“…ingo?” “Wake up Ringo.”
He winced a little as a bright light shined in his eyes, rubbing them a little to try and clear them. “Mrrrrn…? Wha?” Ringo mumbled.
As his vision cleared, he saw the bright lights of the department store. The adult version of his brother came into view, shading Ringo’s eyes from the harsh light as he smiled down at the hatchling.
“Hey little bro. How was your nap?”
“N-nap?” Ringo thought as he looked around drowsily, his vision still blurry from waking up. The last thing he remembered before passing out was snuggling up to Pandy in Skeebe’s arms. He whined a little in embarrassment when he realised that Sylvy would have seen the whole thing.
“Awww poopy…now he’ll never think I was a big kid,” Ringo thought grumpily to himself, frowning a little, not even taking a minute to notice his regressed cursive vocabulary.
The bright store lights weren’t helping his eyes adjust, forcing him to squint as he took in his surroundings. Even when he was big, waking up took a lot of effort for him, and now that he was a cub again, it was harder to get his little body moving after resting. He tried to move his arms and legs, but at the moment his lack of control just made them flail around a little. Finding that he could move his head, he instead tried to find out where he was now.
He saw that he was surrounded by big wooden walls, followed by a blurry reflection on one of them. It took a moment for his little sleepy mind to realise that it was a mirror, let alone that he was now in the store’s changing booth. He looked back up to his brother’s big face, finally able to move his arms up just enough to rub his tired little eyes.
“Mrrfffmmmmfmm mmmnn mmmfff?” Ringo tried to ask his brother. When he tried to talk, he could feel something in his maw that was stopping his tongue from moving. The longer he focused on it, he began to realise that he had been sucking away at it since he woke up.
“Oh no!” He thought. “Don’t tell me I can’t talk anymore!” He began to whimper, placing his paws on his maw, only to find a strange plastic object blocking his lips. “Wait…it’s this thingy that’s stopping me!”
As his little paws began exploring the object, he felt a little ring attached to it. His groggy little mind thought of all the options as to what it could be. “It kinda feels like a plug, but why would Skeebe put a plug in my mouth? And how come it feels really nice to suck on it…?” He thought before giving the ring a tug.
It didn’t budge. Growling a little, he tried to tug at it again as hard as his tiny arms could. It didn’t change anything. His little maw’s suckling reflexes were far too strong for his tiny, weak paws to fight against now. He looked up at Skeebe again, pointing to the plug and whimpering, being the only way he could think of to let his brother know that he wanted it out of his mouth.
Skeebe looked down at Ringo curiously for a moment before his face beamed in acknowledgement. “Awww, you want that out of your maw lil bro?” Skeebe chuckled to the hatchling.
Ringo nodded and wagged happily, creating the familiar sound of his diaper crinkling. Just as Ringo began to think that the diaper seemed a bit thicker than he remembered it being, the feeling of the plug being removed from his maw brought his attention back to his now big brother. As he looked up at Skeebe, he let out a small yip of surprise to find that what he thought was a plug in his maw was actually a baby’s pacifier.
Ringo turned bright red and whimpered softly in embarrassment. The entire time he was asleep, he had been nuking away at a pacifier like a baby and not even noticed. To make it even worse, he found himself actually enjoying just how such a simple, childish thing could make him so happy and calm.
His thoughts were interrupted when he heard Skeebe giggling at him. “Awww, I think someone didn’t notice this was in his maw,” Skeebe teased, waving the pacifier in front of Ringo.
Ringo whined a little, curling his tail shyly around his leg and trying to hide his blushing. “N-nuh uh! I knew it was dere da whole time!” Ringo yelped back weakly.
“Oh?” Skeebe grinned for a moment. “So why didn’t you take it out then?” He said, petting Ringo headfur gently.
Skeebe smiled down at Ringo warmly, comforting his obviously shy and embarrassed little brother. Ringo’s tail unravelled from his leg and began to wag happily again, forcing a little smile to appear on the little Dragingo’s face as he let out a soft purr.
“Ba’cause I couldn’t take it outs...it was ‘tuck...” Ringo replied, curling up into Skeebe’s tummy to enjoy his brother’s warmth as he was being pet.
Skeebe’s smile grew as Ringo curled up, wrapping his big paws around Ringo to keep him safe and cosy. He was beginning to notice Ringo’s mind was slowly regressing to match his new body. For Skeebe, it made quite an adorable display when the cub would switch back and forth between acting like a grown-up and a silly little baby. Skeebe decided it was better to let it happen than to make his brother worried by bringing attention to it.
“You couldn’t take it out? Or you didn’t want to take it out?” Skeebe asked as his gently patted Ringo’s back.
