“Vacation…!” Emilia cried, tossing her bag onto the hotel bed before she whirled around to press a kiss to her slightly haggard fiance. A duo in contrasts, she had to press up on her tippy toes and Ivy had to lean down a little, instinctively grabbing Emilia’s waist.

“Vacation,” Ivy murmured into her girlfriend’s lips as they took in the hotel room. She smiled as she gently set her bag at the side of the bed.

“Okay, so, like. We got together too late for the full like, aughts experience of malls, and this town has like, one of the last ones in the country! Full stores!” Emilia said, pulling it up on her mobile phone. “It’s like, one five minute drive from here, Ivy.”

“We did get a good rental…” Ivy said, nodding. “And… a weird nostalgia date sounds like alot of fun.” She smiled, rubbing Emilia’s side. “Lemme get a cup of hotel coffee and we’ll head out.”

The coffee was bland, but served the need for caffeine, and the mall looked… well, it took up a good size of the parking lot, and seemed to have two big stories and a decently full parking lot for opening right at 11.

Emilia wrapped her arms around one of Ivy’s as they stepped out of the car and started to head inside. The only place that looked closed was a mall daycare titled ‘Tiny Tots’ in somewhat faded lettering that was out of place in the bright fluorescent lights and daylight that poured in from the large windows above them.

“Was that supposed to be a place where you like, dropped off your kids before shopping?” Ivy stopped and peered at the boarded up windows.

“Maybe? Who knows!” Emilia said cheerfully as she pulled at Ivy’s arm. But Ivy’s focus was on the ground now, two small plushes laid in front of the window. Two pokemon plushes to be exact, One Clefairy and one Pikachu, which Ivy picked up.

“These almost look like they’re handcrafted?” Ivy murmured, passing the Pikachu to Emilia. “Here, I know that’s your favorite.”

Emilia took the Pikachu plush and put it up to her chest with a faint blush. “Ivy! These have gotta be like, some kid’s toys! We can’t just take them!”

“If we still feel guilty after walking around a bit, we can drop them off at a lost and found. But they’re sitting in front of this abandoned daycare and no one’s taken them? And it’s your favorite and my…” She stared at the little clefairy in her hands and tucked it a bit under her chin.

“Not what I would’ve guessed as your favorite,” Emilia teased.

“They’re cute little space alien pokemon! They’re mysterious!”

“They’re fluffy pink blobs.” Emilia said as she hipchecked her fiance. “But if you wanna keep them I’m not gonna say no… it’s really cute, even if it looks like someone’s kinda chewed on the ears.” She bounced on her feet and gestured forward. “C’mooon let’s go be horrible mall rats.”

“Em, we’re like, almost 30,” Ivy said quietly as her fiance dragged her, putting up no fight.

“Yeah, well, we’ve been working alot, we have alot of money, and I say we live out both of us wanting another girl to wander around a mall with.”

Ivy giggled in spite of herself. “I did do that alot… Zumiez girl? Hot topic?”

Emilia giggled. “A bit at Hot Topic, alot at forever 21…”

The first stop was Forever 21, which was right near the entrance. The two started meandering through the racks, even as Ivy blanched a bit and wished they were in a different store… but she stopped and stared at a nice black skirt and a flowing, swishy top. Very close to what she was wearing in college as she transitioned. Without thinking, she’d grabbed the two and was already heading to the dressing room, wondering if it was her imagination or if the Clefairy plush still under her arm felt warmer.

Emilia had already grabbed a leopard print dress and was following after Ivy, staring down at the suddenly warm plush under her arm. She’d always dreamed of wearing something like this in college, but had never quite stopped being mousy enough.

“Hey, Ivy… if we met in college, would we have liked each other then?” Emilia said as the two stepped into the dressing room.

“Don’t be dumb. We’d be inseparable no matter when or where we met.” The taller girl said as she started to set down things and began to slip out of her jeans and t-shirt. “We just happened to meet in our mid-twenties.”

