Authors Note: This one needs a huge content warning. This one is sad. This explores feelings of saddness, lonliness, and self harm, all wrapped up in pretty common ab/dl self image issues. This is almost tailor made for ab/dls to cry to, I cried writing it. I really wanted to explore the negative feelings we have for ourselves, and how being a little clashes with our adult self image and about how so many of us are isolated and feel alone. If you don't think you can handle heavy emotions, you should probably skip this one.

Marcus shivered as he shuffled into his apartment. He quickly shut the door behind him, making an effort to shut it forcefully as it had long ago settled out of it’s original position, and was askew with the door frame. With some finagling he got the door shut and locked, and systematically got to work filling in the cracks with an old towel to not let the cold into the room. Much like his door the central heating in his apartment was currently under maintenance.

Marcus sighed after finally getting through the arduous process of shutting his door and began to shed the layers of clothes he wore for his work He did his best not to let the chill hit him as he dressed down into his final layers. With that his clothes falling off of him, he felt the weight of his adult responsibilities fall off of him as well.

It was finally Christmas, which for Marcus didn’t mean much more than an extra long weekend. He didn’t really have anywhere to go, any friends to see, or any family to visit, but he wanted to make the best of it. Even if it was just him alone, it was still a few days to himself. A few days where he didn’t have any obligations. Which meant finally a few days to be baby.

One might not imagine that Marcus often dressed in cute onesies and fluffy diapers on the weekends he had off. Marcus was a large, burly man, covered in a light fuzz and facial hair and he was just getting into his 40’s. When he did dress down into his onesies and diapers and really babied out, it was quite the juxtaposition. Despite the juxtaposition though, Marcus really appreciated it. It was a brief solace in his constantly demanding work life, something to recharge him, and he needed frequent recharging. He really didn’t get enough of it, but hopefully this long break would refill his energy.

He didn’t have a whole lot of Christmas decorations set up; he didn’t really have anyone to decorate for after all. He did have a small tree in the living room area of his apartment. It wasn’t the ideal magical first Christmas his baby self could have, but it was something. He gave the closest thing he could give to a smile as he thought about the things to come, and removed the large case containing his scant bit of adult baby items from it's place underneath his bed.

It was a quick and practiced change into a baby printed diaper, and a simple light blue onesie. He set up his stuffed animals by the small Christmas tree. Leo, a small lioness plush that had trouble standing on her permanently standing legs, but she was fine lying down. Weevil, the lady bug, who was very large for a ladybug and with a very human like set of eyes and mouths for one too. Dasher, a reindeer stuck in a sitting position, this was obviously his favorite holiday. Finally, there was ginger. Marcus’ first and favorite stuffed friend. She was a small calico cat with some weighted beans in her bottom to help her sit. Her fur was matted with secrets and tears and her once happy smile now had a more nuanced emotion to it. It was still happy, but you could see the pain she knew of behind that smile. She kept smiling though, despite it all.

Marcus could always count on Ginger’s smile, on the smile of all his stuffed friends. Especially with no one else around. When everyone else left him alone on Christmas his real friends were still here for him, and they were always happy to see him, always happy to hear his struggles, always there to cheer him up when he was sad. It’s why, when Marcus looked across the smiling faces of his friends, even Leo’s smile who was a little sideways since she was on the ground again, he couldn’t help but smile too.

There was a blush on Marcus’ face as he grabbed some small wrapped presents for all his stuffies. Deep down part of him knew that this whole charade was pointless, but he wanted to do it. He laid each of the presents in front of his fluffy friends. They all were elated to have received gifts. It’s rare that anyone gave stuffies a gift. Not that any stuffie really needed it. Still, they all were happy, though there was a bit of a giggle behind their sewed-on smiles. Marcus was being a little silly. The stuffies couldn’t open their own presents, even if they really wanted to.

Marcus got to work unwrapping them, appreciating the silent conversation he had with them. They all giggled at how they couldn’t open their presents and all expressed their true love for the modest gifts of coloring books and stickers and the like, all without any actual words leaving anyone’s mouth. The stuffies said all they needed to with their happy understanding faces.

