Play for Today

Quinn didn't remember Chuck E. Cheese ever being so…loud. Or small. Or sticky. She and Rachel and Beth had only walked in about five minutes ago and she was already bracing herself for some sort of epileptic fit. Seriously, when she was a kid this place was a bright, exciting wonderland of pizza and games. Now it was an anxiety-attack-inducing room full of screaming children and borderline pedophilic men dressed as animals.

Still, it was Beth's reward for doing well on her first spelling test, so she allowed Rachel to drag her over to a table next to a mother and child covered in some sort of unidentifiable substance, while Beth ran off to play with five dollars in hand.

"Well, this is certainly stimulating!"

Quinn narrowed her eyes at her wife.

"I mean there are- it's just so vibrant. All the lights and games and sounds…" Rachel picked her hand up off the table and looked at it disgustedly. "…and textures."

"Mmhhmm." Quinn hummed, spitting on a napkin and grabbing Rachel's hand to rub off the offending substance. Rachel recoiled and Quinn raised an eyebrow. "Baby, you can either have my spit on your hand or some sort of residue from something that has oozed out of a child's many orifices."

Rachel scrunched up her face and stuck her hand back out. "You please." She mumbled.

A waiter, or in Quinn's opinion, an overgrown child who looked like he had taken a few too many happy pills that morning, walked up to their table and took their pizza and drink orders. He seemed to be physically unable to contort his mouth out of that face-breaking smile, and Quinn decided on a new goal for the night. Wipe that obnoxiously bright grin off !'s face.

She turned back to Rachel and was about to ask for assistance with this life goal when Beth came bounding up and latched onto her arm.

"Mommy! Mommy! Can I have more money please? I was playing the driving game with Benny and-"

"Wait Beth, Ben's here?"

"Yeah, we were-"

"Have you seen Auntie Britt and Auntie San anywhere?"

Beth crossed her arms and looked irate at having to answer so many questions. She just wanted to go back to the driving game before someone took her spot.

"No. I just saw Benny. Can I have some money please? Hurry!"

"Bethie," Rachel interjected while pulling out her purse, "slow down okay? You burned through a five and you've only been playing for a few minutes."

Beth took off with the money in her hand, yelling "Thanks Mama!" over her shoulder.

Rachel looked back at Quinn who was scanning the darkened, crowded room for Santana and Brittany; knowing their son was here, they couldn't be very far behind. "You won't find them. Britt's probably climbing her way through that playground and Santana'll be cowering in a broom closet. You know how masses of children get to her."

Quinn laughed and nodded, thanking ineverstopsmiling as he set their drinks on the table.

"Hey Tom?" she said, before the guy could walk away.

"What's up!"

"Do you enjoy working at Chuck E. Cheese?"

"Of course!"

"Really? You always wanted to be a waiter?"

Rachel was looking at her suspiciously now.

"I love it here!" God, he was blinding her with that grin.

"Great." She said, and he turned away.

"Quinn, what- AHH HOLYSHIT-FREAKINGMOTHEROF!" Rachel screamed, grabbing the table with one hand and her heart with the other, staring at the massive mouse-costume head currently two inches from her face and grinning at her. It had sprung up out of the darkness behind mouse seemed a little surprised and Quinn watched him take a step back, trying to contain her own heart attack that her wife's shriek had caused.

"Hi, I'm Chucky!" the mouse said cheerily, looking between the two. "And what's your name?" He asked Rachel.

Rachel narrowed her eyes at him, hoping this wasn't going where she thought it was, and focused on calming her still heavy breathing.

Quinn slowly smiled across the table, realizing exactly where this was going, and addressed the mouse brightly. "Hi Chucky! This is Rachel. You'll have to forgive her; she's not very fond of mice."

"And how old are you Rachel?"

"She just had a birthday actually!"

Quinn smiled sweetly at her very obviously unamused wife. Chucky seemed to laugh, or she assumed it was a laugh. It could also be construed as a drunken sway with unintelligible noises coming from inside the mask. She saw Rachel lean back as the pointed noise invaded her personal space.

"I'm 24, thank you very much Quinn." Rachel glared at her grinning wife. She turned back to Chucky, who looked a little surprised, judging by the way he jerked his head back. He held his hand up to his chest, making a gesture Rachel didn't seem to understand.

Quinn got it right away; he was trying to get the message across that 'oh, you're so short sitting down, I just thought you were one of the kids. No big deal.' Quinn knew it would be taken as 'ohmygod you're freaking tiny; I thought you were a child. I don't like you or anything you stand for and I am personally offended by your lack of height.'

"Hey Chucky!" Quinn caught sight of their pizza coming up. "Oh look, our pizza's here! Thanks so much, but…get lost, okay?"

Chucky glanced at Rachel before nodding happily and sauntering away to scare the shit out of some other poor soul.

Rachel opened her mouth to berate her wife and Quinn had the sense to force her face into a contrite expression for a moment, before somebody slid smoothly into the seat next to her.

"Haha ohmygod, you guys just got Chuckied!" Santana laughed loudly.

Brittany happily slid into the seat next to Rachel. "It's okay Rach, he got San too. She dropped her fruit punch down her front and we had to go change her pants in the car!"

Rachel's eyes widened and Santana groaned.

"Yeah Rach, it's okay." Quinn stated through her laughter. "At least you didn't end up stripping in the parking lot of a Chuck E. Cheese because of a pedophilic mouse." Santana glared and Rachel smiled. "Thank you."

