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Jesper had gone to the bed at the same time as the other littles, just like he was supposed to. He had spent the entire day down in his headspace and playing with Wylan and Nina, who were always eager to get up to whatever mischief he had planned. That meant that he was genuinely tired instead of just being groggy or extra giggly and his caregivers deciding that meant he had to go to bed before his designated time.
However, he woke up almost an hour after he had fully settled into the nursery with an ache in his throat. He was a big boy and was trusted to get his own glass of water as long as that was the only thing that he was getting. So he rose from his bed, very carefully so that he didn’t wake the other little sleeping beside him, and began to pad down the hall to the kitchen so that he could get something to soothe his sudden thirst.
He had just gotten to the mouth of the hall where he could choose to go to his mommy’s room, the living room, or the kitchen where he was meant to be going. The orange light was flickering against the floorboards because of the fire in the hearth, which was very distracting. Instead of continuing on his designated path, he knelt down on the ground and let his long fingers trace over the patterns that the wood made. He jumped over to another board when a flame flickered higher or lower, silently playing with himself.
It was his special talent, according to his daddy, that he was able to find any way to play with something that he was given. He knew that it made him easier to take care of when Matthias and Nina were being a handful, and that much he was proud of.
Jesper was jerked from his self-assigned playtime when he heard the familiar voices of his caregivers coming through the doorway that he was knelt next to. He turned and saw that they were seated on the couch, their backs pressed against either arm so that they could face each other. He knew that Mommy and Daddy didn’t spent a lot of time cuddling or even touching each other, but the love that they had for one another was as clear as day to anyone that looked. He felt the same way towards Wylan when they were both in their big space, even if they felt more okay with touching.
He blinked when he watched the glass of dark red liquid raise to his mommy’s lips around her smile. It was the same glass that he and Nina had been using to pretend that they were at a ball earlier in the day. He loved watching his caregivers, even if he wanted to be bundled up in their arms instead of hiding behind the doorway. He knew that he would get in trouble for being out of bed without a purpose hours after he was supposed to be asleep, so he didn’t say anything and just kept watching and listening.
“Matthias has been making really good progress. Is it weird to say that I’m proud of him for pitching a fit?” Daddy asked as he sipped his own drink after removing the glass from Mommy’s hands.
“I think the first time that Wylan told me he hated me for telling him that it was bedtime I cried from joy after putting him in timeout,” Mommy laughed. Jesper loved the way that her laugh sounded, she always made the room feel warmer and more safe than it had been before when she was happy. He didn’t know what they were talking about or why they would be happy that the others were misbehaving when they always told him that they loved it when he was a good boy, but whatever the reason was captivating to him despite his thirst.
“Do you think that he’ll still be little when he wakes up?” Daddy sighed and ran one of his ungloved hands through his hair. Jesper smiled as he remembered what it felt like to have his caregiver’s hands working on his own hair when he was sick or getting a bath.
Mommy nodded and then took the glass back from the other caregiver so that she could have her own sip. “I think so, he let us put him down to bed in the nursery, which is another sign of his progress. I think that having Nina be little at the same time as him is really helping the process feel less overwhelming.”
“I think having you here helps him most of all, love,” Daddy whispered and that look that Mommy always got when he said something sweet took over her face. Jesper had never seen her point that towards anyone else and his big brain knew what it meant, but refused to tell his little brain.
“You’re probably right. Knowing that he doesn’t have to take care of Nina helps him give into his other headspace,” Mommy nodded.
They were quiet for a bit, so long that Jesper almost got bored enough to go get his glass of water and go back to the nursery. He was about to push himself into a standing position when he heard his own name, which made him risk being caught by poking his head through the doorway so that he could hear better.
“Jesper was quite the handful today, wasn’t he?” Daddy laughed.
He felt a rush of panic flood through his limbs, all the way down the edges of his toes and the tips of his fingers. It was worse than the time that he had been fighting and then suddenly slipped into his headspace so deep he hadn’t been able to tell anyone until Matthias had picked him up. He didn’t want to stay and listen anymore, he wanted to go back to bed where he was warm and happy.
Every step that he took back down the hallway he could feel himself getting bigger. He was able to recognize the feeling immediately since it was what swamped him every time that he left his headspace behind unless it happened in his sleep. The bigger that he got, however, the more sorrow began to seep through his very being.
