buck

dennis never got to be an older sibling which is not an experience he thought he was missing until he got to know little trinity. when she’s fully comfortable she’s clingy in a way dennis wouldn’t have expected, like sit-outside-the-bathroom-while-he-pees clingy, but it doesn’t bother him too much. she’ll follow him around the apartment while he’s tidying up, trailing after him with her blanket wrapped around her like a cape, and if he sits down to do something she’ll want to do it too. dennis has perfected the art of making the youngest feel included enough to actually get anything done using methods such as: letting trinity draw if he had to study, giving her a powered off controller if he wants to play a video game, and letting her be the designated stir-er when he’s trying to make dinner.

trinity knows on some level that she’s just being included — especially because she doesn’t regress to a specific age so much as she just becomes kind of floaty and juvenile — but dennis is soooo forthcoming with praise and affection and it kinda turns trinity to goo. he’ll offer to put trinity’s drawings on the fridge and even though she insists that’s dumb she’s secretly very, very pleased, he always thanks her for helping with dinner even if she didn’t do very much at all, and even though she’s pretty sure the switch controller he handed her hasn’t been charged in weeks he says she’s doing great even when she’s just mashing buttons and gnawing on the end of her blanket with her eyes glued to dennis’ game.

dennis does so much research on age regression it’s not even funny. and because of this, one of the first things he tries to do when he unofficially becomes trins caregiver is get this girl to play for fucks sake. because her regression is so tied to her trauma it’s not something she’s ever really enjoyed and dennis thinks that’s a shame!

the first thing he introduces is coloring. he realizes trinity would be averse to anything she had to navigate in her own so he started with something simple he could do with her. one day while she’s small and doing her usual — curled on the couch with her blanket and her kitty cat — he convinces her to join him at the table with a few coloring pages and a 24 pack of crayons. she’s hesitant at first and approaches the whole thing with far more caution than crayola really warranted but dennis let her warm up to the whole ordeal by getting started on his own sheet.

he’d ask trinity what colors he should use, posing questions like: ‘you think the grass should be orange or purple’ just to see trinity’s exasperated reaction because ‘duhhh the grass should be green, den, obviously’. he’d ask her a bunch of similar silly questions until she’s laughing and relaxed and then he can finally encourage her to color herself ‘since you seem to know so much about it.’

when trinity is small her best friend is a cat plush she saved from the clearance section. it’s multicolored and soft and floppy where stuffing has migrated from years of being held and cuddled. she’s had to stitch it up a few times which was upsetting but now that dennis is here he does all that stuff for her. one day she realizes cat has a small rip near the base of his tail and goes teary eyed almost immediately but now she’s not alone and her first instinct is so shove her cat in dennis’ face while whining because dennis basically knows everything.

dennis would be a little flustered at first, especially because this is one if the first time trinity had actually come to him while regressed and upset instead of hiding, but once he understands he handles the situation with the utmost care it deserves. he treats it like playing doctor and tells trinity to have a seat in the ‘waiting room’ their couch and hold on tight to her blanket while her cat is in surgery. tiny trin deeply appreciates dennis performing a surgery on his day off. after dennis has sewn her up good and tight he offers her back to trinity after wrapping a star patterned bandaid around her tail and offering one to trinity as well.

when trinity is small her favorite activity outside of drawing and crafts is make believe. she has a small assortment of toys but for the most part she just totes around her blanket and cat and imagines elaborate storylines that are constantly changing. one minute she’s an astronaut in the first spaceship piloted by a stuffed cat and the next minute she’s a pirate making dennis walk an imaginary plank. dennis is … decent enough at make believe but he’s definitely no match for trinity and eventually learns to stop questioning when they go from a tea party with all her stuffies to military coup she’s been organizing against him and her action figures who he was apparently the ruler of the whole time.