firm in the knowledge that he wanted it just as much as her sometimes). But she liked when he was involved like this. “Next week. I think we’re supposed to find out the gender. Unless you want it to be a surprise.”
“Why would we not?” Artie asked, genuinely confused. “How else would we plan for things? Not that I think that much would depend on the sex of the baby or anything but when I’m thinking about the near future I think it’d be kind of nice to actually know what’s coming up so I can have a more accurate mental image of my awesome upcoming life.”
Quinn shrugged. “I don’t know. Some people like to be surprised and I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page, which we are. And you’re such a kiss ass,” she smirked at him. “Trying to make up for the fact that you were bidding on suspenders or whatever while you should have been feeling my stomach?” She grinned at him, clearly amused by all this. She was in too good a mood from feeling their baby kick and having Artie feel it too that she couldn’t even really be annoyed.
“Why am I a kiss ass?” Artie really didn’t know what to say to that either. Quinn was just really confusing right now. “I do think about that stuff. Why do you think that I don’t?”
“I know you think about that stuff. I mean, we both have since we were teenagers,” Quinn said grinning at him. “So I know it’s going to be awesome. I was just giving you a hard time about your love for eBay. But as long as you love me more, it’s okay.” She winked.
“I love you more than anything and anyone,” Artie said, meaning it although he’d said that pretty automatically. “And yeah, it will be awesome.” He smiled up at her, kind of goofily. “I’m really excited.”
“And I love you more than anything and anyone,” Quinn repeated back. “And I’m really excited too. Love you.” She leaned down and kissed him. “I’m going to go check on dinner. Probably will be 20 minutes, okay?”
“Sounds good,” Artie said, glancing back (finally!) at his computer in the meantime. “Let me know if you need any help.”
---
“Are you excited? I’m excited.” Quinn babbled as they made their way into the doctor’s office. Today was the big day where they found out whether the baby was a boy or a girl. And then they could start decorating the nursery and getting ready and it was going to be really exciting.
“Yeah, I’m excited,” Artie said, though his voice sounded like he felt the exact opposite. He’d not-so-wisely stayed up the night before reading about birth defects and everything that could possibly go wrong during Quinn’s pregnancy and was sleepy and kind of stressed out as a result.
“Baby, we’re about to see our, um, baby...” Was it going to be weird that her pet name for Artie was ‘baby’ when they were going to have a baby? “So you could try and act a little more enthusiastic. What’s the matter?”
Artie shrugged a little, feeling bad now that Quinn didn’t think he was excited about this. “I was just reading about pregnancy stuff last night and didn’t get enough sleep,” he said, not wanting to stress her out too. Besides, everything was probably fine.
They were at the clinic’s door now and she went to open the door for him, but first leaned down and kissed him briefly. “You’re cute. Those books freaked me out too. But... I’m sure everything is fine. And we’ll see everything today on the sonogram and it’s going to be okay.” She gave him a reassuring smile then opened the door for them and followed him in.
Artie went and got the forms for Quinn, since he’d gone inside first, then handed them to her. “Yeah... I’m sure they are,” he said, though it was clear that he wouldn’t be convinced of this until they were actually looking at the charts and the sonogram and he had it down in a signed contract that everything was okay.
Quinn gave Artie’s arm a reassuring pat before focusing on the clipboard and filling out the papers. Except then quite an alarming thought occurred to her. “Artie... um, your family doesn’t have a history of Tay-Sachs does it?”
She was trying not to freak out about this but after going through this with the pregnancy that never should have happened (or at least that was sort of what she referred to it as in her head) she really didn’t want this to be an issue again. Except somehow she had a thing for Jews. Or maybe just her body just really liked being pregnant by them. Jesus. Why was she even thinking about the time that never should have happened. It was more the irony of the whole situation if she really thought about it. But she didn’t want to be thinking about it. Blinking hard, she pushed the thought away and focused on Artie to listen to his answer.
Artie had read a little bit about it and it certainly hadn’t helped his stress over their baby, but he was pretty sure that his family didn’t have a history of that. “No, we should be okay,” he said, actually managing to sound reassuring this time because he was certain that it wouldn’t be a factor. He leaned in and kissed her cheek while he waited for her to finish with the forms.
Quinn smiled back, glad that it wasn’t going to be an issue for this child or any future child they may have. After finishing her forms (they seriously asked so many questions) she brought them up to the counter and then a few minutes later they were called back for their appointment. “Ready?” She asked Artie, grinning, as she stood up.
He had been getting nervous again as he watched Quinn fill out the paperwork. Why did they want to know so many things? What if she answered them incorrectly? He attempted to swallow his paranoia before nodding and following Quinn into the examination room, making sure he was out of her way.
The nurse led them to their exam room, told her to put the gown on and that their doctor would be in soon. Once they were inside she started stripping down (maybe a little teasingly to drive Artie crazy and she was fairly sure that last look he gave her was a glare) and put the gown on. It seemed as if she had just sat down on the exam table when their doctor knocked on the door and entered.
She took Quinn’s blood pressure (good), did a little general health check up (still good) then deemed her all clear.
“Are we ready to see the baby now?” She asked far too cheerfully, looking at both Artie and Quinn.
Quinn nodded then looked over at Artie and held out her hand for him to hold.
Artie moved himself a little closer to her, then exhaled a breath he didn’t know he had been holding once the visual came up on the screen in front of them. Quinn’s doctor started talking about all of the specifics but Artie wasn’t really listening once he’d heard her say that everything was okay and that the baby was a boy(! not that Artie had a preference, but it was still tremendously exciting). He swallowed hard, trying to push away the urge to cry or something, then blurted, “And his legs are going to work, right?” Except that that was kind of a stupid question, what with the kicking... except maybe the baby was actually punching instead of kicking. And it wasn’t like you could inherit spinal injuries.
The doctor looked between Quinn and Artie then nodded. “Well yes, his legs are in perfect condition.” She flipped through the papers on her clipboard then looked at them again. “Besides it says here that your condition was caused by a spinal injury in a car crash. It’s not genetic. Your baby boy is perfectly healthy.”