Ringo’s ears perked at the question. Skeebe did have a point. Even though Ringo wanted to take the pacifier out of his maw to talk; when he tried to tug it out of his maw, it felt like his new suckling reflex was holding onto it, as if it didn’t want to stop enjoying the soothing feeling it gave him. He didn’t want to admit it to Skeebe though; it’d just make him think that Ringo was a dumb baby when he wanted to look big and tough.
“I ‘unno...” Ringo mumbled.
As soon as he responded, Ringo felt himself being lifted up by under his armpits. Skeebe lifted him up and then plopped the hatchling into his lap, making Ringo sit up and face him.
“Oh? Well did it feel nice to have it in your maw?” Skeebe asked, rubbing Ringo’s tiny ears.
Ringo purred softly again, making him vibrate a little in Skeebe’s lap. Without thinking, he nodded, letting out a shy little giggle.
“Well then if it felt nice, what’s so bad about admitting that? You shouldn’t feel embarrassed about the stuff that makes you happy, lil bro,” Skeebe replied, giving his brother a peck on the head.
Ringo giggled at the kiss on his head, crinkle-wagging happily. It did feel nice to have something to nuk on, even if Ringo didn’t know why. And if Skeebe said that it was okay, then it couldn’t be that babyish, right?
“O-otay, buh ya pwomise dat it dun make me wook wike a baby?” Ringo asked.
“Now why would I think that, silly? You’re my super awesome big, tough, wuffy wuff bro!” Skeebe answered. He ruffled Ringo’s headfur playfully, making the hatchling erupt in a fit of childish giggles as he squirmed about in Skeebe’s lap.
Once Ringo had calmed down enough, he remembered what he was going to ask Skeebe. His mind snapped back from its moment of cubbiness to his grown-up thoughts.
“Hey bwo, how come we in da changin’ woom? I thought ya were stiww wookin’ for cwothes,” Ringo asked, looking up at the big fox quizzically.
“Oh!” Skeebe perked up, forgetting Ringo had been facing away from the mirror since he woke up that he didn’t noticed he was in new clothes. “Well while you were sleeping, Sylvy and I found some clothes and dressed you while you were asleep. You’re a pretty heavy sleeper, you know,” Skeebe giggled as he turned Ringo around to face the mirror, standing him up in front of it.
Ringo let out a yelp, almost jumping back once he saw what clothes the two grown-ups had put him in. He stared at his reflection in disbelief; turning redder and redder the longer he looked at himself.
His reflection showed a heavily blushing hatchling, wearing only a light blue t-shirt and diaper. The t-shirt depicted a cartoon of a freshly hatched, naked baby dragon sitting in its egg. The top of the shell rested on the dragon’s head like a cute, little hat. Meanwhile, the bottom half of the shell was covering the dragon’s waist down, two tiny feet sticking out of the egg. Under the picture, in big, white letters was the phrase “Momma’s Happy Hatchy”. If the picture didn’t knock Ringo’s ego down a few pegs, the printed words definitely did. Just glancing at those words felt like a taunting reminder to Ringo that, to the rest of the world, he was just a silly little baby with a wild imagination.
He covered up the front of the shirt to distract him, happy that at least the diaper he was put into had something cool on it. He wagged happily seeing that it was covered in Dragon Ranger prints. The thick padding was adorned with each Ranger performing a fighting move. His happiness didn’t last long when he noticed there were a few things off about it. The first was that the new padding was much thicker than the one Skeebe had put him into when he shrank; to the point his legs were spread to shoulder length and couldn’t be moved any closer together.
Then the second thing dawned on him. Why didn’t he have any pants on?
He grabbed the front of the shirt with both his paws and pulled it down as far as it could go in a vain attempt to cover up the diaper.
Ringo looked up at Skeebe, a mixture of anger, confusion and embarrassment on his face and in his voice.
“Eeep! Hey! Why dun I gots any pants?! I can’t wawk awound wike dis!” He shouted, his adult mind snapping back at full attention once more.
Skeebe chuckled, patting his brother on the head as he talked to his reflection. “You don’t need pants you silly billy.”
“B-but now I wooks wike exactwy wike a baby. Evewyone gonna see my diapee if I gots nu pants,” Ringo whimpered, trying to get Skeebe to understand his embarrassment. He tugged the shirt down more, not realising his padded butt was now in full view of anybody standing behind him.
Skeebe knelt down behind his brother, unable to fight back a smirk at how quickly his brother rebounded from acting like a baby to his old self again.
