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Ryan and Gianna are cuddled up on the couch watching Paw Patrol the first time it happens. Ryan’s eyes are glued to the screen, his pacifier bobbing in his mouth as he hums along to the theme song. He’s curled into Gianna’s side with his arms wrapped around her waist, cheek rubbing back and forth against the fabric of her t-shirt. His stimming is a sign that he’s relaxed and comfortable, and Gianna smiles happily.
Out of nowhere, Ryan lets out a pained whine and extricates himself from her embrace, scrambling to the opposite end of the couch as he whimpers, knees tugged up to his chest. Gianna is immediately on high alert.
“What’s wrong, bug? Are you hurt? What happened?” she asks, her worry creeping into her tone as she scans Ryan head to toe, searching for what could possibly be causing this reaction.
“Bein’ bad!” Ryan whines.
“What’s being bad?” Gianna presses, trying to get an answer out of the resistant little.
“M’ body! It thinks ’m a big boy!” Ryan straightens his legs just enough to let Gianna see that the little has an erection. An unwanted one, from his reaction, since he’s still deep enough in littlespace that even having one is upsetting him this much.
“I’m sorry, bug,” Gianna coos soothingly. “Your body doesn’t know any better. It doesn’t know how to tell when you’re little versus when you’re big.” She hopes she’ll be able to talk Ryan down from the edge of a meltdown that he’s currently skirting, but his face crumples as he begins to cry.
“Wan’ it to go ’way!” Ryan sobs, hands flapping anxiously. Gianna tries to scoot closer to the crying little so she can hug him, but he sees her coming and quickly clambers off the couch and onto the recliner next to it. “No! You’re too pretty! You can’ hug me righ’ now!” Gianna’s initial reaction is hurt at the sight of Ryan trying to get away from her, but the rational side of her brain knows he’s just trying to stop his body from reacting to her presence more than it already has.
“Okay, Ryan, I’ll stay over here. Should we make a plan to help your body stop? Would that help you?”
“Uh-huh,” Ryan sniffles, nodding his head and drawing in a shaky breath. He wipes the tears from his eyes, trying to be brave.
“My brave boy,” Gianna smiles affectionately, revelling in the blush that appears on the top of Ryan’s ears at the praise. “Alright, Ry, I think we have a few options. One, I help you out of littlespace so you can be big again and take care of it like an adult. Two, I go somewhere else and you play in here by yourself and just wait until it goes away on its own. Or three, you take a really cold bath or shower, or maybe put an ice pack right there, to make it realize that it’s not time to be big. Do any of those sound like a good option?”
“Don’ wanna be big,” Ryan says decisively. Gianna accepts this easily, mentally crossing Option One off her list.
“Okay, do either of the other two options sound good to you?” Ryan thinks about it for a few moments, obviously stuck between wanting to make the feelings go away and wanting to be around Gianna.
“Option t’ree,” Ryan finally decides, standing up on wobbly legs. “Takin’ a cold shower.”
“Okay,” Gianna accepts. “I just want to make sure you understand that it will probably be really uncomfortable and not very fun.”
“Yeah, I know,” Ryan sighs, crossing his arms. “Bu’ it’s better than you havin’ to go ’way.” Gianna feels her heart melt a little at the sweetness with which Ryan says this, the matter-of-fact tone in his voice implying that any answer where they have to separate is the wrong answer.
“Great, bug. Do you want help getting the bathtub ready, or do you think you can do it yourself?”
“I’ll jus’ take a shower by m’self,” Ryan decides. He hops off the recliner, walking gingerly as if he feels slightly alien in his own body, and starts towards the bathroom.
“Should I make you one of your special smoothies in your Richard Scarry sippy for when you’re done?” Gianna asks, mind already racing with ways to make Ryan feel better when he comes back out.
“But special smoothies are for when ’m good,” Ryan says, confused. Gianna feels her heart threaten to break, but steels herself and tells the boy,
“You are good, bug. Your body is doing what it thinks it’s supposed to be doing because it doesn’t know you’re little, and you’re being super brave about it right now. That’s being good. That deserves a reward.”
