bakerstreet | Parenting Meme

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Parenting Meme

The Parenting Meme

HOW IT WORKS:
➔ Post with your characters, one per comment please.
➔ Others tag your muse with a number choice. Either use the RNG or pick whichever you like. For optimum fun, be adventurous! Throw random characters at each other and see what fun shenanigans you can get up to.
➔ Congratulations! Now you're parents. Hopefully you won't screw this up too much.
➔ Have fun!

01. You’ve just gotten the news, you’re pregnant. Time to tell your spouse. OR You’ve just gotten the news, you’re approved for adoption! Time to tell your spouse.
02. Oh my God, you’re in labor! OR Oh my God, time to meet your adoption prospect.
03. It’s the first night home with your new baby. Good luck.
04. Now you know why they call it the terrible twos. How are you and your spouse coping?
05. It’s your little one’s first day of school. You and your spouse are seeing them off.
06. Sitting in the stands for your kid’s big sports game. You two cheer as loud as you can!
07. The only thing worse than a two-year-old is a teenager. Time to discuss what's an appropriate punishment.
08. Hopefully you’ve got fresh batteries in your camera for prom pictures. Maybe your spouse remembered.
09. Your kid is off to college. You can’t believe the number of boxes you’ve got to fit in your car and carry to their dorm.
10. You’re older, wiser and probably going to cry at your kid's wedding. At least you two still have each other.

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[ she lives for this. ]

[ scenarios 1, 2, & 3 preferred, but open to others with discussion. ]

( Daniel doesn't know anything about gardening, or how fast roses grow. if he did, he'd be better able to make jokes about how many cousins Margaery has. and how there always seem to be more popping out of the woodwork. they've spent $10,000 on extravagant baby shower presents this year alone, and it's not even over yet. the way she throws herself into each present and each party and each christening stings somewhere deep down and distant. reminds him of that momentary crushed expression the night he told her about Le Domas traditions and midnight games, quickly chased away with a stern set of her shoulders.

it's not something they can change. or should change, fuck. there's just so many reasons they should never have children and Margaery is smart enough she has to understand why. she's never asked if he thought about a reversal and Daniel is glad she hasn't. he's not entirely sure that she wouldn't be able to convince him if she set her mind to it. and from impartial distance, making sure there's no more branches on his family tree is the best thing they could do for their child — just not having one. another soul lost to Le Bail, whether he's real or not. another child raised on blood and contempt. Georgie and Gabe are enough, even if his father complains on the regular that they don't carry the family name. maybe that even makes them safer — Bradley isn't on the contract, right?

still, it's pretty obvious that Margaery is dedicating some of her nesting instincts into doting on her many cousins. Daniel isn't heartless enough to stand in the way of something that fills in the gap of what he can't give her. if she wants to go to Aspen for a baby shower or to buy her favorite little cousin something sporty and safe to put the new carseat she's buying in, Daniel doesn't see the harm in it. he'll enable it, why not? he's more comfortable with her using money to fill in the gaps, so when she curls up to him one morning and wonders if he wouldn't mind her babysitting over the weekend, Daniel doesn't really think much of it. he'd interrupted her innocent inquiries with lazy half asleep kisses and an obliging, yes dear.

it's not that he forgot, coming into the kitchen after spending time at the office if not actually working to find his wife with an armful of wailing infant. he just... didn't think he was also involved with the babysitting. Daniel braves closer to kiss his wife, a thoughtless gesture Margaery has wisely never commented on so he can continue to get away with it. he gingerly touches the baby on the cheek, almost compelled to comfort even if he doesn't entirely sure how. ) I take it the babysitting is happening here. ( he really should have pursued details over orgasms this morning. that was his first mistake. )

[ Margaery's heard her cousins being called the "Tyrell roses from lower branches" in the media almost all their lives, and while it's not the type of sentiment she likes to consider, it's undoubtedly true when it comes to the hierarchy of their large clan. it's always been her, touted as the media darling and family favorite, and every time she gets to hold a baby in her arms, or place a gentle hand on a swollen belly at a baby shower, she feels the price of it weighing on her - a snip, and another cut of her heart being taken as she has to stare down the future she'll never get to have.

she's wondered, all her life, what the cost of all her status and adoration is. she knows now. life is all about balance, after all, and cold calculations. for all the little girls she inspires, she will never have her own little one to look up to her.

so when Daniel says i take it the babysitting is happening here, she doesn't ask if it's okay, or offer a cute quip in return, because during this weekend, Lia Tyrell is the center of her universe and she's only too happy to busy herself with everything else later when her sweet niece is gone and crushing sadness is more of a viable threat. ]

Thank goodness you're here.

