forum Mending the Broken // Private RP // CLOSED

Started February 01, 2019 by @blue_topaz

tune

Devon shivered and tightened her jacket around herself against the frigid air. She should really invest in a warmer coat than her thin jacket, but she didn't really have the money to. As it was, she was barely getting by with feeding herself and Layla, as well as paying for her daughter's daycare and rent for the apartment they lived in.

Maybe she should get a second job… That might help things a little… But where would Layla go?

No, she couldn't do that to her precious daughter. She couldn't be away from her for more than she already was. The poor girl cried every time she was dropped off, and she looks so happy whenever she was picked up.

Take today, for instance. Devon had dropped Layla off early this morning, and she had thankfully been asleep. Now, she was at the daycare, and she could hear the sweet laughter that her little miracle could always be found by.

When Devon stepped into the room, Layla saw her and immediately ran toward her, a huge grin on her face.

"Mommy, mommy!" the toddler bubbled as she attached herself to her mom's leg.

Other parents were arriving, excited babbling filling the room, but Sebastian only had eyes for his daughter.
"Ella!" He crouched, reaching out to scoop her up into a tight embrace when she stumbled towards him. "Dadda!" she repeated, delighted, a giggle escaping her tiny mouth as her father peppered her face with kisses. Ella clapped her tiny fists and laughed, reaching out for him while making grabby hands. Sebastian let her pull on his hair, poke his cheeks, lean forward to give him a slobbery kiss. He was practically glowing with happiness when he stood, keeping his beautiful baby girl tucked safely into his embrace.

He stood, his expression wiped clear of all exhaustion, all bitter frustration. "Were you good today, hm? Did you play with the trains?"

Even tired from work, Devon was immediately grinning from ear to ear when she saw her daughter. She scooped the girl into her arms and kissed her nose, earning some happy giggles from the already-smiling child.

"Hey, babycakes! Did you have fun? Did you play with the babies?" the woman cooed to her daughter, nuzzling her nose with her own.

Layla laughed again and huge her mother tightly, burying her face in her shoulder. "Yes! Babies are fun. We had snacks today!"

"Oh? What did you have? Animal crackers?" Devon asked, blowing a raspberry into her daughter's squishy cheek.

"An'mal crackers, yes!" Layla agreed, nodding.

Ella nodded vigorously, bursting out into ecstatic laughter once more. The tiny girl hugged her father tight, somehow widening the huge grin already spreading across his face. She burbled, tiny bubbles of saliva leaking out of the corner of her mouth, and Sebastian, always prepared, pulled a tissue from his pocket to wipe the drool away, bouncing her up and down.

"You wanna go home?" Sebastian's voice softened, turning mushy, as it always did in front of his baby girl. Ella wriggled excitedly and almost slipped from his grip, causing him to stumble straight into another parent as he scrambled to adjust his arms around her before she fell.

"Sorry!" He turned and found himself face-to-face with a blonde woman holding a little girl almost identical to her.

Devon stumbled a little when someone ran into her, but she quickly righted herself and Layla. She blushed a little as she looked up and found herself close to a man holding his own little daughter, who looked to be a coule of years younger than her own. She shook her head and stepped back.

"It's fine, don't worry about it," she said softly.

Layla wa totally unfazed by the whole thing and giggled when she saw the other girl. "El! El!" she called leaning forward in her mother's arms and toward the other girl.

Sebastian realized with a jolt that this woman was around the same age as him— and cradling a toddler in her arms. Caught up in momentary stupor, he almost lost his grip on Ella again when she threw herself forward towards the other little girl, yelling "Layla! Layla!" at the top of her lungs. He stumbled again, quickly drawing back before he crashed straight into the stranger again.

Maybe once, he might have looked at her and considered her to be pretty, but he never noticed things like that anymore, so he merely stammered out another apology. "I'm sorry– I think they know each other—" Ella's bottom lip began to tremble as she reached for the other girl again, ready to burst into tears.

Devon swallowed and offered a small smile. She was really no good with small talk these days; not with men, anyway. It had been a long time since she had been comfortable around a guy who wasn't related to her…

"Looks like it," she agreed quietly as Layla continued to squirm in her arms.

The little girl was having none of this whole "holding back" thing. She just wanted to get to her friend, and leaning as far forward as she possibly could seemed like the best way to do so.

(nvm, I'm back now)

Sebastian could clearly tell that the woman was uncomfortable in his presence, which of course caused his brain to jump to conclusions that he quickly brushed away. He would have forced out an awkward 'goodbye' and turned away had Ella not burst into tears when she saw that her attempts were proving to be useless.
"Hey, shhh…" he murmured hastily, bouncing her up and down. "Don't worry, silly, you'll see your friend tomorrow." His voice softened drastically, but it was no good; Ella just stared up at him with tears eyes and continued to bawl.

Devon looked at the smaller child with a small smile. "Looks like they really don't want to leave each other," she chuckled softly as Layla started to do the same as her friend. "Layla, honey, we have to go. Mommy's tired, and don't you want to go play with your dolls?"

Layla sniffled a few more times before looking up at her mother with a slightly confused expression. "Babies? Go home and play with babie?" she questioned, gaining a "Yes" from her mom. She smiled a little and hugged Devon again. "Mommy play, too?"

"Sure, honey. Mommy will play, too," Devon said gently, kissing her daughter on the nose.

Eventually, Sebastian managed to calm Ella down with promises of applesauce and her elephant plushie, bouncing her up and down and ruffling her head of blonde curls.

