Chapter Text
Flinching into awareness, Jensen felt disorientation settling in and nausea rising at the stinging chill taking over his body. As his eyes adjusted to the bright, white room, he attempted to sit up, only to fail. Dizzily, he discovered to find himself slipping and sliding in his curiously naked state, his significantly dwarfed frame coated with an aquamarine-colored paste that covered every inch from below his nose to his toes.
Panic building, Jensen vaguely paid attention to the white-clad man prodding him back down against the cool surface he occupied. He felt drunken and confused, his memories involving being a six-foot-one male who wore clothes, not a toddler-sized man slathered in skin-tingly slime… ‘Cause that is what he was right now; he was small, naked and by far the most vulnerable he had experienced in a long time.
And, at the age of twenty-three, Jensen Ackles had experienced his fair share of vulnerability over the years.
Being abandoned by his parents at the tender age of six, living in neglectful foster system until he turned the legal age and found himself living on the streets had only been the main contenders of such circumstances. He had experienced others, of course. Living a life of odd jobs, sleeping rough and rummaging through dumpsters proved a never-ending supply of awkward, close-call moments that made him feel unsafe. Although, as far as Jensen was concerned, the aforementioned span of moments between parental abandonment to living on the streets had been the worst of the worst.
That is, until now.
Now, after being chased down like a dog and knocked out by nameless strangers who rounded up the homeless for extra cash, Jensen found himself in the officially worst situation ever. Now, he had been roused from unconsciousness by the sensation of cold, thick paste being slapped onto his naked body by unusually large, wandering hands. Now, after a moment or two of getting his sluggish brain up to speed, he realized he was doomed.
He had been captured, taken, or – as many said on the streets – ‘snatched’. Jensen had seen and heard stories about those who had been hauled into the government-funded vans and never to be seen again. According to such tales, the dubbed ‘undesirables’ were sold to various companies who would use them for anything from cheap labor at farms to high-class sex services. And now, Jensen noted with a wave of sickness, he was one of those who entered such a system…
Yet what precise niche he had been sold into remained a mystery. His view from the steel-topped table he was currently residing on offered him no clue towards his new lot in life. The narrow room looked clinical, the locked wall cabinets and deep, shiny sinks with attached water nozzles only telling him so much. It was only the fact that his height had been so obviously Modified via expensive drugs hinted that he wouldn’t be used for physical labor. He was too small for that now, too fragile; and that scared Jensen’s drug-addled mind further.
If he wasn’t going to be used for actual work then that opened a whole darker venue of thought: Was he to become a pet? A sexual plaything of some sort? It wasn’t an unheard of result, not when being homeless gave you no rights and the world seemed eager to cater to wealthier people’s needs. Still, such issues didn’t matter right now, not when the flighty, panicky part of his brain zeroed in on the sudden spray of icy water hitting his legs.
Naturally, Jensen yelped at the unexpected sensation, a burst of adrenaline breaking through the drowsiness clinging to him. Squirming, he latched his attention upon the man spraying down his shrunken limbs, the sight of the garish, green-blue gunk that had been smeared onto his body sluicing off his legs and removing his body hair as easily as dirt. Horrified and angry, Jensen was just starting to feel his strength coming back when the bored-looking man called out to an unseen companion.
‘‘Another one?’’ a perky, female voice tutted. ‘‘Somebody’s gotta tell Pellegrino about his new suppliers,’’ she continued. ‘‘This is the fourth wake-up we’ve had mid-prep. They’re clearly using cheaper tranquilizers on the merchandise…’’
A faint grunt from the man was all Jensen heard in reply, the light scratch of a needle against his neck working instantly.
Burbank A.B Adoption Center was everything Jeffery Dean Morgan had been expecting.
The exterior of the building itself looked every inch as a small, private hospital with its modern architecture and high glass windows. Even the inside, Jeff noted, held a stifling clinical air; the stark white walls, bright lights and row after row of cribs. The building was oppressive and business-like; a far cry from a place that should’ve housed the gleeful giggles or excitable yammering of the adult babies and tots put up for adoption.
He felt awkward and irritated, not curious and excited, as he trailed hand-in-hand with his husband, Jared Padalecki, behind one of the matrons. The middle-aged woman had given them a tour of the establishment, showing the pair of them the airy room where the universally titled Little Ones (or affectionately nicknamed ‘Littles’) slept as well as the selection of occupied playrooms. She introduced them to passing staff on the way, all the while pointing out prospective babes. It didn’t take long for Jeff to feel both his and Jared’s hope that the Burbank Center wasn’t like other adult baby agencies diminishing by the second.
