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The first time Jonny acted weirdly after a surgery or check up, Carmilla feared that she might have messed up something within Jonny’s brain.
As she screwed the panels back over his heart, he started to cry. Carmilla rarely saw Jonny cry, not even after the first time she had replaced his heart with his mechanical one, so seeing tears freely fall from his face was concerning to Carmilla.
“Jonny, are you okay?” She questioned as she placed the screwdriver down. Jonny didn’t answer and just continued to cry, lip wobbling as he held back sobs, “Hey, hey, it’s okay.” For a moment, she thought that maybe all that had happened over the last few months– the death of his mother, the murder of his father and his mechanization had finally come crashing down on him so she wrapped her arms around him. “Just let it out.” She coo-ed, pulling him close. The position was a bit awkward, she was in her wheelchair and the bed was lower so she could operate on Jonny without lifting her arms too high.
“‘M sorry.” He cried, his voice sounded…younger.
“What are you sorry for, Jonny?” She questioned, her concern rising.
“Making you mad.” It is true that she did yell at Jonny during this operation as he kept wiggling and making it difficult to see what was wrong with his heart this time, after that he went quiet and she thought that he just decided there was no point in making the person with his heart literally in their hands annoyed.
“You didn’t make me mad,” Carmilla easily lied, seeing how distressed Jonny was at the idea he’d made Carmilla mad, broke her undead heart, “I just got annoyed. But I’m not mad at you.”
“Promise no punishment?” He sniffled into her shoulder, crying like a little kid.
Carmilla didn’t think it was possible for her heart to break even more, she knew little of Jonny’s past and his relationship with his father, but she knew it wasn’t the best. “No punishment, I’d never punish you ever.”
“Pinkie promise?” Jonny pulled away from the hug and put out his pinkie finger, his hand shaking as tears still streamed from his face.
It was at this point Carmilla feared that she had somehow messed something up in Jonny’s brain as this was beyond the opposite of what the violent young man was usually like, but Carmilla couldn’t deny the selfish feelings within her at the thought of parenting Jonny whilst in this weirdly young headspace.
“Pinkie promise.” She replied, wrapping her own pinkie about Jonny’s.
He stayed in that weird headspace for over 30 minutes, babbling about anything and everything, even asking Carmilla such silly and adorable questions about science that she answered in kind. But eventually he grew weirdly quiet and his eyes suddenly widened in horror.
Jonny didn’t say anything as he rapidly shoved himself away from Carmilla and ran through the ship– which was small enough to hear him slam his door.
Carmilla sighed in light annoyance. At least she knew now that she didn’t mess anything with Jonny’s brain and it seemed to be a part of him, a part of him that he was embarrassed by.
She didn’t see Jonny for almost a week. She wasn’t too concerned but she still felt that foreign, motherly, pull to check on Jonny.
But it was obvious that he didn’t want to see her, so instead Carmilla decided to see if she could find what happened with Jonny. Carmilla wasn’t one for SpPsychology, she preferred to study the body and life, but Scuzz did. Scuzz didn’t study per say, but they did enjoy reading any and all books they could get on it. And they had left all their books in her lab when they left– Carmilla kept them on their shelf in case Scuzz ever returned.
During the week, Carmilla looked through the books, skimming over pages that didn’t seem relevant to Jonny until she came across a page in one of the more recent ones Scuzz got before their departure.
Age regression.
Carmilla made notes on what the page explained it was; something the brain did to cope with stressful situations or sometimes to relax by reverting to a younger headspace. Typically seen in those who had a bad or dysfunctional childhood and they use it to get back those times they missed out on.
That explained Jonny to a T.
Humming to herself, she put her notebook back into her waistcoat and walked out her lab, her stomach growling. Reaching into the fridge, she pulled out one of her blood bag rations– she’ll have to make a stop at a planet soon to fill back up, and began to slowly drink from it, thinking back to all her interactions with Jonny. There were times where his glee and amusement seemed that not of a young adult, but that of a young child. She hoped that Jonny would come out of his room soon so she could talk to him,
And it seemed her hopes were answered as the door to the kitchen slid open. Jonny froze as he saw Carmilla there, obviously he had thought she wouldn’t be around.
“What do you want for lunch?” She asked, offering a simple conversation.
“I don’t know, something meaty.” He answered, slowly making his way across the room and to the table, opting to perch on the stool, his tail swishing in anxiety.
Carmilla– holding the half finished blood bag in her teeth, reached into the cabinets and pulled out some of Jonny’s meat rations, giving him a bit more than he usually had as a gesture of good faith.