Quinn didn’t even realize her eyes were full of tears until she blinked and they were rolling down her face. That was rather unexpected. She gave Artie’s hand a squeeze and used her free one to wipe at her face. “We’re going to have a son,” she finally said, a tone of awe in her voice.
Artie nodded a little quickly, still in shock that they were actually looking at their son. “Thanks,” he said, kind of belatedly, for the explanation of how their son was perfectly healthy and developing normally. He then glanced over and beamed happily at Quinn. “I can’t believe this.”
Quinn brought Artie’s hand up to her face and kissed it impulsively. The doctor just smiled at them and wiped the goo off of Quinn’s belly before pulling the gown down.
“Well looks like we’re all done here unless you have any other questions. But it looks like everything is just as it should be and it a couple of months you’ll have yourselves a son,” the doctor said, grinning at them.
Wiping away a few more tears, Quinn smiled back. “Thanks so much,” she said and then with a nod from the doctor, she walked out of the room, leaving Quinn and Artie alone again.
Quinn bit her lip and looked over at Artie, not quite ready to sit up just yet. “A boy. We’re having a boy... I... this is amazing.”
It wasn’t like Artie hadn’t thought seriously about how Quinn was pregnant and how in a few months they would have a child, but seeing the visual really helped. “I know,” he said, leaning in and kissing her.
She kissed him back and after a few moments pulled back. “I love you.” Finally she sat up and got off the examination table to get her clothes. She was in too weird (but in a totally good way) mood to even think of teasing him again as she got dressed. Once she was clothed the walked over to him to kiss him again. “Ready to go home? I think we should get something sweet on the way. As a celebration or something.” She grinned at him.
“That sounds great,” he said, smiling back. “Like some cake or something. We should pick out a name for our son while we’re at it!” They hadn’t yet talked about names and he was really excited about that idea.
“We can talk names,” Quinn said as they walked out of the doctor’s office. “What kinds of names were you thinking?” It was obvious she agreed about the cake so nothing to discuss there.
“Really Jewish ones, like Methuselah,” Artie managed to say with a straight face. “Obviously.”
“Oh, I really like that too. Our son’s nickname can be ‘Meth’ like the drug,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Seriously though, any name you really like?”
Artie waited until Quinn had gotten into the car before getting himself in as well, throwing his chair in the backseat. “Not really... I’m open to suggestions. I have a feeling that my parents are going to want me to name him after myself once they hear that it’s a boy, but we don’t have to do that.”
“Like Artie Junior?” She grinned at him. “That’s cute. We could call him AJ. I’m not opposed to the idea. It’s definitely an option,” she said, nodding.
He put the car in drive and waited until they were on their way before replying. “Yeah, or something with Andrew since that’d be his middle name. I don’t know. Do you have any ideas? And obviously we don’t have to decide right now.”
Quinn shrugged. “I like that idea.” She definitely didn’t want to name their child after her father. She’d barely talked to him since she was 16. But she really didn’t want to be thinking of that right now so she pushed the thought away. “I actually really like that idea. It will have family history and meaning and stuff. And it’s a good name.”
Artie shrugged too as he drove. “I don’t really like my name all that much... but I’m glad you do.” He glanced over at her quickly and smiled at her before looking back at the road. “Let’s just definitely put it on the list of possibilities, unless you really want to go with that. It’ll definitely endear you to my mom if you do.”
“Well you know it is my life goal to get your mother to love me, so maybe we should,” Quinn said laughing. “Like you said though, we don’t have to agree right now. What we do need to decide though is what kind of cake are we going to get?” That was the real serious matter at hand, clearly.
“Chocolate,” he said immediately. He fell silent as he kept driving, then blurted suddenly, “What are we going to do about religion?”
Quinn bit her lip, thinking about that. “Well... I’d like for them to celebrate the main Christian holidays at least. And get baptized. And I’m sure you feel the same way about celebrating the main Jewish ones... What do you think we should do?”
“Well if we’re having a son he has to have a bris,” Artie said, glancing over at her again. “I mean, as long as you’re okay with that. Maybe we could just.... do both traditions? It’s the same God anyway.”
Quinn blinked a few times at that. “What is that exactly?” She should really probably know this by now. They had been together so long and she had learned quite a bit about Judiasm. But apparently she still had a way to go.
“It’s like a ritual circumcision thing,” Artie said, turning in the direction of the pastry shop nearest to their place. “On the 8th day. For the covenant between the kid and God. No big deal.”
“Oh. Right... well yeah, I’m okay with that. I mean, I know it’s an important ritual. I just didn’t know it was called that,” she said as they pulled into the bakery parking lot. “Um, so do you want me to just get us a piece each or like half a cake... I’ll probably want some later,” she admitted sheepishly.
Artie put the car into park and leaned over for another kiss. “Whatever you want to get,” he said, reaching into his pocket to give her his credit card. “Go crazy. We’re celebrating.”
Quinn gave him a long kiss back and took the credit card with a grin. “Thanks sugar daddy,” she said before getting out of the car.
There were so many options so in the end she bought a variety. After paying she walked back out to the car and got in. “So, do you want to hear about all the different delicious flavors I got?”
“Of course,” Artie said, holding his hand out for his credit card. He knew that it’d be a bad choice if he just let her hold onto that for a while without taking it back. “So what are we feasting on tonight?”
Quinn handed back the card and kissed him again. “Well I got you chocolate of course. And then I got vanilla. And then there was a cake with chocolate and peanut butter mousse filling so of course I had to get that. And then they randomly had a pumpkin spice kind of cake so I got that too. I think it has cream cheese frosting. And that’s our feast.”
Artie put his credit card away in his wallet. “So how much of that am I actually going to be able to eat?” he teased, smirking, fully aware that that was probably going to get him a few glares.
She mock glared at him and hit his arm playfully. “You know I’m an excellent sharer,” she said, pouting. “But maybe I won’t give you any if you’re going to tease me like that.”
