Chapter Text
Elijah's POV
I fidgeted with my resume as I continued waiting in the lobby of the office, my nervousness reaching all-time highs as I got closer to being called.
I needed this job. I had all the qualifications and experience except for one thing and one thing only.
I wasn't a regressor.
Every Dick and Harry knew that regressors were the smartest people on earth by far, so jobs like analysts and many of those high-position ones were often given to them, and even ones like the one I was being interviewed for today made it a requirement.
I, unfortunately, was a General Sub, a Classification I saw with zero benefits. The only silver lining was that when I was classified eight years ago, I had 30% Little on there with the potential for headspace. I'd been hoping ever since that one day, it'd just pop up, and I could put it somewhere so I could get a job.
But, even until now, I hadn't slipped into littlespace once.
I heard my name being called, and I briskly walked into the office, doing my best to give the best first impression.
The interview went fine, and she seemed pleased, but then there was one final question.
"Are you a Little or a Pet? We have accommodation spaces for both Classifications, of course."
"Little," I said with full confidence. I really hoped I wasn't going to regret this.
"Awesome! If we're moving forward with you, you'll get a callback. Have a lovely day, Mr. Anderson."
Okay, that didn't go bad. Sure, I kinda lied, but everything else was okay, so that didn't matter.
I went back to my apartment right after the interview, sighing as I stepped over the threshold. I always became tired after my nervousness reached all-time highs.
"Hey, bro, how'd it go?" my friend and roommate, Michael, asked, he already sporting a big grin on his face.
I could never match his energy. He was always bouncing all over the place.
He was a General Dom/Little Switch, and I was always envious of how he was able to have a littlespace, and I wasn't, but at the very least, he could help me whenever I fell into subspace and always kept things platonic and non-sexual.
So, even though I was kinda annoyed that he got what I wanted, I couldn't ever be mad at him.
"It went fine," I replied monotonously as I walked to the kitchen to get myself a snack, but I met a plate of spaghetti already prepared.
"I knew you were stressed, so I made a little something. Taste it!" he exclaimed as he slid in front of me into one of the kitchen stools.
I eyed him warily, wondering if I was going to be doing some babysitting tonight, which I didn't mind. He was quite the cute Little, but sometimes he could be a bit rambunctious.
I smiled at him, happy that I didn't have to struggle to make something with the extremely limited cooking abilities I had. "Thanks, man. Appreciate it."
"Of course! I knew you wanted it!" he said as his eyes lit up. Yup, definitely slipping.
"Did you get something for yourself?" I asked, as sometimes he forgot when he was feeling little, but this time he nodded, eagerly showing me the dish that was in the sink.
"I made it an hour ago and ate all of it!"
I ruffled his hair. "Good job, bud. How about you bring out one of your toys to keep yourself busy, hm?"
He squealed and went to go get one of his favourites, probably dinosaur themed. I should have recorded it and shown him after. He was always a little embarrassed with how excited he got about everything when he was little.
I didn't see why though. I thought it was adorable.
I ate the rest of my dinner, anxiously checking my emails every little bit like they'd suddenly pick me today. It was ridiculous, but it was the only way I could calm my nerves.
............................................
Two weeks later, I was just talking to Michael in the living room when my phone rang. Thinking it was a scammer—I'd been getting a lot of those lately—I just wanted to ignore it, but I had to at least check first.
Oh dang, it was the actual company.
I quickly answered the phone and froze when I was given the position that I was interviewed for.
No way. Actually, no way.
"Mate, you good?" Michael asked from the couch, looking at me in concern. "I didn't know it was Pretend to be a Statue Day?"
"N-no, it's just that, you know, I got the, the um." In my excitement, I found it hard to articulate whatever I wanted to say, just stumbling over everything, but Michael seemed to connect the dots, and in the next moment, I was playfully slapped over the head.
"Aye, that's awesome, man! Congratulations!" he said, and I smiled, happy that I was finally going to get the job I wanted.
