Tale #129: Babying the Ball

Tale #129: Babying the Ball (A commission for 'Beastbear') (Part 2 to ‘Crib Notes in the Baby Book’) (Content Tags: Physical regression, mental regression, diapers, messing, wetting, humiliation, reality alteration) It was still not something that either of them could fully believe or begin to understand. Zachary had more of an idea of the mechanisms in play, but he was still in the dark over the finer details of how this had all happened; Roy on the other hand had been forced to live in an oblivious stupor, where the measurements of his existence continued to shift and reshape themselves into something new. A boy that had been heading right for thirteen; a boy that was about to officially leave childhood behind and begin his cool ‘teenage’ years. Zachary knew that would have been the case too; with Roy having such a normal upbringing, where he’d been allowed to stretch his wings out to fly, there had been no doubt that his teen years would have been full of excitement and memories to cherish in adulthood. On the flip-side, Zachary would almost certainly have a wildly different experience when he would turn thirteen. If his parents hadn’t been able to cut the umbilical cord for the first twelve years, it didn’t inspire much confidence that they’d suddenly become ‘hands-off’ whenever the thirteenth year hit. Zachary knew that he was still headed for that fate. Regardless of what he’d done to Roy thus far, he didn’t feel too much like his own path had been changed. His own parents were still invasive and overly-protective; it just so happened that now Roy’s parents weren’t much better. It might not have been a fair comparison anymore though. With the change that he’d made to the first page of the book, the two cousins were no longer on the same part of the track. According to Roy’s baby book, he’d now been born five years later than Zachary, instead of during the same year. So while Zachary would be turning thirteen next month, his ‘little’ cousin would be turning eight a few months after. Roy would be turning a ‘slow’ eight though, with all the cutting little details that Zachary had found necessary to malign the boy with. He’d be an eight year old that still needed training wheels, who still used a binky, and who was back in diapers for naughtily messing his trousers and wetting his bed. Zachary had made sure that Roy was worse in every metric than Zachary himself had been forced to endure. Best of all was the fact that Roy was aware of every bit of it. Roy still had memories of the way that things had been just a week ago, whenever he’d been big and proud of it. Nobody else remembered that, aside from Zachary, which made it a futile effort for Roy to escape this life that had been constructed for him. He might not have understood it, but he at least understood that any protests of being ‘almost a teen’ were met with a condescending cooing about what a big imagination he had. If his birth certificate was to be pulled up, then it would undoubtedly show he’d been born in ‘2016’ instead of ‘2011’, just as Zachary had written. In a way, the older cousin had stolen five years of Roy’s life; cut right off the top. He’d stolen five and corrupted the other seven. And there were still plenty of pages in the baby book to do more with, if Zachary so fancied the idea to further torment the tyke he’d become so much ‘better’ than. That had been the lead-up to the babysitting gig that had been foisted upon his capable shoulders. Where Zachary had been able to view the direct results of his creative labors in the book; his once great cousin reduced to little more than a second grader that couldn’t stop soiling himself, to the point of being put back into diapers. What a wonderful sight that it had been, and what a wonderful feeling he’d had, to be able to let the little runt know exactly who was running the show these days. Roy becoming red-faced and ornery as Zachary gave very unsubtle hints to his own culpability; that shock and fury transmuting itself into one-hundred percent pure pantload. Smelly and small was he, but Roy had kept a hold of a confidence that should no longer be. The confidence he had wielded before he’d been shrunk to this size, when his life had been the paragon of normalcy. A confidence that Zachary hadn’t realized he was so jealous of, until when he saw it now being contrasted against the pitiful image of this dirty-diapered brat. Confidence like that had never been in the cards for Zachary, not with the suffocation of his upbringing; instead, he’d been handed anxiety and poor self-esteem. The very traits he now wished to inflict upon Roy. Zachary looked down at the picture in his hand. It was Roy from earlier in the evening, whenever Zachary had been babysitting the little boy. In the picture, the diminished diaper-boy was clad in his loaded Pampers and was begrudgingly sucking on the pacifier that Zachary had shoved between his lips. He rubbed a glue-stick against the back of the photograph and carefully put it into place on the page. With his pen, he carefully scribbled a short description of what a stinker the tyke had been, and then he rolled back from his desk for a moment. He’d only been asked to babysit for a few hours, so that his aunt and uncle could go on their date night at the movie theater. Within the first ten minutes he had made the environment hostile by confessing what he’d done out the side of his mouth, and the rest of the time there hadn’t seen any better temperance from either boy. Zachary couldn’t help but to gloat and tease his smelly baby of a cousin, and Roy’s emotional regulation had eroded to match the way he looked. It’d made Zachary far more of a bully than a babysitter, and Roy had fought like hell to get some answers. That’s not to imply that he ended up getting any, at least none that would prove satisfactory in understanding why he’d been going through such drastic and implausible changes. Zachary wasn’t