Chapter Text
If anyone were to ask Grace, he would tell them that this is a ridiculous idea.
Well, they did ask him but everyone is just going with it anyway.
Why the management and medical teams on the Vat would think that implementing a ship wide Little-centered movie marathon night was beyond him. It was a waste of time and resources—sure, he overheard some of the other Littles gushing in excitement for the last two days and it’s probably good for them but Grace could be doing a million other things that probably need doing instead.
However, the somehow large list of Caregivers in Grace’s life has a lot to say about his reluctance to go for aforementioned movie night. According to them, it would be fun and it’s good to relax. It's ridiculous!
Being Little around them was hard enough, but in front of more people in the Vat? Yeah, no thank you.
Which is why Grace is currently huddled in the far corner of a deserted meeting room near the labs armed with reports on his laptop and juiceboxes (sue him, they’re good while Big and Little and he probably needs the vitamin C anyway).
The only sound in the room was the soft clacking of the keyboards and the even softer ticking of his new watch courtesy of Stratt since the straps of his old one broke while he was testing some of the new Hail Mary equipment.
The others were probably busy too anyway. If he stayed here and out of sight long enough, they would probably forget about the movie night and he would be free from the social obligation, easy.
He slurps lazily on the straw and continues to highlight the different sections he would need to get someone else’s input on in the morning when the room swings open. Grace flinches at the sudden noise, almost sending his juicebox flying to the ground.
Carl stands on the other side of the doorway, taking in the view of Grace sprawled on the ground. Fiddlesticks.
“Hi,” Grace says, his heart beating a thousand miles per hour.
Carl raises his eyebrow and Grace wilts on the inside. “What are you doing here?”
“Was, you know, just reports,” Grace says lamely gesturing at his laptop perched on his knees.
“This room is out of service.”
“It’s uh–” Grace looks at boxes stacked near him.“–cosy?”
Carl gives him a flat stare and Grace winces. “How’d you even find me?” Grace grumbles, staring up at the ceiling.
“Classified.” Carl crosses the room, peering at the little nest (a random cushion, apple juice, his laptop, and a small stack of files that double as a mousepad) Grace has made for himself. “Come on, we need to go.”
Grace steadies the laptop balancing on his legs and pointedly does not look at Carl. “Well, I’m busy.”
“No you’re not, you’ve been unbusy-ed for tonight,” Carl corrects.
He’s losing so much time and progress by virtue of being Little. It’s bad enough that Stratt has scheduled drops into his calendar, now she wants him to drop on non-Little nights too. Sure, he’s still dropping involuntarily but that’s a minor issue, a small hurdle mostly. Grace lets out a large sigh and fiddles with the bottom of his sweater. “It’s so early. Do I really have to go?”
“Have you had dinner yet?” Carl puts his hands in his pockets.
Grace lets out a big sigh and leans back against the wall. Grownups and their dumb rules about eating–he had 1.5 meals today and that should be enough!
The other man crouches down, picking up the random things and putting it into a somewhat neat pile while Grace stews in his annoyance. Carl reaches to pack Grace’s laptop but the Little gathers it in his arms and shakes it head.
“Carl, please?” Grace tries to plead one last time. “Come on, man.”
The body guard leans closer, his voice softening. “You gotta eat Grace, Stratt’s waiting,” Carl puts a hand on the laptop. “And, if you come with me now, I’ll get you a bag of Skittles for the movie.”
Grace chews the inside of his cheek. Might as well make the most of the situation. “Two?”
Carl snorts. “Don’t push it, Grace,” he chides playfully.
The Little lets out another long suffering sigh–he has lost this battle before it has even begun. He hands the laptop over to Carl who decidedly packs Grace’s things to quickly move them along. Grace shoves the extra juiceboxes into his pockets and sips the open one in his hand.
Carl slings his bag over his shoulder and takes Grace’s hand. Grace furrows his brows. “I can walk Carl.”
“I know,” Carl says, still holding his hand and guiding the Little out of the room. “Let’s go.”
Since all the Littles have essentially been outed in public, almost all the grownups around Grace always want to hold his hand or put a hand on his shoulder outside of work, even when he was Big. It was odd to say the least. Sometimes their touch felt like electricity shocking his nervous system, a weight holding him down before his nerves fry like a livewire. Other times, it was a ground wire, channeling his nerves to flow out of his body and into the earth below. He can’t remember the last time where so many people were this nice to him. What a terrifying concept.
The good thing about having dinner with Carl and Stratt was that he didn’t need to eat in the mess hall. Sure, they’re both super fussy but it was less intimidating than that room full of people.
The hallways closer to Stratt’s office are quiet this time of day, but Grace still sticks close to Carl as the bodyguard raps his knuckles on the door.