“You tease me all the time, I might as well get you back sometimes,” Artie said very logically, putting the car back in drive. “Sounds like an awesome choice though. I guess if you want to you can invite Brittany and Santana over.” By this time Artie was actually on pretty good terms with both of them, especially after they’d moved to Chicago too, but it was still sort of weird to think that he regularly hung out with them.
Artie’s point was actually pretty legit so Quinn just reached out and patted his arm lightly. “It’s okay. I just want to celebrate with you right now. Unless you want them to come over? Though like you said I’ll probably eat the majority of that cake by myself so we don’t really have enough to share,” she smirked at him.
“Whatever you want,” Artie said, fully aware that he was so whipped when it came to Quinn. “I’m okay with either as long as either way we get some time to ourselves. And I should probably call my parents sometime today.”
Quinn smirked again at that. “Time to ourselves? You’re right though. I need to call my mom too. She’ll freak out. Do you think your parents will be excited?”
“Of course. My mom’s already bought us a ton of stuff for the nursery. Mostly practical things. But now that we know that we’re having a boy she’ll probably start buying clothes too, which I am definitely okay with.” Artie and Quinn were actually pretty comfortable financially, for being young and living in a city, thanks to his job. But he wasn’t exactly going to turn down free stuff.
“That’s nice of her. We should go visit soon and bring sonogram prints. I’m sure they would like that,” she said as she peeked into the cake box, getting anxious to try them out. “We should pick out a paint color for the nursery so I can paint soon.”
“Sounds good to me,” Artie said, pulling into their parking space and parking. “Maybe some shade of green or something. Blue is too stereotypical and if we have more kids we can reuse the nursery without having to repaint.”
Quinn smiled at the suggestion and waited until they were both out of the car and walking since. “I like that idea. My baby is so smart,” she said, grinning at him. “So should we call them right away or eat cake first?”
Artie knew they should probably call his parents as soon as possible but the thought of listening to his mom’s overexcitement first thing after getting back from the doctor’s was pretty awful. “Let’s just hang out for a while.”
“Meet me on the couch. I’ll get forks and milk,” she said, leaning down to kiss him and then handed him the box of cake.
The box was surprisingly heavy so Artie looked inside to see how much cake Quinn had actually bought (the answer was a lot). He set it on the coffee table, then got himself onto the couch. “I think you took ‘go crazy’ a little too literally,” he said, once she’d come back to the living room.
Quinn set the milk and forks down before sitting on the couch besides Artie, cuddling into him for the time being. “Well our son got particularly feisty with the kicking when I was in there and I interpreted that as him wanting a lot of cake,” she said grinning stupidly.
Artie moved his arm around her and grinned back. “You’re so cute,” he blurted, then shrugged a little because it wasn’t like he was lying or anything.
Quinn smiled back, a little bashful now. “Well don’t act like you’re not impressed.”
“I never said I wasn’t impressed,” Artie said, kind of doubtfully. He brought his arm back to his side so he could turn himself towards Quinn more. “I’ve always found you very impressive.”
“I’m impressed with you too,” Quinn said before leaning in to kiss him. It wasn’t like she was trying to make out with him (they had cake and milk waiting) but she wanted to kiss him since they hadn’t really had the opportunity to at the doctor.
Artie actually was, for once, trying to make out with her. Although she kind of had to have figured he’d want to, seeing as she’d gotten all almost-naked (well, she’d had to, but still) when they had been at their appointment. He pulled away from the kiss to catch his breath, then smiled at her. “I love you.”
“You’re feisty too,” Quinn said, smirking as they pulled back from kissing. She reached up and pushed his bangs back as they had been tickling her forehead and smiled. “I love you. I’m just... really happy right now.”
“Me too,” he said, still grinning broadly. “I don’t really know what else to say right now. Besides that I have you and cake and a son and life is kind of perfect right now.” He leaned in and kissed her again.
Quinn was glad that she was first on the list when once upon a time Artie had joked and cheesecake was more important to him. She knew he had been kidding of course but she still liked knowing she was important to him. “Really perfect,” she grinned back before kissing him in return.
Artie moved his hand onto her stomach, then kissed her forehead. “So what are we naming him?” he asked. And then, because they’d waited too long, he leaned away and opened the cake box and grabbed them both the forks Quinn’d brought out.
“I thought we already agreed on Obadiah,” Quinn said, biting back a grin, as she forked a bite of the chocolate and peanut butter slice.
“Nicknamed Obi? Like Wan Kenobi? I’m so down,” Artie said, legitimately seriously, once he’d eaten some of the chocolate slice.
Quinn saw the serious look on Artie’s face and shook her head. “I was just kidding... Here, try this one,” she said, waving a bite of the chocolate and peanut butter in front of him to try and distract him from that horrible name.
“You’re sharing your peanut butter?” Artie asked, genuinely surprised. He then leaned in and ate the forkful before she changed her mind and decided to be selfish.
“I told you I am really good at sharing,” she said before smirking mischievously. She leaned forward and scooped some of the frosting onto her finger then quickly wiped it on Artie’s cheek.
Artie tried to lean back away from this wasteful behavior of Quinn’s, but failed. “What was that for?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at her and grinning.
Quinn shrugged innocently and leaned forward to kiss his cheek, licking some of the frosting off. “Why not?”
He raised his eyebrows some more and watched her skeptically as she pulled back. “Doesn’t smearing it on my face before eating it kind of prolong the eating process?”
Quinn shrugged again. “It tastes really good on you though,” she said, licking his cheek as if to prove a point.
Artie looked down and addressed her stomach instead of her face. “You’ll meet her in a few months, but I just wanted to give you a heads up that your mother is pretty much insane.”
“That’s not very nice. Our son is going to forever be tainted now, thinking I’m crazy while you’re perfectly normal,” she pouted. Except that had been really adorable and Quinn actually loved it when he talked to her stomach. And she could have sworn one night she briefly woke up to him with his head down by her stomach and him chatting away. Or else it was a dream... either way, it was pretty cute.