The answer made Emilia feel alot better and she looked at Ivy, watching the flowing top and skirt get put on, wondering what Ivy looked like then… Still so pretty and sleek, definitely the girl with the bright green lipstick and flowing like water… and she felt a surge of confidence as she put on the leopard print dress, cocking her hip to the side.

“Oh that looks… I don’t usually like animal print stuff, but it’s like, just the right amount of trash and class!” Ivy said as she leaned down to kiss her girlfriend. They’d met at a student life event and had really taken off like a house on fire. They giggled a bit in the dressing room, and Ivy flashed a card out of her purse.

“I got us, don’t worry. Part time job’s doing real well~! I’m queen of the baristas.” She said, puffing up a bit.

Comfortable clothes worn for ease of moving around during a vacation were quickly abandoned and forgotten about in the dressing room in favor of looking like two girls about to go to a college party, which was the plan after the mall adventure. The oddly warm plushies under their arms and grabbing onto each other’s hands giggling as they stepped out.

“Oh is this one of those places with a margarita bar or something?” Ivy said as she took the reigns on dragging, starting to make a beeline for the food court as she pulled Emilia along. “Something boozy and then greasy mall food sounds really good.”

“Ives, I can’t drink yet! You’re like, a few months ahead!” Emilia whined as she pulled at the leopard print dress she’d gravitated towards in the last shop, pouting up at her girlfriend. Where the simple jeans and blouse she was wearing when they arrived at the mall went, she wouldn't be able to say. Or even remember clearly her outfit. If pressed, she'd tell the questioner that they dressed up to go run around the mall, but luckily, she wasn't pressed.

It was true on one hand. Ivy was a few months older at 29 compared to her girlfriend’s 28. It was a little more dire feeling when Emilia thought she had to sneak into Ivy’s dorm room or go out partying to get booze. The idea of trying to pull that in public made the personal assistant turned 20 year old party girl feel weird in her stomach.

“I just get two, you’re with me, they’re not paid enough to care. Promise.” Ivy said, flashing a big grin.

Before the warping perception of themselves had happened, Emilia only heard about Ivy’s delinquent days through some fond and some cringing memories. Now she was an integral part of them. Something Ivy would tease her about in the future, buying booze for her.

Ivy strutted to daiquiri counter and leaned forward a little as the woman behind it stared at her, then behind her where Emilia waited a little mousily. She squinted at the ID, then back up at Ivy. “This seems fake.”

“Huh? No, it’s not, it’s…”

“Girl you’re sixteen at best. I’m not gonna serve ya, but I’m not gonna get ya in trouble neither. Go back to your girlfriend, get your lunches, and come back here in like, half a decade.” The plush under her arm felt almost too hot to touch for a moment but then it was gone.

Ivy grumbled, pulling at her hot topic black skirt she’d just bought. It was really cute and Emi really liked it on her, but was a a far cry from her shorts that she usually wore so she could skate properly. She grumbled as Emi looked up from her position and grabbed Ivy’s hand.

“Told ya it wasn’t gonna work,” Emi said as she stuck her tongue out at her girlfriend.

Ivy grumbled. “It’s supposed to… paid like 20 bucks for that thing.” She took the waiting plates of mall chinese food and sat down across from Emi. They were out shopping with a big windfall from a lottery ticket, so it was essentially a blank check for a day. Or months.

“Yeah but we don’t even look like we’re old enough.” She laughed, gesturing to her braces.

“Shouldn’t matter…” Ivy dug into her bourbon chicken, her desire for underage drinking quickly supplanted by the fact she was having a really good mall date out with her girlfriend. She got to tease Emi constantly about being a grade below her… or would if Ivy hadn’t been held back a year in pre-school.

Emi giggled again at Ivy before she started in on her own plate. She liked how the skirt made her butt look. Told her so outside the dressing room. She’d never seen Ivy turn that particular color and she liked it. And Ivy liked turning that color so much she’d worn the skirt out. She looked at her girlfriend adoringly, sometimes reaching out to tap her foot against Ivy’s as they ate.