Stratt is still talking on the phone in French when she opens the door to invite them in. She gives Grace a small squeeze on his arm and it takes all of his willpower to not just crumple to the floor right there. Dr Ingram said that his Drop triggers are still fairly paper thin and his body needs more time to learn how to regulate them again which is incredibly frustrating to no end.
His head starts to feel fuzzy again so he shoves his hands in his pockets. Away from prying grownup eyes, he presses his fingernails into his palms as hard as he can and takes a deep breath as the pain starts to clear his brain. He hates being sick and he hates how his body is betraying him. Maybe in some ways, he betrayed his body first with all of the suppressants–but it isn’t half fair, he needed to be Big.
Carl pushes him down to sit at a small meeting table before laying containers of food on the table. Dinner is a bowl of warm rice and eggs covered in tomatoes that Grace loves and has a sneaking suspicion that Stratt has convinced the chefs to keep making on nights he’s scheduled to be small.
Grace can’t help but let his eyes wander back to Eva who is tapping her pen worriedly on her desk. Flipping through his mental planner, he can’t seem to remember if she had a meeting with anyone in particular for the evening. Carl has to keep tapping Grace’s shoulder in between his own bites of food to remind Grace to actually eat but his tummy is starting to feel twisty again. Eating food always seems like a never ending chore–humans are so poorly designed in that manner.
Grace watches as she finally hangs up the phone with a sigh, leaning back against her chair.
“Who was that?” he asks as she joins them at the table.
"Leclerc,” Stratt answers, opening her own container of food. “How is your food, is it good?”
He hums an agreement, it is pretty good but there were more important things she wasn’t saying. “Why was he calling?”
Stratt raised an eyebrow at his blatant attempt at changing the subject back. “He ran some more numbers for me.”
Grace furrows his brows and tries to remember what Leclerc was assigned to do. “The population ones? What about them?”
“That is something he will discuss with us tomorrow,” Stratt shuts down the line of questioning before her voice softens again. “Ilyukhina was telling me about the movies they are showing later. She thinks you will like them.”
Grace fiddles with the spoon in his hand and gives a half-hearted shrug. “Do we have to go?”
She reaches across the table to put her hand over his. “It’s just like we discussed Ryland,” her voice still as soft and soothing as can be. “It’s good for ship morale, camaraderie. It’s been a difficult few weeks and people need a chance to relax.”
He squirms in his seat. “But do we have to go?”
“It will be good for you to Drop with other Littles,” Stratt gives him the same answers all the Caregivers in his life have been giving him since HR and the med team announced having get-togethers like this. “It’s not good for you to drop alone.”
Biology, psychology, and sociology can never quite agree on why Littles evolved this way but they do know the ‘ideal circumstances’ for them to thrive–the key ones being regular Drop cycles and positive social bonding–two things Grace struggles with.
But the idea of being Little with other people around is terrifying. It's already hard enough when it's just them–and that’s mostly mildly successful due to a mix of Stratt’s strong-arming his care by agreeing to be his main Caregiver and Grace’s abysmal Drop cycle. To have more people just looking at him and judging him while small is scary and Grace is a weak weak man.
He shakes his head at her. “But we don’t have to, I could look at Leclerc’s numbers instead, we could even–”
“Ryland,” she lightly scolds and Grace wants to shrink on himself. “We can look at those tomorrow morning, Leclerc isn’t done with them either. You don’t need to worry about that tonight.”
Grace nods slowly, twisting the spoon. Logically, he knows this is a good idea. Logically, he knows that being around other Littles should help. The human brain that thrives living in groups would love a movie night. When Littles and children are able to play and drop safely, it's a sign of a good place to be and the grownups around them are able to relax. Humans are social creatures and this is a sure-fire way to make everyone relax on a biological level. But emotionally, Grace doesn’t think he can do it.
His hesitance must show on his face as Stratt moves her chair closer to him, gently plucking the spoon from his hands. “I know it’s hard. We can take this one step at a time.” She scoops another spoonful of rice and holds it up to him. “Why don’t we eat dinner first, hm?”
Grace pushes the bowl away from him and shakes his head. “Can’t,” he whines, sniffling and wiping his nose on his sleeve. His tummy feels all funny and wrong and his head is starting to hurt a lot. He rests his forehead on the edge of the table, slumping forward as his body suddenly feels very heavy. He’s about two seconds away from falling off his chair when Carl and Stratt grab him before his head meets the corner of the table and the floor. .
She tugs him over and holds him in her lap. She squeezes him tight and he lets out a sharp breath of air. He has his arms around her neck like a drowning sailor holds onto a lifeboat stopping him from drowning beneath the waves. His nerves feel like they are on fire and he cries into her hair. Her arms are the only thing keeping from falling apart into a million tiny pieces as he fully Drops into his headspace.
After what seems like forever and a day, he pushes himself up on shaky limbs.