"Wasn't that the position you needed to be a regressor for?" he asked, and I sheepishly nodded.
He started laughing. "Good luck with that one. Don't bother trying to fake. They'll catch you." He paused for a second, thinking. "Actually, just say that you're deathly afraid of slipping outside and without your Caregiver and put me as your Caregiver actually. That way they won't get suspicious."
I blushed, realizing that I never thought of those things. I probably would have gotten myself caught actually.
We spent the next few minutes analyzing the plan for the dos and don'ts of what I could do before he said that I was 'ready'.
I didn't feel ready at all.
............................................
Monday came, and I was getting ready for work, quadruple-checking everything to the point where Michael just grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the house, saying that it was 'physically impossible to be any more prepared than I already was."
I still felt like a nervous wreck though.
I got to the workplace and entered my office, and started to set up. It wasn't long before a lady knocked on the office door.
What did she want with me....Well, I was going to have to talk to other people, obviously, so I could do this.
I opened the door. "Hey, what's up?"
"Oh, this is just to schedule your naptime," she said like it was the normal thing ever as she handed me a schedule. "The marked off places are ones that are already taken. We wouldn't want half the team to be asleep at the same time after all."
Oh, I didn't think of that at all. It should have been obvious though. I'd been living with Michael for ever two years, and he practically always took a nap in the afternoon.
"Umm," I took a look at it and just picked a time that looked the most convenient. It really felt like I was just groping around in the dark for what I was supposed to be doing, even with Michael's help, but I did ask for this.
"Thanks! Plushies are available as well, and if you want me to show you where the room is, I can do that as well."
I said sure, and was later led to a place that looked specifically designed for regressors sleeping, even to the colours on the wall.
While I'd seen places like this before, it was almost a standard nowadays, I'd never had it given as an option to me...for obvious reasons.
So, this was the first time I was actually looking at it, and I eventually ended up leaving quickly, feeling a little embarrassed.
I threw myself into my work and pushed out what I was going to do later from my mind. It was the perfect distraction....until it wasn't.
Fifteen minutes before 5 PM, my scheduled time, my eyes were glancing to the clock every few seconds, my chest tightening. I knew it was stupid, it was literally just a time to sleep, but it felt, I don't know, wrong.
That room wasn't made for me, and I didn't take naps during the day. It just felt weird.
However, time waited for no man, and eventually it was 5 PM. With a sigh, I left my office and went down the hall and up the stairs because I just liked those over the elevator and ended up at the room that the previous lady, whose name I learned to be Mrs. Thatcher, showed me. There were already a few others in there which just made it more awkward.....
Oh well...
Repeating to myself to think of it kind of like just an extra part of the job I was hired for, I picked the simplest place to sleep on in the farthest corner of the room and just curled into myself, staring at the wall.
And, to my utmost disappointment, I didn't just suddenly end up feeling sleepy and rather was fully conscious the entire period. It felt like I was just throwing time away, and considering my competitors were probably regressors, that was time I probably should have used.
Why was this so hard....
............................................
1 Year Time Skip
Everything was going perfectly fine. I'd already been promoted, Michael was doing great in his job too, but the naptime part was still a serious pain in the butt.
I tried sneaking in a Sudoku book to just have something to do during that time, but the anxiety I felt out of the potential of getting caught ended up feeling worse than just lying there and doing nothing, so I toughed it out each time, glancing at my watch every little bit to see when I could leave.
I even tried harder to get myself to maybe slip into littlespace to make it all easier, but not even that worked. Michael tried playing Caregiver, but he could never take it seriously without bursting out laughing every few minutes, and when he was Little, he tried to get me to play with him, but I just wasn't into his toys.
I looked into other littlespace items too, like pacifiers, onesies, sippy cups and all that, but I only rather felt indifference or a strong cringy feeling, so that fell through too.