“Ringo; 1) you look and sound like a baby already, so nobody is really going to notice anything strange about you dressed like that. 2) You had an accident last time and you didn’t tell me. This is the only way I’m gonna know if you’ve wet yourself…or worse, if you aren’t going to let me know like a big boy. And since you nearly leaked last time, I got you extra thick ones, just in case,” Skeebe replied, his voice snapping back to sounding like a reasonable adult to match his brother’s current state of mind.
Ringo sighed in defeat, Skeebe was right once again. He tried to think of rebuttals to all of his arguments, but nothing came to him that wouldn’t sound like a child throwing a tantrum.
“…Fine…” Ringo mumbled grumpily, pouting with his cheeks still bright red.
“That’s my baby bro,” Skeebe giggled, rubbing Ringo’s ears again.
“Hey! Dun push it!” Ringo growled back, still letting out a gentle purr at being petted.
Ringo looked back at his reflection for a moment, once again placing a paw on the mirror like he did when we first became little. He could see what Skeebe meant when he said Ringo looked like a baby boy. Now that he was in clothes that fit his new age, it was getting a lot harder to believe that the reflection was really him. If he didn’t know any better, he would have thought that he was any other hatchling too.
Without even realising, his mind was starting to ponder letting himself go in the role of being a normal hatchling. After all, it wasn’t like if he ran into someone he knew, they were going to recognize him as he currently was.
His train of thought was however derailed as he heard the door behind him open. Ringo saw in the reflection that Sylvy had come into the room, most likely to check on Skeebe and himself. Ringo noticed Sylvy was smirking a little down at him as he entered, even hearing a little giggle come from him. It took a few moments before he realised why; He was still tugging the shirt down, leaving his padded bottom on display for anyone behind him.
Ringo yelped and immediately plopped onto his butt, his fresh padding crinkling underneath him. Being in front of the other bigger fur in the cubby clothes was getting too much for his poor self-esteem to take. The little cub whimpered softly, keeping his eyes on the floor from the embarrassment. He was waiting for some kind of joke to be made at his expense to come from the folfsky, but instead he found himself getting petted on the head again.
“Huh?” Ringo said as he looked up, seeing Sylvy was smiling down at him very warmly, moving his paw to rub Ringo’s ears just like Skeebe had done before.
“Wow! You’re looking super cool little buddy!” Sylvy beamed down to the hatchling.
Ringo began to purr, unconsciously making a big, happy smile at the compliment. His tail wagging excitedly as the pets and rubs continued.
“W-weawwy!? I-I wook supah cool?” Ringo giggled. He couldn’t quite put his finger on the reason why, but he started feeling incredibly proud that a big fur appeared to think highly of him. In the back of his mind he knew he was being patronized like before, but Ringo was enjoying the attention far too much to care.
The hatchling’s silly smiles were infectious as huge grins formed on both Skeebe’s and Sylvy’s faces . The cranky little cub from moments ago slowly becoming a big fluffy pile of grins and giggles was a wonderful sight for them to see.
“Yeah! You’re definitely one of the coolest, most awesome lookin’ cubs I’ve ever met!” Sylvy replied, kneeling down and giving Ringo’s headfur a playful tussle, resulting in the cub let out a big giggle.
Sylvy pulled out from behind his back a very familiar face for Ringo “I got a friend here who thinks the same too,” Sylvy said as he held out the Red Panda plush that kept Ringo company before.
“PANDY!” Ringo shouted excitedly, not giving a second thought to what he had called the plush animal or even re-naming it. He bounced on his diapered rear, making the padding crinkle even louder beneath him as he made grabby paws for the toy.
“Alright big guy, here ya go,” Sylvy said as he handed the plush over to the now bouncy and playful baby.
As soon as Ringo had the toy in his paws, he cuddled Pandy as tight as he could to his chest and rubbing his cheek against Pandy’s soft fuzz. With the touch of the plush fur, Ringo could feel his adult mind began to withdraw once more. Any lingering feelings of embarrassment and seriousness were erased from his thoughts, replaced with a need to play and have as much fun as possible. As this occurred, he began to purr louder than before, happy to be reunited with his soft, new friend.
Skeebe looked down at his brother, unable to shake his smile thanks to the sight in front of him. He was happy to finally see Ringo acting his new age without a single care in the world. Watching on, he wondered if maybe Ringo would stay like this permanently so he could show Ringo all the love and care that Skeebe was given by his brother when the fox was the cub. Skeebe’s tail swished happily at the thought, but his daydreaming was soon interrupted by a loud grumbling sound emitting from his baby brother’s belly.
Ringo yipped in surprise, as if he had forgotten what would make such a noise. He looked down at his chubby tummy and poked at it curiously, being where the sound originated from.