“There you are,” Eva softly whispers, wiping the tears off his cheeks with her sleeves. “Better?”
Grace nods his head. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
She hushes him. “What for?”
“Didn’t mean to Drop…”
“No need for apologies.” Eva rubs a hand down his back. “It’s okay liefje. You are scheduled to Drop today and you did. This is progress.”
“I did good?” he asks in a small voice.
Ryland can feel her body hum as she pats his back. “You did very good Ryland, very very good.”
Ryland feels like he can walk on water, maybe even fly in the air with the power of that praise. He did good, he did very very good.
“Why aren’t you hungry liefje?” She slowly puts a hand on his cheek so she can look at his face. She probably has a lie-detector-powers, trying to pull the truth out of him. “Was the food not good?”
He shakes his head. The food was good–really good. Ryland was the one who was broken. He leaned into the warmth of her palm like a sick dog begging for comfort. “Tummy hurts.”
“Did you go potty today?” She pats his bum, not so subtly checking his thankfully dry pullup. He had no accidents today, thank goodness.
Ryland whines and squirms in her lap. “Nooo, not like that.” He pouts at her. “Don’t wanna go.”
“For the movie night?” Eva asks gently, rubbing a hand down his back. He nods at her and she makes another knowing sound. “And why is that?”
Ryland twists the bottom of his shirt in his hands. “So many people,” he whispers. “Don’t like it.”
She gives him another squeeze and he relaxes into her hold. “It is scary isn’t it? All the different people.” Ryland nods, wiping his nose on his sleeve. There were going to be so many people later who would stare at him. “It is all people you already know liefje, they are not strangers to you.”
Ryland whines, kicking his feet slightly. They were not strangers but only a small handful of them have even seen him regressed. He knows that they will stare and judge him and what if they were super mean and—
“How about this,” Eva says, brushing the hair out of his eyes. “We put on some comfier clothes, take a snack, and we go down to the rec room—”
Ryland lets out a whine and Eva comfortingly puts her hand on his head. “--and we try watching the movie for fifteen minutes? We just try, okay?”
Ryland rubs his nose on his sleeve. “And we leave after?”
“If you want to leave after fifteen minutes, we will leave,” she promises.
“Just fifteen minutes?” Ryland chews the inside of his cheek in contemplation.
Eva nods, stroking his cheek. “You can bring Laika or Doggy if you want too.”
Ryland quickly shakes his head. Stuffies are for babies and Grace can’t everyone in the Vat know how small of a baby he is. It wasn’t safe. Laika and her friend Doggy should stay where they are safe.
“You can bring the new cars Shapiro gave you to show Hatch,” Eva suggests instead, quickly pivoting.
He looks up at her. “Steve is gonna to be there?”
Eva hums in agreement. “From what I’ve been told, all of the Little staff are going to be there. Dimitri said Steve is very excited for later. You can even share the Skittles Carl brought with him.”
Steve has already seen Ryland when he was Little and he is very nice. The Skittles are a nice bonus too. But it doesn’t quite stop the nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach that the other people there will judge him for being such a wrong kind of Little.
He smashes his face onto her shoulder again and nods. “Okay,” he whispers into her hair. “We go.”
“Okay, Ryland,” she rocks them both. “You’ll be okay. Carl and I will be right there, okay?”
It does sound better that both Carl and Eva will be there too. Ryland rubs his eye with his fist. “Eva?”
Eva hums comfortingly and cards her fingers through his hair. “Yes, liefje?”
“Tired,” he mumbles, leaning on her. His brain feels fuzzy and wrong and his limbs feel like it would take a forklift for him to move them.
“Just close your eyes,” she suggests softly, patting his bottom rhythmically. “We have time before we have to get ready.”
That is all the permission he needs to shut his eyes and give into the haze in his brain. He doesn’t fall into a deep sleep, just enough for his brain to attempt to relax to the sound of Eva and Carl talking and the thudding of metal on plastic bowls. Someone (Carl, it’s usually Carl) slides a pacifier into Ryland’s mouth and Ryland can physically feel the tension leaving his body.
After what felt like forever and nothing at all, Eva strokes his cheek again, gently waking him up. His mind feels like mush and spun sugar as Eva and Carl sit him on a plastic mat on the sofa and start undressing him.
His heart starts beating fast but his limbs can’t move under his command. He knows that Carl and Eva won’t do anything untoward but he can’t help but worry regardless. It's one of the reasons he hates being a Little–his headspace leaves him too vulnerable–too small and soft and easy to hurt.
He can only suck harder on the pacifier and try not to fall face first onto the ground. Carl gently pushes him down on the changing mat while Eva rubs his arms and whispers soft, kind things that Ryland’s brain refuses to interpret.
She tears the sides of the pullup and tugs it off him, leaving him naked and fuzzy on the changing mat. Hands armed with wet cloths wipe him clean of dirt and sweat before sliding something soft under his bottom. He looks down confused and lets out a cry at the sight of the diaper.
