nebula :: [malik]

[ xxxiii :: parenthood ]

a/n so I'm sorry if you read this earlier before I deleted it. The wrong copy got saved over it and I had to re-fvcking-write it and i was like real mad so if this is slightly different then that's why.
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Like baby, baby, baby oooh

I thought you'd always be mine (mine).

- "Baby" || Justin Bieber

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"Can you handle her?"

"Uh...Sure?"

"Thanks a bunch," says Sherrie, the woman with greying, frizzy brown hair who seems to be absolutely overwhelmed by the incessant crying surrounding her. A plump, light-brown-skinned baby is placed into his arms. She cooes, gurgling up at him. "She's walking, now, according to her mom, so you've got a runner on your hands."

"Oh, alright," Zayn nods, although he's smiling down at the baby. "Good."

"Yes," Sherrie says breathlessly, as one of the twins Magdalena's been assigned plops down and begins to cry. "Yes," she says again, because her daycare is just too big and while she's happy the entire Arts Department of NYU has formed a partnership with her, the place is really just too small and there are just too many occupants aged 4 and below, despite her helping hands. "Okay," and Sherrie pivots away, "Thanks again. Yes," she's staring around the room - the baby room - wondering why there is so much commotion at 10 AM on a Saturday. "Yes," she repeats, and she turns to Zayn, who has got the baby, Brooklyn, bouncing in his arms laughing.

He turns to her. "Anything else?"

"No," she shakes her head abruptly, because the girl, Magdalena, seems to have gotten the twins to quiet down although there's a boy, a Lucky, who seems to really need some help. "Call if you need anything," she exclaims, tossing the words over her shoulder before hurrying over to the two.

Zayn has Brooklyn in his arms and hasn't stopped smiling since she's been placed there. The baby is grabbing at his beard, wriggling in his arms.

"Wanna get down?" He asks, lowering her to the floor.

The baby takes off, wobbling away.

Zayn follows. "Alright, then. After you."

__

"Louis, for the first time in my life, I'm jealous of you," Anais says, because upstairs, the toddlers have all flocked around him. "They all seem to like you better than the rest of us."

"What can I say?" He shrugs, poking one of the girls in the stomach and sending her into a fit of giggles. "I've got a gift, Anais."

She rolls her eyes, stacking blocks with a few three-year-olds. "Says you."

He holds out his arms to the kids around them. "Says them. And quite frankly, their opinions are the only ones that matter in the moment."

"Fair enough -- Ah, Alec," she exclaims, as the curly-headed boy boy holds up the horse he'd been playing with, "Is that your horsie?"

He nods.

"What's its name?"

"Um. Um," the boy stutters. "His, his name is, it's Brownie."

"Brownie?" Anais takes a pretend bite from the horse. "Yummy."

Louis snickers as the boy laughs, "No," he recoils, snatching back his horse. "You can't eat him. You can't eat a horse."

"What?" Anais gasps, and Alec leans against her, repositioning himself so that he's sitting now in her lap. "Okay," she says. "Get comfortable."

Alec is, and he's making Brownie gallop along her thigh.