bakerstreet | when we were young

"I won't, I promise," Even though Glenn's mother is long dead and he couldn't tell her anyway. He can tell that Glenn just needs that reassurance.

"Perhaps you will be accepted one day, child. It will take time, but one day you will meet someone who will accept you for who you are." He was speaking of himself, of course.

"Would you like anything? Food, perhaps, or something to do?"

Although softened, Thrawn's offering makes Glenn's eyes widen.

"Do you have any pencils and paper? I like to draw." A beat, and he nearly bites his lip again. "I won't be rude to you if I do that, will I?"

"I assure you, it will be alright," Thrawn keeps some in his quarters in case Glenn wants something other than a datapad for his artwork. He retreats to his quarters and comes back with a drawing pad and pencils, presenting them to the child.

Immediately, Glenn's expression lights up, gratefully and excitedly accepting it and taking a seat near the desk to draw, legs unconsciously starting to fold up closer to his body as a makeshift support for the drawing pad.

Until he remembers that he's only got that shirt on and hastily lowers the shirt to stay covered. Cheeks briefly turning red, he uses the desk instead.

His skill as an artist has yet to reach any noteworthy level, capping out at stick-figure humans and slightly more detailed animals, and he even uses the date he thinks it is back on his world in the corner, leaving him at around eight years old.

Perhaps noteworthy, even though his eyes have that chameleon-like effect that Thrawn is familiar with, he doesn't seem to be perceiving the world any differently than a human. His drawings absolutely lack that almost wind-like effect as a result of his usual dual-time perception of the world.

Occasionally, Glenn looks up at some of the Sith and Jedi artwork and tries to redraw it.

Thrawn can't help but glance down at Glenn's drawings, his mind automatically doing what it does when he sees artwork. He was quite different as an artist back then, it seems. But even a child's drawings can say much about the child who created them. He hasn't yet gone through the trauma that he did when he lost Clara, and that much is clear from the artwork. Glenn was much more innocent at this age, wise or not.

"You like drawing what you see, and what interests you." Bit obvious of an observation, yes.

The door chime sounds and Thrawn goes to answer it. It's the synthweavers, come to give Thrawn the child's clothing that they made. The woman asks what the Admiral needs with them, and Thrawn simply states that there's a child in his room and he's been wearing something much too big for him. The woman just shrugs and goes on here way. Thrawn enters the room again, "I have some clothing for you." He presents the shirt and pants to the child. "I will stand in the hallway while you change."

Glenn just blinks at him for the comment, not sure what to do with it, and still a little too nervous to ask about it.

It's still really weird to not be wearing clothes he put on this morning, and to not have clothes to change into until now. But he accepts it gratefully and walks to the opposite side of Thrawn's desk for further privacy, glad to wear something closer to his size. It's not a perfect fit, but it's not too small.

"M'done changing!" he calls back before long, and goes right back to drawing, this time hitching his legs up towards his chest, balanced on the chair, and leaning the sketchpad against his legs as he draws.

He also starts trying to draw the artifact, as if doing so might give him some insight. It's still quietly making noise to him, but not in a way he knows to process. Maybe it's sentient, he wonders.

As promised, Thrawn retreats into the hallway while Glenn gets changed. He finds himself grateful that Glenn reverted to an age when his alien cells hadn't become unsafe to others. Though, the vaccine should still be inside him, de-aged or otherwise.

He enters his office again once Glenn's dressed, and of course notices him looking at the artifact.

"I would be careful around that. It may contain dark side energy." And because Glenn probably won't know what that is, he explains. "That power I told you about, many believe that there are two sides to it, light and dark. I admit that I do not know much about the Force, but I have met Jedi, who employ the light, and Sith, who employ the dark."

There's no way he's taking Glenn to Darth Vader, and especially not Palpatine.

"Oh." Glenn blinks a little to process it, and then resolves to ignore the object entirely. So "Force" as a noun, not an adjective.

"So, one or the other? Not both?"

Sketchpad ignored for now, he watches Thrawn carefully, eyes subtly wide with unabashed curiosity, feet idly wiggling where he's perched them on the edge of the seat.

"What are they like? Those you met?"