“Sorry,” he apologized once more, pulling another napkin from his pocket to gently wipe his daughter’s cheeks. “Anyways, it was nice meeting you.”

Devon nodded and offered him a small smile. “You as well…” she trailed off, realizing she didn’t know that man’s name. “Sorry, I don’t believe I caught your name…”

“Oh— I’m Sebastian.” He offered an awkward but genuinely friendly smile, as if he wasn’t quite sure what to do in social situations such as this, and balanced Ella precariously on his hip with one arm so he could extend a hand to shake.

Devon glanced down at his hand and took it carefully, having to shift Layla up higher on her side so that she could do so.

“Devon. It was nice to meet you,” she introduced herself before drawing her hand away.

Suddenly afraid that he’d made her uncomfortable, Sebastian slipped his free hand into his daughter’s hair as if to reassure the woman— Devon— that he wasn’t going to reach out again. “Yeah,” he answered, plopping a kiss on Ella’s nose when she began to get fidgety. “Unfortunately, I should probably get going. Um, have a nice day, I guess.”

Devon used her now-free hand to hold her daughter up better. At Sebastian’s words, she nodded slowly and let her small, faked smile come back to her lips.

She was uncomfortable, she would admit. But she still had manners, seeing as her parents had raised her in such a way that she would, and she would try to make it seem like she wasn’t as uncomfortable as she was.

“Right. So should I, really. You have a good rest of your day, too,” she said genuinely.

“Thanks.” Sebastian raised a hand in farewell and took a few steps backwards before turning to sign Ella out. Nice going, idiot, he told himself, guilt twisting his stomach. He’d probably made the woman uncomfortable by offering his hand— what had he been thinking?

A few minutes later, he was out the door, swinging Ella up and down as he walked down the street. Giggles and delighted squeals tumbled from her lips, her eyes practically glowing as her father tossed her up into the air (only a centimetre or two above his fingers) and swung her back down. Her father’s grin faltered slightly, a spike of pain skewering his heart.

Elle…

While their daughter may have had his hair and faint freckles, her eyes were practically a carbon copy of her mother’s; large, breathtaking, and grey-green. Immediately picking up on the change in her father’s demeanour, baby Ella tugged lightly on his nose. “Dadda?”

Devon let out a slow breath as the man Sebastian walked away. She really did need to learn to control herself sometimes. It had been over three years since the incident, and she was still jittery around men. It was a pain, especially since she worked in a cafe that people of all types visited.

Layla leaned against her mother and poked her in the cheek, drawing her back to the real world. Devon gave the smiling child in her arms a wavering smile of her own, then bent down to kiss her forehead.

“Let’s go home, baby,” she said softly before starting toward her car.

It took Sebastian a few minutes to unlock his apartment door while keeping hold of Ella— the little girl did not want to be put down— but he finally managed and crossed over the threshold, the familiar sense of constricting shame washing over him as it always did when he entered his home. But in reality, his daughter was the only thing that made it a home and not just a house, he couldn’t imagine himself having any attachment to it if he was completely alone.

“Appa-sosh!” Ella clapped her little fists together in vigorous enthusiasm, repeating the word over and over again until it struck Sebastian that she was referring to ‘apple sauce’, the reward he’d promised her for settling down back at the daycare. “Right…” he murmured, blowing a raspberry against her cheek before setting her down in her highchair and beginning to get her snack ready.

Half an hour, one diaper change, and a tub of apple sauce later, Sebastian’s little miracle had dozed off on his chest. He shifted in the armchair, careful not to wake his daughter as he gazed lovingly down at her little head. Eventually, his eyes drifted to the coffee table, where a framed picture sat.

Elle….

Tears pricked his eyes, just as fresh and bitter as that day, only a year ago, where he’d broken down at her bedside with a tiny infant in his arms. Her death was his fault, for not making sure that she’d taken her pill, for not double-checking that she hadn’t forgotten. It was his fault, for wanting to try something new with her. All of it, his fault.

And now, their daughter would grow up without a mother. Without another woman to counsel and comfort her as she got older. Would she be confused when she first went to school and saw that everyone else had two parents?

Sebastian made sure that the tears rolling down his cheeks were silent, so as not to wake his precious daughter.

(That… was really sad…
rapidly blinks tears from eyes)

Devon sat down on the couch with a tired sigh when she finally got home. Layla was on the floor, looking up at her as she played with her dolls. The single mother smiled down at her little daughter, amazed that they had even made it this far in life.

Not once had she regretted her decision to keep the baby that had been forced upon her. Well… The baby hadn’t been forced upon her, not really. It was how the baby came about that was forced and unwanted.

As the memories came back to her, Devon shuddered. She pulled a blanket from the back of the couch and wrapped it around herself tightly, squeezing her eyes shut to try and stop the onslaught of images that ran through her mind. It didn’t help, and she was thrown back to a few days after she had turned sixteen.

It was a warm spring night in early April, and she was on her way home from a drama club meeting. It had gone late because they were all having fun with going through their lines and learning their roles. Trying to get home on time, she had decided to take a “short cut” through a few alleys.

In one of the alleys she walked through, she passed a tall man with a good covering his eyes. She didn’t really think anything of it until she had already walked by him, and by then it was too late. He had already grabbed her, hit her head so she wouldn’t struggle any more, and brought her to a hidden space.

)):
same tho…..…… poor Devon )):

skip to what we had planned for the next day?)

(Sure! I was going to write more, but that saves me the trouble of it. Lol.
not it)

(lol I deserved that
oof
alright give me a second)