“He won’t be tainted,” Artie said, carelessly. “But if you want to, you can tell him stuff he’ll need to know about me too.” He straightened back up then and had some more cake, twirling his fork around in his hand once he was done.
“Maybe I’ll just save the juicy details for when you’re not around,” Quinn teased before getting another bite of cake herself. “You still have some frosting on your face, by the way.”
Artie turned his cheek towards her. “Go on, then.”
“Oh, so now I’m allowed to prolong the eating process?” She asked smirking before licking the majority of the frosting left off his face. “You still taste delicious though.”
He smirked back at her. “I would hope that you would think that by this point, cougar.”
“Perv,” Quinn said, rolling her eyes before turning back to the table for more cake.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that that’s your fault,” Artie said, gathering some frosting on his finger and smearing it on her nose.
“Now what was that for?” She said, mimicking his words from earlier. She tried licking it off herself but her tongue just wasn’t long enough.
“So I can keep watching you do that,” he said, not attempting at all to hide his amusement. “I’m not going to lick it off.”
“You’re obnoxious,” Quinn said before reaching up to wipe the frosting off.
Artie reached out for her hand and licked the frosting off her fingers, then grinned some more at her. “I know.”
“I still love you though,” Quinn said.
He beamed happily back at her. “You’d better.”
“I’m wounded that you’d doubt me,” she said, acting scandalized before reaching to wipe more frosting on him. “That’s your punishment.”
“I’m okay with this punishment,” Artie said, pulling his glasses off and setting them on the coffee table before leaning in closer so she could get the frosting off of him.
“Who said I was going to lick it off?” Quinn smirked at him teasingly.
“Oh, that is pretty cruel,” he said, pouting. He moved a little closer to her and tried to make his eyes big too.
“I hate when you use your puppy dog eyes against me. Now that is cruel,” she said though leaned in a bit further and licked his cheek, getting the majority of the frosting.
“Thanks,” Artie said, still pouting. “Do these eyes really work?”
Quinn nodded reluctantly. “Don’t get any ideas though. Don’t think you can just bat your eyes at me and I’ll do whatever you want. I have like eight years of resistance training on my side.”
“I’ll try not to get too cocky about this,” he said, very seriously. “But it’s good to know. In case I really need something.”
She finished the rest of the frosting off his face then pulled back slightly to look at him. “Good. Don’t let it go too much to your head,” she smirked before kissing him on the lips.
Artie grinned at her and leaned in for another kiss. “I love you. I don’t know how many times I can say that today but it’s true. I was kind of worried before we got in there. Which you kind of noticed. But everything’s awesome and on track, which is... amazing.”
Quinn grinned back. “Well I’m never going to get sick of hearing it. Or saying it. So I love you too.” She laid her head on Artie shoulder and let out a contented sigh. “I really don’t think things get any better than this.” She paused for a long moment. “Oh my God, that was so cheesy.”
“Hmm?” Artie asked, as her voice interrupted his contented silence. “Yeah, I guess. It’s true, though, so I don’t really care.”
Author: ipickquinn & backitup_baby
Pairings/Characters: Artie/Quinn
Rating: PG
Word count: 5,723
Spoilers: none
Summary: Quinn and Artie feel the baby kick for the first time and get exciting news at their doctor's appointment. Cue extreme fluff with a dash of angst.
A/N: This fic was written by ipickquinn (as Quinn) and backitup_baby (as Artie)!
( Artie/Quinn 'verse masterlist)
The Pregnancy Chronicles - Part 2
After her recent melt down about stretch marks, she had been reassured numerous times and finally come to terms with the fact that she was pregnant and in order for their baby to be healthy she needed to gain wait and if stretch marks were a part of that, it just had to happen. Therefore one evening Quinn had no trouble cooking a large dinner for her and Artie.
She had just finished putting together the lasagna and as soon as the oven was preheated, put the pan in. Next task was to prepare the salad. While she was spinning the lettuce dry she felt a little flutter in her stomach. At first she just ignored it. Her stomach was doing all kinds of crazy things since she was pregnant. But again she felt it, a bit stronger. Finally she lowered a hand down to her stomach, wondering if she was going to get sick. She didn’t feel like she needed to be, but pregnancy was so unpredictable sometimes. Instead she felt ... Oh my God she thought to herself, eyes wide.
“Artie! Oh my God, Artie! Where are you?” She called out frantically.
He looked up and over in the direction of the kitchen from where he was sat on the living room couch, putting some bids on some vintage polo shirts on eBay. “What’s up?” he asked, kind of distracted (he had 10 minutes to go and then the shirts were his!). “Did you burn yourself?”
She followed his voice, walking as quickly as she could with her hands on her stomach. “No. I’m fine. I just. Oh my God.” She stopped in front of him, too distracted and amazed to articulate any further.
Artie checked how much time he had left, then looked up at Quinn. “Are you okay?” he asked, not really sure how to read the look on her face.
“Give me your hand,” she demanded, holding one of her out expectantly.
“Hold on,” he said, checking eBay again. There were only a few minutes left! “Okay, what’s up?” he asked, holding his hand out to Quinn and keeping his eyes on the computer screen.
“Hey! Focus!” Quinn snapped at him, immediately grabbed his hand and placed it on her stomach. “Do you feel that?”
Artie waited impatiently to feel something, to no avail. “No... did you feel something?” He kept his hand on her stomach and continued waiting.
“Of course I felt something. Otherwise I wouldn’t have come out here freaking out,” she said impatiently as she moved his hand around to a new spot. “Anything?”
“Like a kicking something?” he asked, just to make sure they were both on the same page. He reached out with both hands so he could cover a wider range of possible kicking locations. He waited a little longer, then pouted. “I don’t feel anything. Our baby hates me.”
“That’s not true. The baby can probably just tell you’re distracted,” she said, slightly annoyed and glared at his computer.
