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You sighed and put your hands in your head. You always feel supper weird before regressing, probably from being emotionally constipated as hell. Looking at the clock Dave won’t be home for another hour so at least it gives you time to be weird without anyone seeing.
You reach into the back of your underwear drawer into a small ziplock bag. Normally someone would think there’s something heinous in there but it’s just an adult sized pacifier. You mentally cringe at yourself even though you know you wont even consider the weirdness in a few minutes.
You jump backwards onto yours and Dave’s shared bed and bounce slightly when you land. Some part of you giggles at that and you intend to indulge in that today.
You pop the pacifier in your mouth (which now feels slightly less weird) as you grab your tablet to pull up one of your favorite childhood shows: a defunct kids cartoon called oobi. Not much is left but some old episodes saved on YouTube but you’ll take it.
You curl up into the blanket as you watch, already feeling those fuzzy brain feelings bubble up to the surface. It’s not long until you’re fully small, kicking your feet as oobi talks about how he’s going to the doctors today. (Bluh doctors are the worst!)
You take no time to mentally cheer him on along with grandpa as oobi goes into the doctor's office. You’re so immersed in this episode in fact, that you don’t notice the knock on the bedroom door outside of your giggles. That is, until the door opens.
“Yo Egbert im home” Dave starts, but stops pretty fast in his tracks as you rocket up from the spot you were laying, quickly taking the paci out of your mouth. Both you and Dave are unable to do anything but stare as the episode continues to play in the background.
Shame is starting to rise in your throat, but these are big boy emotions that you definitely can’t handle for at least another 5 minutes of getting out of that headspace. So instead of reacting how a rational adult would, you react like the child you are.
“Woah shit John uh-“ Dave walks up to you, unsure of where to put his hands as tears threaten to spill out of your eyes with various “‘m sorry ‘m sorry” spilling out of your mouth
“Hey babe it’s okay… shh…” Dave pulls you close to his chest to try and calm you down. He’s rubbing your hair, like a little kid. You whine into his shirt as you hold him close too. It takes a few minutes for you to finally calm down. The weird big feelings are calming and you’re left with the same fuzzy headspace as before.
Dave pipes up after a while “you gonna tell me what’s wrong? You know I can’t help if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.” You whine, specifically at the last sentence because you know he’s right. You just aren’t sure if you have big enough words to say what you wanna say.
“Mmm… ‘m baby.” He looks at you with a dumb smile and ruffles around your hair which makes you giggle a little. “Egbert you’re always my big baby.”
Even though you know you just said you’re a baby, your tone switches up at the response “nuh uh! ‘m a big boy!” You pout. Dave just stares back, with a look where you can almost see the gears turning in his head.
Click click goes the gears (heheh it’s really funny to imagine) “…hey Egbert can you tell me how old you are?” You look at your fingers, which look too long for comfort but you ignore it, and put up 5 on each hand. Then you realize how that looks and just put up 5 on one hand. “This many!”
Something clicks right in the gears (hehe :B) and Dave’s look changes. He snorts and ruffles your hair again. “Alright buddy, can you tell me what you’re watching then?” Your eyes light up
“Oh! Oobi was gonna see the doctor ‘n he was super scared because doctors are scary but-“ you look back at the screen to see it’s moved onto an arts and crafts section and you frown. “I misseded it…”
“Don’t worry bud we can just rewind.” Dave taps the screen and moves the red bar back to a few minutes after the video started. (woah!! He’s magic!!) you go back to watching the video was Dave mindlessly running his hands through your hair behind you.
“Hey man, where did your cool pacifier go? I saw it when I came in.”
“Mmmm… I sitted on it to hide it.”
“We’ll take it out of your butt you’re gonna stink it up!
Dave playfully pushes you and tickles you, leaving you in a laughing fit as he finds the pale blue pacifier and sticks it in your mouth. You hum and cuddle back up next to him to watch Oobi talk to the doctor for the first time with grandpa.
Every few minutes or so Dave will make a comment and you’ll giggle at it, but you can feel sleepiness tug at your eyes. Being a big kid is hard, you don’t like it.
You mumble something into your paci while snuggling into the blankets around you. “Babe I can’t hear you, you need to take that out for a bit.” You pop out the paci to repeat yourself, “I wanna go nini…”
Dave chuckles at your wording as he pulls your hair up and kisses your forehead, you squint in return. “Alright then bud, go nini.” You turn around to face Dave and snuggle into his chest with a smile.
You know when you wake up you won’t feel as fuzzy anymore and you’re gonna have a lot of big kid emotions about this. But you’re okay with that for now. As long as right now you can be little and stay in this moment. You rub your face against his chest one more time before you feel yourself drift off.