I tried to slip into subspace when it naptime came around, but that didn't help much in my favour anyway and just made me....embarrassingly needy. So, that was out of the question.
I tried looking for ways to slip into littlespace, but never ended up anywhere. I could never find something that just made it all work.
I avoided making friends at work, just so that I could keep the secret to myself. I wasn't much of a talkative person anyway, so that wasn't hard. Some people kept commenting on how I was the 'cutest Little in the office' and I blushed red every single time.
I wasn't sure how to feel about people talking about me and ranking me, but I once again, pretended that it was part of the job description and went on with it.
Today, for the first time, I was actually feeling quite tired throughout the day. I could barely sleep the night before, so I figured that maybe, finally today I could actually use the sleeping period to my advantage.
I got an email a few days ago that they were going to send in kids' books and activity sheets to put in there today. I didn't know why they'd bother since most people were asleep anyway, so I mostly ignored it and continued with my day.
Yawning, I checked the clock, and it was practically time, so I went over to the sleeping room I'd grown to dislike and went in, knowing that I'd surely pass out this time.
Well, after tossing and turning, I still stayed awake. I bit back a groan, wondering why the world was against me. I literally felt exhausted, and my eyes still stayed open.
Eventually, just out of sheer boredom and annoyance and I got up and looked around for something to do. My eyes caught on the little bookshelf they installed with the worksheets on the bottom shelf, and decided, why not?
At the very least, I could do something with this time and then try again to sleep at home.
Careful to not distrub the others, I quietly walked over to the bookshelf and looked through the selection. Unsurprisingly, there were no novels and a maximum of one-hundred pages per book. Awesome.
Sure, I wasn't the target demographic, but still...
I never hated being a General Sub more than I did right then, and looking at the few other people in the room who were dead asleep just increased that annoyance.
Lucky suckers.
Rubbing my tired eyes, I took the biggest book I could find, not even caring for the contents and one worksheet about learning how to write letters and took it back to the corner I always occupied.
To no one's surprise, I was incredibly bored with the book and eventually just put it aside to do the worksheet. I tried to do it slower so that I wouldn't finish the entire thing in five minutes, but I started to just feel ridiculous.
There had to be something in here to take my interest...
Wait...
I needed something challenging, and well, I was right-handed. I'd never attempted writing with my left before, and at this point, I just needed something that was a little harder than mind-numbly easy.
Feeling a little silly, but also a little better at the prospect of having something to do, I switched hands and started trying to trace the letters with my left.
It was....much harder than I expected.
Slowly, I tried more and more to get the letters right, the perfectionist in me having a field day. Tracing letters was on the tough side, but then I saw that words were next.
I could do this.
I focused on going slowly, trying my best to get it perfectly before I attempted to copy it down on my own below the traced letters. It looked horrid at first, but after a few letters it looked....slightly less horrid.
I was about to start a new letter, but I felt so sluggish and sleepy that I changed my mind and stumbled over to the bookshelf to put the items away. I was a little shocked at the sudden tiredness, but I didn't even have the mental capacity to think any of that over. The second I went back to my corner and laid down, I was practically out.
............................................
When I arrived home that day and told Michael that I actually slept this time, Michael took that and ran with it. Practically jumping up and down with how "I could slip like him." I rolled my eyes, telling him that I was already feeling exhausted and that I'll see him tomorrow, deciding to take an early night.
The next day, when that same sleeping time came around, I didn't wait this time before getting the workbook out. Why bother trying to sleep when it obviously wasn't going to happen? Especially since, unlike yesterday, I actually felt okay.
I got right back into it, tracing the letters with my left hand and copying it down below the traced letter. I spent the entire period doing just that, actually feeling a bit of anticipation for when I'd be able to move on to full words.
This was what happened when a year of boredom got to you.
............................................
I'd been doing the same thing for a few weeks now, having moved on to simple words a bit ago. It took a bit to move on as I just had to make sure the untraced letters were perfect before I could do words, but at least I liked how they looked.