Ben and Beth ran up at that point, excitedly grabbing pizza and settling themselves at the end of the table. "Are you having fun, sweetie?" Rachel asked, handing her a stack of napkins.

Beth nodded furiously and spoke through her mouthful of pizza. "I beat Aunt Britt in the dance game!" Brittany agreed sagely, shaking her head. "Girl's a beast."

"So what are you guys doing here?" Quinn asked Santana.

"Oh, you know, just chillin'." Santana replied, looking away.

Quinn snorted. "Oh yeah. Chillin' at the Chuck E. Cheese. You are bad ass Santana"

Santana turned and glared at her . "Shut up Q. You know you would go wherever your woman tried to drag you as well. Today it just happened to be damn Chuck E. Cheese."

Quinn looked at her wife, who was laughing lightly with Brittany and cutting up Beth's pizza into squares. "Yeah." She said absently. Now it was Santana's turn to snort.

"Alright Britts, Bennyboy, time to go." She said a few minutes later. Ben opened his mouth to protest and was silenced by Santana's hand. "No Benny, we've been here for seven and half hours." Quinn choked on her pizza at this. "Mommy's having trouble holding on to her sanity."

"Seeing as you lost your dignity all four and half hours ago." Quinn remarked.

Brittany smiled at her wife and stood up, holding Ben's hand. She gave Rachel and Beth a hug, as did Ben, and laced her arm over Santana's shoulder. "Bye guys! Have fun!"

"Bye Britt." Quinn smiled at her warmly and then faced Santana. "Watch out for Chucky on your way out S. Wouldn't want you to get too traumatized."

"…freaking molested…" Santana muttered as she walked away.

Beth finished her pizza and wormed five more dollars out of Rachel's purse before running off and climbing into the hamster-tube-like playground.

"I'm running to the bathroom, babe." Quinn said, standing up. "Wanna come?"

Rachel raised her eyebrows suggestively but shook her head. "I'll keep our table."

Quinn walked away, but not after scanning the area surrounding their table for creepy men dressed as animals who might spring themselves upon her wife. She skirted around the stage full of twenty-year old animatronic characters, giving it a much wider berth than was necessary, and made her way to the restroom.

That was the last Rachel saw of her for fifteen minutes. Then Beth came running up, grinning massively and a little breathless.

"Mama! Mommy told me to come get you. She's stuck in one of the tubes in the playground!"

Rachel processed this for a moment and her mouth spread slowly into a smile.

"Excuse me?"

"Mommy's stuck in the playground!"

"How did Mommy get stuck up there?"

"I wanted to show her this really cool bouncy thing but we didn't get that far and her leg went through a hole and she told me to come get you."

Rachel could barely contain her laughter. She stood up and allowed Beth to lead her to the entrance of the playground, where her smile faded slightly.

"Hmmmm. Okay this reminds of some not so pleasant bounce house experiences."

Beth ignored her and dragged the both of them through the hole and into the small tube. Rachel didn't miss the weird looks some other parents and little kids were giving her. She did miss the sign that said nobody over twelve years of age allowed in the playground.

Beth led them through various tubes and up some steps and rubber ramps, then through an area of heavy 'punching bags' hanging from the ceiling. After crawling through some car-wash-esque cylinders Rachel was ready to vomit from the smell and the claustrophobia. But then they finally came upon Quinn.

The blonde woman was sitting in the corner, one leg under her, the other stuck through the gap between the platform and the next 'hamster tube.' Rachel smiled fondly at her and Quinn pouted when she caught sight of them, leaning her head back against the net behind her.

"Awww baby. How's my little gerbil?"

Quinn groaned. "Raaaach. Help me please."

Rachel smiled and kneeled down, kissing Quinn's forehead. She maneuvered her wife until the blonde was sitting sideways to the net, and then reached down and grabbed Quinn's foot through the gap. Looking through the net, Rachel saw, with much amusement, that a crowd was gathering to watch the spectacle Quinn had made of herself.

Rachel wriggled Quinn's leg around, slowing slightly when her wife whined a little. "Did I hurt you baby?" she asked, face full of concern.

Quinn shook her head, and a few minutes later her leg slid neatly through the gap. Rachel announced it with a loud "Aha!" and the both of them stood up. Quinn exhaled deeply and Rachel leaned in to whisper something in her ear. "It was that thigh baby. I mean, seriously, that playground just did not want to let you go…"

Quinn turned bright red and moved ahead to follow Beth down to the exit of the 'hamster death trap.' They ended their journey by tumbling down a slide, where Rachel landed in a heap on top of Quinn, Beth giggling madly.

Quinn looked up to find their 'overgrown-boy-man-smiley-waiter' looking down at her. He was most definitely not smiling. Quinn finally grinned. Mission accomplished.

"Mama?" Beth tugged on Rachel's arm and the brunette scooped her daughter up.

"Yes Squigee?"

"Can we go play laser tag next week?"

Rachel glanced at Quinn with a devious smile on her lips. Quinn shook her head wildly, mouthing 'never again.'

"Of course we can honey." Rachel replied, wrapping her arm around Quinn. "I'm sure the gerbil here would love to run around in the dark with more screaming hoards of sticky kids. Right sweetheart?"

Quinn sighed, but pulled Rachel's head into her shoulder and kissed her temple.

"Anything you want."