Teen Dad AU
Part 2!!
Starting the tag list with: @mugloversonly @jackiemonroe5512 @thestarslittleking @jonesen4coffee @virginlemontea @blackpanzy @littlebluejane @paintsplatteredandimperfect @astrid-nomically-steddie @maferisa-7 @phantomrose17 @child-of-cthuhlu @sofadofax @thoughtfulbreadpolice @fandomnerd103 @artemisiscursed @croatoan-like-its-hot @silenzioperso @myownworstenemyyy @feral-possums-in-the-bog @mente-sindescanso @mrslectermoriarty @y4r3luv @a-couchpotato @aknelimdoogladania @she-collects-smut
…
Thursday came in a false sense of security.
Steve woke up to the gentle sun in his face, the breeze of an open window in his hair, and his son’s chubby baby fingers wrapped around his hand.
Steve grinned sleepily at Louie and laughed when baby Louie smiled so wide back at him that his paci fell out.
Steve held Louie close while preparing a small breakfast of eggs and toast, then continued to hold him while making his bottle and setting out a few cheese puffs for him teethe on.
Steve made sure Louie ate first, helping him hold the bottle and then laughing at the pure mess he makes with the cheese puffs. Then Steve himself ate. Clean up was quick enough witch a wet rag and a speedy wipe-down.
Later on, just as Steve was thinking about preparing lunch, the front doors opened.
“Shit. Shit shit shit SHIT.” Steve angrily whispered to himself. Little Louie stared at him from where he was propped on the couch, not a thought behind his wide eyes. Though he obviously knew something was wrong with his dad.
Steve was quick to buckle Louie into his car seat, bundling him up with a blanket and giving him his bear.
“Stephan? Are you in the living room? Come grab our bags, please,” Cynthia Harrington called from down the hall.
There was no getting out of this. No way of getting Louie to the car without his parents seeing. But he’s sure they already knew of the baby, or suspected something. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln were nosy motherfuckers set on ruining Steve’s life.
Steve sighed and looked at Louie. He knelt in front of the car seat and rubbed a hand gently on his son’s face. Louie grabbed his finger and smiled around his paci.
Steve wanted to cry.
“Stephan! Your mother called you so answer her!” Richard Harrington yelled. Steve heard the wind outside pick up aggressively and cursed the mornings sunshine.
“Coming!”
Steve padded into the hallway where his parents were taking off their jackets. Cynthia and Richard were picture-perfect— or they would’ve been. If it weren’t for the pressed line of his mother’s mouth and the hard line of his father’s jaw. Steve knew what was coming before they did.
“Stephan, the bags.” Were his mothers first words to him. Not “Hi, son, how have you been?” Not “Sorry we’ve been gone for nearly 8 months.” Not “How are you feelings after that concussion from last November? We’re terribly sorry we couldn’t stop work to simply call and make sure you were ok.”
No. None of that. Instead he was demanded around like a fucking dog.
“Um. Actually, I had to talk to you both. If you don’t mind—“
“Save it. Take the bags upstairs and meet us in the living room,” Richard stated harshly.
Steve flinched. He hated himself for flinching. But they couldn’t go in the living room. Not while Louie was still in there.
“Actually, dad— it’s very important and I just really need to talk to you guys—“
“Stephan!”
Steve winced at the pitchy tone of his mother.
“Please, I promise— It’ll be worth your time, just— just give a minute, please.” He was begging now. He hated begging.
Richard had grown tired of Steve’s fumbling for words and shoved past him. Steve knocked into the wall with the harshness.
“Stephan, you will listen to your mother and take the bags upstairs and meet us—“
“Dad, wait—“
Richard stopped in the doorway to the living room, whatever insult or command he was going to throw Steve’s way dying on his tongue.
“Stephan. Why, in the Lord’s name, is there a baby’s car seat in my living room?”
His tone was calm. Steve knew better than to think he was actually anything other than furious.
“Thats— that’s what I needed to speak to you about. Please, I—“
Steve should’ve anticipated the slap.
But he didn’t. And his head snapped to the side with the force that left him seeing stars.
Steve didn’t stay long enough to listen to his dad yelling slurs or his mom crying. He simply grabbed Louie’s car seat, picked up his shoes by the door, and left.
.
Steve had been driving for near three hours before he pulled over. He’d circled the entirety of town before finally pulling into a small dirt path by the quarry. Belatedly he realized someone was crying.
He hurried to get out of the car, rounding to the back and sliding into the backseat to sit next to Louie’s car seat. But Louie wasn’t crying, he was sound asleep.
Steve realized he was crying.
He startled when a broken sob tore itself out of his throat. He hurried out of the car and dragged himself the few yards to the edge of the quarry.