There was a moment for Marcus, after he had placed all the unwrapped presents in front of his stuffies. A moment where he was brought back to the real world. Where he was a 40-year-old man, in a diaper, pretending a bunch of stuffed animals could have the capacity to care about the cheap gifts he got them. It wasn’t an uncommon feeling, it hit him often playing like this, but it was always a disconcerting feeling. Often, he would be flooded with an emotion during these times, this time it was a sudden urge of anger. He couldn’t exactly place where this came from. Maybe it was his family that never came to see him, how his baby friends were hundreds of miles away where he couldn’t visit them, or how so few people really understood him. Whatever the reason, the loneliness creeped in on him, and he got caught up in the unfairness of it all.

He had to let it out. So, he took his small present, a tiny little stress ball shaped like a football, and kicked it. The little toy soared along the ground, hitting Ginger and scooting her along the ground with its trajectory as it was a pretty heavy ball. The stress ball seemed to do it’s job, Marcus let out a breathe and with it his brief anger. He shuffled over to retrieve Ginger, who’s arm had fallen into the hole of the air vent in the floor where she scooted. Despite Marcus’ care in retrieving his old friend, a small nick in her arm caught against the grating of the vent, and as she was being lifted her front arm ripped off with a terrifying sound.

Quickly, Marcus caught the falling arm as it took a moment for the gravity of things to sink in. His breathe caught in his throat for a moment as he stared at the little limb in his hand, squished flat as the stuffing had fallen out of it. Bits of stuffing were strewn about the floor, like gore from the open wound in his oldest friend. Tears began to well up in Marcus' eyes. He didn’t want to look at Ginger, didn’t want to see her happy face contorted with pain in betrayal as he had brutally mutilated her despite her years of dedicated service. He finally did manage to look though.

Ginger had fallen flatter, as significant amounts of stuffing from inside her were now on the floor. Despite all this though, her smile was still there. Still smiling through the pain. An expression that said that it was all ok. She knew Marcus would never mean to hurt her. She knew this was just an accident. Above all, she didn’t want Marcus to be sad. Because sometimes bad things just happen and it’s no one’s fault.

The voice in Marcus' head he demanded himself to be punished, to be berated and scolded for being a brute and spilling his best friend’s blood and guts on the floor. They should all be hating him, and be leaving him. He looked to the other stuffies, expecting the newer friends to lack the understanding of his oldest friend. That they would give him the angry jeers and beratements he felt he deserved for his blunder. They too, however kept their smiles. They too shared Ginger’s understanding. Just like Ginger they all knew that Marcus would never hurt any of them on purpose, and above everything they didn’t want him to blame himself.

Marcus couldn’t accept that he would get away with this, get away with the murder of something so innocent, pure, and understanding. Couldn’t take that such a thing had to happen. He began sobbing, not sure of what to do. He hugged Ginger to his chest, inadvertently making more of her stuffing fall to the floor and flattening her even more.

After composing himself somewhat, he got to work thinking of what to do. He didn’t know how to sew, but he knew he had at least a needle and thread around somewhere to try. He scrambled into some drawers on the kitchen side of his apartment, struggling to see what he was even doing through the tears and sobbing. All the while Ginger’s flat face kept smiling on as her body lay on the counter. Never once blaming him, never once angry with him, and always just hoping that he could be happy despite what was happening.

Marcus did manage to find the sewing supplies, but he struggled to get the thread through the needle, and it was pretty clear that he wouldn’t be able to stop sobbing enough to perform the delicate operation. The whole time his fumbling only served to remove ever more stuffing from Ginger’s body as she slowly turned from a fluffy friend into something looking like a disheveled rag. Still though her smile persisted. If she could talk, she would tell Marcus that she was proud of him. She would tell him that he really tried so hard, and how grateful she was that he loved her that much. She would tell him that she was happy that she got to spend her life helping Marcus be happier, because that’s what every stuffie strived to do.