However, this time, a dude who was usually on the opposite side of the room when I was there came over today and just sat beside me.
I blushed, feeling a little embarrassed that I was being watched doing something that was usually for six-year-olds and slowly closed the book, wondering what he wanted.
"Um, you don't have to do that," he said nervously, fidgeting with his fingers. "I've uh seen you do it a lot, and kinda wanted to know if you'd mind if I joined you?"
My eyes widened, not expecting that response at all. "Wouldn't you want to sleep instead?"
"Yeah, I would if I could...." he said, looking away, seeming even more nervous.
"General Sub?" I asked simply, and he nodded. Ah, so he knew the pain.
"There's another workbook on the shelf," I said, pointing to it before I got back to tracing words. He got on and came back lying about half a meter from me on the carpeted floor beside me, behind the bed to shield the two of us and started on the first page.
After a few minutes, he started to grow frustrated. "How do you do this?" he whispered in annoyance. "Are you left-handed?"
"I don't think I'd be going this slow if I was..." I said before looking at our pages. "I've just been doing this for a while."
He pursed his lips, nodding to himself before continuing the book. "I thought being 35% Little would get me somewhere, but apparently not."
"And here I was thinking 30% would be enough," I mumbled with a sigh before tracing the word 'Wednesday'.
He hummed, and we continued in silence afterwards.
............................................
It started becoming a routine. We both had the same scheduled time after all, so we'd go behind one of the beds and start filling out the workbooks. I eventually learned his name was Andrew. He was much less of a perfectionist than I was, and soon he caught up to me, both of us working on simple sentences.
I started looking forward to this time, kind of seeing it like a nice break period from the job. Also, I was clearly getting better at it, so it was nice to see the progress.
Michael kept insisting that nobody but a Little would look forward to such a thing, but I just said that I'd been doing it for over a month now, and still haven't slipped into littlespace. At this point, I had the job, I had something to do during nap time, so I no longer needed to have a little headspace anyway.
Today, I went to our usual spot and got started, Andrew coming in not long after me. Andrew quickly became very focused on getting better at writing with his left hand as well, today being no different.
However, today, about twenty minutes in, he suddenly said. "Do you feel...any different?"
"No, why?" I asked, confused. His face tinted pink, and he looked away. "Um, just..."
He started swinging his legs behind him as he stayed quiet, and I just laid there, waiting for an answer. "I'm just...I feel different today."
"I'm no psychologist, so if you expect me to suddenly have a revelation with that little information, you're out of luck," I said, and he groaned, probably not wanting to give more detail.
"It's...well..hard to explain but," he rested his head on his hands as he thought. "I just feel.....diff...no...weird? Like kind of um, on a weekend when you feel really good and relaxed but also...not as...oh," he said as his eyes widened at the end.
"Care to share?" I asked, and he fidgeted with his pencil. Usually I wasn't one to pry, but he started this.
"I think I'm not....fully big, I think that's what they call it," he said, his face getting redder with every word he said.
I wasn't exactly sure how to react to that. Was I supposed to congratulate him? Was I supposed to feel sorry for him? What was I even supposed to say?
"That's....good, right?" I asked hesitantly, and he shrugged.
"I'm actually not quite sure. It's not like I want to fall asleep anymore. I'm going to become ambidextrous no matter what," he said with a laugh, and I couldn't help but agree. "I was a little worried that you wouldn't, I don't know, want to be around anymore. You never really hang out with the other Littles."
"Well, when you're pretending to be one, I wasn't sure if it was the smartest move to be around people who'd be able to clock me immediately," I said before tracing another word. "I don't really do much socializing anyway."
"Well, glad I caught you at the right time for skill training," he said with a giggle before going back to the workbook.
Curious now that I knew he was slipping, I glanced over at him every once in a while. He started moving more with every few minutes that passed, sometimes even just randomly flipping pages in the book or stretching.