He sat down and let the rain pelt him from all angles. His face stung. Steve knew the slap would bruise phenomenally in the morning. It’d probably affect his tips at work.
He swung his feet idly on the edge, belatedly realizing he wasn’t wearing his shoes or even socks for that matter. His heels where starting to bleed from each time he rammed them into the rocks on the edge of the cliff.
Steve doesn’t know how long he sat there in the rain. He snapped back to reality when a particularly loud burst of thunder rumbled in his gut. He went back to the car.
Louie was still sound asleep. Steve figured he himself should most likely sleep as well. He didn’t know when he’d be able to get a place for them, but he’d already been saving up.
He curled up in the back seat next to baby Louie. He didn’t bother with a blanket, and he knew he’d get a cold with his clothes still being wet, but he deemed it fine.
Steve’s sleep was fitful and restless. Filled with slurs and yelling and running from monsters that shouldn’t exist.
.
It was a week before he finally got a place.
Not that long, sure. But it was a week of pure dread and exhaustion and nightmares.
The trailer he was looking at was located near the edge of Forest Hills. It was two bedroom one bathroom and had a small living room (with no ceiling light) and a kitchen (that barely had any wiggle room). But it was his.
He’d been at work when he got the call— as that was where he told the landlord to call. Mason— the line cook— called him back.
“Hey Steve-o! That landlord guys on the phone!”
Steve jumped so hard he nearly spilled the waters he was carrying.
“Be right there, Mace!”
Steve was quick to get the waters to the table 7 and take their orders for the night before he rushed back. He tossed his notepad at Mason and snatched the phone.
“Hi, Mr. Gardison!” he greeted cheerily.
“Stephen, hi. So…”
And Steve was given the trailer.
He was vibrating with excitement by the end of his call. When Steve returned the phone to its holder he was picked up from the ground in a bear hug. He laughed and hugged Mason back.
“You got the place!” Mason cheered.
“I got the place!” Steve laughed.
The rest of his day went swimmingly. He would be able to officially move into the trailer on Friday— which was fine by him. Two days of waiting was nothing.
Steve was given congratulations from a few of the regulars. Mr. Jinkins gave him a good slap on the shoulder while Miss. Gladson pulled him into a hug. They tipped him an extra 5 dollars each before they left.
At the end of his Wednesday shift, Steve gave out hugs to most of his coworkers. Mason, Allya, and his boss Michelle got hugs while George and Gwen got high fives. Steve left feeling light on his feet with a to-go bag for dinner.
Thursday was filled with the lunch rush. Steve had to take his break early to check on baby Louie in the back. He felt bad turning George’s manager office into a daycare but George assured him it was fine.
“Hey honey,” Steve’s cooed at the baby in his arms. “How are you doing, huh love? You’ve been cooped up for so long I know.”
Louie gripped his baby hands into the front of Steve’s apron. He was back in the kitchens today, Allya taking his place up front waitressing.
Steve hopped around and lightly bounced Louie against his chest, humming quietly and gently.
Louie whined and continued to cry.
“I know Louie, I know. You hungry? Hang on baby.”
Steve made sure Louie was fed and burped and laid him done for a nap. He only had an hour of his shift left.
Thursday finished off normally and Steve left with his usual dinner. He drove out to the quarry and parked before sitting in the backseat with Louie to eat.
Eventually he took Louie out of the car and sat with him on the rocky ground of the quarry. Steve held Louie close in his lap, letting the baby play with his hands and fingers and babble about nothing and everything.
Steve occasionally answered with little gums of encouragement, but for the most part he let baby Louie talk to himself. He was lost in thought, daydreaming about the trailer and how they got to move in tomorrow.
Before Steve knew it Louie had fallen asleep and he himself was on the verge. He got them both settled in the backseat once more and allowed himself to drift off.
…
We’re finally, maybe, getting somewhere lol. Tag list is open to everyone still, feel free to ask for a place!! We’ll get into some of Steve’s school life in the next part hopefully 🤞
Part 3:
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Daniel Ricciardo on his Zandvoort crash, surgery on his broken hand, recovery process, and return in Austin
Tom Clarkson: "Now you mentioned the elephant in the room, Zandvoort. FP2, Turn 3, what happened?"
Daniel Ricciardo: "I *awkward laugh*, I mean I obviously can remember it very clearly, since I didn't hit my head. Erm, but, so you come through, turn, I guess it's Turn 2, and it's over kind of a crest, but then you stay quite tight, because, then the line for 3, you ride the top of the banking. So you know, you're not taking a conventional racing line, so you're not like looking at the apex, you're looking at the top of the corner, pretty much. Like, as a driver, we're always looking ahead and normally like at the apex, but the way you exit 2, you then kind of look straight ahead and pick your braking point."
