Babysitter's Club

[catchacold]

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[boilover]

So it HAS to be a crib. Cool, cool.

Just curious. You know. Wondering. I'm in the baby aisle and I was curious and stuff.

[catchacold]

I know you like picking up babes, but that ain't what that means.

Talk to me.

[boilover]

Well, I'll know what to do if a girl I pick up has a baby or something

I should really go...

check in later?

[catchacold]

Stay exactly where you are.

[boilover]

... what?

why?

I'm in the cereal aisle? Am I like near a bomb or something?

[catchacold]

"You have a baby." Leonard said it from right behind Mick, of course somehow casually leaning against the aisle, his eyes on the baby. He lifted his hand to wave and while the baby was too little to do much, he was already smiling. Happy baby. Cute.

"Tell me what's up. Baby looks familiar."

[boilover]

"It's wet, I think it peed. Are those gonna work?" He nodded his head towards the trolley he had, where baby things had been throw in. Bottle, formula, diapers, talc, all the stuff he saw when he googled 'what do babies need' and he was pretty sure that was what he needed. He was holding Teddy sort of awkwardly, like he was afraid it'd get too close to him and he pulled a face when he looked at him. The baby was in a scrappy looking bear onesie for warmth but it looked old, worn and not very costly.

Lazy as mom couldn't even dress him nice before dumping him off. "It's nothing. I'm gonna get rid of it soon, no worries. I don't do babies."

[catchacold]

"Mick. That's your child, isn't it?" It was pretty obvious. Leonard pulled out his wallet for a quick check, than looked at what Mick had in the trolley already. "You're gonna need a lot more stuff. Do you even have clothes?" Leonard walked closer to them both, holding a hand out to the kid and smiling when a tiny hand clamped around his finger. "A boy or a girl?"

[boilover]

"It's not! Look, I had a fling and some bitch dumped it on my doorstep, doesn't mean it's mine. It's like a baby. It's not my baby and she can't fucking prove it, okay?" Mick insisted as he glared down at the kid, who wriggled and reached out, making a happy noise as it held onto Leonard's finger, wriggling a little. "I dunno? I don't want to look, it's creepy." Could he look at a babies ... down there area? It was a baby! "We don't need clothes, I gotta return it. I can just dump it somewhere over night and then give it back to her."

[catchacold]

"You want to give the kid to someone you don't even like that doesn't want it?" Leonard just raised an eyebrow and reached up to stroke the baby's cheek. "You can look into adoption agencies, but it ain't gonna be easy. Besides, the system's pretty broken. Look at Axel." His broken boy. Leonard looked up at Mick and down again, then back up. "Bad news, Mick. That kid looks like you."

[boilover]

"He's not mine, she can have him back. She can raise him. She did all this time!" Mick knew she probably wasn't an option, her note said not to look for her, she couldn't cope and she had to leave him. Outside in the hallway, crying and cold. Mick almost stepped on the baby going out to smoke. He pulled a face at the kid and then held it out to Leonard like it was a dirty football. "It looks nothing like me, get lost. Here, just ... just leave it in the display crib and let's run."

[catchacold]

"I'm not leaving your child anywhere." Leonard took the tiny baby from Mick and cradled it in his arm, gently rocking it. "Did she mention if she'd named the baby?" Leonard looked down at the kid, trying to estimate. "Just a few weeks old, I'm guessing. She say anything about when it was born? Birth certificate? You got anything?" He knew they had to figure this stuff out fast. "You need to get a bottle. Did you buy one yet? And pacifiers."

[boilover]

"Nope, just a letter where she whined for like two pages. Had it in an alley after prom, didn't want to tell her parents, too much stress to hide it and then she left it with me. She didn't really mention a name. Or gender. Just 'baby'." Mick pulled a face and looked at the baby, head tilted to the side. It looked at him, just blinking and watching, clearly curious. "The bottle is in the trolley. Do I put water in it? I guess I can use the tap in the bathroom." Mick shrugged his shoulders. "I didn't get one of those pacifier thingies though. He sucks his hand plenty."

[catchacold]

"Great." What else did one even say to that, other than that this was the world's calmest baby? "You're lucky he's so damn happy, given he apparently got one crappy set of parents." There, that should bring his point home. "And, no, Mick. A baby that age can only drink milk. Mother's milk, ideally, but in this case formula in normal milk will have to do. So we need to pick up some fresh milk. And the pacifiers are important for how the mouth develops, stuff like that, so you need those."

[boilover]

"You think it's a he?" He had a son... huh. Weird. That was a weird concept. He frowned at the list and rubbed at his head, groaning in frustration. "This is such bullshit! I just made all that money from our job, I was going to get some nudies, DVDs and a fucking new set of headlights and now I gotta piss it all away on fucking baby stuff? What the hell?!" Of course Mick was getting angry, he was Mick, he did that. He huffed angrily and kicked at a shelf of cereal, causing some boxes to fall off and Teddy, who had been nice and calm up until now, started to cry. Of course he did, his daddy was being loud and angry.

