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“Just- uh, here, it’s in my photos somewhere,” George tells Wilbur, tilting his head towards his phone without taking his eyes off of the screen or his hands off of the controller. “Password’s 123456.”
“Stupid mother-effing passcode,” Will says with a snort of laughter, grabbing the phone and unlocking it. Apparently there’s a photo somewhere in it of a hairstyle George thinks would suit Will?
“About a month ago,” George says. “Over thirty days, at least.”
Will blinks briefly at the cartoonish pink nursery-style background, then shrugs it off and starts flipping through pages on George’s phone, looking for the photos app. The last page is full of childish games, everything from Toca Boca to Cats With Soup. He flips away from that as well, maybe George just has a younger cousin that likes to play on his phone, or something like that.
“Alright, what page is this effing thing on?” he asks finally.
“It’s in the bar at the bottom,” George says.
Will flicks his gaze down to the bottom of the screen to see that, yeah, it’s right there. He opens the photos app and starts scrolling back, occasionally clicking on random pictures to see how far back he’s gone.
Two days ago, a sunset. Fairly normal, just not something he’d expect from George.
Nine days ago, a baby mobile. Uh… alright? Kind of interesting, but it’s none of Will’s business.
Thirteen days ago, a selfie with George and Will, the first day they met up. Definitely normal, though Will forgot they took this particular photo.
Fifteen days ago, a picture of George’s passport that he’d sent to Will before leaving the US. That one’s an interesting one to have kept, but George probably just didn’t bother deleting it.
Eighteen days ago, a pacifier. A very large looking pacifier, maybe made for adults. That’s… a bit more confusing than the other things Will’s seen, but again, none of his business.
Twenty-one days ago, a baby bottle, but again, larger than usual. There’s a pattern here that Will’s brain is starting to put together, something about children.
Twenty-four days ago, a Reddit post about something called “agereg” and how the focus needs to be more on the fact that “littles” can lose their ability to consent and less on the fact that littles shouldn’t consent, with the arrow in the top left corner being red (for non-Reddit users, that means he liked the post). That doesn’t quite fit the pattern Will’s beginning to put together, unless it does and he just doesn’t know how?
Twenty-nine days ago, a very poor quality photo of the moon, surrounded by many other equally bad photos. Back to the realm of normal George, whose phone cannot handle taking moon photos.
Thirty days ago, an adult onesie styled after a baby onesie. And something’s added to Will’s pattern yet again, his quickly growing pattern of baby things in George’s photos.
Now Will starts looking at each photo, trying to find the haircut photo he was told to look for. Lots more baby things pop up, from onesies to bottles to pacifiers to stuffed animals to baby rattles, along with some more normal things, such as selfies (alone or with friends) and memes. Finally, he finds the haircut photo, which would look absolutely ridiculous on him.
He knows.
He thought it looked amazing for two whole years when he was a teenager.
“Absolutely not,” he tells George, who hasn’t looked away from his game once. “The guy in the photo looks great and all, but I will not.”
“Worth a try,” George says with a shrug. “Put it back next to me, then.” He hesitates. “Uh, was- did you see anything… weird?”
“Nah,” Will lies easily. “Couple of Tumblr posts, but those were expected.”
George visibly relaxes. “Ah, good. Not that I had anything weird, but, uh, you might’ve needed context for something?” His voice goes up at the end of the sentence, as if he’s asking Will rather than telling him a possible situation.
“No context necessary,” Will assures him, pulling out his own phone and typing in “agereg little”.
And instantly falling down a rabbit hole.
About two hours later, when George retreats to the currently-belonging-to-him spare room to get some sleep, Will’s head is spinning. He’s been researching agereg (or, as it’s more commonly called, age regression) the whole time while George just played his game. He’s found out a lot about how it’s a healthy coping mechanism, like painting or baking, and how it’s helped some people with unhealthy coping mechanisms, like alcoholism or self-harm.
