✅🎊✂️ Hypnosis Won't Take Me There!! [alternative cut]

Epilogue: Who Knew Hypnosis Could Work Like That?

"I think I like sleeping in a nursery."

They weren't the first words you might expect to hear on waking up. If you'd asked Adi a year before, she might have imagined that nobody in the world had ever found cause to say those words. But now, they were barely even out of place. It was always sobering to think just how much her life had changed in the last year. And with that thought, she turned her head a little and saw her girlfriend lying there beside her. They were both in the crib this morning. They could have moved out into the real bedroom, and left the nursery for special occasions. Dean and Chastaine no longer felt it was vital to keep an eye on Adi in case a latent suggestion caused her to do something stupid, but they'd found that the standard-size bed out there was uncomfortable cramped for two.

"You do?" Adi asked, raising an eyebrow. "Who's the baby now?"

"What are you wearing, Babe?"

Adi looked down at herself, and saw a frilly nightdress with altogether too much lace for her usual taste, and a print that would have seemed completely out of place anywhere that wasn't a nursery. She considered some well-reasoned response that would surely have led to her winning the ensuing argument, but she really wasn't dressed for that kind of discourse either. And she wasn't so sure now that she could outthink Toni in any way. So she responded with the kind of rebuttal that could win any debate: she stuck out her tongue and tried hard not to giggle.

Twenty minutes later, by which time the autumn sun was painting a bright stripe on the wallpaper opposite almost-closed blinds, the subject rose again.

"No, I really do like waking up here," Toni said. "It's kind of restful."

"I just like having a bigger bed," Adi shrugged, but they were both sure by now that assertion wasn't quite true. Since their first date Toni had woken up here a handful of times, and it seemed like they'd found a place where she could enjoy being treated like a child, just so long as she could act like an adult again if she wanted to. "And staying up late, watching cartoons and snuggling with my Mommy."

"A bigger bed is nice. And you're getting used to being little, aren't you? Now you know you can do it when you feel like it, and have the choice."

"It's embarrassing, but yeah."

"And without needing to wear diapers."

"Yeah, that makes a difference too." Adi reached down almost without thinking, to check if she was wearing one right now. She didn't need diapers for playing at being a baby, and she knew Toni wouldn't push her to. But her bladder still hadn't fully recovered, and it would be months before she was confident sleeping without protection. Last night she'd decided to wear one of the childish ones with a pink unicorn print, a little extra help to get into the right mindset, even if she didn't really need it until bedtime. She didn't remember at what point this morning it had come off, probably while she'd been enjoying herself too much to care.

A few minutes, and a little half-hearted joking about who enjoyed sleeping in a nursery more, they were in the little kitchenette fixing breakfast. The waffles wouldn't be quite the same as Mom's, and nobody else in the world could make coffee so rich, but knowing that she'd done it together with her girlfriend gave the whole morning a special charm.

Things were only awkward for a moment when Britney walked in, glanced at them, picked up a box of cereal from the cupboard, and left with a noncommittal "Hi" to both. Toni and Adi looked back at each other, and neither spoke for a long minute. Then Adi turned her eyes down to the fluffy robe she'd pulled on over her childish nightwear.

"Think she noticed?" She asked.

"Don't think so. And she knows you've got a ton of little clothes, wearing stuff like that is just common sense if you're home and there's nobody to see. Better than wasting it, right?"