“Okay. Yes, please, then,” Ryan shrugs. Gianna can tell he doesn’t fully believe he’s good still, but that’s okay. It’s a work in progress. She’ll be able to convince him eventually.
Fifteen minutes later, when Ryan comes out of the bathroom with a smile on his face and his shirt inside out and backwards, Gianna can’t even bring herself to complain about his hair dripping everywhere like she normally would, because he’s happy and comfortable again, and she would do anything to keep him that way.
Unfortunately, there’s only so much Gianna can do, and the next time it happens, they’re playing in Chase’s pool together, rough housing and tackling each other, when all of a sudden Ryan lets out that same wounded noise and shoves away from Gianna. Chase looks over from where he’s grilling hamburgers, firmly in his caregiver space, and calls,
“You two okay?” Ryan just lets out an incoherent whine, which has Chase raising an eyebrow.
“His body is…feeling adult feelings, but he’s still firmly in littlespace," Gianna calls back. “Last time this happened, he took a cold shower to deal with it.” Chase hums, then addresses Ryan.
“Ry guy, do you want to use my shower?”
“I want to keep playing!” Ryan huffs, crossing his arms petulantly. “Jus’ can’t look at Gigi in her s’imsuit. She’s too pretty.” Gianna holds back a chuckle, because in all honesty, his compliments when he’s little are very sweet, even if they’re currently coming from a place of frustration.
“Okay, bug,” she says, “but you know you can’t be in the pool by yourself. So why don’t you ask Chase if he’d be willing to play with you?” Ryan listens eagerly, swimming over to the edge of the pool closest to the grill.
“Chase, would you p’ay wif me?” he begs. “Gigi knows how to do hamburgers! She can do ’em for you!”
“Of course I will, little guy,” Chase grins. “Just let me run in and change into my swim trunks.” Gianna pulls herself out of the water and walks over to the grill, keeping an eye on Ryan as he perches on the ledge of the pool.
“Gigi?” he calls after a moment.
“Yeah, bug?” she answers.
“You look too pretty in your s’imsuit.” Gianna smiles.
“Oh, right, bud. I forgot about that. I’ll put my cover-up on, okay?” She pulls the cotton dress over her head, covering her bikini. “Better?”
“Yes,” Ryan responds. “Sorry.”
“You don’t need to apologize, Ry. It’s no big deal for me.” Chase comes out of the house a moment later in a swim shirt and trunks that match Ryan’s.
“You matchin’ wif me!” the little giggles happily.
“Yeah, bud, I thought you might like that,” Chase grins, sliding into the pool with a small splash. “Do you wanna play a game, or just swim?”
“Can we be submarines?” Ryan asks. So the two pretend to be submarines, diving down into the water and then peeking up every once in a while, Chase sticking close to Ryan when they play in the deep end. Gianna watches from the corner of her eye, a soft smile on her lips as she watches Ryan get lost in playtime, distracted from the very reason Chase started playing with him in the first place. She doesn’t mind the task of flipping burgers, no matter how monotonous it is. It’s easy to be content when you get to watch your husband having the time of his life with his best friend; his brother, and know that he’s safe and loved.
Ryan loses interest in submarines right as Gianna is done plating the burgers, and she’s greeted with a tight hug from Ryan, sopping wet and smelling of chlorine. She’s glad she had the foresight to place the burgers on the patio away from the pool when Ryan shakes his hair like a dog, giggling as water droplets fling every which way. Chase grins as he walks up behind Ryan, happily following the little when he demands they both sit next to him. They squeeze their chairs around one corner of the table, knees all bumping, not a care in the world for personal space or unwanted physical reactions. Just a kid at heart with his Chase and his Gigi, enjoying the moment together.
It all gets a bit more complicated when they find out Gianna’s pregnant. They’re ecstatic, of course; Ryan and Gianna have been dreaming about kids since they first met, but it also adds a new layer of complication to Ryan and his littlespace. After all, when he’s little, Gianna is Gigi. Still the love of his life; still his favorite person in the world, still his wife, but with an added nuance. Because little Ry doesn’t concern himself with something adult like being in love. To him, there’s one way to love, and that is all-encompassing. The love he feels for Gigi in littlespace is not unlike the love he feels for his brothers while in littlespace, and at the same time, it is completely different.