“Probably because you’re annoyed that I’m distracted, so the baby is picking up on your annoyance,” Artie reasoned out, his hands still on her stomach. “So you should relax and then maybe the baby will get happy again and start kicking you.”
Quinn focused really hard on not getting annoyed at Artie for telling her why the baby in her belly wasn’t kicking and instead concentrated on taking deep, even breaths. “Okay, I’m calm,” she said after a few more moments.
Artie really wanted to check the times on his eBay bids again but knew that if he did, Quinn would probably decapitate him. “Okay,” he said, looking at her stomach expectantly before all of a sudden he definitely felt something under one of his hands. “I. Was that. Did you feel that?”
A grin broke over Quinn’s face and she placed one of her hands on top of his. “Yeah, I felt it. The baby is literally kicking me,” she said, amused. “Isn’t it awesome though?”
He stammered a little, his eyes wide. “Quinn, we made a person.”
She felt herself starting to get choked up and nodded, still smiling at him. “Yeah, we did,” she said quietly, her voice thick.
Artie leaned in on a whim and, after moving his other hand out of the way, kissed her stomach. “This is so awesome.”
Quinn brought a hand up and ran it through his hair. “I love seeing you so excited like this,” she said, still feeling quite emotional. She just knew he was going to be a great dad.
While Artie could tell Quinn was getting really close to crying, he was just too excited and couldn’t stop grinning. “Of course I am. I can’t wait.” He finally looked up and smiled at Quinn. “Love you.”
Quinn sniffled a few times, feeling pretty pathetic but smiled back. “I love you too. And I can’t wait either.” She moved her hand back down on top of Artie’s again. “The baby can probably feel how happy we are right now. With all the kicking...”
“Hell yeah, my kid is psychic,” Artie said immediately, before realizing that that wasn’t really what she meant. “And, you know. Physiologically speaking the baby can probably tell from your nervous system or something,” he added, trying to backtrack.
Rubbing her hand over his, Quinn rolled her eyes slightly. Psychic? He was so odd sometimes. It was rather endearing though. “You’re such a dork,” she grinned at him.
“Yeah, I know,” he said, grinning back. “I think I won some new shirts, too.”
Quinn looked between Artie and his computer then rolled her eyes. “That’s what was almost more important than feeling your baby kick for the first time?” She asked, only half joking.
Artie shook his head, though he was sure that Quinn knew he was completely full of it. “I, uh, did that before you came here.”
Quinn rolled her eyes again. “Okay Mr. eBay addiction.” It was really quite ridiculous at times, though also amusing. Except right now she just wanted him focusing on her and their unborn child so it was more in the ridiculous category at that moment.
He shrugged a little, not even bothering to keep up his charade. “When’s the next appointment, again?” he asked, rubbing her stomach a little as he waited for her to reply.
She oddly liked when he rubber her stomach and was interested in the pregnancy like this. A lot of the time he just made fun of her crazy cravings and pretended to complain about how she wanted on him all the time (and even if it was true, Quinn remained firm in the knowledge that he wanted it just as much as her sometimes). But she liked when he was involved like this. “Next week. I think we’re supposed to find out the gender. Unless you want it to be a surprise.”
“Why would we not?” Artie asked, genuinely confused. “How else would we plan for things? Not that I think that much would depend on the sex of the baby or anything but when I’m thinking about the near future I think it’d be kind of nice to actually know what’s coming up so I can have a more accurate mental image of my awesome upcoming life.”
Quinn shrugged. “I don’t know. Some people like to be surprised and I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page, which we are. And you’re such a kiss ass,” she smirked at him. “Trying to make up for the fact that you were bidding on suspenders or whatever while you should have been feeling my stomach?” She grinned at him, clearly amused by all this. She was in too good a mood from feeling their baby kick and having Artie feel it too that she couldn’t even really be annoyed.
“Why am I a kiss ass?” Artie really didn’t know what to say to that either. Quinn was just really confusing right now. “I do think about that stuff. Why do you think that I don’t?”
“I know you think about that stuff. I mean, we both have since we were teenagers,” Quinn said grinning at him. “So I know it’s going to be awesome. I was just giving you a hard time about your love for eBay. But as long as you love me more, it’s okay.” She winked.
“I love you more than anything and anyone,” Artie said, meaning it although he’d said that pretty automatically. “And yeah, it will be awesome.” He smiled up at her, kind of goofily. “I’m really excited.”
“And I love you more than anything and anyone,” Quinn repeated back. “And I’m really excited too. Love you.” She leaned down and kissed him. “I’m going to go check on dinner. Probably will be 20 minutes, okay?”
“Sounds good,” Artie said, glancing back (finally!) at his computer in the meantime. “Let me know if you need any help.”
---
“Are you excited? I’m excited.” Quinn babbled as they made their way into the doctor’s office. Today was the big day where they found out whether the baby was a boy or a girl. And then they could start decorating the nursery and getting ready and it was going to be really exciting.
“Yeah, I’m excited,” Artie said, though his voice sounded like he felt the exact opposite. He’d not-so-wisely stayed up the night before reading about birth defects and everything that could possibly go wrong during Quinn’s pregnancy and was sleepy and kind of stressed out as a result.
“Baby, we’re about to see our, um, baby...” Was it going to be weird that her pet name for Artie was ‘baby’ when they were going to have a baby? “So you could try and act a little more enthusiastic. What’s the matter?”
Artie shrugged a little, feeling bad now that Quinn didn’t think he was excited about this. “I was just reading about pregnancy stuff last night and didn’t get enough sleep,” he said, not wanting to stress her out too. Besides, everything was probably fine.
They were at the clinic’s door now and she went to open the door for him, but first leaned down and kissed him briefly. “You’re cute. Those books freaked me out too. But... I’m sure everything is fine. And we’ll see everything today on the sonogram and it’s going to be okay.” She gave him a reassuring smile then opened the door for them and followed him in.
Artie went and got the forms for Quinn, since he’d gone inside first, then handed them to her. “Yeah... I’m sure they are,” he said, though it was clear that he wouldn’t be convinced of this until they were actually looking at the charts and the sonogram and he had it down in a signed contract that everything was okay.