And he’s also 99% certain George does it.
The pacifiers, onesies, bottles, rattles, and stuffed animals all apparently fit into a category called “littlegear”, baby things made for adults (or that are made for kids but that adults can have as well, such as the stuffed animals). The cutesy phone background and games add up, as well, judging from the multiple posts he found asking about “baby-friendly phone games”.
And if George has all of these pictures saved, he probably doesn’t have any littlegear of his own.
So Will just has to get him some.
He spends the next two hours googling frantically, searching for littlegear he thinks George will like. He gets a light blue size 10 pacifier, since George is known for having a big mouth, and from what he’s seen, too-small adult pacifiers can hurt mouths. There’s also a sheep stuffie, since sheep seemed most prevalent in the littlegear pictures, a bottle with decals of sheep on it and a blue ring around the top, a pale blue rattle with a hand hold on it (as most of the pictures of rattles on George’s phone had), and a blue onesie with sheep and clouds scattered across it.
Alright, maybe he went a bit overboard with the sheep.
But by the time he’s hit ‘order’ on at least three different websites, he’s happy with what he found. He thinks George will like it.
If Will can figure out some way to explain how he knew about the age regression thing in the first place.
A few weeks later, all of the littlegear has arrived from various locations around the world. Will catalogues it carefully against his order list, and once it’s finally all there, he makes a plan to tell George about it.
Except that the plan leaves a space for where he’s going to say something about how he knows what age regression is.
So he hedges his way around it by trying to make George feel baby, so maybe he’ll confess to it on his own?
So, when they’re choosing a movie, he volleys so hard for The Muppets (the first ever Muppets, that is - against George’s want to watch Wakanda Forever for the thousandth time) that George gives in almost instantly. And when they’re watching the Muppets, Will pulls George into his lap.
“What’s that for?” George asks with a laugh once he’s recovered from his shock.
“Let me be clingy,” is Will’s response, completely avoiding having to actually answer George’s question.
George gets quieter and quieter as the movie goes on, giggling softly at some parts, then looking up at Will with wide eyes, as if making sure he didn’t notice. Will keeps his eyes trained on the TV while George is looking up at him, prompting more fits of quiet giggles.
When the movie ends, George turns to look at Will again.
“‘Nother?” he requests shyly.
“‘Course, darling,” Will says, kissing the top of George’s head and starting the next Muppets. “Do you know how old you are?”
George freezes. He whines, burying his face in Will’s shirt.
“Aw, poor baby,” Will cooes softly, running his fingers through George’s hair and pausing The Muppets with the other hand. “Shy baby, it’s alright, you can be baby.”
George whines again. “‘Top i’.”
“Stop what?”
“‘Top i’,” George repeats.
“But you’re an adorable baby. You know that, right?”
“‘Top i’!” George says loudly, muffled by speaking into Will’s chest.
“Do you have any littlegear, darling?”
George shakes his head sadly, then remembers he’s supposed to be angry and says “‘Top i’!” again.
“Could I get you the littlegear I bought for you?”
George, instantly forgetting all about his anger, sits up straight and stares at Will with wide eyes. “Li’lege’r?” he asks in a tiny voice.
“Littlegear,” Will agrees. “Wait here for one second, alright, darling?”
George nods, so Will carefully nudges the baby off his lap and sprints off down the hall to get the littlegear from his room. He grabs the seperate boxes, all still closed, and brings them back to the living room, where George is sitting on the couch and fidgeting with his hands.
Will drops the boxes on the coffee table. George looks up from his hands quickly, gasping at the five boxes, two small (pacifier and rattle), two medium (bottle and stuffie), and one big (onesie) balanced precariously on top of one another.
“Lots,” George says softly, looking at Will in wonder.
“Lots,” Will agrees. “Which one do you want to open first?”
George hesitates, then grabs the box with the pacifier in it, to Will’s surprise. He’d thought that someone with the mindset of a small child would go for the biggest one first, but that works just as well. Will gets out some scissors to carefully cut open the box, then hands it back to George so he can open it the rest of the way.