“Heh, I think a certain little dragon is hungry,” Skeebe chuckled as he looked over at Sylvy, leaning down to Ringo as he scooped up the little cub into his arms, plush and all.
Ringo let out more happy giggles as he was scooped up, wrapping his paws around Skeebe’s neck, Pandy snuggled between the two brothers. From the loud purrs, Skeebe could tell his brother was very happy to be back his huge, fluffy arms again.
“I-I guess I yam a widdle bit hungwee big bwo,” Ringo said, nosing Skeebe’s cheek happily.
Skeebe blushed slightly from the sudden affection of the little dragingo, still caught off guard a bit by how far and how quickly Ringo’s mind had switched over to its cubby state again.
“Awwww, well let’s get your new clothes all paid for and we can go get you something really yummy, alright?” Skeebe asked once he had recovered, grabbing the new clothes with his spare arm. On the way, Skeebe and Sylvy started to chat again, but now Ringo suddenly found himself completely dis-interested in what they were saying. The adult’s conversation seemed incredibly trivial in comparison to playing and snuggling up with Pandy.
Every now and then his attention did slip back to the two big furs, but Ringo found it very difficult to follow, let alone understand most of the things they were saying. He tried his best to concentrate on the two, just as Sylvy gave Skeebe a slip of paper with some numbers on it.
“Call me sometime, I-I’d be happy to help you babysit the little guy…o-or just h-hang out with you…you know, if you wanted me to…” Sylvy said, his cheeks going bright red, trying to hide his face. Ringo didn’t quite get why Sylvy was so nervous when he gave the paper to Skeebe, let alone why Skeebe were began to turn red too.
“I’d ummm….hehe…I’d really like that! Th-thanks!” Skeebe responded, giggling shyly.
“What’s so funny?” Ringo thought, looking at the two. Eventually, Ringo gave up on understanding what had happened, going back to playing with his red panda. In his mind, the two were just acting very silly.
Once the group had reached the checkout, Ringo was set down on the counter as Skeebe paid for the clothes. The hatchling wrapped his arm around his toy, popping his spare thumb into his maw as he watched the clothes and diapers that Skeebe had bought pass by on the tiny conveyer belt. Ringo smiled behind his thumb and cooed in fascination at the seemingly magic table they were on. Being so fixated on the machine, he didn’t even notice Sylvy passing the pacifier and a plastic baby bottle to the cashier, items Skeebe and Sylvy found while the dragingo was napping.
Luckily for Skeebe, Ringo had at least $200 in cash inside his wallet, making it incredibly easy to pay for the items. “This would have been seriously awkward if he only had his bank card in here…” Skeebe thought to himself. He made sure he’d ask Ringo how to use the card when his mind had reversed back to its adult side. He grinned a little, wondering if his brother would get his adult mind back before he gave the hatching the first bottle of his new-found babyhood.
Once Ringo’s supplies were paid for and slipped into what had now become Skeebe’s bag, the group had to say goodbye. Skeebe and Sylvy blushed again as they smiled to each other.
“Well, I guess we better get going, heh. D-don’t want to make this little man go hungry for too long. He gets a little cranky if he doesn’t have a full tummy for too long,” Skeebe smiled. He found it a little funny that he was using a trait that Ringo had as an adult to describe him as he was now.
“Oh yeah, sure!” Slyvy laughed as he playfully tussled Ringo’s headfur once more. “The little guy must have a big appetite with that chubby little belly of his.”
Ringo was enjoying the attention so much he wasn’t paying attention to the comment on his tiny paunch, letting out a silly squeak instead.
“You better give me a call though, Foxy. I really want to hang out with you again,” Sylvy said as he winked to Skeebe.
“Me too! I won’t forget, trust me!” Skeebe replied as he picked up his baby brother, replacing the thumb in his mouth with the pacifier. “Now wave bye-bye to Sylvy, Ringo.”
Ringo smiled widely behind the pacifier and waved as hard as his tiny arm could. “Buh buh Sylveh,” he managed to say from behind his nuk.
“Bye bye big guy! You and your big bro have a good day, alright?” Sylvy said, waving back to the cub before smiling up to Skeebe once more.
Skeebe shyly grinned back, sitting Ringo on his paw and snuggling him to the fox’s fluffy chest, heading out the store doors. As they left, Skeebe couldn’t help but smile as he watched Ringo continue to wave goodbye to Sylvy until his arm finally became tired. Settling down from the excitement, Ringo got comfortable in his big brother’s warm embrace as the two made their way to the food court. Ringo looked down at Pandy and giggled softly to himself as he suckled on his new pacifier.
He wagged his little tail as he began to think about how proud his mummy would be that he made two new friends in one day.