Quinn gave Artie’s arm a reassuring pat before focusing on the clipboard and filling out the papers. Except then quite an alarming thought occurred to her. “Artie... um, your family doesn’t have a history of Tay-Sachs does it?”
She was trying not to freak out about this but after going through this with the pregnancy that never should have happened (or at least that was sort of what she referred to it as in her head) she really didn’t want this to be an issue again. Except somehow she had a thing for Jews. Or maybe just her body just really liked being pregnant by them. Jesus. Why was she even thinking about the time that never should have happened. It was more the irony of the whole situation if she really thought about it. But she didn’t want to be thinking about it. Blinking hard, she pushed the thought away and focused on Artie to listen to his answer.
Artie had read a little bit about it and it certainly hadn’t helped his stress over their baby, but he was pretty sure that his family didn’t have a history of that. “No, we should be okay,” he said, actually managing to sound reassuring this time because he was certain that it wouldn’t be a factor. He leaned in and kissed her cheek while he waited for her to finish with the forms.
Quinn smiled back, glad that it wasn’t going to be an issue for this child or any future child they may have. After finishing her forms (they seriously asked so many questions) she brought them up to the counter and then a few minutes later they were called back for their appointment. “Ready?” She asked Artie, grinning, as she stood up.
He had been getting nervous again as he watched Quinn fill out the paperwork. Why did they want to know so many things? What if she answered them incorrectly? He attempted to swallow his paranoia before nodding and following Quinn into the examination room, making sure he was out of her way.
The nurse led them to their exam room, told her to put the gown on and that their doctor would be in soon. Once they were inside she started stripping down (maybe a little teasingly to drive Artie crazy and she was fairly sure that last look he gave her was a glare) and put the gown on. It seemed as if she had just sat down on the exam table when their doctor knocked on the door and entered.
She took Quinn’s blood pressure (good), did a little general health check up (still good) then deemed her all clear.
“Are we ready to see the baby now?” She asked far too cheerfully, looking at both Artie and Quinn.
Quinn nodded then looked over at Artie and held out her hand for him to hold.
Artie moved himself a little closer to her, then exhaled a breath he didn’t know he had been holding once the visual came up on the screen in front of them. Quinn’s doctor started talking about all of the specifics but Artie wasn’t really listening once he’d heard her say that everything was okay and that the baby was a boy(! not that Artie had a preference, but it was still tremendously exciting). He swallowed hard, trying to push away the urge to cry or something, then blurted, “And his legs are going to work, right?” Except that that was kind of a stupid question, what with the kicking... except maybe the baby was actually punching instead of kicking. And it wasn’t like you could inherit spinal injuries.
The doctor looked between Quinn and Artie then nodded. “Well yes, his legs are in perfect condition.” She flipped through the papers on her clipboard then looked at them again. “Besides it says here that your condition was caused by a spinal injury in a car crash. It’s not genetic. Your baby boy is perfectly healthy.”
Quinn didn’t even realize her eyes were full of tears until she blinked and they were rolling down her face. That was rather unexpected. She gave Artie’s hand a squeeze and used her free one to wipe at her face. “We’re going to have a son,” she finally said, a tone of awe in her voice.
Artie nodded a little quickly, still in shock that they were actually looking at their son. “Thanks,” he said, kind of belatedly, for the explanation of how their son was perfectly healthy and developing normally. He then glanced over and beamed happily at Quinn. “I can’t believe this.”
Quinn brought Artie’s hand up to her face and kissed it impulsively. The doctor just smiled at them and wiped the goo off of Quinn’s belly before pulling the gown down.
“Well looks like we’re all done here unless you have any other questions. But it looks like everything is just as it should be and it a couple of months you’ll have yourselves a son,” the doctor said, grinning at them.
Wiping away a few more tears, Quinn smiled back. “Thanks so much,” she said and then with a nod from the doctor, she walked out of the room, leaving Quinn and Artie alone again.
Quinn bit her lip and looked over at Artie, not quite ready to sit up just yet. “A boy. We’re having a boy... I... this is amazing.”
It wasn’t like Artie hadn’t thought seriously about how Quinn was pregnant and how in a few months they would have a child, but seeing the visual really helped. “I know,” he said, leaning in and kissing her.
She kissed him back and after a few moments pulled back. “I love you.” Finally she sat up and got off the examination table to get her clothes. She was in too weird (but in a totally good way) mood to even think of teasing him again as she got dressed. Once she was clothed the walked over to him to kiss him again. “Ready to go home? I think we should get something sweet on the way. As a celebration or something.” She grinned at him.
“That sounds great,” he said, smiling back. “Like some cake or something. We should pick out a name for our son while we’re at it!” They hadn’t yet talked about names and he was really excited about that idea.
“We can talk names,” Quinn said as they walked out of the doctor’s office. “What kinds of names were you thinking?” It was obvious she agreed about the cake so nothing to discuss there.
“Really Jewish ones, like Methuselah,” Artie managed to say with a straight face. “Obviously.”
“Oh, I really like that too. Our son’s nickname can be ‘Meth’ like the drug,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Seriously though, any name you really like?”
Artie waited until Quinn had gotten into the car before getting himself in as well, throwing his chair in the backseat. “Not really... I’m open to suggestions. I have a feeling that my parents are going to want me to name him after myself once they hear that it’s a boy, but we don’t have to do that.”
“Like Artie Junior?” She grinned at him. “That’s cute. We could call him AJ. I’m not opposed to the idea. It’s definitely an option,” she said, nodding.
He put the car in drive and waited until they were on their way before replying. “Yeah, or something with Andrew since that’d be his middle name. I don’t know. Do you have any ideas? And obviously we don’t have to decide right now.”
Quinn shrugged. “I like that idea.” She definitely didn’t want to name their child after her father. She’d barely talked to him since she was 16. But she really didn’t want to be thinking of that right now so she pushed the thought away. “I actually really like that idea. It will have family history and meaning and stuff. And it’s a good name.”