George peels back the flaps of the box to see the pacifier, with a cap over the teat so it won’t get dirty. He gasps and pulls it out of the box, popping the cap off and reaching up to put it in his mouth, saying happily, “Paci!”
“Hold on, darling,” Will says with a laugh, making note of the shortened form of pacifier as he grabs George’s hand quickly, to the disappointment of the little. “It has to be washed first.”
George watches sadly as Will brings the paci to the kitchen and washes it quickly, giving it back to George as soon as he gets back to the living room. George takes it and pops it into his mouth eagerly, then reaches for the next smallest package - the rattle.
Will cuts that one open, too, and smiles at George’s delight when he pulls the rattle out. He shakes it once, then carefully sets it to the side and reaches for another box, this one the stuffie. He’s excited at that, as well, instantly naming him “Sir Baa”. Next is the bottle, which he gasps at, then hands to Will - for later. Finally, he opens the onesie, and looks up at Will.
“He’p?” he requests shyly around his paci, holding out the onesie.
“‘Course,” Will says. He helps George stand up, helping him out of his hoodie and jeans, then into his new onesie. George, freshly onesie’d, drops back down onto the couch with a giggle, picking up his rattle and giving it a few shakes.
All of a sudden, George stops. He looks down at the rattle, then at his onesie, then at the bottle next to Will, then pulls his paci out and stares at it. His lip wobbles, his eyes filling with tears, and Will has no idea what he did wrong but he has to fix it, instantly.
“What’s wrong, darling?” Will asks quickly, wrapping George in a hug.
“B’ue,” George mumbles sadly.
“Blue? Yeah, it’s blue. Oh, is- is that why you’re sad? Did you want a different color?”
George pulls away from the hug, getting his phone and clumsily unlocking it. Will watches him scroll through his albums, clicking one called “teeny” and flipping through the pictures, showing Will.
A bottle, a paci, a onesie, a paci, a onesie, a-
Oh.
Oh, it’s-
A baby pink bottle, a baby pink paci, a baby pink onesie, a baby pink-
It’s all pink, and Will thought he should get blue littlegear.
Will thunks himself in the forehead with the palm of his hand. “I’m sorry, darling, look, I’ll order pink things right now, okay?”
George pops his paci back into his mouth and hooks his fingers through the handle. He watches as Will pulls up his phone and goes to the still-open tabs with the littegear on it, switching all of the colors to baby pink and hitting order again.
“Will you be okay with blue things for now?” Will asks softly, feeling incredibly guilty for not even registering the color of the items.
George nods sadly, then reaches for his bottle. Will laughs, tapping the button on his paci. “I’ll be right back, darling, with a bottle, just for you.”
Will hops up from the couch and runs into the kitchen, quickly filling the bottle with milk and adding vanilla and honey, then putting it into the microwave for two minutes.
While it’s going, he pokes his head into the living room. “You ‘right in here, darling?”
George nods, cooing happily around his paci and shaking his rattle a bit. Will smiles fondly, stepping back into the kitchen just in time to hear the microwave go off. He pulls the bottle out of the microwave and shakes it, squeezing a bit onto his wrist to make sure it’s not too hot.
“You ready for your bottle?” Will asks as he goes back into the living room with the bottle in his hands.
George cooes his affirmation, reaching for Will and making clumsy grabbing motions. Will laughs softly, sitting in his seat on the couch and scooping George up into his lap again. Will reaches up to take George’s paci out, but George whines softly, pointing.
Will glances in the direction George is pointing and sees The Muppets, still paused. He smiles down at the baby, at his baby, and unpauses it. George is content to let his paci be replaced with his bottle after that, half-closed eyes focused on the TV screen.
And even though Will got the wrong color, and despite knowing that him and George will have to Talk About It tomorrow, he’s happy.
He likes taking care of his baby.