Pearce spun in place, head spinning with everything he had to do.

He’d fucked up.

He’d fucked up big time.

It was four in the afternoon, on a work day–and sure, he freelanced from home, but that didn’t mean he could just ignore his job all day without consequence. Waiting anxiously for his phone to charge, he booted up his desktop, wondering if he had time to go make a pot of coffee and take an aspirin for the headache that was starting to pound a hole in his–

“Pearce,” Grace demanded, standing by his door. “I need a change.”

And she did–her diaper had been utterly decimated; flooded so thoroughly that the tapes were struggling to hang on and all the padding had clumped and fallen to the bottom of the diaper. It was a miracle she hadn’t–

“I’ve already leaked twice,” she added, emphasizing the depth of his failure.

(Oh.)

“I’ll get to that soon,” Pearce said. If she leaked again, it’d cost him fifty bucks–a price worth paying to get his day back on track, to recover from the death spiral he’d flown into by losing eight hours. It was one thing to talk to Grace about being chill, about skipping jobs if they didn’t spark joy, but he’d screwed up badly with a client he actually liked, and he had to do damage control before they decided not to renew his contracts.

He hated doing the mental math on what took priority. He’d already screwed up enough as the babysitter, already let Grace down hard, and he was actively choosing to let her down more. That made him sick, but Grace’s petulance was making it easier to stomach–the more she irritated him, the less he cared.

“Did you eat?” he asked, as his phone chirped to life.

“I made myself food, yes,” she said. “But that was around lunchtime–I still need dinner.”

(Okay. I need to–fuck. Eight missed calls. I need to listen to these messages, return the calls, reply to the texts, check my email, see if that build got uploaded–dammit, I said I’d give feedback today. So feedback. And Grace needs a change, and dinner, and I need to figure out when I’m going to redo the meeting from today, and–shit, she probably needs a drink, too, and she’s not dressed, and…I need to listen to these messages.)

“Pearce–” Grace snapped. “Look at me.”

He looked at her, frowned, and looked away.

“Pearce,” Grace insisted, demanding his attention.

“What?” he snapped, wheeling on her. “Grace, I have five thousand things to do, no time to do it, and none of our shit takes priority right now. You need to leak? Go leak.”

“Are you giving up?” she demanded.

He ran his hands through his hair, exasperation growing by the second. “No, I’m not–Grace, are you fucking kidding me?”

Grace’s face registered shock, and he hesitated. He hadn’t meant to be that harsh, but it wasn’t half so harsh as the crueler thoughts rolling around in the back of his head.

He simply could not believe that Grace had left him out to dry, and though he buried his worst impulses, he couldn’t contain his rant completely.

“You seriously fucked over my entire day so you could get leverage for the bet?” he continued. “You’re that petty? It’s a game. I haven’t tried to screw any of your work stuff up or mess with your jobs, I’ve made sure you have space and time to work, and, what? You were just waiting to get the right leverage on me so you could fuck me over?”

He knew he was yelling, he knew Skip could probably hear him if they hadn’t left for work already, but he didn’t care.

“You did screw my work.” Grace didn’t need volume to convey her anger, every word had an icy edge. “You were supposed to be the one to wake us up. You had one job.”

“I have like fifty jobs! I’m doing everything!” Pearce shot back. “So I screwed up one thing. Sure. Whatever.”

“Whatever? No.” Grace glowered, refusing to give him an inch of empathy. “You don’t get to be in charge and then ‘Whatever’ everything away when you screw up. You either need to own up and take care of your responsibilities, or admit that you can’t actually do this and tell me you’re done. Only two options.”

Her words hit him like a warning shot, an indicator that if he didn’t back down immediately, she’d go for his throat.

He didn’t care about what she wanted him to do. “Grace,” Pearce shot back at her. “I know you want to be the center of attention, but I have so much work to do, and you cannot be up my ass about this right now!”

“No, we’re going to talk.” Her gaze was steel as she attacked him again, more insistent. “Are you going to give up?”

(Shut the fuck up and leave me–) “How many things did I miss?” Pearce demanded.

“Eight.” Grace began counting on her fingers, loading up her verbal cannons for the finishing strike. “Two leaks, bedtime, wake up, bathtime, breakfast, lunch, and I haven’t had a single thing to drink today I didn’t get myself. Four hundred dollars. Pay up, or give up.”

There it was. Her ultimatum–he could take the verbal torpedo head on, or he could sink.

Preparing to take it on the chin, he readied his return salvo. “You got out of your crib on your own, made yourself two meals, got yourself drinks, and you just told me you needed a diaper change.”

Her eyes narrowed. “So?”

“So,” he attacked, ready to blast her confidence out of the water. “You want me to play the game, respect the bet? Fine.”

Swiping his wallet off the desk, he fished in it for cash–of course he didn’t have enough. Instead, he scooped up his phone, sending a digital payment to Grace–four hundred dollars. Twenty hours of his life, labeled ‘Penalty Beer Money’.

“I’m paid up,” he announced, dropping his bomb. “You broke five rules, that’s five hours in time out. Go away, sit down, shut up, and leave me alone.”