Artie shrugged too as he drove. “I don’t really like my name all that much... but I’m glad you do.” He glanced over at her quickly and smiled at her before looking back at the road. “Let’s just definitely put it on the list of possibilities, unless you really want to go with that. It’ll definitely endear you to my mom if you do.”
“Well you know it is my life goal to get your mother to love me, so maybe we should,” Quinn said laughing. “Like you said though, we don’t have to agree right now. What we do need to decide though is what kind of cake are we going to get?” That was the real serious matter at hand, clearly.
“Chocolate,” he said immediately. He fell silent as he kept driving, then blurted suddenly, “What are we going to do about religion?”
Quinn bit her lip, thinking about that. “Well... I’d like for them to celebrate the main Christian holidays at least. And get baptized. And I’m sure you feel the same way about celebrating the main Jewish ones... What do you think we should do?”
“Well if we’re having a son he has to have a bris,” Artie said, glancing over at her again. “I mean, as long as you’re okay with that. Maybe we could just.... do both traditions? It’s the same God anyway.”
Quinn blinked a few times at that. “What is that exactly?” She should really probably know this by now. They had been together so long and she had learned quite a bit about Judiasm. But apparently she still had a way to go.
“It’s like a ritual circumcision thing,” Artie said, turning in the direction of the pastry shop nearest to their place. “On the 8th day. For the covenant between the kid and God. No big deal.”
“Oh. Right... well yeah, I’m okay with that. I mean, I know it’s an important ritual. I just didn’t know it was called that,” she said as they pulled into the bakery parking lot. “Um, so do you want me to just get us a piece each or like half a cake... I’ll probably want some later,” she admitted sheepishly.
Artie put the car into park and leaned over for another kiss. “Whatever you want to get,” he said, reaching into his pocket to give her his credit card. “Go crazy. We’re celebrating.”
Quinn gave him a long kiss back and took the credit card with a grin. “Thanks sugar daddy,” she said before getting out of the car.
There were so many options so in the end she bought a variety. After paying she walked back out to the car and got in. “So, do you want to hear about all the different delicious flavors I got?”
“Of course,” Artie said, holding his hand out for his credit card. He knew that it’d be a bad choice if he just let her hold onto that for a while without taking it back. “So what are we feasting on tonight?”
Quinn handed back the card and kissed him again. “Well I got you chocolate of course. And then I got vanilla. And then there was a cake with chocolate and peanut butter mousse filling so of course I had to get that. And then they randomly had a pumpkin spice kind of cake so I got that too. I think it has cream cheese frosting. And that’s our feast.”
Artie put his credit card away in his wallet. “So how much of that am I actually going to be able to eat?” he teased, smirking, fully aware that that was probably going to get him a few glares.
She mock glared at him and hit his arm playfully. “You know I’m an excellent sharer,” she said, pouting. “But maybe I won’t give you any if you’re going to tease me like that.”
“You tease me all the time, I might as well get you back sometimes,” Artie said very logically, putting the car back in drive. “Sounds like an awesome choice though. I guess if you want to you can invite Brittany and Santana over.” By this time Artie was actually on pretty good terms with both of them, especially after they’d moved to Chicago too, but it was still sort of weird to think that he regularly hung out with them.
Artie’s point was actually pretty legit so Quinn just reached out and patted his arm lightly. “It’s okay. I just want to celebrate with you right now. Unless you want them to come over? Though like you said I’ll probably eat the majority of that cake by myself so we don’t really have enough to share,” she smirked at him.
“Whatever you want,” Artie said, fully aware that he was so whipped when it came to Quinn. “I’m okay with either as long as either way we get some time to ourselves. And I should probably call my parents sometime today.”
Quinn smirked again at that. “Time to ourselves? You’re right though. I need to call my mom too. She’ll freak out. Do you think your parents will be excited?”
“Of course. My mom’s already bought us a ton of stuff for the nursery. Mostly practical things. But now that we know that we’re having a boy she’ll probably start buying clothes too, which I am definitely okay with.” Artie and Quinn were actually pretty comfortable financially, for being young and living in a city, thanks to his job. But he wasn’t exactly going to turn down free stuff.
“That’s nice of her. We should go visit soon and bring sonogram prints. I’m sure they would like that,” she said as she peeked into the cake box, getting anxious to try them out. “We should pick out a paint color for the nursery so I can paint soon.”
“Sounds good to me,” Artie said, pulling into their parking space and parking. “Maybe some shade of green or something. Blue is too stereotypical and if we have more kids we can reuse the nursery without having to repaint.”
Quinn smiled at the suggestion and waited until they were both out of the car and walking since. “I like that idea. My baby is so smart,” she said, grinning at him. “So should we call them right away or eat cake first?”
Artie knew they should probably call his parents as soon as possible but the thought of listening to his mom’s overexcitement first thing after getting back from the doctor’s was pretty awful. “Let’s just hang out for a while.”
“Meet me on the couch. I’ll get forks and milk,” she said, leaning down to kiss him and then handed him the box of cake.
The box was surprisingly heavy so Artie looked inside to see how much cake Quinn had actually bought (the answer was a lot). He set it on the coffee table, then got himself onto the couch. “I think you took ‘go crazy’ a little too literally,” he said, once she’d come back to the living room.
Quinn set the milk and forks down before sitting on the couch besides Artie, cuddling into him for the time being. “Well our son got particularly feisty with the kicking when I was in there and I interpreted that as him wanting a lot of cake,” she said grinning stupidly.
Artie moved his arm around her and grinned back. “You’re so cute,” he blurted, then shrugged a little because it wasn’t like he was lying or anything.
Quinn smiled back, a little bashful now. “Well don’t act like you’re not impressed.”
“I never said I wasn’t impressed,” Artie said, kind of doubtfully. He brought his arm back to his side so he could turn himself towards Quinn more. “I’ve always found you very impressive.”