“I want to talk about what happened.” She said after a few moments, Jonny almost choked on his SpBeef jerky. “I looked through some of Scuzz’s old books and found a word for what I think happened to you. Age regression. A coping mechanism for when something stressful happens to a person or even when a person just wants to relax.” Carmilla continued as Jonny coughed the piece of food out of his throat. “Here, you can read my notes on it.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out her notebook.
Jonny squinted his eyes, taking a long time to read it before pushing the notepad away, “Makes sense.” He grumbled, but Carmilla could see in his eyes that he understood and there was that hint of glee of finally understanding a part of himself.
“If you ever want to regress, I’d be happy to be there for you to help care for you.” She said causally, ignoring those motherly feelings that bubbled inside of her.
“I’ll think about it.”
Jonny does indeed think about it, and think about it some more, and more and more-
Until he regressed again in front of Carmilla, and true to her word she looked after him, being the mother he never got emotionally.
It took him a few months to feel comfortable staying with Carmilla– his mum as he began calling her when little, and even longer to willingly regress around her that wasn't due to stress.
Over the months, whenever they landed at a planet to refill and replenish Carmilla also dragged Jonny to shops for him to buy things for his regress, he truly was a spoiled little baby.
One of the things Jonny ended up buying willingly were sticker bags, hundreds of hundreds of stickers that he'd end up sticking everywhere on the ship's walls and even on himself and Carmilla when he was little, it was one of his favourite activities, and it helped him calm down after a particularly bad check up/surgery.
Much like now. A simple check up ended up involving Carmilla having to replace the left valve chamber as the metal ended up being dented during a bar fight Jonny was in a few weeks ago. And unfortunately, Carmilla had run out of general anesthetic so she had to use a local one so Jonny was unfortunately awake for the whole of the surgery and replacement.
By the time the surgery had finished, Carmilla's lab coat was coated in blood and she was definitely going to go heavy on the disinfectant.
Jonny seemed to be alright after the surgery, mumbling about thinking he'd avoided his heart being damaged in the bar fight until he went silent. Carmilla wasn’t shocked to turn around and see a tearful Jonny.
“Hurts.” He started to sob, curling his knees to his chest and hugging them tightly.
“Oh baby,” Carmilla coo-ed, making quicker work of taking off her lab coat and blood stained gloves, “I know it does, I know. You had a big boo-boo and you did so well being a good boy letting me fix it.” Carmilla gave Jonny a gentle kiss on his hair.
“I's good?” Jonny looked up at her with such big, innocent eyes she couldn't help but let out an ‘awww' at him.
“You did so good.” Carmilla carded a hand gently through Jonny's messy hair, “Do you think you're in the mood for a bath?”
Jonny rapidly shook his head, “No please.” He gripped his ears.
“Okay okay, no baths. But we gotta get all this icky blood off you. So instead of a bath how about we get you a new set of clothes and I used that nice bird covered wash cloth we got recently.” Carmilla bargained.
The wash cloth was a light red– almost pink, with a whole bunch of different birds covering it, it was incredibly soft and Jonny picked it out personally.
“Okay mum.” Jonny thankfully agreed. Hopping off the table, Jonny took the hand that wasn't holding her cane and she walked him to the bathroom. Carmilla herself didn't need to use the room apart from showering so most things in there were Jonny. There was also a shelf specifically for his little gear.
“Alright, can you go potty for me first whilst I get new clothes for you, baby boy?” Carmilla asked.
“Be back soon?” He asked, once again looking at her with those big eyes.
Giving him another kiss on his forehead, Carmilla smiled at him, “Of course I'll be back baby. Now go potty menace.” She ruffled his hair before leaving the little to his business as she went to his room. Thankfully the ship was a small one– she was still on the look out where Aurora was so she could claim back her first child, so the walk to Jonny's room wasn't too long. Even though everything in Jonny's room was his own privacy he had given her explicit permission to go through the cabinet that held all of his little gear and clothes, Carmilla was definitely going to need to get a bigger cabinet if she kept spoiling her baby.
From the cabinet she grabbed a hair of cute overalls with colourful buttons and a T-shirt with overtly cartoonish stars on then. She then grabbed one of the unopened bags of stickers, knowing that her baby was going to need a nice calming activity after that particularly stressful surgery.
Carmilla placed the bag of stickers into the common room so Jonny didn’t get too excited and making cleaning the remnants of surgery from his skin difficult.
“I washed my hands!” Jonny said, showing his still wet hands to Carmilla proudly.