He could feel the tears beginning to collect on the bottoms of his lashes and the sob that was caught masterfully in his throat. He had live in a very small house with his father when he was growing up and neither of them had ever really spoken about his mother’s death, so he had gotten used to hiding the grief and mourning that came from wanting a person that he could never have. If he was little then the resolve and skill faded away until they were barely anything, especially since Kaz ad Inej had worked with him the same way they were working with Wylan and Matthias to undo what had been done to them in their childhoods. So he cried silently into the back of his hand as he slipped his feet over the hardwood floors so that he wouldn’t be heard by the caregivers in the living room.
Instead of heading back to the nursery like he had been planning on, he walked up the stairs to his room on the second floor. Inej preferred to be on the ground level because that meant that she could hide out with the people that she loved, her partner and her friends, if something bad were to happen. The nursery was on the ground floor so that she was close to them if they woke in the night and needed to be tended to. Everyone else had a bed on the second floor except for Kaz, who had a bedroom and an office up in the attic where he could hide away when he was having a bad day.
Jesper carefully walked up the stairs and then to his room. It was a space that he had brought pieces of his old home to so that it felt more comforting than the Slat had ever managed. The walls were painted the same color blue as a clear Zemini day and the flooring was covered with an assortment of rugs that he had woven himself. The failures were still tucked away in the back of his closet, behind all of the suits that he had gathered after the years of living in the flat with his closest friends. His bed was covered in the quilt that he and his mother had made when he was six, though his contribution was mostly sitting underneath the frame while giggling every time the yarn poked through the thick batting. He had a desk with the textbook for the course that he was currently taking at university sitting mostly untouched on top of it. He had pictures of Kaelish fairytales that his father had told him before his mother had died and everything had gone quiet. He also had a slate pencil drawing that Wylan had done of all of them during their early years.
He shut and locked the door behind him, sliding the deadbolt into place. Every single door in the entire flat had a deadbolt or otherwise barring lock to keep Kaz and other lockpickers that weren’t as good as him out. The windows were another matter, but Wylan had rigged an explosion to go off if the circuit was broken at the bottom instead of at the top so they knew that they were truly safe.
Jesper had never felt more unsafe before in his life.
He sank down onto his bed and then toyed with the nightshirt that he was wearing over his smalls. He never went to bed with any pants on when he was little because he was notorious for taking them off, even when he was dead asleep. The shirt was a lovely shade of green with little kittens hand embroidered on the hem, a gift to him from Nina for his birthday.
The thought of how he acted when he was down in his headspace was enough to make the ache come back like the words were being spoken to him for the first time. He couldn’t stand the reminder of it that was brushing against his skin, it almost felt as though it was burning him. He tried to undo the buttons with his shaking hands, but found that he couldn’t even see where the hole behind it was because of the tears blurring his vision. So instead of continuing his futile mission, he reached into the pewter material with his powers and turned them into dust. It would ruin the shirt and require a skilled hand to pick out the leftover thread to reattach new ones if someone was going to wear it again, but that didn’t matter. The shirt was made to fit Jesper’s rather specialized dimensions and he had already resolved that it was never going to happen again.
None of it was. He was never going to fall back down into that headspace unless he absolutely had to, and even then he would do it when he was completely on his own.
He couldn’t stand the thought of his caregivers, his dearest and best friends in the entire world, being worn out while trying to take care of him. He knew that he was hyper when he was out of his headspace, never being able to stay still and full of near-anxious levels of energy, but he had to be so much worse when he was little. He couldn’t even imagine the headaches that he had caused them over the years when they were trying to care for the others, who needed their headspace far more than he did, while also putting up with his antics.
So he was going to do away with all of it. There was going to be no more tender moments when he fell asleep with his head in the lap of one of his caregivers, their hands threading through his coiled hair. There was going to be no more cuddles while down in headspace with his boyfriend. There was going to be no more frilly pajamas covered in childish designs like kittens, rainbows, and flowers. There was going to be more bathtimes where he would play in the bubbles with Nina until they were both shivering and pruny.
It as all ending tonight because even though he knew that it would hurt him, the idea that it would hurt his caregivers was even worse.