"Do you need a walk or...." I asked, and he looked up at me in surprise. Did he forget I was here or something?
"Oh, um, no, I don't really think so. I just wasn't sure about doing more homework," he said with a facial expression that was pretty close to a pout.
"Kinda like Michael," I thought.
"How old you feeling right now?" I asked, remembering that I usually had to ask Michael that question, and he looked away at first before shyly putting up eight fingers.
No wonder he suddenly started thinking this was homework.
"There are some toys and plushies over there if you want, but you'll have to be quiet," I said before showing him where they were. There wasn't much for an eight-year-old, but maybe he could figure something out.
He eventually settled on a puzzle and started doing it beside me. I wanted to continue the workbook, but it felt a little weird to go on without him, so I just did the puzzle with him instead, getting a bright smile from him in return.
That wasn't too bad either.
............................................
It seemed as though the first time you slipped opened up some type of floodgate.
Andrew slowly started slipping into littlespace every other time we came into that room, and now we were alternating between the workbooks one day and then puzzles on the next day. Andrew sometimes had a little bit of a hard time keeping quiet, but we eventually found some kind of balance.
He said he still never slipped outside of that naptime period, but still.
I was again started feeling like the odd-one-out again since even he was slipping pretty often now, even if he still wasn't sleeping, but I once again just told myself that this was part of the job description and tried to ignore it.
One time, I ventured into the kitchen before I went to work and made a snack for myself, planning to eat it during that downtime period, but once I brought it out, Andrew looked like he wanted some himself.
So, the next time, I made two. One for him and one for me.
That started a new routine because on the days he was feeling smaller, he got pretty excited when I'd bring something new, and that was how I started spending my weekends learning new recipes so I'd have new snacks to get him.
Michael thought that it was pretty hilarious to my embarrassment, but eventually said that he was happy I made at least one friend outside of him. Even if I didn't really try that hard at first.
Today, Andrew was big, and we were moving on to harder words and sentences. I was getting pretty good with my left hand and was actually pretty proud of myself.
However, a little bit through, when I'd copy down words, they weren't looking as good as they were before, and I checked to make sure. There was a noticeable reduction in quality.
I didn't like that at all.
I tried harder to make it good, being more careful and slower than I'd ever been before, but even then, it just looked like the lines were getting more wobbly and ugly every few minutes.
I started to get frustrated.
"Whoa, Mr. Perfect's lines are looking a little strange over there," Andrew whispered jokingly, and usually, I didn't mind as mine always looked better than his anyway, but today, it just hurt. My letters weren't even as good as Andrew's this time.
What was going on?
"Hey, you alright?" he asked, the playful tone having exited the room, and I just shrugged, not wanting to say anything. I just felt stupid. This wasn't hard yesterday....
"Do you feel sick or tired?" he asked, and I shook my head. I probably would have known that a long time ago if I was.
He sat there with a pensive face for a bit before his eyes lit up. "Do you feel like you regularly do? Or more emotional perhaps?"
I felt insulted for a bit before it clicked to me what he was getting at, and I blushed red. There was no way.
But, come to think of it, I never felt that bad if some words didn't come out right like I wanted them to, never this bad, that was for sure.
But, I thought it wasn't possible...
"Seems like I'm not the little guy this time," he said as a smile spread across his lips. I hid my face, feeling incredibly embarrassed.
Now that I was thinking about it, I definitely didn't feel very.... adult-like. How did I not notice till now?
"You know what age you're at or still need a bit?" he asked, and I told him that I didn't know.
I looked back at my workbook and finally understood how Andrew felt when he was feeling smaller. I wasn't exactly in the mood for more work right then. My eyes wandered over to the puzzles on the shelf, and I wordlessly pointed over to them.
"Sure, we'll do a puzzle today," he said, his voice taking a more gentle tone, before he went over to get one, probably already knowing that I didn't really have a preference.