Marcus screamed, banging his hands against the counter, the outpouring of angry grief not at all matching the baby onesie and diaper he was wearing. The injustice of it all. That his closest friend was dying right before his eyes and it was all his fault. Ginger was basically flat now, her face was contorted, but that ever present, ever understanding smile was still there. In her beady soulless eyes there appeared to be something of a screaming desire. A desire just to be alive. To be animate, if only for a moment, just so she could comfort her friend who was clearly distraught over things. Ginger couldn’t do that though. Ginger was just a stuffie. All she could do was smile, and her time to be able to do that was rapidly coming to an end as all the stuffing was accidentally hugged out of her by Marucs doing his best to correct an unfortunate accident.

This little break of weekend was something Marcus had been looking forward to, and to say that it had been ruined was an understatement. He was sitting on the floor struggling to look at the flattened body of ginger and struggling to meet the gaze of the remaining stuffies in the room. He couldn’t cry any more, couldn’t feel much of anything. He struggled with what he had done, even if it was an accident, as the faces of his remaining friends said to him. He couldn’t forgive himself.

There was a blur, time seemed to slow down, and get faster all at once. Marcus lay on the ground in a crying miserable heap. An empty glass and bottle clattered next to him. No friends were there for him, no family wanted him around, no partner to love him, and even his stuffies, it seemed, were doomed to leave him. The remaining stuffies were still in their place, their opened presents still in front of them. Like Ginger before them they all strained in their inanimate bodies. If they could only move their stuffed bodies, speak with their sewn-on smiles, and hug their grieving friend. All they could do was wish him the best they could with there ever present happy smiles, and try their best to assure Marcus that it was all going to be all right.

Suddenly, they did just that. Dasher was the first, slowly shaking off stiffness as he raised from his sitting position. Weevil wiggled his round body. Leo stood confidently on more stable legs. Marucs sobbed again, witnessing the impossible of his friends coming to life, but their reassuring smiles remained as they slowly made their way over to him. They surrounded him as he lay on the floor, curling up to and hugging him.

“It’s ok Marcus,” Leo spoke gently.

“We’re sorry things are so hard for you,” Dasher added.

“The world has been so unkind to you,” Weevil spoke in a buzzing voice.

“We love you, we always have,” Leo said, her eyes shedding the first tears they had ever shed.

Marcus breathed heavily at all that was happening. He could barely believe it. It shouldn’t be real. All he could do though was nod yes. They were all right of course. His true friends always loved him. He suddenly felt tired. He felt all the pain and the weight his life had put on him. It seemed to bear down on him all at once and seep into his bones and muscles. All he wanted to do was sleep.

“You’re tired,” Dasher spoke the obvious.

“Rest,” Weevil said with some melancholy. “You deserve to rest.”

“We’ll be here,” Leo said snuggling into Marcus’ arms. “We’ll sleep with you like always.” Marcus nodded and gave a whimper as he drifted off.

Marcus was found a few days later. His friends had returned to their positions earlier, and they were all watching him as he didn’t move. They kept watching as paramedics and police came and found him. Dressed in his onesie and diaper as he was, his friends stayed there and listened as the police and paramedics mocked their friend. Called him a freak, a loner, a loser. They stayed, with their happy expressions unchanging, as Marcus was placed into a bag and carried away from them.

For their years of service as true friends to the end, their reward was being placed into a bag and shipped off to the dump. They would be thrown in with the trash and refuse of the world that abandoned their friend. They would be fed into machines and have their bodies ground up by gnashing gears into disparate pieces of stuffing and soft material, and that would be thrown into a furnace and turned into ashes.

Ginger's flattened body was picked up with tweezers by an investigator, as if she was some defiled broken object. She was put into a bag, that was put into a folder, that was put into a file, that was locked in a cabinet, that was locked in a room in a building that no one ever went to. For all the goodness she brought to Marcus, for all of the tears shed into her fur, for all of the horrible tales from him she bared with a smile, and for all the nights she helped him sleep and take on the next day. For her dedicated life as a stuffie, as a true friend, her reward was to have her flattened body locked away in some room forever, to be used as evidence against Marcus should anyone want to take what little he left to the world. The only solace for her is that no one cared enough about Marcus to do that. No one even noticed her was gone and especially no one noticed all the good his only trued friends brought to his life.