[ she leans in to his kiss on a purely instinctive basis, smiling as Daniel's fingers brush uncertainly against a soft, chubby cheek. Lia fusses at it immediately, her cries turning up into another level of shrill when she realizes it's not the food she's expressly demanding in this very moment. Margaery coos, rocking her gently in hopes of getting her to calm even just the slightest bit, wishing so much that it'd be as easy as undoing the buttons of her blouse, but at least the bottle warmer is on the kitchen counter, right next to the bottle of breast milk she'd already taken out earlier. ]

She's hungry, but I don't want to put her down and I have to warm up a bottle. Do you mind-?

[ she might be asking, but he doesn't actually have a choice. and that is how Daniel Le Domas gets a soft, warm load of baby in his arms, angry hot tears immediately leaking onto his shirt as Lia continues to express her dissent to this unfair treatment. even his bowtie is in danger of being tugged at by sixteen pounds of terror as Margaery works to heat up the milk as quickly as she can. ]

( it's not that he's never held a baby. Georgie had been surly, even as an infant, so he'd done the expected uncle duties and little more than that. Gabe was hardly more fussy when he was little than he was now and overall a much more fun baby to hold. Gabe was 100% Daniel's favorite nephew, to this day, and it's obvious. probably from a time where wandering with a baby was a good excuse to leave a party, and Gabe had been a wild-eyed all seeing silent lump, so he'd been good company. and he's held babies of coworkers, usually dumped and thrust on him in similar fashions. nearby and arms seem functional enough to hold the fragile thing for an extremely condensed period.

Margaery seems to have come to the same conclusion, as he suddenly has an arm full of the world's tiniest Tyrell, at least until the next one is born in two months. Daniel doesn't entirely know what to do with a human being this small, he's only ever just winged it, though how can things go entirely south when it's for two minutes, tops? he adjusts his grip on the tearful terror, balancing her in one arm instead of both because his arms have always been stupidly long and one is plenty to support a body so tiny. that leaves a hand free to lean into the bow tie abuse by flapping the edges to Lia's instant consternation. how dare the dangling expensive fabric not immediately ply itself to her frustrated baby wishes? her chubby hand with darling tiny perfect fingers scrubs up his expensive shirt in attempts to reclaim it. with big huffs and an intensely wobbling chin as if to punctuate she's not forgotten any of the present injustices, she just needs to resolve this one issue and she'll get right back to wailing.

god, kids are cute. it's easier not to notice this fact when you don't have a doughy armful of one. Daniel is trying not to be endeared by that watery look of demented baby frustration as Lia devotes herself to depriving him of his bowtie, and frankly he's failing. his attention is entirely on the baby and not the wandering wife trying to put together the world's fastest bottle, sacrificing his bowtie to the greater good. to be perfectly fair, if Daniel was worried about bowtie integrity he probably shouldn't have torn it apart himself before he even made it home. ) Was the babysitting happening here a hint I was supposed to clear out for the weekend? ( if it was, he was too busy kissing down her neck and trying to pull her back into bed to take it. whoops. )

[ it's probably sad, just a little bit, at how Margaery is a complete expert with her bottle warming services, down to the way she squirts some milk onto the back of her hand to test the temperature. there's also something to be said about how she feels at home like this, so ready and excited to cater to every whim and wish of this chonky baby that she'd only met a few months ago. ]

Alright-

[ she turns with the bottle in hand, looking victorious, and promptly pauses.

there's probably a rule out there somewhere that she should not be endeared by the sight of her broad, tube-tied husband helplessly enamored by her tiny niece's antics. Lia's almost got a bowtie tip in her mouth, tiny fists already completely slobbered over with her saliva, and yet - there's nothing but soft patience in Daniel's expression, with a heavy helping of his inherent sweetness that he almost never brings to the surface.

Margaery moves closer with the bottle before Daniel can notice her simply observing, appropriately matching Lia's excitement with her own. ]

I think you should keep holding her while she feeds.

[ the decision is an easy one, although not one she immediately understands herself. is it some poor way of punishing Daniel for killing her dreams of a large family? is it because she wants to take advantage of Lia's clear influence over him? no. because her husband looks almost happy, for one. and if there's anything she's feeling right now, it's how much she simply wants to keep watching. and living in this moment. this strange, fantastical moment where Lia is diligently chugging away at her bottle, nestled in Daniel's arms, and Margaery can almost pretend this is real. ]

You can leave if you want to. I would never force you to stay or go, but I know you didn't sign up to babysit. I was going to sleep out in the living room anyway because I'll be glued to a baby monitor all weekend.

