Chapter Text
Today was the day.
After months of dodging around the subject with his therapist, today TommyInnit was going to be a big man and finally be honest with his mother. He’d already promised himself he’d do it, she was the kindest, most supporting person he’d ever met (more-so than even Wilbur) so really he had absolutely no doubt in his mind that she’d nurture this side of him, supporting and loving him unconditionally as any good mother should do.
Still though, he was nervous. Being vulnerable with someone you loved so so dearly was always a struggle; the ever-present fact that there would always be a chance she could react badly weighing on him, heavier than even the weighted blanket she had gifted him after he expressed the idea it could help with his anxiety.
Regression was a big part of his life, even if he’d like to say it wasn’t. Being in the spotlight was stressful, being 17 with 10 million subscribers was stressful. Every day he would log onto his social media and immediately be surrounded by either overwhelming positivity or genuine hatred. Neither was good. Being put on a pedestal that high only meant it would hurt more when he inevitably slipped up and those same people pushed him off. Nobody ever expects fame to be so terrifying until they're in the eye of it- that’s what he had learnt over the past year.
Needless to say, regression helped a lot, taking some time away from the overwhelming magnitude of his following to just calm down and be a kid again was something he really needed.
It was his main coping mechanism and he wanted to share that with the woman who had taught him there was no shame in needing help in the first place.
So today was the day. Regression was a big part of his life. He needed to find the perfect way to bring the topic up… What better way than texting her?
Tommy pulled out his phone.
Looking at the time, She’d probably be shopping for another 30 minutes, which left just enough time to confess via text message and cool off before the actual confrontation. Perhaps it wasn't the classiest way to tell her but his heart was already pounding so hard he wasn’t sure if he would be able to handle anything more direct than that, cowardly as it was.
There was absolutely no way under any circumstance could he bear having to look her in the eye as he said he needed to think like a child to cope with being too famous for his own good. Even just saying it sounded a bit pathetic.
So he started typing…
‘Hey Mum!’ No No No. Too forced. Tommy quickly backspaced, deleting the message.
‘I need to tell you something’ Ew. That made it sound like he’d broken a law. Delete.
This was either really hard or he was really avoidant.
‘Okay look so this is really embarrassing for me to say but there’s this coping mechanism I've been using and it really helps me deal with stress and anxiety and stuff and I actually really understand if you don't approve but its called age regression. My therapist says it's good and healthy. Basically when things get really hard it's easier for me to work through it if I’m kinda thinking like a kid? Like my brain kinda actually starts doing things like when I was a toddler.’
Closing his eyes and holding his breath, he hit send, copy and pasting the links to a couple articles about the topic that he knew were respectful and accurate.
He had done it. He ripped the bandaid off. Really there was only one thing left to do: calm down and wait for either a reply or for his mother to get home. Neither of which he really wanted to do, considering how vulnerable he was right now.
To his surprise -and maybe to his demise- his phone buzzed back almost instantly. Anxiety began to run its course through his veins, filling his mind with any kind of negative reaction that could happen.
What if he was kicked out?
What if she pretended to accept him only to secretly hate him?
What if she thought he was a freak and sent him to a mental hospital?
With his breathing getting exponentially shallower, he tapped on the message. Black dots formed in his vision as his stomach flipped over itself, anxiety making him feel physically ill with the anticipation of what was to come.
‘Oh Toms <3 You know I'd love you no matter what, You could have told me the very moment you started experiencing this little man. Going to give you the biggest hug you’ve EVER had once I get home buttercup’
And Tommy knew he was in good hands.
----
Waiting for possibly the biggest discussion of your life was terrifying.
No matter how hard he tried to take his mind off of it, there was still a dull, heavy ball of dread in the pit of his stomach. He wasn’t really sure if he wanted to run away or curl up and cry but what he did know was that sitting in one place was just making everything ten times harder for himself.
Despite the ache in his bones and the heat behind his eyes, he pulled himself over to his PC where he clicked onto discord, checking his favourite servers (read, the ones with Wilbur, Techno and Phil in) in case he needed to do anything and skimming over his Dms, most of which were collab offers, of which he wasn’t really in the headspace to deal with.