DR: "So at that point, I'd exited 2, I hadn't seen any yellows, nothing like that. And then by the time I've looked and braked, I then looked where I need to turn, and I see Oscar. This all happened so quickly, but I remember, I can, obviously I'm picturing it in my head now. So I remember, okay, the line we take is high and by this point I'd braked, so I'd already committed, so I knew the speed I was going. My only choice was to take the high line, but I could see his car was at the top of the track. So there wasn't enough room for me to pass through the high line. I'm going too fast to take a low line, so it was either, probably look like a real idiot and crash into him, or try and just slow the car as much as I can, and likely just crash into the barriers, which is what happened."
DR: "But yeah, because it was all, I guess I'm still trying to figure out what I'm going to do, by the time then I'd committed to just going straight, I hadn't then realized, 'okay, take your hands off the wheel.' And a lot of us still don't do it, because crashing is not natural. And it happens so quickly, because you don't plan to crash, so a lot of the time you don't kind of have, yeah, the time to be like, 'okay, I'm crashing, what do I need to do? Brace myself, okay, take my hands off the wheel.' Sometimes you just don't have the luxury of time."
DR: "So, that was it, I hit the wall. I've only watched one replay, but I just don't, I don't want to. Basically, when I've gone in, I'm pretty sure like the right front, it's just the angle, right, the right front would've grabbed the Tecpro [barrier] first, and then that's, like, pulled it in, so it's, it's like I've turned really hard right, the way obviously it's grabbed the wheel. So because the wheels then turned so quickly, I've basically lost grip, so it spun out of my hands, and the bottom of the [steering] wheel, which is pure, hard carbon, has then come up and basically karate chopped my hand."
DR: "So then, you've got the shock of the crash and then adrenaline, so I've come on the radio, and I'd, I think I'd been like, oh sorry, like I've crashed or something. And then, is he like 'oh, you alright?' or 'can you continue?' and I was like, 'no, the car is damaged.' And then, I could feel my hand, and I was like, 'ow, my hand, my hand.' And then I just, it started to, like the pain just went, obviously ramped up really, really quickly, and I feared that something was bad. So, as I'm, I wanted, I was like, 'I need to get my glove off, I need to get my glove off.' And as I'm pulling my glove off, I remember, I was thinking, *awkward huffy laugh*, I was like 'if there's a bone through the skin, I'm gonna pass out.' So that's all, I was just like 'please, please don't let me see anything gruesome.' I'm not good with this stuff, I'm sweating telling it, like I'm serious. I suck at this.
TC: "Have you broken a bone before?"
DR: "I broke my arm as a kid at school, throwing a tennis ball. Anyway, yeah, another very random accident, and I didn't need surgery, that was like a long, long healing process."
DR: "But yeah, so, alright, so I've pulled my glove off, and I, I could see it was already quite swollen, but no bone through the skin. I was like, 'okay.' But then the pain just got so bad, so as soon as I jumped into the medical car, I was *long pause* making a lot of noises, because I was in a lot of discomfort. So I knew that it was not good. I knew immediately, obviously, I wasn't going to race on the weekend. Like I didn't need a doctor to tell me. I feared it was a broken bone. I think the first thing that really kind of just made me sad, was I just had a very, very productive summer break. I felt really, really good physically, and I was just, yeah I was just ready to go. And this just felt like an unfortunate setback. But I was just more worried about surgery and all that, because I'm, again, I'm a bit of a wuss.
TC: "What happened next, I mean, you went down to Barcelona, to Dr. Xavier Mir, who is renowned in the MotoGP world, for mending those sort of breaks. I also think he was, didn't he help Lance Stroll earlier in the year as well?" "Yeah" "So who put you in touch with him, or did you know him already?"
DR: "So from the medical center, we went to the hospital there in Amsterdam. Got scans, and they're like, 'yeah, it's broken.' And by this point, it's the size, like, looked like an elephant stepped on my hand. The doctor there said, 'look, I would recommend surgery.' He's like, 'you can have it here, but you probably want to wait anyway a few days for the swelling to go down. Speak to whoever you need to speak to and obviously you can have your surgery wherever you want, I'm just going to give you my advice.' So then we reached out to Lance, we reached out to, well Jose, a friend of ours who works with Alpinestars, so he knows all the MotoGP guys, and he, he's Spanish as well, so he knows. So he, I think, put us into touch with Xavier Mir, and then, yeah, Lance was like 'go to him' as well. All signs were just pointing to, this guy's done this too many times, just go see him. Like, like don't even bother, just go there.