“I’m impressed with you too,” Quinn said before leaning in to kiss him. It wasn’t like she was trying to make out with him (they had cake and milk waiting) but she wanted to kiss him since they hadn’t really had the opportunity to at the doctor.
Artie actually was, for once, trying to make out with her. Although she kind of had to have figured he’d want to, seeing as she’d gotten all almost-naked (well, she’d had to, but still) when they had been at their appointment. He pulled away from the kiss to catch his breath, then smiled at her. “I love you.”
“You’re feisty too,” Quinn said, smirking as they pulled back from kissing. She reached up and pushed his bangs back as they had been tickling her forehead and smiled. “I love you. I’m just... really happy right now.”
“Me too,” he said, still grinning broadly. “I don’t really know what else to say right now. Besides that I have you and cake and a son and life is kind of perfect right now.” He leaned in and kissed her again.
Quinn was glad that she was first on the list when once upon a time Artie had joked and cheesecake was more important to him. She knew he had been kidding of course but she still liked knowing she was important to him. “Really perfect,” she grinned back before kissing him in return.
Artie moved his hand onto her stomach, then kissed her forehead. “So what are we naming him?” he asked. And then, because they’d waited too long, he leaned away and opened the cake box and grabbed them both the forks Quinn’d brought out.
“I thought we already agreed on Obadiah,” Quinn said, biting back a grin, as she forked a bite of the chocolate and peanut butter slice.
“Nicknamed Obi? Like Wan Kenobi? I’m so down,” Artie said, legitimately seriously, once he’d eaten some of the chocolate slice.
Quinn saw the serious look on Artie’s face and shook her head. “I was just kidding... Here, try this one,” she said, waving a bite of the chocolate and peanut butter in front of him to try and distract him from that horrible name.
“You’re sharing your peanut butter?” Artie asked, genuinely surprised. He then leaned in and ate the forkful before she changed her mind and decided to be selfish.
“I told you I am really good at sharing,” she said before smirking mischievously. She leaned forward and scooped some of the frosting onto her finger then quickly wiped it on Artie’s cheek.
Artie tried to lean back away from this wasteful behavior of Quinn’s, but failed. “What was that for?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at her and grinning.
Quinn shrugged innocently and leaned forward to kiss his cheek, licking some of the frosting off. “Why not?”
He raised his eyebrows some more and watched her skeptically as she pulled back. “Doesn’t smearing it on my face before eating it kind of prolong the eating process?”
Quinn shrugged again. “It tastes really good on you though,” she said, licking his cheek as if to prove a point.
Artie looked down and addressed her stomach instead of her face. “You’ll meet her in a few months, but I just wanted to give you a heads up that your mother is pretty much insane.”
“That’s not very nice. Our son is going to forever be tainted now, thinking I’m crazy while you’re perfectly normal,” she pouted. Except that had been really adorable and Quinn actually loved it when he talked to her stomach. And she could have sworn one night she briefly woke up to him with his head down by her stomach and him chatting away. Or else it was a dream... either way, it was pretty cute.
“He won’t be tainted,” Artie said, carelessly. “But if you want to, you can tell him stuff he’ll need to know about me too.” He straightened back up then and had some more cake, twirling his fork around in his hand once he was done.
“Maybe I’ll just save the juicy details for when you’re not around,” Quinn teased before getting another bite of cake herself. “You still have some frosting on your face, by the way.”
Artie turned his cheek towards her. “Go on, then.”
“Oh, so now I’m allowed to prolong the eating process?” She asked smirking before licking the majority of the frosting left off his face. “You still taste delicious though.”
He smirked back at her. “I would hope that you would think that by this point, cougar.”
“Perv,” Quinn said, rolling her eyes before turning back to the table for more cake.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that that’s your fault,” Artie said, gathering some frosting on his finger and smearing it on her nose.
“Now what was that for?” She said, mimicking his words from earlier. She tried licking it off herself but her tongue just wasn’t long enough.
“So I can keep watching you do that,” he said, not attempting at all to hide his amusement. “I’m not going to lick it off.”
“You’re obnoxious,” Quinn said before reaching up to wipe the frosting off.
Artie reached out for her hand and licked the frosting off her fingers, then grinned some more at her. “I know.”
“I still love you though,” Quinn said.
He beamed happily back at her. “You’d better.”
“I’m wounded that you’d doubt me,” she said, acting scandalized before reaching to wipe more frosting on him. “That’s your punishment.”
“I’m okay with this punishment,” Artie said, pulling his glasses off and setting them on the coffee table before leaning in closer so she could get the frosting off of him.
“Who said I was going to lick it off?” Quinn smirked at him teasingly.
“Oh, that is pretty cruel,” he said, pouting. He moved a little closer to her and tried to make his eyes big too.
“I hate when you use your puppy dog eyes against me. Now that is cruel,” she said though leaned in a bit further and licked his cheek, getting the majority of the frosting.
“Thanks,” Artie said, still pouting. “Do these eyes really work?”
Quinn nodded reluctantly. “Don’t get any ideas though. Don’t think you can just bat your eyes at me and I’ll do whatever you want. I have like eight years of resistance training on my side.”
“I’ll try not to get too cocky about this,” he said, very seriously. “But it’s good to know. In case I really need something.”
She finished the rest of the frosting off his face then pulled back slightly to look at him. “Good. Don’t let it go too much to your head,” she smirked before kissing him on the lips.
Artie grinned at her and leaned in for another kiss. “I love you. I don’t know how many times I can say that today but it’s true. I was kind of worried before we got in there. Which you kind of noticed. But everything’s awesome and on track, which is... amazing.”
Quinn grinned back. “Well I’m never going to get sick of hearing it. Or saying it. So I love you too.” She laid her head on Artie shoulder and let out a contented sigh. “I really don’t think things get any better than this.” She paused for a long moment. “Oh my God, that was so cheesy.”
“Hmm?” Artie asked, as her voice interrupted his contented silence. “Yeah, I guess. It’s true, though, so I don’t really care.”