Instead, he clicked onto a private server that had all of his closest friends in. Early on, Wilbur had made the rule that no video talk was allowed in this server since they all needed a place to be friends without the fear of the friendship being played up for the camera (and considering they already had hundreds of others to talk about that in).
Resting his head on his hand, Tommy lazily typed out a message, if he had to pinpoint it, he’d say his headspace was at about 12 right now- it had definitely approached quickly during his little panic but he was still old enough to interact with people and have things not seem too wrong- he’d just be a little more childish and a little less responsible.
Pressing send, once he double checked he was using the same kind of language he usually did, he waited patiently for one of them to reply.
03:45 RaccoonBoy: guys I feel kinda Bleh today. Very stressed. Mum’s gonna talk to me about something when she gets home. Entertain me losers.
03:50 WilbyScoot: You alright Toms? Your mum is nice, I think everything will be fine but just in case would you like to vc?
03:50 RaccoonBoy: yes please wilby
Well shit. To Tommy, it was incredibly obvious that he was regressed every time he slipped up and called his big brother figure by that stupid childish nickname but luckily his friends had seemed to come to the belief that it was something he just said whenever he was feeling content. He supposed their perception wasn’t that far off anyway, Wilbur was kind and considerate, he always took care to make sure he was happy and he was the biggest pusher of the sbi family dynamic, seriously how could he not feel safe enough to slip around the man?
Seeing that Wilbur joined one of the vc’s, Tommy took that as his que to join too, whining down the mic to voice his discomfort as soon as the call was connected.
“Jesus Tommy! You little gremlin child! I get it already, do you wanna just tell me why you’re stressed? Or I can try and take your mind off it if that would be better?”
Tommy shrugged his shoulders and leaned back in his chair, gaze directed at the ceiling.
“Just like Ugh y'know?” Dragging a hand down his face, he peeked one eye down at his monitor to see Wilbur turning his camera on. Pretentious loser probably thought it would calm him down to know he was listening or something- Tommy definitely didn't care and he definitely didn't appreciate him taking extra measures to make him happy. Deffo.
“You wanna tell me what happened Toms?”
Shrugging again, he tried to think of the best way to explain to him that he had told his mum about the sole thing that was keeping him stable and he wasn't sure if it was about to get taken away or not without actually saying that.
“So.. If I have a secret that isn’t a bad secret but it’s still a secret because some people might not accept you for it but also it feels really bad and really yucky to keep inside, telling someone is the right thing to do right? Because I had a big secret and I was scared she’d be disappointed in me for it so I texted her telling her but now I'm kinda scared for her to come home and talk to me about it right?”
Maybe he was rambling and maybe he was being super vague but Wilbur just nodded along kindly as he listened to him vent.
“Yeah Toms, honesty is always the best idea” The man sighed fondly.
“You really got me worried for a minute, I thought you were in serious trouble. Listen Tommy, I’ve met your parents, they're the most accepting people I've ever met, no matter what this secret is, I'm telling you they'll still love you.”
Tommy nodded gently as he thought over the words
“She did say she was okay with it when she messaged back. I guess I'm just scared”
“Perfectly okay to be scared Tommy, Your feelings are so so important but if it's any consolation, if things go south you can always stay with me or Phil for a while.”
Tommy gave a little nod as they ended their call, going back to flop down on his bed, he supposed all the stress had tuckered him out since the moment his head hit the bed he felt a wave of exhaustion pass over him. Perhaps a nap wouldn’t hurt, it would relax him after all.
---
“Thomas! Tom, are you in there?”
As he woke out of his dream, he was a little groggy, for a moment he was unsure why his mum needed to talk to him until the memory of the day flooded back to him and he was left with that horrible feeling of dread sitting in his stomach.
Three dull knocks followed her words, voice gentle and kind as if she could already feel the anxious energy bubbling up from her son.
On the other side of the door, Poor Tommy was trying his best to remind himself that his mother would never be cruel to him, she loved him with all her heart and he knew that; it was just hard to remember when he was being so vulnerable.
“Uhm..” wrecking his mind for anything that could be an excuse, he stalled for time but ultimately came up short, unable to think of anything believable to say to push the conversation away
“Yeah Mum. Come in”
Previously Tommy would have said time was a linear construct that was always moving at a steady pace, however once he felt how slowly the door handle seemed to move, revealing his mother, shopping bag in hand, he knew that either he had experienced a glitch in the matrix or suspense was a very real thing.