going to give the game completely away, since he really didn’t have any need to; the less that Roy knew about the power that Zachary held was the better. It’d been pretty easy to shoot down every prying question, especially whenever Zachary could so easily pivot to deriding the poopy diaper around Roy’s waist or push him around with superior size. The only knowledge that had been granted was the mere indication that Zachary was both aware of what was going on and somehow directly responsible. Short, sweet, and effective. It proved Zachary’s power, and it allowed their old dynamic to seamlessly continue existence in a ‘world’ that had been undeniably altered by Zachary’s childish meddling. It also didn’t grant Roy any advantages, since his words of once being a preteen wouldn’t be anymore credible with Zachary being fingered as some sort of antagonistic figure. Zachary tapped his pen against the page of the baby book. He’d made so many changes in such a short time, that he really hadn’t given himself space to stand back and look at things. Years of inadequacy had been so tightly wound inside of him, that whenever the opportunity had arose, Zachary had just let the spring pop. The result had been serious whiplash for Roy, who had gone from normal to not in the matter of just a couple of days. Roy’s well-being wasn’t a primary concern though; he was still alive and healthy, so what harm was some much needed ego-pruning? The boy closed the baby book and put it in the largest drawer of his desk. God rested on the seventh day, so that he may appreciate all he had created, so why not follow precedent? Zachary needed to watch things play out with his cousin, at least for a little while; it’d be no fun to give Roy no time to ‘appreciate’ the life that Zachary was making for him. It would also give Zachary time to better realize what exactly he wanted for Roy’s future, or lack thereof. They were still in the same area, but no longer the same school. Zachary was still in seventh grade, but Roy was back in second now. This was a little disappointing, since it meant that Zachary wasn’t able to see what Roy was going through now in person, but the grapevine always had something to tell him. He knew kids in his class that had little siblings, and from them he could learn more about what kind of kid Roy was considered. Needless to say, Roy was no longer a well-liked stud; crapping in diapers at that age was both frowned upon and mocked relentlessly, and Roy wasn’t exactly able to hide it. The shifts in history had already suggested that would be the case. The baby book had mention of Roy being demoted back to diapers, which would canonize that he’d been having too many accidents in his training pants, which that in itself would point to the fact that he’d been having potty problems for the entirety of his schooling career. At least in this new timeline that he had to live in. The same kids that had known him in Kindergarten or preschool, they would already long know that Roy was a pathetic pantspooping baby. His reputation would be as soiled as his trousers. Zachary probed for more information from his own parents. At the dinner table, he’d attempt subtlety in fishing for details about his younger cousin. He would play it off as though he was just making a comment on the boy’s immaturity, but his real goal was to spark conversation and to hear firsthand accounts on the rippling effects of what the baby book had done. It felt incredible to be the one who could point and jeer for once. To be able to speak with his parents about Roy and to instantly be the ‘big kid’ by default. There was no ‘you’ll get there, you’re just a late bloomer’ involved. Quite the opposite, as Zachary got to smirk about his parents pleading his patience in his poor little cousin’s own late bloom. The way it was framed, Zachary was the sneering tween that was irritated by Roy’s tragic immaturity; as if the entire emotional depth of their dynamic could be narrowed down to a seventh grade boy being grossed out by a stinky diaper. He would next see Roy when their families would get together to go bowling. It was a joint activity that they’d do every couple of months, and Zachary had always dreaded it, because his score would always get blown out by Roy. Neither of them were particularly good at bowling, but Roy had been a cut above Zachary, and that’d meant just one more thing that Roy had the edge in. Things would be different this time though, since Roy was now working with a lot less muscle and a lot less dexterity. The little boy had to get a ball meant for kids, and the bumpers went up for all of his turns. Zachary smoked him. It was the first time ever, but Zachary was making the second grader look like total crap. That was a petty thing to be pleased with, and perhaps a little pathetic, but the frustrated tears that streamed down Roy’s cheeks midway through the game had been a thing of poetry. It’d taken Roy’s father taking him aside and giving him a talk to get the boy to wipe his tears away and continue. He was undeniably the ‘little’ of the whole group, which was something he still wasn’t used to. Roy was getting a condensed taste of the indignities that Zachary had long been forced to endure. “Good thing they got you that baby ball. Those little noodle arms would break if you tried using a normal one.” Zachary teased as the adults had gone to order some food to be brought to the lane. “S-shut up, Zach! I’m not a baby and you know it! I’m just as good as I ever was.” That sweet denial was like nectar to Zachary. It was the lifeblood that sustained him, the ambrosia he craved. It signaled a hope that was just begging to be dashed. “Yeah? From where I’m standing, you look a lot like a baby. Got those tiny bowling shoes, got some serious diaper-butt going on under those overalls, and you’re small enough to pick up now. Time to face facts, Roy.” Zachary watched as Roy’s face grew red. Whether from shame, anger, or