(no subject)
When Luke got the call from Caleb that Fleur had left, his initial reaction was to get angry. He was so angry that that woman could just leave her husband and her newborn child and take off. Shirk her responsibility, leave the family she’d created, and go home to her pathetic parents who had accepted her with open arms. Luke had wanted to leave tour right then and fly home to Caleb. He couldn’t imagine Caleb doing this on his own, taking care of that beautiful baby girl all on his own. From the moment she’d been born, Luke had wanted to meet her. Little Pretty, he called her, as soon as he’d gotten her first picture, minutes after her birth. He’d spent the next three months of tour wanting nothing more than to meet the gorgeous little girl who had stolen his heart, possibly more than her father ever had.
So when that woman had left Caleb, he had wanted to fly home and help. He’d wanted to come to the rescue, to be there for Little Pretty, and Cay. He had refrained though. He’d taken it to heart when Caleb had told him he would be okay. And if he hadn’t actually, if he hadn’t believed it, he’d forced himself to take it at face value because he couldn’t force Caleb to ask him to come home. All Caleb had to do was ask, and Luke would have been right there. He never did. When Luke knew tour was going to end, he transferred his plane ticket from one home to Arizona to Ohio instead. He flew into Columbus, and he had taken a taxi right to Caleb’s house in the middle of the night. He had knocked at the door to the sound of a shrieking infant, and when Caleb had opened it, looking tired to the bone and at wits end, he’d looked at him for a moment before asking very simply why his Little Pretty wasn’t in his arms yet.
That night, he’d gotten Caleb into his bedroom and had gone through what was to become his ritual of calming Daisey and getting her to take her last bottle of the night. He’d gotten her to stop crying, and he’d heated her a bottle, and fed her four ounces. He’d changed her, and swaddled her, and gotten her into her bassinette. When she was settled, he’d gone and laid down beside Caleb, only to sleep a few hours before Daisey was awake again. He was tired, he was so tired from jetlag, and months of touring, and he had wanted nothing more than to sleep but he knew Caleb was even more tired than him. Caleb was emotionally and physically exhausted from having to care for an infant by himself for the past two months, and Luke had gotten up to tend to Daisey without any hesitation. He’d cleaned her bassinette when he’d realized she’d been sick, and he’d bathed her. He’d fed her, dressed her all warm because it was chill in the house even with the heat on, and he’d sat with her playing with her hands and feet for an hour. He’d exercised her, like a baby was meant to be, like he’d been shown with his own nephew when he’d been born, and when she’d gotten cranky he’d put her into her swing to calm her. She had fallen asleep, and then so had he.
The next month was a whirlwind of domestic activity, with Luke reassuring Caleb that he wasn’t going anywhere, and that Caleb was stuck with him. Pretty Daisey would have two daddies now, since her whore of a mother couldn’t be bothered to love her like anyone sane would. Luke slipped easily into his role of waking up with Daisey for the nighttime feeding, refusing to trade off with Caleb for the first two weeks before Caleb told him firmly that they were going to be equals in the raising of “their daughter” which was the exact phrase that had gotten him to cave. It was the first time Caleb had called Daisey his as well, and while Luke knew he had no biological claim to this little joy, he loved her more dearly than anything and had from the moment she’d been born. He’d started sharing nighttime feedings with Caleb.
Bath times were always Luke’s though. He loved setting up her little baby bathtub in the sink and getting the water just right. He loved setting Daisey down into the sudsy water, watching her lay there and gurgle and kick her little feet in it. Over the course of the next month, she started holding her head up entirely on her own, and realizing she was the one in control of her hands and feet. It meant more splashing during bath time, more wiggling and fussing but it was also so worth it. She always giggled when Luke washed her feet, and looked at him like he was her favorite person in the world. Luke loved how easy it was to fall in love with this little girl even more while she was so dependent on him. When it was just regular day time, he could lay her in her pack and play, and watch her look at all the colors, and danglies and rattles, or he could put her in her swing for a nap and clean up around the house. Bath time was very singularly Daddy Luke and Daisey bonding time.
The first day Caleb went back to work in his studio, he apologized 12 times in the morning, and asked Luke six if he was “sure this was okay, really, are you sure?” and Luke had very calmly told him each time to not apologize and to get his ass to work. One of them had to provide them a living. Luke had taken time off of touring with the band. He had also stopped taking session work, so he could stay home with Daisey. One of them had to earn a living for their family, and Luke could aide in it with his drumming videos and his bandhappy lessons, but it wasn’t like that was going to really keep them well kept. He needed Caleb to work, and once they had that down, they’d incorporate him into working again as well.
Luke knew that Caleb couldn’t rely on his family any longer. As soon as they’d found out that Luke was living with Caleb, in a romantic relationship, and raising Daisey as well, they had stopped answering his calls. They had stopped all methods of communication, and all Caleb had now was Luke, and their various friends. Friends who were almost all touring musicians as well, and wouldn’t always be able to come and help with caring for Daisey. Luke was pretty sure for him to go back to work, and Caleb to work as well, they’d have to hire a nanny. It wasn’t like Caleb’s studio wasn’t in the house, it was right downstairs, but he couldn’t have Daisey down there with him all of the time, especially when he wouldn’t be able to hear her or tend to her properly. He posed the topic to Caleb a month after Caleb had gone back to work, about how they should start seeing if there was professional they could call. They’d ended up settling on Luke’s sister in the end, who had wanted so badly to get out of their home, and who wanted to spend time with her niece anyway.
She had moved in, and Luke had taken to flying out to Arizona to produce youtube videos again, and work with various producers he knew as a session musician. When he was at home he was working with Caleb as the same. The band continued to ask when he was going to come back, or if they’d have to find another drummer, and he made the snap decision to go out with them for a month on a North American tour. Telling Caleb had been hell. He could see the panic in Caleb’s eyes when he’d told him he was going to go on tour and that Taylor was there to help take care of Daisey, just like she had been the past two months without issue. He hadn’t counted on it being so hard to leave Daisey, who was sitting up on her own now, and grabbing for things. He hadn’t counted on it being so hard to leave his little family.
The first week was miserable. He missed the routine of getting up every other night with Daisey, he missed bath time, he missed exercising her in the mornings, and watching Caleb do it at night. He missed playing the keyboard for her with Caleb singing, because his own was terrible. He missed all of it. It got easier, after the first week, when he realized this was going to help provide for her and take care of her. It would mean they could keep affording her health insurance, getting her checkups and making sure she was making all of her milestones. It got easier, but it didn’t hurt any less to be away from his daughter, or his lover. He Skyped them each night, making sure to say “goodnight Gracie” as he had done with Daisey since his first night with her.
Their life turned into a different routine then. Domesticity when Luke was home, with them working together to raise their daughter, and many different incidents of them being worried sick about her having a fever, or a cough, or a runny nose. Being afraid she was having an allergic reaction when they started feeding her real foods, and being afraid that she was allergic to Raffy when she started sneezing randomly. It meant getting her a full allergic panel worked up, while Luke wasn’t there to hold her through the scratch test, and it meant missing the first time she’d taken a step. But it also meant being there for her first birthday, and it meant giving her the first taste of strawberry ice cream, and her first taste of frosting. It meant laughing as she smeared the frosting all over herself, and it meant… It meant that Luke had a family and more to care for than just himself now. It meant that Luke had everything he’d ever wanted, and he would never take back that night he’d showed up at 2 am to a screaming child. He’d gone right into Daddy mode instantly, and he’d never looked back. He never would.