Ryan has come to terms with the fact that love, though somehow the most simple thing in the world, is also so unique and incomprehensible that it is impossible to truly capture in words.
So to Ryan, Gianna being pregnant is just the next step in the life they have planned for their family. But to little Ry, Gigi being pregnant is slightly disconnected from his own self. He understands that their kid is growing inside of her; that their love resulted in this new life. He understands, clinically, how a child is made. But when he’s little, it’s hard for him to think of himself as Dad. At least, before Baby is born. And all of this complication worries Ryan and Gianna at first. How is Ryan going to react to Gianna’s pregnancy when he’s little?
They don’t have to worry, though. Because even if little Ry doesn’t call himself Baby’s Dad like Ryan does when he is big, little Ry will not shut up about how that is his baby. Baby is his and Gigi’s, and is the most perfect baby in the whole world, and is going to be his favorite person ever. Gianna’s secret worry that little Ry will be jealous of Baby is quieted. Little Ry, instead of being jealous, is turning out to be Baby’s biggest fan.
There is one major bump in the road, though, and that’s when little Ry, in the midst of chattering away with his lips close to Gianna’s belly, remembers how Baby got there. And then his mind hyperfixates on that reality, because his brain is good at latching onto the very thoughts he’s trying to banish, simply because he’s trying to banish them. The thoughts start to cycle in his brain, around without pause like a toy train on a track. And Ryan’s body, unaware of the headspace its owner is in, reacts.
Gianna always knows when it’s happened, because Ryan makes that little frustrated, sad noise and sits up as fast as he can, putting space in between him and Gianna. Sometimes, he even runs away and locks himself in the bathroom, crying about how icky he feels and how Baby is going to find out that he’s gross and isn’t going to like him anymore. Gianna is never fast enough to stop him from hiding; not anymore, when she’s over halfway through the pregnancy. So she ends up sitting uncomfortably outside the bathroom door, trying to coax Ryan to unlock it from where he’s curled up on the other side.
“Ry, you aren’t icky or gross, and Baby doesn’t think that. Baby is going to love you no matter what, because Baby is your baby, remember?” They’ve decided on a name at this point, but Ryan continues to say “Baby” while in littlespace, the moniker becoming something of a pet name that little Ry has given to his son.
“But my body is being bad!” Ryan cries through the hollow wood of the door.
“Your body isn’t being bad, Ry, don’t say that. You know that’s not true. Your body is doing normal body things, just at a time when you don’t want it to. But it’s not bad,” Gianna soothes him. After a few seconds of sniffling, she hears Ryan mumble understanding, and knows that’s the best she’s going to get from him at the moment. “Now, do you need my help with anything, or should Gigi go wait for you somewhere else?” There’s silence that stretches awkwardly, and Gianna almost repeats the questions, but then she hears Ryan meekly ask,
“C’n you make me my special smoothie? So that I c’n have it after my freezy shower?”
“Of course, bug,” Gianna agrees, easing herself up from the floor with an oof. She hears the shower spray turn on as she walks into the kitchen, pulling down Ryan’s favorite sippy cup, which has illustrations from Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things That Go decorating the purple plastic. She’s just finished pouring the smoothie into the cup when Ryan shuffles into the room, Paw Patrol slippers on his feet and his fluffiest blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
“Was your shower super cold?” Gianna grins.
“Yeah, it was like ice,” Ryan responds, the corner of his mouth tilting upward in an almost smile. Gianna counts that as a win, watching with a heart filled to bursting with love for the little as he guzzles his smoothie down, ignoring her warnings about a brain freeze. When he clutches his head in agony a few moments later, quick to tell her that she doesn’t need to say she told him so, she just laughs, glad to see Ryan smiling again.
They aren’t perfect, or polished, or anything fancy at all, but Ryan and Gianna are happy, and content, and steady. And Gianna wouldn’t trade any of it—not Ryan her husband, not Ry her little—for the world.