He brought it over and put the workbooks back on the shelf. I quickly got started on the border pieces, happy that I didn't have to see my less-than-stellar sentences for a while.
Fascinated by the changes, I kept track of how different my body and mind felt as the minutes passed by. I felt much more relaxed; thoughts about my job were practically non-existent besides 'that's what adults do, and that's boring', and I was pretty eager to get as far as I could in the puzzle as possible.
And talking felt less and less desirable for some reason.
Andrew started to notice that all the answers to his questions and comments were practically just hums, nods and shakes of the head, and he asked if I wanted him to stop talking, but I shook my head, liking to hear him speak.
A few more minutes passed, and I poked his side to get his attention. Once he looked my way, I held up six fingers, keeping the seventh half up.
"That's cute, buddy," he said before saying no more, and I was grateful for that, liking the praise, but knowing that I'd quickly be overwhelmed with any more.
We continued to work on the puzzle, Andrew talking quietly to me throughout the time period. As the time when we had to go back to work came closer, I started to slowly feel more like my regular self again.
When I became fully big, I knew my face must have been bright red.
"You were pretty adorable," Andrew said, smiling. "I didn't know you could be so expressive."
My first thought was 'may the ground swallow me whole," but as we started talking about other things, I started to feel...not too bad about the whole experience. I did feel nice after all.
Once I got home that day, I braced myself before sitting on the couch with Michael.
"How was puzzle time with your workbuddy?" he asked with a smirk, and I rolled my eyes.
"It was fine...." I said, thinking to chicken out and not tell him, but Michael clocked me quickly.
"Something happened today, didn't it? What is it? Come on, you can tell your best friend," he said, and I groaned, not wanting to say anything.
But after a ridiculous amount of pestering, I decided to just go out with it. "I slipped today...."
His eyes widened, and he turned concerned. "Into subspace? Nobody did anything to you, right? Are you okay?"
I shook my head before realizing that he probably thought that that meant something else, and he looked even more worried. "No, no, no, I am okay, it's just that it wasn't exactly well...my regular headspace."
Michael looked confused for a second before he lit up like fireworks. "YOU SLIPPED INTO LITTLESPACE?!"
I nodded, directing my gaze towards the ground before I was buried in a hug. "I HAVE A PLAYDATE!"
Even though I knew that he would be very enthusiastic about the news, I still wasn't prepared for his over-the-topness.
He spent the rest of the day praising me up and down, planning playdates, what activities and clothes to get me, how to get Andrew over too, the whole nine yards.
I appreciated the thought, but man, he really could go overboard. I couldn't help but feel good at how happy he was though. His good mood always transferred to me. It was too infectious.
............................................
Despite my initial doubts, just like Andrew, my new headspace stuck around. We never ended up taking naps, us figuring out that with our older headspaces, naps weren't really that big of a thing, and we were actually pretty happy with that.
We did puzzles and small board games when both or either of us were little, and worked on the workbooks when we were big. I couldn't help but feel embarrassed every time I aged up, not exactly very used to how I was more emotional when I was little.
After a lot and a lot of pestering from Michael, I invited Andrew over to our apartment for a playdate—even thinking that word while big still made me feel somehow—but after Michael kept going up and down about it while he himself was big, it started to not feel as weird.
On a sunny Saturday, Andrew came over to our house, looking extremely nervous, but Michael quickly had an effect on him as well, as Michael was over the moon in excitement. With all the energy in him and with a higher Little percentage, he had no hopes of staying big and quickly slipped fully after Andrew's arrival, right down to the age of 4.
After that, especially with the slurring of Michael's words and the smile that was permanent feature on his face, Andrew started to feel more relaxed and ended up in his headspace as well, settling around 8.
I had a little trouble at first, but after Andrew pulled out a puzzle that he got for me, I didn't last long and quickly got down to 6.
It was, all in all, the funnest day of my life.
Getting a job that required me to be a regressor was the best decision ever.