some volatile cocktail of the two, something was bubbling right underneath the surface. Lacking any way to actually fight Zachary’s metaphysical maneuvers, Roy could still at least keep a shred of his dignity by proving the larger boy wrong. Roy marched over to the ball pick-up and passed by the juvenile one intended for him; instead, he put his stubby little fingers into the three holes of Zachary’s bowling ball. It took both hands to lift, and what a comical sight it was to watch Roy stumble and sway as if he was just barely balancing an anvil in his hands. He had to keep it low, and his back was arching uncomfortably from attempting to head toward the lane. Zachary didn’t say a word, just watching with an amused smile and listening to the strained grunts and groans of a little boy overexerting himself. Once Roy had made his way to the line, he steadied his stance and used all his strength to try raising the ball up toward his chest. There was no possible way that this was going to be graceful. Roy’s knees were shaking and his stance was widening awkwardly while the ball struggled to raise above his waist. He made one more concerted effort to get the bowling ball ready to launch, and that’s when two bowling balls would drop: first the one in the back of his diaper, and then the one in his hands would follow immediately after. They were both loud crashes, though the first was of a more flatulent fair, where the immense weight dropped with a squishy plop instead of a clattering bang. Caught so off-balance by the sudden shifting in weights, Roy would then go on to stumble backwards and fall right onto his freshly deposited mound. Zachary had been there to laugh and snap a picture. Before the end of their family outing, whenever Roy had already been changed into something a little less squishy, there had been something that had irked Zachary. In the past times that they’d gone bowling, the adults would end up standing outside in the parking lot for another twenty or so minutes. It wasn’t anything formal, but just the natural consequence of especially gabby grown-ups. Roy, for the last couple of years, had told his parents that he’d instead go back inside and play a little in the small arcade room that was off in the corner. It only had a half-dozen cabinets, and it was right next to the place where people got their beer, but it had a couple of light-gun games. Roy’s parents had trusted him to be alone without question; he didn’t need a chaperon for something so close! That hadn’t been the case for Zachary. His own parents had denied him from letting him go too, and instead he ended up having to quietly wait with his mom and dad while they blathered on with his aunt and uncle. Zachary had been hoping that today would be different, and that he could show Roy just how much had changed, but… They still denied his request. He had to instead wait outside with the pantsfiller. “Guess no matter what you do to me, you can’t make things any better for yourself.” Roy had sneered. He still didn’t know if that was completely true or not, but he did know that he could keep sharpening the contrast between them. At a certain point, his parents would have to look at him through the lens of being a much bigger kid than his half-pint of a cousin! That night, the baby book would make another appearance on his desk. The picture from the bowling alley would obviously find a place, but Zachary was more interested in fabricating something that hadn’t actually happened. Roy still had much further to drop, and there were still a lot of blank pages for Zachary to work with here. He skipped back some pages and opted for something that would be more of a retcon. “There’s no use in trying to pottytrain him yet, he’s clearly just not ready. Maybe we’ll try Pull-Ups in a year or two.” There was the first blurb, which would ripple across the proceeding pages and wipe away any evidence that Roy had ever promoted to training pants in the first place, let alone anything like undies. He skipped a few more pages back, “The school suggested having him repeat Kindergarten and we think that might be for the best. Here’s to another year of Kindy!” Zachary tapped the pen against the paper and frowned, it was good, but it wasn’t good enough. All he’d really accomplished so far was making pottytraining a completely foreign concept and making him go back a grade. There would be far-reaching consequences of both of those decisions, but they’d be subtle and not immediately obvious. He needed some red meat here. He went back up a few pages and smiled deviously, “Roy’s been going through way too many diapers lately. We had to go to a special store to get some much bigger ones. It’s so cute to watch him waddle around, and whenever he makes a big boom-boom, he sometimes finds it easier to crawl! He isn’t a happy camper about it, but we’ve easily halved the amount of diapers we have to change!” Zachary would wait a few moments before letting out a chuckle at what appeared above the words he’d written. It was a picture of Roy, standing in front of the package of ‘StinkerPants’ branded diapers, modeling one around his waist. His hands were trying to cover his Pampers from being seen, but they were far too big for him to have a chance, and the diaper was unbelievably lumpy, as if he’d been pooping it every hour for half the day. “Kinda ironic, ain’t it? All these changes in your life, but you’re getting fewer of the ones you actually want.” He snickered as he closed the book, his spite adequately expelled for the moment. He couldn’t wait for the next time he’d see his cousin, since he had a feeling that the boy’s further lowering would act like rocket fuel for his own tortured ego. Roy should hope that this new addition to his degradation was enough to satisfy, but the truth of the matter was that Zachary wouldn’t be satisfied until his own life felt improved, and no tangible benefit would ever come from knocking Roy further down.