[ she stands closer, resting her cheek on Daniel's shoulder as one arm curls around his waist, smile faint; somehow, she gets the sense that Daniel won't be able to resist staying. ]

( Daniel isn't surprised how easily Margaery flits through a $20,000 baby bag (hers or the cousins? does Margaery have her own baby bag?) and around the process of preparing a bottle, looking like she's done it a hundred times. that it's a role she can easily just step into, because there's not many things Margaery can't just effortlessly breeze through. even more so knowing it's something she'd wanted, wanted enough to ask about it even in the face of her in-laws turning potentially murderous. no, it doesn't surprise him at all that she takes to children easily. it is indeed a little sad, though, how easily she takes to something she won't get to have on the terms she wants them.

another life, an easier match, she could have had a dozen little roses of her own. she could have had her own little dimpled garden. maybe her husband wouldn't have been entirely useless, the type of guy that could rally from a marriage he didn't want and make something of it anyway. maybe they'd have been as close to happy as their obligations and expectations could allow. instead, she's grafted onto a dead branch of a poisoned tree. it's not that he didn't warn her — Daniel warned her about just about everything in attempts to scare her off, she knew what she was getting into. he's not so secure in the choice that Daniel doesn't feel a little guilty about it. it's the right choice for him, sure, but Margaery didn't end up getting a choice at all. he knows how badly that rankles.

it'd be easy to push him away for that. strike out at the guilty party, the easiest and most approachable target for how the cards have been stacked against her. honestly that's what makes the most objective sense, just from how he was raised. he's definitely been the easiest and most approachable target when things go wrong. according to his father's instant and fiery rage, punching down when you can't entirely reach the actual problem is an absolutely acceptable form of catharsis. it'd honestly be the expected course of action, if he was outside of the moment and dissecting all of it within an inch of its life.

he's not. he's chuckling at Lia's feverish victory, sucking on the end of his bowtie like she expects it to be anything but overly expensive fabric. her victory in hand and somehow disappointing, her expression is already screwing up into another wail to punctuate the intense betrayal she's currently feeling. maybe the rise of more tears should be frustrating. after hours of it, maybe it would be. somehow right now it's charming, watching that tiny body cycle through at least 8 emotions bigger than she is in the span of two minutes. babies are remarkable, aren't they? tiny little humans at their most fragile and innocent. so determined to learn and explore and both incredibly suspect to frustration and yet packed with enough resolve to figure out a big scary world despite it.

he's bouncing her, Grade A baby distraction technique, just... vibrate them a little, and the whole world looks different — when Margaery winds closer and he forces his brain in reverse to actually take mind of the fact she said something to him. ) What? No. She wants auntie, I bet. ( gangly gumby man was an okay distraction while Margaery was busy, but comfort and familiarity for feeding made more sense. Lia is wailing miserably around his now damp bowtie, which is a perfect punctuation to his point.

and maybe he knows how much Margaery craves that connection, wide eyes with implicit trust staring back at her. Daniel likes babies well enough but he doesn't find himself desperate for an armful of one. thrust in his direction on occasion is more than enough for him. Margaery is the one that cut a weekend out of her life to babysit when she could have hired a nanny. or, fuck, delegated it to another cousin that was a little older than this one. he's selfish, but not that selfish. and it's possible holding the baby longer than five minutes might make him wistful and wishful and those are two things he can't afford to feel.

so yes, he does trade the baby back into Margaery's arms with perhaps excessive amount of care, but he doesn't flit off to trash TV or to fix himself a drink or to hit the showers immediately after, either. her arms around him felt nice, turns out, so he returns the favor. his arms are longer, more suited for slinking around two different bodies. he tucks his chin over her shoulder and gets to admire the growing expression of content as Lia finally gets the bottle she's been so desperately trying to communicate her need of, pale watery eyes locked on Margaery like she's the only thing in her tiny universe. Daniel tucks a kiss against Margaery's shoulder, more or less aware his answer will be miles away now that the baby is back in her arms. ) I'll stay out of the way.

( suffice to say, Margaery is right, he won't pack up and head to a hotel. and while he won't directly tell his wife to just take the monitor into the living room he will fall asleep on the couch with her instead of wandering off to bed alone. and he's already off to such a great start on staying out of the way, right, wound around both of them? maybe he'll get more hands off in a bit. it's a nice moment, what can he say? )

elia martell | asoiaf | ota

margaery tyrell | game of thrones

i'm breaking the rules nobody can stop me (11 aka the one where they borrow a baby)

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Yzma | Emperor's New Groove |OTA

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Merlin | Fate/

Horatio Hornblower | Hornblower

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lmk if i need to change anything <3

love it <3

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happy tears time

terrible

joyce byers | stranger things