“We can go to parties and stuff in a few years,” Emi said, flashing a smile across the table. “I wanna walk around the mall and kiss you.”

“Yeah, that sounds really nice…” Ivy said as she grabbed both empty plates. “I know you wanted to look for some jewelry!”

“Yeah there’s this place…”

They began to wander hand in hand as they swayed a bit against each other, stopping to kiss and giggle and rub their foreheads against each other. Feeling a bit brave, Emi pinched Ivy’s butt, causing the girl to yelp.

“H-hey that’s…” She didn’t get out any other words, just a tumble of noises that made Emi’s heart sing.

But as they passed by a Claire’s, both girls found themselves walking in, looking for piercings. They’d both recently gotten their ears pierced. They blinked a bit, the step from teen to tween a little harder to swallow than the other steps. They'd been adults, sure, thirty minutes ago. Also, twenty minutes ago co-eds. Another blink. And they were holding up earrings to each other’s ears. “Gawd, that’ll look good on you!” Emi said.

Ivy huffed. She didn’t want to keep wearing all of these skirts and wanted to put on shorts or see if they had anything at Zumiez in a junior…

But Emi was already dragging her to the register, counting out money from her bright pink plastic wallet. She'd gotten it specficially to show off on her shopping trip. “Thirty, right?”

“I wasn’t paying attention!” Ivy huffed as it came out to twenty something and Emi proudly paid for both of their earrings. It wasn’t like they were dating though. They just spent all their time together and had once shared a kiss that felt like they were on fire in the choir room.

“Knew it! I’m so good at math, you don’t even know.”

“I do know, you have to help me sometimes,” Ivy grumbled as they walked out. And Emi got brave enough to grab her girlfriend’s hand. They looked down at the plushes they’d… found when they got into the mall. Ivy gently bonked the round Clefairy plush to the Pikachu Emi carried.

"Love you," Ivy said suddenly. "Don't know what I'd do without you in my life Em."

"Love you too!" Emi said cheerfully and gave Ivy a peck on the cheek that turned them both a bright red and made their hands squeeze tighter around the other's as they walked out of Claire’s.

The toystore that they’d been past a few times was the next stop, both girls stopping to start looking at the pokemon wall and whisper excitedly at each other. All of these from the new games, even though they were classic girls at heart. Whether the cashier saw some very tweenly dressed adults or just two excited girls not much over twelve was a question for the man’s brain as they overlapped for a second, but he shook it off and stared at the girls.

“Yeah we just got in alot of stuff and…”

Emi and Ivy set the Umbreon and Espeon plushes on the counter without much more thought as the two of them started to count out the money from their mutual wallets, sometimes looking up at the cashier. Weren’t they…? I mean it wasn’t unheard of to have elementary school kids wandering around on the weekend, but weren’t they a bit older a few seconds ago…?

“No, that’s enough money right there,” The cashier gently corrected, sliding a twenty back to Ivy who blushed.

“I just miscounted,” The girl said as she reached up and grabbed the Espeon with a small pout.

“She’s not good at it!” Emi said happily as she grabbed the Umbreon.

“S-shut up, I am too!” Ivy said as she lightly bonked her best friend with the plush. Espeon was one of Emi’s favorites, like Umbreon was hers. The two girls clutched the extra plushies with one hand, holding the other, and refused to let go of each other’s hands as they wandered out of the store.

“Umbreon goes super well with my Pikachu!” Emi said with a giggle. “And when she’s on my bed it’ll be like when we get to have sleepovers, ‘cept it’s not quite you.”

“Y-yeah and… I guess I got a pink and purple super girly thing going over here with Clefairy and Espeon… and it’s…” She searched her tiny eight year old heart for the right words. “I’m gonna like havin’ somethin’ that makes me think of you too when we don’t get to do sleepovers.”

