A New Roommate

DeerPrince

dead engineering student
Original poster
FOLKLORE MEMBER
Invitation Status
Posting Speed
  1. 1-3 posts per week
  2. One post per week
  3. Slow As Molasses
Writing Levels
  1. Adept
  2. Advanced
Preferred Character Gender
  1. Male
  2. Female
Genres
Historical, Romance, Slice of Life, Angst, Modern.
Saros
"Please," Saros begged at the crying new born, her tiny cherub face tomato red with exertion as she continued her inexhaustible screaming. Why did babies have to be like this? There was no way for them to communicate. Only trial and error.

Already he had tried her bottle multiple times, her diaper was dry, she'd been burped, he'd tried to cradle her and rock her to sleep, but now, at five in the morning, the young man was beginning to run out of ideas. What had he gotten himself into? At first, when Lyla had just been born, Saros hadn't fully been aware of the dedication needed to raise a child. He had just thought that the baby was cute. What could a tiny little infant need? They probably just slept and ate.

How wrong he had been. This tiny little minuscule human without any speaking capability had flipped his world upside down. Now, his whole life revolved around her in just a few short months.

Now he was nine-teen, with only a high school diploma, living in his best friend's basement. Just a couple months ago, he had still been partying, snorting drugs, getting so drunk he wouldn't be able to remember anything, and getting laid.

No girl wanted to get with him now, nor was he invited to anymore parties. Hell, he barely had any money for alcohol or drugs with all of Lyla's incessant need for supplies. Even more so, the young man wanted to get his life together for the sake of his little daughter. This was inevitably his last shot at straightening out. The young man had concrete motivation as opposed to before. For his daughter, he'd give her a better shot in life.

Quietly bouncing Lyla, Saros wanted to start screaming alongside her. "Shhhh, what do you want form daddy?" He murmured, patting her back as he walked in aimless circles around his little makeshift bed. Saros desperately wanted to head out for a smoke and a drink, a headache raging between his temples from withdrawal. No one had told him it would be this difficult.

yet, the blonde couldn't bring himself to give up on Lyla. He had fought so hard to keep her, struggled this far, and while he hated to admit it, was starting to grow fond of the little shit.

Why couldn't she just shut up? He felt horrible knowing that everyone else's sleep pattern was getting destroyed by his tiny little burden. Ryan's family had been so kind to extend a hand to help him and lend him a place to crash.

"Just go to sleep," he grimaced, watching as the sun started rising over the previously dark horizon. He had barely gotten a wink of sleep.

@wxnderlust
 
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J O C E L Y N

The sound of a crying baby seemed to seep underneath the door to Jocelyn's room, leaving her unable to go back to sleep. She was usually a heavy sleeper, but since her bedroom was on the ground floor, closer to the basement, she was up, with a pillow over her face if it could drown out the sounds.

The wailing was all too familiar though, she suspected it was more familiar to her eldest brother Luke than all of them since he was the first born and had to experience the birth of four more siblings. He wasn't at home anymore though. Now it was just Ryan, Jocelyn and the next youngest siblings, Nathaniel and Chris. One was in middle school while the other was in primary school.

When Chris was born, Jocelyn was the go to baby sitter. Their mother was ill for quite some time and so Jocelyn was like a second mother to him. She fed him when needed, helped out him to sleep, changed him frequently. In a house as big as theirs, everyone learned at some point how to take care of one another, so Jocelyin found herself getting out of bed in order to lend a helping hand to the new addition to their home. Or rather, two new additions.

Jocelyn knew Saros because he was best friends with Ryan. In fact, she, as a middle schooler, had a huge crush on him too. There was just always something attractive about a rugged guy, and Saros had been that. Though, not so much anymore. Now he had a child to look after with the mother of the baby absent because she didn't want anything to do with it. Honestly, if Jocelyn knew the woman, she would have given her a piece of her mind. For now though, all she could do was help, and so she was going to.

In her pyjamas, her mass of red hair a mess, she meandered downstairs to the basement where the crying became louder. She stood at the footof the stairs for a moment, arms crossed and leaning against the wall, just looking at Saros as he tried to get the baby to go sleep, but to no avail. Jocelyn let out a yawn before walking over.

"How about I try?" She suggested in a soft, albeit sleepy tone, holding her arms out for Lyla. She had similar problems with Chris when he was younger, but she usually sang him a lullaby and he went straight to sleep.

 
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Saros
The young man was desperate as he rocked the infant in his arms, cerulean blue eyes bloodshot from drug withdrawals, but exasperated by his lack of sleep. When was the last time he had had a good night's sleep? It all seemed like a distant dream to him now. Lyla had been screaming non stop for the past few hours and he was terrified his horrible parenting skills had finally broken her.

Perhaps giving her up for adoption would have been the better idea for all of them. Then he wouldn't have had to deal with Charlotte, Lyla's mom, constantly pounding on his door with adoption papers and black mailing him, Lyla constantly crying, and he would still be going to parties, drinking, taking hits. Life wouldn't have changed for any of them. Even now, Charlotte was still out partying. He had seen her pictures on social media, grinding on some dude's lap, her dark hazel cesspools glazed over most likely from drugs, her other hand clamped around an amber glass bottle of beer.

