MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE ONESHOTS

the slip-up

(i hope this was a story of a guy who age regresses and his caregiver, drugged_milk, and not another stereotype

enjoy)

Gerard had a terrible day at work. Absolutely horrendous.

Eyes were always on him, it seemed. His work was just never up to par according to his boss, and it was art! How could art not be up to par? It's art!

Whatever the case, it was not a spectacular day, and he kind of felt like not growing up. If only there was a way to feel like a kid again... but there was.

At first, Gerard thought it weird — it was called age regression, and there were kind of two ways you could do it: as a symptom of something (in which case, it would probably be best to talk to a doctor or therapist) or for self-help purposes. And it was, actually, quite helpful to him.

He assumed at first it was just another odd internet thing; he'd always see young people with pacifiers and coloring books all over social media, and perhaps they just did it to be cute. Turns out, a lot of them didn't. And the more he researched, the more he realized, "Hey, maybe I could use some regressing."

It was never a big deal or a huge show he put on, really. It was just a simple Saturday and he thought that, instead of wallowing in his own misery, he should try wearing a more childish outfit and playing around with some toys or something. Perhaps just some fidget toys, like a Rubix cube or one of those little colorful pop-y thingies.

Soon enough he was going all out with the self-help with socks that had toes and teddy bears and pretty much decorating a whole section of his room with more of a laidback, kiddish theme. Just on the occasion that everything sucked and he wanted to chill for a bit.

As he'd expected, he quickly became even more of a misfit than he was before. Some people thought he was sick in the head, or just plain odd, or not taking things seriously. Few people remained on his side, and that group included his friends Ray, Matt, and Lindsey, his brother, Mikey, all of his stuffed animals, and a weirdo named Frank.

Frank.

It was a weird mix, really (but they do say opposites attract), this weird punky feminist boy and this artsy regressor. They claimed to be best friends in their Instagram stories, but sometimes Mikey would avert his eyes when Frank came over and Lindsey would send narrow-eyed, thin-smirked looks that made Gerard's head whir, because surely she wasn't implying... what he thought she was...?

But Frank would often help his fellow misfit out when he ended up way deep in the zone and kind of went to what Gerard dubbed "baby mode" before realizing the actual name was "little space." (They both still think "baby mode" is humorous, so it stuck.)

Frank never called him weird for it, even when he'd do a little scoot-dance over to him when they played with action figures and squirmed a bit into his side. It was just endearing, in Frank's eyes.

And well, recently Frank had been kicked out of his band for not having the right sound or something. The young rocker had already (passionately) made the decision to never have "some lame desk job ever" by permanently inking some grungy-looking tattoos into his neck, so it wasn't like finding work was easy for him.

Which brings us back to the present: Frank is now living in Gerard's apartment as a roommate and Gerard is now home from his lame desk job, though it's more artsy than being a bank teller or executive Google Sheets-user.

So when Gerard walked in looking  grouchy, Frank was there to comfort him. He simply did a little sympathetic half-smile, took his hand, and lead him to the play corner set up in his bedroom. It kind of reminded Frank of Andy's room from Toy Story.