"Hm, I suppose one could use both the light and the dark. After all, there must be a balance between the two. A halfway point, if you will, one who does not embody one extreme or the other. In fact, I believe that you could be one such person."

Thrawn presses a button on his desk, and brings up images of Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker, taken from old news holos.

"Anakin Skywalker was the Jedi. He was quite brave and loyal, but also reckless and stubborn. He is no longer with us." In a manner of speaking. "The Sith is Darth Vader. He is ruthless and cold, but efficient."

Glenn watches carefully, digesting this. This person-- thinks he could?

He looks carefully at the holos, nodding as he listens. Sometimes, he ducks his head to add doodles to his sketchpad, but he still listens raptly.

"Talk about extreme differences," he comments with a huff. Looking down at his drawings, he tries to organize his thoughts. It's a lot of information all at once, even though he's happy to listen to all of it, and take in all of it. Setting the sketchpad down on the desk, he gets up and bounces on his heels to try to feel less restless. He has the vague feeling that he's forgetting something, but it's hard to pin down.

His vision swims slightly, and he hastily grabs the back of the chair to avoid falling, blinking rapidly to try to clear it. Although faint, some of his hair is starting to shift of its own accord, turning from regular strands of hair to something softer and feather-pronged.

He blinks a little more, and then tries to ignore the waviness in his vision.

"I was gonna say something, but I forgot."

Thrawn notices the way Glenn's hair feathers, something he's not unfamiliar with. "If you remember, I wish to hear it."

He regards the artifact again. "Do you think you would be willing to examine that some more? I am trying to get it do perform a specific function, but I do not know how it works."

"Y-yeah. What are you trying to get it to do? It-- sort of talks? Is the best way I get it. So..."

Glenn reaches as if to grasp it, but stops mid-movement, remembering that this is not something to just touch for fun, and settles his hands on the desk. He shifts his weight more noticeably, working a little harder to maintain his orientation.

"I'll-- need a rest after. I'm starting to not feel that great. My vision's kind of blurry all of a sudden."

But he doesn't feel like he's dying, so he's probably just fine, he reasons.

"It has changed a friend of mine and I wish to restore him to his proper form. I was not in the room when the artifact changed him, so I do not know what he did that activated it."

Thrawn doesn't want to scare Glenn by telling him that he's supposed to be an adult of several hundred years, and that orb simply reverted him back to being a child.

"I have a bed you can sleep in." If Thrawn gets tired, he can use the couch.

"Okay... Okay."

Frowning a little, he squints in the hopes that his vision stops swirling, but it doesn't. Giving up on that with a sigh, he chalks it up to tiredness.

Regarding the artifact, Glenn gives it the very faintest of pokes with a fingertip. Nothing happens.

"Hey-- I'm sure you can hear more than me, right?"

Nose scrunching as the buzzing starts up again, Glenn makes a wholly unimpressed face and closes his eyes.

"Stupid! Just use pictures! I understood those better than-- whatever language you speak!"

Glenn waits to make sense of the artifact's reply, and slowly sounds it out as he does.

"It says-- it's.. already happening. Because his soul is.. stubborn, and.. remembers who and what he is. His spirit has accepted the.. path? with the Force. And is.. coming back. Because he knows.. where he wants to be. He... knows, and, he will remember.. what happened.. when he returns."

Opening his eyes, Glenn flails when the world swirls in some places, reflexively reaching out for the desk to keep his balance. He manages, barely, and swiftly shuts his eyes again to center himself.

Thrawn just nods, his face as stoic as ever. Yet, this is good news. Glenn is going to return to his proper age, and they can be together once more. It's also good to know that Glenn will have memories of this, and perhaps they can figure out the artifact together. Then again, Thrawn also might just lock the thing in his personal vault once they're through with it.

He comes to Glenn's side and helps him remain upright, looking down at the boy with kind eyes. "Would you like me to carry you to bed?"

Glenn startles slightly and flinches when he's touched, eyes wide as he looks up at Thrawn for a moment. In the next beat, he clings onto Thrawn's arm for support, not wanting to fall while his vision is swirling like a hula hoop. His grip is completely ordinary, even as the tightness of it causes wrinkles in the cloth.