Why in the world had he thought he would be able to manage with a newborn? Barely employed, barely scraping by, a drug addict and an alcoholic, a father? That last word didn't quite seem to fit. Any other family would have been better equipped for an infant than he.

"Lyla, baby, shhh," Saros murmured, his silvery blonde hair sticking up in random little tufts from constantly being subjected to his antsy hands running through it.

Shifting her position so that his arm held her little tush, the other supporting her back while her head rested against his shoulder, Saros could feel her tiny body quaking with each sob, how flushed and warm she felt against him, a fine layer of sweat matting her blonde curls from the strain.

Looking up at the sound of the stairs creaking, he saw Jocelyn there, her auburn hair slightly mangled from sleep. To think a girl three years his junior was trying to help him care for his child made him want to crawl into a sink hole. A high schooler had more maturity than he.

"I'm sorry," the male apologized, "did we wake you up?"

Then after another moment of deliberation, "that's alright. Go back to bed. I'll take her out into the car... She won't stop crying any time soon."

@wxnderlust
 
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J O C E L Y N

Jocelyn shook her head when Saros asked if she woke up because of them. It was true that she was, but she wasn't too bothered by it. In a way it was slightly nostalgic since Christopher wasn't a baby anymore, and hadn't been for a while now. She'd been petty frustrated with all the crying back then, but now it was nothing new. Besides, she didn't mind kids. Especially after taking care of one herself at such a young age.

"I'm not going to get any sleep once I've already woken up," she explained when he insisted she go back to bed. It was something she had to live with. Even when she woke up fromnigthmares in the middle of the night, it was impossible to go back to sleep. She usually just turned to her sketchbook when her sleep was disrupted. However this was a different case altogether.

She could tell that Saros was trying to get the hang of this whole parenting thing, which was always going to be hard. A baby meant diverting all your attention toward him or her, leaving not a lot of time for much else.

"Nobody expects you to do this without any help you know," she told him once he had finished speaking. Her tone was less sleepy now. She was fully awake. Fortunately for her, she was a morning person, so she was pretty pleasant. The same could not be said for her easily irritable brothers.

"I practically raised Chris myself," she said, referencing the youngest member of the household. "I can help," she continued, holding her arms out once again for the baby that seemed to not want to stop crying. She already had in mind a familiar lullaby that would hopefully get the little girl to go to sleep. Jocelyn had her holidays going on so it wasn't like she had much to do anyway.

 
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Saros
Even though Jocelyn shook her head to deny his question, Saros knew it was because of his incompetence as a parent. Her ruckus had woken her up, and who knew who else in the family. The blonde male knew that he had to get moving. He couldn't rely on their compassion forever. There were so many things that they already had on their plate, Saros didn't want to add any more. The moment he got back on his feet, he'd move out. There was nothing more in life that he hated than burdening others.

"I'm sorry," the male whispered, fighting to keep his tone on the more pleasant side. The bags underneath his eyes from sleep deprivation juxtaposed against his pale skin, standing out like bruises. He was cranky and irritable, both from the lack of sleep and from the lack of drugs. Every fiber of his body wanted to just break out a cigarette or some pot. Anything to make himself feel better. Never had his body craved for a substance this badly, and never had he realized how much his body depended on those drugs.

"Thank you," he murmured, passing Lyla over, her cries never once slowing down in their fervor, her dark azure eyes scrunched closed together. She looked like an angry tomato now. A tomato that wanted to burn down the world.

Taking a seat on the edge of his bed, he had his head between his knees, hands gripping the side of his head, squeezing his temples in an effort to quell his raging headache. His knee bounced up and down uncontrollably, his whole body trembling.

Standing up unsteadily, he wobbled, reaching out for the wall to steady himself. "I'll go make us some breakfast then.." Pushing himself up the stairs, he paused to see if Joyce would follow him.

The sun was already starting to break through the dark skies, casting streaks of pinks and purples across like a canvas. Digging around in the refrigerator, the young man pulled out some eggs, "what do you want?"

@wxnderlust
 
J O C E L Y N

Jocelyn took the wailing baby from Saros and held her close, patting her back in a soothing motion while Saros got up and headed toward the stairs. She followed suit, going up and into the kitchen with him. She was pretty hungry so she didn't object as he started to prepare some breakfast. "A fried egg and toast sounds good," she told him when he asked what she wanted.

She leaned against the kitchen counter as he got the things ready, slowly rocking Lyla slowly in her arms before beginning to hum a small lullaby. She used to sing it to her brother because she remembered her mother singing it for her. It had usually always worked. On her because her mother had an amazing voice. Jocelyn liked to think she inherited some of that but she knew she'd never sound as magical as her mother.

Lyla's crying didn't cease at first, but as Jocelyn continued with the soft lullaby, she slowly quieted down and had taken to looking around the kitchen with bleary eyes before focusing on Saros. She rested her head down on Jocelyn's shoulder and just kept it there, leaving Jocelyn to assume that she might fall asleep soon.

If it was the lullaby that was doing hte trick, she knew not to stop just yet, so she continued with it in a hushsed tone, walking around the kitchen a bit because she couldn't stay still and she figured Lyla would fall asleep faster if she was moving. She remembered how all three children in the current hiusehold used to fall asleep as soon as they were put into a moving car.

"Is she asleep?" She asked Saros in a whisper before continuing to hum since she was facing her father and Jocelyn couldn't see.