He eventually collapsed down onto the bed after shedding his shirt down onto the floor. He barely noticed the way that his tears were soaking through the pillow as he thought over all of the playtimes that he had with the others and what might have been going on for his caregivers that would have made the experience unpleasant for them. He fell asleep with his head full of thoughts about how much of a liability he was, how annoying he was, and how he was unwanted by everyone he loved.
The next morning he woke up feeling like he had stuffed a box of flour directly into his nose and then taken a bath like that. His face ached with it and his eyes felt as though he had been clawing at them all night.
He got out of bed with a small stumble, shoving the ruined shirt into the very back of his closet underneath all of the rugs that he had made before he had gotten the pattern right because he knew that no one would find it there. He then fished through his bedside drawer until he found the handkerchief that Nina had made just for him for a Zemini holiday he had forgotten he had ever wanted to celebrate. He scrubbed his face and blew his nose until his sinuses were comfortable enough to just let him exist.
He wiped a bit of the pewter dust from his chest with his hand before he sought out some clothes. He tried to ignore how achy he felt from sleeping in the nude above his covers when autumn was already beginning to set over the damp streets of Ketterdam. He couldn’t get sick because if he got sick it was going to be a lot harder for him to keep himself out of his headspace like he needed to.
Jesper dressed in a plain white button up with a garish checked blue-white-orange vest with a pair of matching slacks. He didn’t bother to grab a hat because he wasn’t sure what the plan for the rest of the day was, having been too little when Kaz got home for them to discuss it properly. He walked down the hall to the second floor bathroom so that he could finish scrubbing his face and apply the oils that kept him smelling nice when he hadn’t had a bath or wash the night before.
Once he was finally assured that he didn’t look a complete mess, just most of one, he headed down the rest of the steps until he reached the little kitchen. The space was actually quite big, but it was made to look smaller by the massive eight-person table that they had just outside of the cupboards. The kitchen was a lovely, chipper place in their house that Jesper always thought reminded him of home completely by accident. The tile was muted pastels from years of sitting in the sun that streamed through the lace curtains Inej had picked up a mere day after they had moved into their new place. They had framed pictures of art from each of the littles with their names and the dates signed by a caregiver down in the corner, which gave the room the pop of color that it needed.
Kaz, the first person to get up, was sitting at the head of the table and nursing a cup of black coffee already. Nina and Matthias were also up, though it seemed the Fjerdan had come out of his regression at some point in the night and was now doting on his still-small wife with the fondest expression Jesper had ever seen. The window above the sill where Inej grew herbs was open so that the early fall breeze could come in and blow out the smell of sleep.
“Good morning, Jes!” Inej chirped when she walked in through the backdoor with a very familiar basket in her hand. She had gone out to the coup in their backyard so that she could collect eggs from their chickens, like she did every other morning. “I see you’re big now?”
She phrased it like a question, like Jesper hadn’t been so embarrassingly forced out of his littlespace because he had overhead a conversation meant for grownups only. He had brought it upon himself when he could have just kept living in ignorance, but he was mostly glad that he hadn’t allowed that.
“I am indeed, my fair Inej,” he replied. He walked to where the remnants of the coffee were still bubbling away in their specialized pot and then poured himself a small mugful. He loaded it up with milk so that he could drink it quickly since he wasn’t going to be adding any sugar to it. Eating sweets would remind him of cake from little birthday parties and since he hadn’t gotten all of the time that he needed for the mental distress he had, he would surely slip again. He couldn’t allow that to happen, not with how much of handful he was.
“What did you do with your shirt?” Kaz asked over the lip of his own mug.
“I put it in the wash,” Jesper lied. It felt bitter and bad on his tongue, as did the coffee when he took a long drink to avoid spitting out the truth. He hated having to lie to his caregivers, he had always been the best about telling them the truth when they had asked. It was true even when he was not in his headspace, which was why he still felt so uncomfortable even though he wasn’t being taken care of.
“Good boy,” Inej praised with that teasing lilt that he loved so much.
He took his mug of coffee and then sat down at his usual seat at the table. He chose not to look up at Nina playing with Matthias while he waited for his breakfast and instead stared down at the swirling of his coffee in his mug. It was forming shapes with the milk that he had added, which was able to keep his mind occupied for a while.