Shyly, Glenn nods and averts his gaze towards the floor, cheeks burning slightly pink. Even his feet look like they're not real, but ripples in a pond.

"I-- think so. My vision's... weird. I wonder if I'm getting sick... I-I can handle it if I do. So..."

Perhaps contrarily to the implications of his words, his grip tightens. A few more strands adopt that fluffier look, and even one of them starts to curl up in his usual uncannily long cowlick.

"...I can take care of myself if I get sick. Mom told me that self-sufficiency is important."

"Indeed it is. It is important that one is able to take care of themselves. However, it is also important to know that there is no shame in asking for help."

Thrawn carefully picks Glenn up and carries him out of the office and into his quarters, where he lays the boy down in his bed. He also lays his datapad on his bedside drawer. "If you need anything, tap that and it will send me a notification."

Glenn holds onto him firmly, thoughts muddled. How strange-- did Thrawn always smell this sharply?

"...Okay."

The bed is large compared to his small body, and once Thrawn nears the bed again, Glenn reaches out again to grab his tunic, without thinking, brow furrowing.

"Um..."

His mouth works for a few seconds before he manages the actual words. His gaze drifts in and out of focus. Slowly, his body heat rises.

"Could you.. stay, just a little bit? I'm-- a little scared, with everything looking so wobbly, and.. mom's usually too busy, even when she's home."

Thrawn regards the boy for a second, memories coming back to him of another time, from the Ascendancy. For a moment, they make him feel homesick. He shakes it off and nods at Glenn.

"Of course," Gently pulling out of Glenn's grip, Thrawn sits on the edge of the bed and takes up his datapad. Perhaps there's something he can read to the boy to help him go to sleep. He selects a detective novel that he has stored on his datapad and starts reading out loud.

Glenn eventually grabs onto his clothes again - just the hem of his tunic where it's bunched from sitting, rather than Thrawn's wrist, where he'd prefer to hold. It's hard to focus, but the calm flow of Thrawn's words eventually soothes him more than the content. He's out in about fifteen minutes, idly thinking about the content of the novel, until his thoughts dissolve into the dark.

Glenn's body continues to gradually change as he sleeps, however slowly. For now, Glenn's grip is still on par with a young human's strength. He's mildly feverish, for a human, but otherwise has no signs of discomfort.

Thrawn stays with Glenn the entire time, until he goes to sleep. Once Glenn's passed out, he closes the book and sets the datapad back down. Silently, he leaves the bedroom and goes back to his office to take scans of the artifact and compare them with other holos of similar artifacts.

Once asleep, reverting occurs much more rapidly. The first thing that Glenn notices is the discomfort of getting bigger in clothes that are too small, and so the garments are completely shredded in the process of him wiggling to get them off awhile still asleep. The transition takes a little while all the same. Before the hour is up, deep contented purring softly resounds from Thrawn's bedroom as Glenn shoves his face against the pillow that smells like his mate.

Thrawn returns to his quarters to check on Glenn and sees that he's already back in adult body. And the clothes have been shredded. Those can be recycled.

For now, Thrawn approaches his mate and gently touches his shoulder.

Glenn's purring gets louder, and deeper, until he registers the touch and hums sleepily, reaching out with tentacles while still clinging to the pillow.

Until his own quickened purring, and Thrawn's touch, makes him stir further. His tendrils coil around his mate's arms for a moment as he wakes up, thoughts foggy, but vision clear.

"Oh... hey..."

He gently gives his mate's wrist a squeeze with that tendril and loosens his hold, wiggling a little to turn over, and frowning when scraps of cloth tear further.

That makes his eyes fly open, and he sits up, looking at a piece of the torn clothing in confusion, and then dawning understanding.

"...So that was about the weirdest experience I have ever had."

Thrawn's fully prepared for the tentacles at this point, recognizing them as an unconscious gesture, an innate desire to touch his mate and pull him in. Oh yes, Glenn is most certainly back to normal.

"Indeed." The artifact told Glenn that he would remember upon returning to his normal age, he recalls. "It is fortunate that the effect was only temporary. I still have the clothes you were wearing when you reverted into a child in my office."

when we were young

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