The place was like many others across the country, it was a place made for making money, not happiness. Jeff had seen some of the nursery workers interacting with the little ones, the workers might’ve smiled, but the furrow in their brows hinted how put-out they were with handling caretaker duties. It was horrible and heart breaking, especially when they – Jared and himself – had jumped through hoops on infantilism internet forums to find themselves a consensual adult baby.
But no, places like Burbank thrived for a reason. People didn’t bother with forums or advertisement when it came to getting a little one, not when they could have a pick of any Little One they wished to call their own. Clearly, some new parents obviously didn’t care that private agencies like Burbank gained their babies by plucking the non-consenting homeless male and females off the streets to gain a profit.
The whole situation was sickening and, perhaps, even more so given the government’s backing by labelling the homeless as ‘undesirables’, the fate of many being treated as sub-human. Rarely anyone would bat an eyelid at another vagrant disappearing off the streets. If anything, most citizens would feel calmer at one less ‘undesirable’ hovering in city’s shadows…if the newspapers Jeff had read were true about recent wave of anti-homeless laws being instated.
Still, the entirety of the terrible situation didn’t end there, not when many adoption centers went a step too far. Even Burbank, Jeff had long realized, had subjected their adult babies and toddlers to drugs...because that is what they had done given the selection of adult babies’ two-to-three-foot-something size.
Designer Modifiers were drugs, cosmetic, but still drugs...and Burbank had used them by the truckload.
What had become a popular source of altering genetic defects in the 1950’s had morphed and spanned into a set of pills, liquids or injections used in today’s world for physical modifications. Jeff could remember seeing the more ‘exotic’ use of Designer Modifiers back when he lived in New York, be it the form of hookers with feline traits such as cat tails or, in a more common use of the drugs, a once-balding businessman suddenly sprouting luxurious locks of hair in under an hour.
It was truly a fascinating array of drugs designed for certain individual’s own plans and, the majority of the time, was popular in certain social circles. Even some of the more traditional parents of adult babies (those who didn’t use the Adoption Agencies but consensual adult-turned-babies) such as their friends used some Designer Modifiers to adjust their Little’s overall size, finding the smaller stature easier to accommodate. Yet, unlike their friends, their own search for a consensual adult baby had dragged on for too long, almost seven years, and it was only now, in this bout of desperation, that led him here with Jared.
Jeff, in all his forty-six years of age, currently felt like the world’s biggest hypocrite being here and listening to the chirpy, curly-haired woman show them around the establishment. He had felt no joy when being introduced to prospective babies, their small, childish sizes and adult features causing his jaw to tighten and stomach roll unpleasantly. However, as much as he and Jared hated it all, they were desperate to fulfill their dream of having a family. So desperate, in fact, that they had taken the first step into eying up the last place they wanted to be when it came to getting a baby boy or girl of their own.
‘‘...Jeff ?’’
Jared’s soft, enquiring tone instantly caught Jeff’s attention and popped the bubble of irritation growing in his chest. He snorted with fond amusement, his broad, calloused hand squeezing Jared’s larger yet somewhat slender-fingered one. Gods, how he loved the floppy-haired male something wicked. The younger man was so in tune with him that it was times like this that Jeff had to fight the urge to back his lover into the nearest corner and ravish him.
Instead, Jeff managed to settle with a more verbal response of, ‘‘I’m fine, babe.’’
Such reassurance didn’t work though, and Jeff inwardly cursed Jared’s perceptive nature. His husband all but wilted, be it with relief, guilt or realization, as he came to a sudden halt in the corridor their tour guide was directing them down, their connected hands making Jeff stop also. He caught sight of his lover’s disappointment and somewhat conspiring glance towards the oblivious guide trotting towards the reception area before speaking up.
‘‘It’s okay, you know,’’ Jared all but confessed, his voice a rasped hush. He stopped thinking of his and Jeff’s heartbreak and the empty nursery back home which they had poured their heart and soul into in favour of doing the right thing. ‘‘I don’t like it here either, babe. It doesn’t feel right knowing it’s not wanted by both people involved. Maybe...maybe we should just forget – ’’
A crash of doors and raised voices further down the corridor interjected whatever else was to be proposed.