“I know!” Emi said as they started back towards the entrance. She saw a flicker of something. A rental car, a hotel, which was weird because they both grew up here. If they stepped out now, maybe, maybe something would shift back into that world. Two Emi’s thought. One was having the time of her life with her best friend and was about to drag them both into the playground. The other remembered how tired Ivy looked when they got into the hotel room. How exhausted she had been from her job. Both Emi’s looked at the messy curls Ivy peeked out from, the way they were still clasped together, inseparable even during… whatever was happening to them.

And how happy they both felt being with each other still, which made both Emi’s snuggle closer as they pushed into the children’s playplace.

“Emiiiii,” Ivy whined even as she couldn’t keep the wavering happiness out of her voice. “We’re too big to play in the playplace it’s for like… kindergartners!”

Emi shrugged as she started up the steps and stood up and over her best friend. “Who cares? Do you care what people say all of a sudden?”

Both Ivy’s looked up at Emi. She liked this show of fire, of saying screw it and doing whatever she wanted to do. Emilia had always been timid, especially since she landed that assistant job and had to keep following around a boss she at best found mildly distasteful. But the Emi teasing and taunting her and waving plushies around was nothing like that, just wanting to have fun with her. She looked at the doors. A car. A job she worked way too hard for to just afford something nice for the two of them. If the entire point of the trip was to relax… she’d been nothing but relaxed since they picked up the plushes.

A deliberate taunt. Fixated on both Ivy’s. She could see both of her, the kindergartner and the grown woman letting her hair down and riding the wave of… whatever this was. And she bounded up the steps.

“I don’t care what anyone says!” She declared and bonked Emi with the Espeon plush and the two play struggled all the way down a slide and into the soft mat below giggling.

They didn't even notice the soft crinkling that was coming from under their skirts as they continued to play fight in the soft padding under the slide. They hopped up to their feet and toddled a bit unsteadily to the tray of snacks that bordered the now open and brightly lit daycare that they had found their plushies in front of.

Ivy and Emi munched on the fruit snack bars as the two toddlers sat happily against each other, occasionally bonking one of their stuffies against the other one and giggling with their mouths full. Emi wiggled a bit after a bonk from the Espeon and heard the crinkle.

“Ivy, um… are we…?”

Ivy stopped her ‘vicious’ attacks against her daycare friend and looked down at the pink skirt she was wearing, then back over to the yellow ensemble that Emi was wearing. Something was… crinkling? A telltale bulge under their skirts. Ivy was like, way older than Emi, she shouldn’t be in diapers alongside her!

“No, we’re not, yew… um…” Ivy scrunched her face up to think of a good reason.

“You shouldn’t be in ‘em!” Emi said with a sing-song tease, poking at Ivy’s cheek, causing the other girl to blush.

“Shh! Quiet Emi!” Ivy said, burying her face against her friend, clutching her plushies like a lifeline. “It’s just…”

“Hard?” Came a soft voice from behind them. A woman in an apron dress had snuck up from behind them, soft auburn hair lining her face as she looked down at the two toddlers. She could see the truth of course, the grown women dressed as toddlers, their perception of themselves warped, the world’s perception shifted to match as well.

It was always such an effective way to do this.

“It’s not hahd!” Ivy lisped, squirming. “I jus’, um…”

“You wanna be close to your best friend?” The woman said, leaning over the two of them and pulling up their skirts and giving a small tut. “Or are you just a bit slow to learn?”

Ivy blushed furiously as she realized with a sudden start that the front of her diaper was warm and squishy, just like Emi’s. Emi shrugged helplessly as Ivy took the chance to bury her head into her friend, even as they were both scooped up by the nice daycare lady. Miss Grace…?

Well, miss ‘Gwace’ with the way the two of them were talking. The two of them were whisked inside the daycare, carrying their stuffies as they were set onto a changing table, hands finding each other.

“Can’t bewieve peed myself…” Ivy murmured.

“I can!” Emi countered. “Gonna be in panties before you!”

“Nuh-uh!” Ivy said, letting out a small shiver. But something told her that it could be true. She should’ve at least graduated to pull-ups by now, but she just never got the hang of it, just usually going without noticing.