Around ten minutes had passed before Inej had finished their breakfast. She had toasted about half a loaf of sourdough bread and cooked enough eggs to feed a small village or her Crows. She placed the plate down in the table and then said, “Everyone leave enough for me and Wylan, I have to go wake him up because he had a hard morning.”
Matthias took two plates from the stack that had been there since Jesper had woken up. He gave Nina two pieces of toast with her favorite jam and then a small pile of eggs. He took a single piece and more eggs since he needed the protein for the workouts that he was still maintaining despite their crime business slowing down significantly in the past few years. Kaz took his own plate and gave himself the average between the other two that had served themselves.
Jesper glanced towards his caregiver, still avoiding the place where Nina was sitting as she chattered about everything under the sun. He wanted to be helped and cared for, but he quickly reminded himself that it wasn’t something that he was allowed to ask for any longer.
So he clamped his mouth shut and took a single piece of toast. He didn’t even bother to slather it in butter and chocolate sauce the way that he always did. He nibbled on the edge of the bread and contemplated breaking it into small enough pieces that he could drink it in his coffee because of how boring it was.
“Good morning,” Kaz rasped out when he saw that his girlfriend was returning with their charge.
“G’morning,” Wylan slurred. He was still dressed in the long sleepshirt and baggy pants that he had been put to bed in to stay out of the cold. He was scrubbing at one of his eyes with one hand that was balled up into a fist. It looked adorable and sleep tousled, which Jesper wanted to look like too.
“Hey sweetheart,” Jesper chirped as he tried to keep himself in his big space. He had taken care of Wylan a few times before when he had already taken care of his own headspace, but he was going to be completely unable to do that now that he was refusing to regress. He stood up from the table and dropped a kiss down onto the top of his head.
“Where are you going?” Inej asked, sounding a little put out that they were passing each other like two ships in the night.
“I have business to attend to!” Jesper called as he walked out of the room with his mug and the bread he wasn’t planning on eating.
“What business?” Kaz scoffed into his mug, which was a little hurtful given how close he was to his headspace, not that the caregivers knew that.
Jesper continued down the hall and back up to his room. He spent two hours cleaning and polishing his guns and the holster that he wore them with. He hadn’t done it in a while because he had been busy, so now that he had to find things to occupy himself with it seemed like the perfect time. He still felt rather poorly but he tried to pass that off as just not sleeping well while he cracked open the textbook for his class.
It was incredibly difficult to hide something from a household full of people that bought and sold secrets for a living. Jesper had already known that when he was trying to maneuver around his feelings for Wylan and the darker parts of his past. It was how he had ended up in a dynamic with Kaz and Inej in the first place, because they had found out he was a little almost an entire month after he had moved into the Slat and joined the Dregs despite the precautions that he had taken.
He felt that he was doing a better job this time around. He had managed to go for three whole months without going down into his headspace when he had previously had to regress for at least three hours at the end of every week before he noticed a decline.
It had started off as a series of elaborate excuses and then he had actually begun lying. He was expected to manage his own headspace since none of them and the ungodly amount of kruge that it cost to get a hyperclassification that would actually tell them how many hours they needed.
Jesper first started out by telling them that he felt fine and didn’t need to regress or spend any little time with them, which they had bought for about a week. Inej and Kaz had been his caregivers for almost five years at that point and they knew him very intimately. They also knew that whenever the others regressed Jesper would quickly follow, which wasn’t the case anymore.
He had then begun to avoid them and tell them that he was spending his time with the other person. He knew that was only going to work to a certain extent since they were a very open couple and would mention it in their nightly talks eventually.
When he didn’t want to risk lying to them about who he was spending time with, he simply began to spend more time on his own. He knew that he could have used that time to regress, but he didn’t trust his already shaky impulse control to resist going to the first caregiver that he could find and demanding cuddles when he was regressed. So he simply worked more on his zowa abilities so that he could try and stave off the urge for that adrenaline rush that would make him feel steady and calm.
He knew that not regressing was taking a toll on him. He wasn’t stupid and he was more aware of his body than most people seemed to think. He could tell that he was wearing out quicker than he had before, that he had to take more naps and head to bed earlier. His appetite had also taken a massive set back, to the point where he could barely even nibble on the wonderful meals that Inej and Nina would make together. He was losing weight and feeling faint more often because he was barely able to eat anything. His muscles felt tense and uncomfortable because he wasn’t properly relaxing.
