Enamored //joshler

2. ryan's birthday

3264 words

it's wednesday, aka ryan's 20th birthday. tyler has been fighting regressing into little space practically the entire day. he even had to skip lunch with his friends and eat by himself because he feared ashley might accidentally make him regress. he can't help it—he is so, so anxious about ryan's birthday party being hosted at their house tonight. tyler desperately does not want to make a fool of himself which tends to be the case at most social events. he's just awkward, especially when guys and girls try to flirt with him.

then throw in the added possibility of regressing while drunk. the thought makes tyler shudder. the first and only time it ever happened to him was last year. tyler and his friends were at one of their college bars. the poor brunette was pushed into from behind and accidentally spilled his drink all down the front of a pretty, slim girl with jet-black hair. she, of course, was wearing little to no clothing and let out the most disgusted, horrified gasp the second the liquid touched her bare skin.

before tyler could alert his friends, who were busy getting a drink at the bar, the girl starting spewing venomous cuss words at him. he didn't know what to do and instantly shut down, literally shrinking within himself as he quickly, quickly shut himself into little space. big, fat tears streamed down his face as he yelled back at the girl that she was being mean and hurting his feelings. it was only an accident.

thankfully, brendon saw the commotion and quickly came to the rescue. him, ashley, and ryan all walked tyler back to his dorm which he shared with ryan that year. they all spent the night desperately trying to cheer tyler up, but nothing could get him to calm down. he ended up regressing so much that by the end of it all he could hardly utter a word. the sunday scaries were so bad the next day that he felt the need to apologize to his friends over and over again until they begged him to stop.

he feels himself regressing right now just thinking about it and decides to disregard the homework he planned on getting done. he's currently at work, sitting behind the big desk and inattentively bouncing one of his legs up and down as he switches his laptop out for a coloring book. thankfully, there's a wall that encompasses the spot his desk is nuzzled into so nobody would see the bluey characters with just a passing glance. even if they did, he didn't really care too much right now.

tyler retrieves the small pack of crayons he keeps in his bag for emergency purposes, carefully thumbing through the pages of his coloring book to find the perfect canvas. he stops on the one of bluey and bingo playing dress up, lips curling into a small smile. it's perfect!

the brunette wastes no time and gets to coloring. he really wishes he had pablo with him, squeezing him under his left arm while his right rests atop the desk. he wishes he at least had something fuzzy to rub between his fingers, like the fluffy sweatshirt ryan bought him for christmas one year. but he doesn't. he just has the stupid plain sweatshirt that big tyler decided to pack for him. he's glad he even remembered to bring one, but still upset that it isn't fluffy.

tyler hears a beep come from the id scanner, indicating someone just checked in. he doesn't even send them a passing glance, just sticks his tongue out in concentration as he carefully colors in the crown on top of bluey's head.

"hi tyler!"

tyler's head shoots in the direction of the familiar voice, eyes widening slightly. he instantly feels his cheeks get hot as he quickly grabs the coloring book off the desk and hides it underneath, crayon in one hand and coloring book in the other. "joshua!"

the boy is wearing a similar shirt to monday, just a different band this time. his head is adorned with black nike hat, taming the wild curls tyler spots poking out underneath. cute.