Chapter Text
Warren waited for a few minutes until he heard the door open. Yellow walked out wearing his green Axolotl onesie. He had the hood up covering his blue hair and replaced with little stitched-on eyes and mouth in the shape of a smile. In his mouth was the green pacifier. Warren had to admit to himself that outfit looked comfy but he knew it was probably the best not to touch yellow right now.
They made their way down to the kitchen. Warren was wondering if Yellow would need baby food or not, he did pack some just in case. Since Yellow has the mind of a baby would he not be able to comprehend needing to chew things? While Warren was thinking of that Yellow was sitting on the kitchen table drawing on a coloring book that was left for him by Red and Duck. The coloring book was animal-themed.
“So little buddy what do you want to eat?” Warren had his hand in the bag about to grab the baby food.
“Apple slices and juice,” Yellow said.
“Are you sure that's the best thing to have when you're… like this.”
“Yep! They're the yummiest.”
“Well if you say so.”
Warren cut up the apple slices into smaller cubes just to be safe. He put some of the baby food on the side of the plate. Warren was looking for the cabinets to get something for Yellow to drink his juice. He found a sippy cup that had two handles on the side and a button you could press to open up the top where a small plastic straw would stick up. It was green and covered with forest animals. The second cup was a plastic baby bottle. It was longer than regular baby bottles and looked more like a cartoon bottle than one you would find at the store.
Warren didn't know which one to use. When you looked over to ask Yellow he saw how he was drawing In his coloring book. He looked so happy and carefree, Warren didn't want to interrupt him so he just put the juice in the bottle and carried both of them to Yellow. Warren placed the train bottle down to Yellow's confusion.
“What's this?” Yellow asked
“It's your lunch,” Warren said. “Look I gave you your apples and put your juice in a bottle for you. I also put some baby food on the side of the apples become too much for you.” Warren picked up a small plastic spoon and scooped up some baby food with chunks of apples in it. “Open up.”
“No, no spoon,” Yellow swats the spoon away from his mouth, sending the food under the floor.
“Whoopsies,” Warren said trying not to yell at Yellow. “Looks like you had a little spell mate. But it's okay I'll clean it up.”
Warren picks up some paper towels and begins to clean up the spilled baby food. Unaware that Yellow is happily munching on the bits of sliced Apple that weren't touching the baby food. Once Warren finished cleaning up the area and thrown away the paper towel he turned around to see that Yellow was no longer in his seat and the bottle was gone. He looked over to see Yellow unscrewing the sippy cup, and pouring the juice from the bottle into it.
“What do you think you're doing little guy I prepared that bottle just for you,” Warren said rushing over to Yellow.
“Well, I normally just use the sippy cup unless something happens and I get really small.”
“What causes that? For you to get even smaller.”
“Things like loud noises when I'm not expecting them. When that happens, Red fills the bottle with warm milk and lets me drink the bottle in his lap. He's so cozy and warm that I fall asleep when I finish my bottle.”
“But wait, I thought the goal of being a good caretaker was getting the little to go as small as possible. The smaller you are the more comfortable you are, right?”
“Not always.”
Yellow walked back With the sippy cup in his hand, leaving the bottle by the sink. Warren and Yellow sat back down at the table in awkward silence. Yellow was busy munching on the small apple slices to notice Warren was still staring at him. Eventually, Warren broke the silence.
“So why do you age regress?” Warren asked.
“What do you mean?” Yellow responded.
“Well, I thought the people that age regressed have these big dramatic reasons for why they do it and I'm wondering what's your reason?”
“Do I need a reason?”
“Huh… Well, I thought that um maybe…”
“I don't need a big dramatic sob story to prove to you why this works for me. Yes, things have happened to me,” Yellow looked down at his thighs. “But I don't need to put on a show for people to look at me and say, “I deem this person traumatized enough to use this coping mechanism without bothering me.” It doesn't matter how “big” or “little” someone's trauma is, if this coping mechanism works for them then it works for them.”
“I'm sorry mate. I keep trying to be a good caretaker but I keep making mistakes. I'm sorry that I keep messing up.” Warren says in defeat.
Yellow looks down at the apples picks a piece up, and starts to nibble on it. Once he was done he handed the piece to Warren much to his confusion.