The worst came when he went on his first job since he had decided that he wasn’t going to regress any more. It was just something that was supposed to be simple but that Kaz didn’t want to trust anyone else to do. They were snatching information from one of the brothels that Inej had found slavers were selling girls to. Matthias and Jesper had gone undercover so that they could slip into the brothel and get some information about the layout while paying girls double to simply lay on the bed and say that they were both very good customers. That had been when things went South, of course, because the moment that they had slipped into the main office where all of the information was being kept, they found two armed guards from another gang already threatening the owner.
Jesper had managed to snag the three files that his boss had asked of him while they rushed out of the brothel, but not without the other gang noticing and following after them. That resulted in a gun fight that Jesper was too tired to really pay attention to. The whirling of the adrenaline in his system from fear instead of exhilaration made him desperately want to fall down into his headspace but he knew that he couldn’t. He had fucked up the job that had meant so much to Inej had he knew that he was going to be in trouble for it.
They had raced down the streets of Ketterdam, dodging over the top of roofs and through abandoned factories, until they got to the safehouse that Kaz had told them to meet at. That was where they were standing now, side by side while heaving for breath.
The moment that Inej and Wylan stepped out of the shadows, Matthias let out a whine and then began to cry. His face turned a deep shade of scarlet while he tried to hold back the sobs but it didn’t last for long. Inej wrapped her arms around him to bring him closer to her and tuck his face into her neck. “It’s okay, little one,” was all she said before he broke down to the point of hysterical sobs.
Jesper wanted to do the same thing. He wanted to flop down onto the cold, slightly wet floor and cry like he hadn’t since his mother had died. He wanted to say that he was scared, that he was sorry, that he knew that he had messed up, but he couldn’t. Matthias hadn’t healed from his shitty childhood the same way that Jesper had been allowed to. Matthias was well behaved and kind and the perfect little that everyone wanted, especially since he needed less headspace time than Jesper.
“You okay?” Wylan asked.
He felt guilty for doing so, but he used his boyfriend as the distraction that his mind needed so that he didn’t regress. It felt like he was clawing at the sand in the bottom of the ocean while a riptide pulled him in the other direction by his feet. Silt was slipping through his fingers and yet he was able to snag a rock by cupping Wylan’s cheek. Bringing their lips together in a romantic and distinctly not little kiss made it so that the ocean drained completely around him. “Never better, love,” he forced around now-chattering teeth.
He wondered if it was possible for someone to break their mind by going without their headspace for long enough. He had heard of people going through events that were traumatic enough that they developed a little headspace so that they could forget about whatever it was for at least a while, but littles were considered sacred and delicate so he hadn’t heard a lot of stories about someone resisting their headspace for any extended period of time.
Wylan gave a shy giggle as his face turned pinky-red, which brought out the freckles stretching out over the tops of his cheeks. “I heard the gunshots all the way from here. I’m glad that you didn’t get hurt.”
“Everyone, we’re not safe here,” Kaz called as he and Nina quickly walked into the room that they were standing in. He had her hand clasped in his, though they were both gloved, and she was clutching at her skirt. Something must have gone badly for them, whatever it was that Kaz had them doing, that made Nina also regress.
This was going to be a lot harder than Jesper thought. Matthias was a person that he was rarely around when they were both little and it had felt like a monumental task to resist his headspace at seeing him small. Nina and Jesper played almost consistently, one of them would send the other down like dominos. The fact that it was so normal for him to regress when she was already little meant that the very tenuous grasp he had was beginning to fade faster and faster.
“Come on, love, dry your tears for now,” Inej whispered as she removed the little from her arms. Jesper watched as she pulled a handkerchief out of seemingly nowhere and then wiped his face to remove the snot and saline that was clinging to his cheeks. She then took his big hand in her own as she followed after Kaz, who had already turned around and began to march towards the false door in the abandoned property. Wylan hurried to catch up with both of his caregivers, which left Jesper alone.
He was grateful for it because he was beginning to feel absolutely miserable. Something about resisting the urge to regress when he had been teetering so close to the edge had finally made him feel exactly like he had when he had gotten the flu.