Sat on the edge of his bed, every muscle tense as he awaited this dreaded conversation, he filled with the frayed edge of his ripped jeans - a bad habit that would only serve to make the tears worse.
“Tommy, can you look at me, little man?”
There was a kindness to her voice that Tommy couldn’t ignore, pulling his head up to look her way in a compulsion of complete trust and adoration. Placing the shopping bag on the floor, she sat next to Tommy on the bed, wrapping an arm around him and placing a small kiss on his forehead.
It was a weird feeling. He had never known how somebody could feel absolutely content and mind-numbingly anxious simultaneously but somehow he was managing it.
“You know I love you, right Bud?”
With a small nod, the blonde mumbled out a small ‘love you too’ as he placed his head onto her shoulder.
As much as he hated to admit it, touch was definitely his love language. Any kind of contact was sure to make him feel like the most special, most loved boy in the world. He was really a strong believer of ‘a hug makes everything better’ and he supposed he had his mother to thank for that trait. She never fell into the stereotype of boys needing to outgrow affection, instead she’d remind him at any time possible that he was loved, in her own special way.
“Listen Toms, you’re a good kid. You’re smart and funny and incredibly kind. It breaks my heart to think you’d ever feel like you need to hide things from me. Even when you're 80 you’ll still be my little boy”
Cupping his cheek with one hand, she pressed a kiss to his forehead, wiping away some stray tears of his with her thumb.
“Having you was the best decision I ever made. You really are the light of my life Tom, I’m so so incredibly proud of you, and I'm so proud that you were able to identify a coping skill that would work for you. I did a little bit of reading up on this in the car before I came home and-”
She punctuated her sentence with a hug,
“I’m so happy you trusted me enough to include me in this. Anything you need to get, just tell me, yeah sweetie? And next time you regress, I’d be so delighted to be able to meet my little boy”
Tommy let a gentle smile pass his lips as he wrapped his arms around his mother and gave her the biggest squeeze he could imagine. His eyes may be a little damp and maybe his brain had been being mean to him but at least his heart was warm.
“I love you Mum. So much” he mumbled happily into her shoulder, even if he had to lean down a bit to give her a proper hug, she still managed to make him feel like a little kid all over again. For the first time in so long he felt genuinely happy, being accepted by your loved ones was really an amazing thing.
“Oh!”
She perked up after a little while of just holding her boy in her arms
“I got you a couple things while I was shopping! I did read up on those articles and I saw that most regressors have ages they slip to most often but I didn’t really know what to get so I just got you some general stuff”
After reaching down for the carrier bag, she began pulling out a couple things to show Tommy.
“I saw these and I thought ‘oh toms will love that’ they’re just so cute I couldn’t resist”
She grinned, holding a couple minecraft plushies, dropping them into her son's lap while she fished out the next items.
“Oh just look at this cute little bib! It’s the biggest one they had so it'll probably fit you, either way I'll get you some that are actually your size soon don't worry, most of these things are just to hold you out until we can find some nice things that can be for little you and in the right size”
The bib in question was made for either a chubby toddler or a really messy kid, it had one of those teether ends and on the fabric section it had ‘Mummy’s little helper’ written in some blue childish font with little bears embroidered around it.
For the next ten minutes she piled him up with different kids items, mainly toys but also the necessities like bottles, pacifiers and teethers (most of which would need to be replaced with adult ones as soon as possible to keep his teeth nice and healthy).
The ordeal was certainly embarrassing, he definitely wasn't quite used to people being so hands on with making sure he was happy, honestly he had been half expecting her to give him permission to do it so he could stop stressing about being found out and leave it at that.
Still though, he wouldn't trade this for anything. If he went through every outcome he had thought of, he had never imagined she’d be so loving and accepting. Everything was great.
As she got up to leave him be and settle in with his new things, she paused for a moment by the door.
“By the way, Sweetheart, your father and I would really love for our little man to join us for dinner tonight so if you’re nice and settled in by then, please think about maybe giving us a peak of little you”