“Well done sweet boy.” Carmilla made sure to praise her boy, she paused for a moment, thinking about how she was to clean up Jonny. Because if she cleaned him off first then got him redressed then his bloodied clothes would dirty himself again, but if she got him dressed then cleaned he could get his clothes dirty.
“Okay, idea.” Carmilla finally figured out, “In order to make sure we don’t get your little clothes dirty, let’s take off your shirt first, clean your face and anywhere else, then put on your t-shirt. Is that a good idea? Are you okay with that?” Carmilla may be an “evil” scientist but she’d be damned if she didn’t get consent from her son to see him in that semi-vulnerable position.
“Yep, okay mum.” Jonny said, going to chew on his fingers as he rocked on his heels.
Carmilla took his finger out of his mouth, “I’ll give you your paci once I’ve cleaned your face, okay, baby?” Jonny nodded and helped Carmilla take off his shirt. Carmilla grabbed the washcloth, and started to carefully rub it along Jonny’s face and hands, every few wipes she rewashed the washcloth, checking in with her son that he was okay. It was when she got down to the blood that coated around his heart panels that he started to squirm, whining in fear every time Carmilla wiped at the metal panels.
“It’s okay, you’re doing so well baby boy.” Carmilla kissed Jonny’s forehead as he scrunched up his face as Carmilla wiped the washcloth right over the centre of his heart. “All done.” Carmilla said joyfully, “You did so well for me baby boy, I’m so proud of you sweet boy.” Carmilla put the washcloth into the sink to remind her to clean it properly later on. “Do you want to get changed yourself or do you want help?”
“Myself!” Jonny gleefully declared, turning towards the pile of clothes.
Carmilla chuckled at her boy’s antics, “Alright, I’ll be just outside.” Carmilla then left the bathroom and as promised, waited outside, twirling her cane in her hand as she leant against the wall.
“How do I look mum?” Jonny’s voice suddenly boomed, making Carmilla jump.
“Now that’s a very handsome baby boy.” Carmilla coo-ed, pinching her son’s cheeks.
“Noooo mum stop!” Jonny laughed, hunching up his shoulders as he did so. “Can we p’ay now?”
“Of course we can, baby boy. In fact, I got a whole pack of stickers for you.” Jonny’s eyes got impossibly large– it was hard to suppress the coo that exited her lips.
“Let go let go let go!” Jonny’s hand grabbed Carmilla and they almost toppled over as Carmilla hissed in pain at the sudden movement in her legs.
“We need to go slowly, sweet boy. Remember, my legs aren’t as good as yours.” Carmilla gently smiled as she leaned heavily on her cane.
“Sorry mum.” He blushed, but he still held her hand as they walked to the common room. The moment Jonny saw the sticker pack on the sofa he let go of Carmilla’s hand and rushed over it to.
Even though he had brought it a few months ago, when he was in this younger headspace his memory of things that he did when big was almost non-exist.
Jonny grabbed the large sticker pack and jumped up and down in place, clutching it to his chest. “Stickers stickers stickers sticker!” He repeated over and over again with complete, unfiltered glee. “Sit sit sit! I stick on you!” Jonny jumped onto the sofa, sitting on his knees.
Carmilla laughed as she walked over to the sofa and sat on it, putting a pillow behind her back so her hips didn’t hate her later.
“Stay still.” Jonny demanded, viciously opening up the sticker pack and looked through the different pages. “Mmmmm.” He hummed deep in thought as he sorted the sticker pages into animals, emojis and objects before eventually picking out a page that had gold stars. “Gold star!” He grinned as he placed on right on Carmilla’s nose. “You good mum. So you get gold star.” He giggled.
Carmilla could feel her heart shatter in cuteness and pride that Jonny thought she was a good mother. She was so glad that Jonny accepted her motherly affection and love towards him.
“Well, then you get a gold star for being such a good son.” Carmilla took a gold star and stuck it onto Jonny’s nose, causing the little to laugh uncontrollable.
Jonny continued to place stickers onto Carmilla’s face and even her cane– choosing little cartoon stickers of bats. Eventually he ran out of the gold star stickers and practically all of Carmilla’s face was covered, the only space left was her eyes, nose and lips.
“You look pretty mum!” Jonny grinned as he went through the leftover sheets.
“Thank you baby boy.” Carmilla stroked Jonny’s hair, putting a loose strand behind his ears.
Jonny of course found another sticker sheet and demanded Carmilla roll up her sleeves so he could stick the little forget-me-not flower stickers onto her arms.
Carmilla couldn’t stop smiling the entire time, she loved her baby boy so much.
She was so glad he chose her to be his mother.