He stumbled after the group as quickly as he could. They wove through backdoors and alleys like he and Matthias had earlier. Finally, they headed down into a very large, very damp, tunnel that Jesper knew led back to their home. They were about halfway to the flat when he had to pause because his throat was constricting around nothing.
Jesper squatted so that he could be closer to the ground without actually touching any of the muck that they were walking through. His stomach roiled three times before he gagged. When he actually ended up being sick, he just had to hope that everyone else was far enough away that they wouldn’t be able to hear him so that he wouldn’t end up being more of a handful than he already had been.
Once he had finished, he hurried down the tunnel and then up into their house. Inej had already gotten the other littles to go to the nursery so that she could help them down into their headspace or take care of them. Jesper wanted to join them, but he had a job that he had to complete and he wasn’t going to give up after how far he had come just because he was feeling poorly.
“Jesper,” Kaz salt-rasp asked from the other side of the hall. He jumped and grasped the papers that they had worked so hard to grab tighter in his hands.
“Got these for you, boss,” he handed the packet over.
Kaz took them and then set them down on the table without even checking to make sure that they were the right items. On one hand, the sharpshooter was actually grateful for that. He didn’t know if he’d be able to handle it mentally if it turned out that he had gotten the wrong papers and risked the lives of the people that he adored for nothing. On the other hand, he felt a little put out that his hard work wasn’t going to earn him the praise that he always got after a job.
“Are you alright?” the other man asked after a moment, his dark eyes flicking up and down Jesper to assess him properly.
“Course I am,” he nodded dismissively. He felt shaky and he knew that his hands were quivering down at his sides. “I’m too handsome to get shot by the shittiest thugs that the Razorgulls can throw at a brothel like that.”
“I think that we both know that’s not what I meant,” Kaz replied. He sat down heavily at the table and stretched his bad leg out in front of him. Jesper knew that jobs like that, ones that resulted in them running or walking for an extended period of time, were very hard on his best friend.
He wanted to give in so desperately that he could almost feel himself shrinking down in a physical instead of only mental sense. He was shaking even harder than before, like he had been left outside during the middle of a snowstorm. He ended up saying something snotty in the hopes that it would get Kaz to leave him alone and he could fight off his headspace without a caregiver tipping him closer to it, “You can think a lot of things but that doesn’t always mean that you’re right.”
“Jesper, that was rude,” he chided.
He grit his teeth together and resisted the urge to gag again as he forced himself away from that alluring headspace that the treatment was bringing him steps closer to. “I’m fine, Kaz.”
He refused to turn his head and look at his caregiver. He had already been lying to his friends more than he ever had before, even when he had been hiding his superhuman abilities. It made him feel more sick than resisting his headspace was. He heard the sound of the chair scraping and the cane hitting the hardwood floor, so he hoped against hope that it was Kaz getting up to go tend to the other littles so that Jesper could break down in the privacy of his own bedroom. Instead, Kaz spoke again, “Don’t lie to Daddy.”
Something inside of him snapped. His shoulders came forward and he bowed his head so that he was staring down at his hands. He could feel the tears running down his face without even pausing on his lashes. He couldn’t fight the shaking of his body or the shrinking of his mind any longer. Huge, hiccuping sobs were getting caught in his throat as he refused to let the sounds out. He wasn’t able to resist in headspace any longer but he wasn’t going to be a handful by requiring that someone be soft with him when the other littles were in need of their attention.
Jesper expected to hear the tapping of a cane against the hallway floor as Daddy made his way to the nursery, but instead he just felt a bare hand brush against his cheek. When he tilted his head up, he saw that his caregiver was sitting on a chair across from him, having moved the table out of the way. Kaz’s cane had one of his gloves laid over the top of the handle.
“Jes,” Daddy whispered as he brushed his hand over the side of Jesper’s face the same way that Inej had done to Matthias when he had started crying earlier. It was exactly the kind of love and affection that he had been hoping for, so he leaned easily into it. “Something is going on with you and you’re making Mommy and I very concerned. What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong,” he shook his head despite how desperately he wanted to say what had happened. He didn’t want to get in trouble for all the lying that he had done and for being out of bed after he had been put to sleep without a reason.
When his daddy spoke next, he had that edge to his voice that meant he was going to be in trouble unless he really listened, “Jesper, I just told you not to lie.”