“I don't understand, what this is,” Warren said holding the piece of apple.
“It's a little heart,” Yellow said. “I made it for you to show you that you're doing good. Even though you're making some mistakes it's okay. Red and Duck weren't perfect the first time too.
Warren's eyes teared up a little at the small gesture of kindness. “Thanks, little buddy but I hope you don't mind but I won't be eating this. It has your Drool on it.”
Yellow giggled. “That's okay. I don't want it back either. It has your slime on it.”
They both had a good laugh and finished cleaning up lunch. Yellow finished his sippy cup and put it by the sink. He watched as Warren cleaned up the kitchen and finished washing the dishes. They both made their way into the living room.
“So what do you want to play Or do you normally take a nap after eating?” Warren said.
“Snakes and Ladders!” Yellow shouted ignoring the rest of the question.
“Well, all right I will grab it. Where are the games Located?”
“In the closet by some of Duck's old army stuff.” Yellow ran past Warren to grab the game.
Yellow was in the closet. He used the chair to climb up so he could be tall enough to reach Snakes and Ladders. He was so excited he didn't notice how rickety the chair was and how we would rock left and right depending on where Yellow was putting his weight on.
When Yellow managed to grab the game he could feel his body fall backward. He fell on his back and hit his head against the pillar holding something up. There was only a moment of silence before a loud crash filled the room startling yellow and causing Warren to dash in to see what happened.
“Is everything all right? Are you okay? What happened?” Warren said.
Warren looked at Yellow. He didn't appear to be bleeding or hurt in a major way but he could tell something was still wrong. Yellow was hyperventilating. Warren got closer to Yellow but he only backed away using his hands to cover his ears.
Yellow started crying, not out of pain but out of fear. He started to slip deeper and deeper into his mind trying to get to a spot where his memories were calm. He felt like he was being thrashed around from memory to memory each one was more painful to remember than the next. His eyes were filled with tears and his cries were too loud to hear anything. He didn't know how long it would take for him to get comfortable until he felt something on his back.
He tried his best to look around and he made out something red on the floor. It was a red blanket that Warren had grabbed and used to drape over Yellow's body. This startled Yellow back to reality but he grabbed onto the blanket and started to cover more of himself with it.
He sucked on his thumb to help him calm down. The stream of tears had calmed down but he was still crying when he noticed Warren come back into the room holding his green pacifier.
“Calm down sunshine it's just me,” Warren handed him the pacifier. “Why don't you stop sucking on your thumb and use this instead. A special somebody told me how important these things are for little ones like you.”
Yellow put the pacifier in his mouth. He looked up at Warren and held his arms up high making grabby hands at him.
“You want me to hold you?” Warren said
Yellow knotted and continued making grabby hands at him.
Warren felt honored that he was able to calm down Yellow on his own. Now Yellow wants Warren to hold him. Warren was over the moon. He picked up yellow from under the arms but noticed that he still looked upset and a little fussy. Warren was thinking back to what Yellow was saying when he was like this and then he remembered the baby bottle.
Warren placed Yellow down on the big green chair and made his way back to the kitchen. Yellow started to fuss and stick his hands back out to him.
“It's okay sunshine I'm just going into the other room to get you some more milk,” Warren said, watching Yellow settle back down.
He filled up the bottle with warm milk and made sure that the temperature wouldn't be too cold or too hot for yellow. Warren sat in the chair holding Yellow in his lap and holding up the bottle for Yellow to drink out of. Yellow leaned against Warren using the hood of his onesie as a shield against Warren's slimy skin. Once Warren noticed the bottle was empty he looked down at Yellow to see that he'd fallen asleep and it didn't look like he'd be waking up anytime soon.
Warren held Yellow in his arms as he made his way to the Trio's bedroom. He placed Yellow down on his bed and tucked him in. He picked up the toy cars and put them away. He made sure to clean up the broken vase and throw out the baby food that wasn't going to be used.
A few hours later Warren heard the door open as Red and Duck entered the house. Red was holding bags filled with groceries. Duck was carrying a long plastic bag with a sparkly white flapper dress inside.
“We are home!” Red and Duck said in unison.
“Shhh,” Warren hush them. “The little one is sleeping.”