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…Something is wrong.
And Jacob has no idea what it is.
He frowns, runs a hand through his hair. Alright, it’s not exactly that there’s something wrong, he doesn’t necessarily feel bad—he just feels different . It’s weird.
It had started during stream. It’d been a far less structured stream than usual, just messing around with Jaiden and other members of WILD/CARD in various shitty multiplayer games that other friends and their chats recommended. Jacob’s been having a stressful time recently, so he’d taken the stream as a chance to let loose, to be even more chaotic than usual. And it was working—he was feeling relaxed and energised, way more so than he had been recently.
But as the stream went on, he ended up feeling…weird. Not bad, not overwhelmed, just…weird. He was still relaxed and energised. He was still having fun. But he felt more arrogant than usual, more childish and immature. Not like himself.
Or…almost like a younger version of himself.
…Ah, shit.
—
Jaiden’s door is open, so Jacob peeks his head round the corner to check inside. She doesn’t appear to be streaming. He takes a step into the room.
“Uh… Jaiden?” he asks, trying to project his normal, mature self but failing slightly. She glances up, takes off her headphones.
“Yeah?”
“Um.” He’d walked over to Jaiden’s room fairly confidently, rehearsing what to say in the short space between their rooms, but now the words are crumbling in his head. He hasn’t been this easily thrown off in years. “I. Well.”
Jaiden’s brow creases as the silence extends, Jacob wringing his hands together anxiously. She spins her chair around. “You okay?”
“ Um. ” Jesus christ, this is getting embarrassing. He really just needs to spit it out. “So you know your…regression. Thing.”
Her brow remains creased. Not great. “Yeah?”
“...Well,” he starts reluctantly, then stops again. This is dumb. This is stupid. He’s probably just off from having a bad week, and thinking too much into finally being able to relax. Besides, Jaiden always regresses to, like, a little kid age, and even if he isn’t just overthinking this and there is actually something going on, it can’t be the same thing as Jaiden, because he doesn’t feel anywhere near that young. It’s fine. “Nevermind. Um, sorry to bother you.”
He gives her an awkward nod and turns around, rubbing the back of his neck and resigning himself to feeling weird for the rest of the night—but then there’s clattering behind him, and a careful hand touches his shoulder. He looks back.
“Hey, Jacob, talk to me,” Jaiden says gently, carefully guiding him to turn back around. “I want to hear about it if something’s bothering you. What’s up?”
Something in him melts a bit. He lets himself lean slightly into her hand, relax the muscles he didn’t realise were tight. Of course. This is Jaiden he’s talking about. “Right. Um, so…your age regression thing. What does it feel like?”
She hums a little, lowering her hand to rest on his forearm. “Well, I regress pretty little, so I usually feel more emotional, kinda spacey, fuzzy and warm if I’m in a good mood. I’ll feel more drawn to kid stuff, like cartoons and colouring, and I’m more clingy. I’m sure you’ve noticed that part though.”
She smiles, and he smiles a little too. It’s true. She is in fact all clingy and soft when she’s regressed. It’s very cute.
But…he doesn’t feel any of that, not really. He feels a little more emotional than usual, but none of the other things feel familiar at all.
Jaiden must see the conflicted emotions on his face, because she squeezes his forearm reassuringly. “Do you think you’ve got something like that going on right now?”
“Well… I dunno.” He shrugs. “I just feel…weird. Like, during stream I felt really hyperactive and more…childish, I guess, than usual. And now it’s changed and I just kinda feel more anxious. But still more childish. But—I don’t feel what you’re talking about. So I guess it’s probably something different?”
There’s a moment of silence as Jaiden studies him carefully. It’s slightly awkward, and he can’t help but avert his eyes, but after a second she hums and tugs gently on his arm. “Let’s sit down for a minute, okay?”
Jacob lets himself be led to the bed, instinctively tucking his arms under his thighs and hunching over once he’s sat. (He grimaces—this is another thing he hasn’t done for years). Jaiden sits next to him and carefully nudges him with her shoulder.
“So,” she starts. Her tone is soft, like she’s trying not to scare him off. “Ignoring what I said regression feels like, for a second. Just going off your gut instinct. Do you… feel like you might be doing that?”
“Um. I guess so. Maybe. But I’m not, like… a little kid. So I dunno,” he murmurs, shrugging again.
“Well, y’know you don’t have to regress to a little kid age to regress, right?”
He blinks. Looks at her. “Huh?”
She smiles reassuringly. “Yeah! You can regress to, like, a pre-teen, or even a teenager.”
Oh.
… Oh.
“Holy shit,” he blurts out, then claps a hand over his mouth. “Uh—sorry.”
Jaiden just laughs, though, so he lets his hand drop and smiles bashfully. “Uh, but—yeah, no. That sounds. About right. Wow, I really didn’t—I had no idea that was even, like, a thing .”
She bumps his shoulder again, this time with a more relaxed grin. “Yeah, of course. So, if you do think that’s what’s going on… D’you know how old you are?”
Huh. He’s… not really sure. “How do you figure it out?”
Jaiden hums for a moment. “It’s a mix of vibes and my interests, mainly. Like, if I’m feeling super clingy and sleepy, and I wanna watch little kids’ shows, then I know I’m around two to four. But if I’m more excitable and I wanna play Pokemon, I’m probably more like five to seven.”
Jacob hums too. He swings his legs a little, trying to figure out how he’s feeling. He definitely doesn’t feel like a little kid, they've established that much… and he doesn’t really feel like a pre-teen either. He feels more childlike than usual, but not that much more childlike. And he’s already noticed that he was feeling more arrogant and confident, so…
“Seventeen?”
“Yeah?”
He nods, first hesitantly, then a bit more confidently. “Yeah. I think so.”
“Awesome.” Jaiden’s full-on grinning now, swinging her legs in time with his, and Jacob can’t help but wonder what he’s gotten himself into. “Do you wanna do something? We could play Mariokart, I could make snacks…“
Oh, fuck, that really does sound good. “Pizza?”
”Sure!”
Jacob pulls his legs up onto the bed as Jaiden pulls out her phone, dialling the number for the place down the road they’ve both been obsessed with recently. They pick up, and Jaiden winks at him. He grins in return.
Later, as they’re curled up on bean bags playing Mariokart and eating pizza, bantering and bumping into each other and laughing their heads off, Jacob will smile to himself and think—man. He’s so lucky to have Jaiden as his friend.