DR: "So it was, it was a blessing and a curse because, *laughs* he does a lot of MotoGP guys, who, are not human. They are not. It's fact, they are not. So, I think there's an expectation of me going in there, he's like 'oh, F1, MotoGP, same! Not human, don't feel pain.' 'No, doctor, I feel pain. I'm going to cry for the next 48 hours whilst I'm in this hospital.' So it was just funny, they, I think, you know, all the doctors and nurses and that who were helping me, and they were great, but I think they were, they were just quite, they would laugh a lot, because I would wince and pull away and ask questions every needle that went into my arm. Erm, so I think they just thought I would be tough like a MotoGP rider, but I am not."
TC: "I'm sure you were."
DR: "No, no, trust me, I'm not. The break itself was quite significant. It was a shatter, like it wasn't like, oh you just break it clean down the middle. I think it was in eight pieces or something. So it was also, for a bone that can be quite a simple one, it wasn't too pretty."
TC: "So it's your pinky that was being affected by it?" "Erm, well..." "On your left hand?"
DR: "It's like the outside of the hand. So that's the bone I broke, in between like the wrist and the pinky, like that knuckle. So like along the outside there. But even me just rubbing my finger over the top of my hand, hurt like crazy. Maybe I just feel pain more than others, I don't know. *laughs* But er, sorry, I just want to, just let's also say one thing. There was also the reality where, yes, I would moan and complain because I don't like the pain. But it was a broken hand, so there was also a part of me which was like, 'look, dude, yes you're in pain and it's going to be a bit of a process, but people have worse injuries, people have bigger accidents.' So don't get me wrong, I also tried to reality check myself through it all, and I think that's what made me quite, like remain quite positive."
TC: "You missed five races, you came back for Austin. Was there any talk of you getting back earlier, maybe for Qatar?"
DR: "So I knew, I was doing physio every day, and I was, I was doing what I could to come back as soon as possible. But I also wanted to make sure, and I think, you know, Red Bull/Alpha Tauri were really good with this, I wasn't fighting for a world championship, like it's not like, dude you need to just drive through immense pain and just get a point, you know because this is your titles on the line. Like it was, let's make sure you do this and heal properly, and get the right treatment, because also you've got, hopefully a second part of your career which is going to be long and glorious. So it was just, don't compromise anything that you then have a bum hand for the next two years of your career, three years, whatever. So it was good, I could just do it properly."
DR: "Qatar was talked about, I went on the sim the week of Qatar, on the Monday, but I couldn't, er, yet, drive with the full force of the steering, like so we would like bring the feedback down. Er, I just couldn't grip it and do more than like two laps at full strength. So it was very clear that Qatar was out of the question, and also for me to come back and like, yeah, I don't know, not drive at my best and then, no, that no one benefits. I don't benefit, the team doesn't. So er, it was that, at that point we're like, let's just go all in for Austin and make sure I'm good for that."
TC: "And Liam was doing a decent job as well"
DR: "Exactly, he was doing well and there was also, I think Red Bull were great to give me a contract whilst I was injured, to give me a contract for next year. So I, I had that-"
TC: "That was very significant, wasn't it?" "Yeah" "They actually signed you long-term when you were on the sidelines?"
DR: "Yeah, there's so much about being back in the Red Bull family this year that's felt good and right, and I think that was such a, yeah just such like a big thing for them to do that. I think obviously it showed they have a lot of faith in me. It also put to bed if anyone was like, 'oh you know, is there still any issues from their previous relationship years ago? Like is there any carryover tension or whatever?' Like, for them to do that, I think it was very much like, he's our kid and we're going to support him because we believe in him and- So that was really nice."
TC: "So you come back for Austin, and were there any ill effects there? Because I mean, that's a quick track, sector one in particular."
DR: "Er, no, like in, in short no. Erm, I think the race, I got into it quickly and, and, and I was actually honestly expecting more pain in Austin. I was expecting like every kind of bump or kerb I'd hit would be like 'ow, ow, ow.' But it was okay, and erm, I think it was just an endurance I needed to build so like, towards the end of the race, I could feel like my grip strength was maybe not as good as at the start of the race. But honestly, I was, I was fine. And I think that was another thing, I didn't want to get back into a race and then be like, 'yeah I could have done better, but you know, my hand was not up to full strength.' Or like, I was like, this can't be an excuse, and it wasn't, so it was all good."
TC: "And Daniel, you were never going to miss Austin, right?"
DR: "No, I couldn't. I would've loved the result to be better, but no, I couldn't miss Austin.
TC: "The track, the place"
DR: "Yeah, yeah. I love it."
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