“I’m sorry,” he wailed as he tipped his head back. He heard footsteps upstairs and then tilted his head back down just in time to see his Mommy appear in the doorway. He let out a blubbering sound that might have been her name or her moniker, but it was so garbled that he didn’t even know for sure as he reached out for her.
“Shh, shh, my poor baby,” she whispered as she rushed over to him. He was sitting and she was standing, which meant that when she wrapped her arms around his shoulder and head he was pillowed on her abdomen. He felt small and protected when her fingers were weaving through his hair. He noticed that she was wearing the cotton nightshirt that she always dressed in when they came back from jobs and she was taking care of them. She smelled like lavender and bergamot, both of which were making him feel incredibly sleepy.
Jesper sniffled a few times as he finally settled from crying. Mommy sat next to him with both of his hands held in hers and Daddy watching them both carefully. “What’s been going on with you, sweet boy? We’re worried.”
“Promise not to get mad,” he almost demanded.
The two caregivers shared a look that Jesper was too little to realize was concern and alarm before they turned back to him, “We promise that we’re not going to get mad. Now, what’s wrong?”
“Didn’t wanna be little anymore,” he answered flatly. It felt wrong and bad to say the words that had been rattling around in his head out loud. He wondered for a moment if he should try to get out of his regressed headspace so that he could have a more grown-up conversation with them. The thought of having to push back the headspace that was making him feel so warm and fuzzy was enough to make a rush of panic thread through his veins.
“Why not?” Mommy asked, the hurt in her voice enough to make Jesper want to cry again.
“I heard… heard you and Daddy talking when I was s’posed to be in bed. Didn’ wanna be a han’ful,” he answered, His fingers were itching to enter into his mouth so he could suck on them and self-sooth, but he knew he was already going to be in so much trouble so he didn’t want to risk being yelled at for doing something he knew he wasn’t supposed to.
There was a small sigh and two pairs of arms wrapped around him. He buried his face into his daddy’s coat and took in the scent of lemon and fresh air, as well as the hair gel that Mommy bought for all of them. He didn’t know why they were hugging him when he was supposed to be in trouble, but it had been such a long time since he had felt that warm and comfortable so he barely even thought about it.
Eventually they pulled back and Mommy cupped his face with both of her hands. “You misheard us, sweetie. We like to joke about how much smaller I am than you even though I try to hug you every time you get all small and cute. We meant that you were a literal handful, the same way that Matty is, okay?”
“Jesper, I would never lie to you, alright? I promise that we want you to still be our little,” Daddy said. Jesper knew that he struggled to express his love for them at times, which had caused Wylan to cry before. He felt special that he was getting all of his attention and something so important even when he had been bad.
“Now that Daddy’s made a promise, we need you to make one too, okay?” Mommy said.
“Okay, Mommy,” Jesper nodded happily. The longer that he was down in his headspace the better that he was feeling. He didn’t feel as nauseous as he had before, though he was very hungry. He had also stopped shaking and he felt more awake than he had since the night that he had overheard an adult conversation he didn’t understand.
“Promise us that you will never, ever resist your headspace for any longer than it takes you to get to one of us so that we can help you, okay? You can also go to Matty if he isn’t small, but you have to tell a caregiver when you feel like you need to be little,” Mommy said. He had never seen her face that serious before, not since the time that they had found the little white scars over the curve of Wylan’s hips and thighs from back before they had formed their dynamic with him.
Jesper barely even had to think about it. His little mind was easily releasing the guilt and worry that he had felt before now that he was being loved on by his caregivers. “Okay, Mommy, I promise.”
She leaned down and placed a very long kiss in the center of his forehead. “Thank you, baby, I really appreciate it. Now why doesn’t Daddy take you to have a bath while I finish getting the others settled down?”
He, almost shyly, peaked around his caregiver so that he could see his daddy properly and then gave a little wave. Daddy just smiled at him, one of those genuine smiles that made the darkness of his eyes sparkle with something fuzzy and safe. He took Jesper’s hand and led him down the hallway so that he could get cleaned up. When they were finished with that, they would go play with the others. That night, Jesper would go to bed safe and secure with the others wrapped around him. He couldn’t hope for anything more than that, and he was so glad that he finally had it back.