“Maybe if she sees you in big girl undies she’ll be more motivated!” Grace said as she approached the two girls with fresh diapers. “Lay still. I know you both get mad if you don’t have the other, so I can’t secure you properly.” She hummed as Ivy buried her face in a hand and against Emi, while Emi looked up at the pretty patterns on the ceiling.

“You two are so sweet, you were so stressed,” Miss Grace tutted as she began to clean the two of them up before taping the two girls up into new, fresh diapers. “And you took the plushies I’d so nicely set out for you! I knew your favorites!” She said, giving Ivy’s diaper a pat. “Isn’t this better than being big girls all the time?”

Ivy blushed furiously and her thumb was trying to find its way into her mouth, which was becoming impossible with the plushies and refusing to let go of Emi’s hand. Grace looked between the two of them and held up a finger. “One second you two…”

And soon slid the pink and yellow pacifiers into their mouths, watching them start to suckle instinctively as she clipped them to their big frilly dresses.

“Such good girls!” She said as she scooped the two toddlers and their emotional support stuffies and set them into a playpen they swore wasn’t in there on their way in. “Now, miss Grace wants you two to have a really fun time in her daycare! If you want to go back to the slides, we’ll have to wait until the bigger kids stop playing.” She gestured and the two of them could see maybe some preschoolers and kindergartners on the slides.

“You two are too little to play around them.” Grace said, nodding to herself. “Now, miss Grace knows you two aren’t the brightest in the shed, so if you just chew on the blocks and each other, that’s also fine. Just don’t hurt your sister too bad, okay?”

“Okay miss Gwace!” Emi lisped from behind the pacifier as she toddled towards the blocks, Ivy following along like a dutiful big sister, embarrassed to still be playing the same baby games as her little sister, but as the two plopped down, it was forgotten as they began to stack the soft blocks atop each other and Ivy found herself suckling harder while Emi had taken one of the blocks to her mouth, to chew on like she did her pikachu plushie.

How long they stacked blocks and moved around beads on bead mazes, neither girl could tell as they eventually found each other again and curled up against each other and their plushie pile. They drifted off to sleep against one another, Ivy sure she could feel her diaper growing warm as they snuggled against each other…

And they woke up in the hotel room, still surrounded by their plushies. Outfits bought in the mall hung in the closet. Emi sat up a little, pacifier dropping from her mouth and lightly bonking against her chest as the strap held it in easy reach. She shook Ivy a little.

“Ives, I’m hungry,” she murmured sleepily. “Order us some food.”

Ivy stretched out with a soft noise and then blushed as she crinkled. “Okay, okay, I’m on it Emi.” She said from behind her pacifier, reaching for the phone.

And somewhere else, the two of them sat in a high chair fit for two, being fed some tasty blended mush by Miss Grace. Reality is always a little tricky like that. It was fully Grace’s intention to eventually let the two go, have some embarrassing memories, and be able to claim they grew up together, inseparable from the first time they were in diapers.

But the two had taken so well to the new dynamic and were so cute, she’d decided to keep a piece of them with her. Which did, unfortunately necessitate some adjustments to their lives now outside the daycare, since she’d kept such core parts of them to laugh and play in her daycare and mall forever.

It wasn’t all the time, but sometimes Ivy felt like she never quite got the hang of potty training. It held her back in pre-school and soon people just gave up on it. Emilia too, while she could stay dryer than her girlfriend sometimes, the two mostly just stuck to thick diapers under their clothes. They’d at least always been like this, bonding over it their whole lives when reality bent like that.

And their jobs were… a little changed somedays. Much less stressful. Emilia found herself being presented coloring books instead of spreadsheets, asked to stack blocks, and found that it was less personal assistant and more being the office toddler, having to ask people that once listened to her for changes and her bottles. Ivy didn’t fare much better, freelance work turning into small streams of her playing with toys or trying to write and ending up making just doodles of her and Emilia playing.

And sometimes, they would just find themselves back in the daycare, snuggled up against each other without a care in the world, just playing and chewing on blocks or each other.