Eva curses and quickly wraps the diaper around him while Ryland lets out choking breathy sobs. He’s not a baby, he doesn't need a diaper! Sure, he used one when he was sick but he’s not sick now.
Someone lifts him upwards and he’s back on Eva’s lap. He cringes and cries as the soft padding cushions his butt in ways he can’t ignore like a pullup.
“It’s okay, liefje, it’s okay,” Eva whispers, rubbing infuriatingly soothing circles on his back.
“Not-not a b-baby,” Ryland hiccups, twisting his fingers in her sweater.
“It’s just for tonight, liefje, remember? The movie night is be too long for pullups.”
He racks his brain, trying to sift through the cotton. Eva did tell him that he might have to wear more protection for the event. Since his accident with DuBois and Shapiro, Eva has kept him in pullups under the suggestion of Dr Ingram. His brain still doesn’t have a good grip on his regression and Eva wants to keep any accident related meltdowns at bay. When it’s just him and his Caregivers, it’s easy enough to be reminded (sometimes forcefully with gentle scoldings) to use the potty when Little. With a group of other Littles and grownups, that is a whole different ball game.
He squirms in her hold and tries to catch his breath. “Not a baby,” Ryland whines. Ryland has never had to really use incontinence protection prior to his latest stint with the altered suppressants. It's just another way that he has messed up again.
“I know, I know,” Eva soothes as he chokes out more cries. “Once you feel better, Dr Ingram thinks we can do potty training and you won’t have to use them as much.”
Okay, he’s filing that information deep in the part of his brain that he doesn’t want to think about right now or ever, maybe. Carl holds a tissue to his nose and he blows out all of the gunk and mucus stuck in there.
In a matter of seconds, he is efficiently dressed in comfortable warm clothes. He chews on the cuffs of his sleeves and whines when Carl gently tugs them out to replace it with his pacifier again. He is pretty sure this oversized sweater belonged to Carl but Ryland decides it is his now, he deserves it.
He curls up on Eva’s lap, soaking up the cuddles she’s offering.
“I know you’re scared of being Little in front of everyone,” Eva says gently and Ryland is momentarily bewildered that she has read his mind once again. Maybe the Europeans really did create a mind-reading machine and it’s in the shape of a scary looking Dutch Caregiver. “But you don’t have to worry, liefje. No one will judge you.”
He mumbles something and she takes the pacifier out of his mouth. He swallows the saliva pooling at the bottom of his tongue. “What if I do it wrong?” Ryland repeats carefully.
“Ah, that is not possible. There’s wrong or right way to be small,” Eva answers lightly.
“There’s a wrong way to be Little and a right way–no one wants a Little who is the wrong way,” Ryland recites automatically from memory and Eva’s hand stills on his back.
“Where did you hear that?” she asks, her voice light but Ryland can tell it's laced with something dangerously levelled.
Ryland shakes his head and burrows deeper into her hold. He wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, it’s not allowed.
“Ryland?” Eva draws circles on his shoulder with her thumb and he could feel his stubbornness slipping. “Did someone tell you that?”
He’s not supposed to talk about it, he’s not allowed to say. He can’t lose his friend over this like last time. He doesn’t even realise he is shaking until Eva holds his chin to face her. His bottom lip trembles as she studies his face. She looks as if she is studying the face of a high ranking diplomat to figure out how to get the resources the project needs. He tries to squirm away, feeling like one of his own specimens under a microscope.
“Ryland,” her voice a little sterner. “Did anyone here tell you that?”
Ryland knows what it sounds like and he wishes he could take back all the words that came out of his mouth. He’s been through student safety training as a teacher—he knows all the things that would sound the alarm bells and would need mandatory reporting. He intimately knows the landmine he just stepped on. But he doesn’t need all this fuss, he doesn’t want it.
Eva lifts his face when he tries to burrow back into her shoulder, forcing him to look at her. “Ryland,” she says his name with more kindness than he probably deserves. “There’s no wrong way to be Little. You just have to be however you need to be, okay? Anyone else who has otherwise is wrong.”
He nods because he knows that is what you’re supposed to do to get people to stop asking questions and he wants her to stop asking. The lie curdles in the bottom of his tummy and he feels like throwing up to get all of the bad stuff out.
He tries to chew on the cuffs of the sweater again and this time Carl stops him before he does. Ryland accepts the pacifier and rubs his eyes with the back of his hand.
Eva gently wipes the tears and snot away from his face with a tissue and hums. “Feeling better?”
Ryland nods. His head feels a lot easier to live with once having a cry.
“Ready to go?”
“Yeah,” Ryland says miserably.
“Okay, let’s go see the others,” Eva says, giving him one more squeeze before they both stand up.
It’s going to be a long night.