[catchacold]

"I'll pay for the stuff you're getting now, Mick. I just had a great haul the other night. Now calm down, you're upsetting him. I ain't gonna let you make your son cry like some asshole father. Got enough of those." Leonard rocked the child a little, turning around. He was pretty sure it was a son, just from the looks of him and some other hints, but they'd know for sure soon. "Now see if we can't find a blanket and towel for him. You need somewhere to lie him down for changing, might as well. And there's special shampoo and stuff for babies."

[boilover]

"Can't you go get that stuff?" Mick huffed as he pulled a face and, eventually, he headed off to get what he was hold. He came back with a baby towel, a pacifier, some clothes, a blanket and the shampoo. He watched Leonard with the kid for a moment before pulling a face. "If you get the rest, I'll do the -- the thing. I think I can do it?" How hard could changing a diaper be? It was like putting on pants that fastened at the side.

[catchacold]

"I'll help you with the thing. Now... How did you even get him here? Do you have a car seat?" That was worrisome. "Also, does he have anything like a bear or other cute thing? Come on, you don't want your son to feel unloved. He's still all worried because you screamed at him." It was true, the baby looked a lot more disconcerted than before.

[boilover]

"Nah, I balanced him on my knees, took the back roads and drove real slow. You can hold him on the way back, we're good." No, Mick was not someone who was that child aware, he never had much to do with children and he didn't really think things through. What young man really did. "I-I ... no, I didn't get a bear." Was he supposed to get a bear? Did he need a bear? Fuck. He was already doing this so badly. He looked so stressed and freaked as he stared at them both for a moment before he took off running.

When he came back, he had an arm full of bears. Would bears make this better? He hoped so. "There. Bears. And I didn't scream at him, I yelled at the shelving. He just took it personally."

[catchacold]

"Yeah, you gonna explain to the tiny baby that you didn't mean it personally?" It was a rhetoric question, but part of Leonard wouldn't be surprised if Mick actually turned to the baby to explain it. He was clearly taking this seriously, in his own way. Good. Especially since the baby now happily stretched his little arms out, looking at the bears Mick was holding. "Okay, Mick. We gotta get him a car seat. Just look it up online. Babies need that stuff."

To prove his point, Leonard pulled up an article on his phone with his free hand and held it out to Mick.

[boilover]

"Oh. Shit. But how do I know which one is good? I suck at this. It's a headache. I don't know what kids need. I can't even get a crib today, I can't fit a crib in my car, not even a flat pack. I dunno where he's sleeping." Mick tossed the bear to Leonard as he fucked back into the other aisle and looked around, pacing around until he found the nearest car seat. He came back with it and held it out with approval. "Any good?"

[catchacold]

"I'll get a crib. We get this stuff home and then I can go back out with my car and buy the crib and anything else. We got this." They did not, but Leonard could stay calm and act like he had a plan. It was basically his role. He could pretend to have this figured out, for Mick's sake. He looked at the car seat and nodded, after checking what ages it was for. "Should work. You got the milk, right? I think we're set for now. I can pick up anything else when I get the crib."

[boilover]

"Okay, we can do this." The baby kept making noises and whimpering, fidgeting sadly and Mick looked at him with a frown. "He's still wet. Can we like... change him here?" Mick meant the floor, not the changing room at the back of the store where the bathroom was because that'd be a sensible and clever suggestion. Mick pushed the trolley along, certain he had everything Leonard had asked him to get.

[catchacold]

"Nah. Issue is, they only got a changing table in the women's bathroom and they don't welcome hoodlums there. I always had trouble when Lisa was tiny and didn't wanna go to the bathroom by herself." The many unexpected challenges. Leonard followed Mick, heading for the cashiers while he looked at all they had actually gotten. Looked like a good first haul, at least. "You might wanna inform yourself some, they got a lot of sites online that talk about baby care."

[boilover]

"Great." Mick muttered in annoyance but the baby kept squirming, he looked unhappy and for some reason, it was bugging the hell out of him. He didn't like those little whimpers. He didn't like to see the kid so unhappy and hell, he'd hate it if he had to sit around in something like that. With a huff, he took the baby off Leonard in a snap decision, grabbed the bag of diapers that had just been scanned and stormed off to the women's bathroom. Something that, debatably, was a terrible idea. The thing about Mick was not only was he stubborn and determined when he wanted to be but he was also pretty good at charming people.

He called into the bathroom, stating his intentions and once no one overly objected, he set himself the task of changing him so the kid would stop whining and be happy again, explaining his thinking to any girl that entered and most seemed chill. Or offered feedback. Even so, he wasn't very good at it, his first go was hazardous at best but he soon wrestled the baby back into his onesie and returned from the bathroom just as the shop security turned up. "Oh, fuck off, what else am I going to do? Put a changing table in the mens room, genius." Mick dismissed as he slipped away from the security and came back over to Leonard, stone faced and holding a now content baby. "He's a boy."