Grace’s eyes widened, her face drawing tight as she balled her hands. “You aren’t serious–”

“Completely.” He felt a sting of satisfaction, and couldn’t help but add, “Are you going to give up?”

When her face fell from shock to sadness and she backed away, all that vindication washed away, and he felt only shame.

…

Grace genuinely could not believe him.

Pearce.

Fucking Pearce.

He’d left her alone, skipped out on his responsibilities, and he apparently had the gall to throw it right back in her face that she didn’t waste her entire day sitting in her crib, waiting for him to demonstrate basic life skills.

She stared at the corner of the wall, wriggling uncomfortably. Her leaky, swollen diaper wasn’t getting any more comfortable, and she couldn’t even get Pearce in further trouble by going again–she’d just be making puddles on the floor. Her stomach cramps hadn’t gone away, either, and sitting in a low stool that effectively left her in a constant crouch didn’t do much for her control.

(Five hours. It’ll be bedtime by then.)

Grace wouldn’t have any trouble holding it for five hours, but she’d already been holding it all day. She couldn’t remember going yesterday, either–after she and Pearce had started talking, she didn’t want to kill the mood by stinking up the room and forcing him to change her; she doubted either of them could rebound back to sexy from ‘cleaning up her poopy bottom.’

Now she was stuck fighting cramps.

For five hours.

She blamed Pearce for this, but she blamed herself, too. This could all have been avoided if she’d just…

(Woken Pearce up?)

(No.)

(I should have set an alarm on my own phone.)

The stupid thing had been to let her guard down, to assume that just because Pearce was fun to hang out with, and fun in bed, that she could rely on him. She’d lowered her guard, fully relaxed, and been punished in response.

And maybe–maybe–she could admit that refusing to step in and wake him up had been an overreaction, but she wasn’t in charge of him. They were just…she wasn’t sure. Friends with benefits sounded wrong.

She squirmed again. Her bottom was starting to itch from the prolonged time in a saturated diaper. If she’d been a real baby, she would have probably just bawled her head off when she woke up stuck in her crib, not snuck around and stayed quiet.

(Now I’m making excuses for him.)

She couldn’t check the time. She couldn’t do anything, except squirm, pout, and reflect.

(Is this why time out’s are a popular punishment? So kids will think about what they did wrong?)

(Not that it works when I didn’t do anything wrong.)

(Goddammit, how long has it been?)

(Brains gets home at around six, usually. Seven at the latest. It was like five PM when I got stuck here, so...it hasn’t even been an hour.)

(Should I just pee? I feel like I should just pee. I can’t hold it for five hours.)

(Oh god I hope time is passing faster than it feels like. It feels like it’s only been a few minutes.)

(How the hell could he do this to me when he’s the one at fault?)

More than the boredom itself, or the discomfort, it was the injustice that ate at her. He’d failed her, and then when she confronted him about it he found an excuse to abandon her again. Paying lip service to the rules of the bet didn’t justify this, he just wanted to eliminate an inconvenience by any means necessary.

Her stomach gurgled and cramped again, painful fullness rearing its head. A reminder that she’d been holding it for almost two days, and that she wouldn’t be able to keep it held much longer–certainly not while she had to sit in a near crouch.

She had to choose between physical discomfort or humiliation, and even if she chose the former, she didn’t know if her body would comply.

(Fuck.)

…

Brains returned home late, only to find himself confronted by a smell, like someone had just squatted down and gone right onto the floor in the living room.

He saw Grace on her time out chair, in a flooded diaper, sitting over a puddle of urine. That explained the smell, then. If Melody was there, she could’ve probably gleaned a lot more from Grace’s body language, Brains could largely only intuit the fact that she was upset from the facts–if he were in a wet diaper stuck in time out, he’d be upset too.

“Time out?” he asked, before quickly catching himself. “Sorry–don’t answer that.” He didn’t want to get her in trouble. “I’ll go ask Pearce what happened.”

He took his phone out while navigating upstairs, taking the time to text Melody, ‘You on a date tonight?’

‘Yeah, what’s up?’

‘Grace is in time out. Peed on the floor. Might be awkward to bring someone home to.’

‘Noted, thanks.’

Heading upstairs, he briefly considered Not Getting Involved. Instead, he knocked on Pearce’s door.

“Grace?” Pearce called through the door. “If you got out of time out–”

“Brains,” he corrected.

Pearce opened up. “What’s up?”

“Grace leaked onto the floor,” Brains said. “What did she do?”

“What didn’t she do?” Pearce replied.

“I…don’t know,” Brains said. “I’ve been gone all day.”

“Sorry.” Stepping back, Pearce let Brains into his bedroom. It looked more chaotic than usual. “She broke like five rules today.”

“Oh, damn,” Brains said. “Why?”

Pearce seemed to be thinking about his words for a long moment. “I broke eight.”

“Oh, damn.” Doing the math, he said, “Four hundred bucks. Can you afford that?”

“Sorta. If I don’t lose this client that I ghosted for like eight hours.”

“Hold up.” Brains shook his head. “I need you to explain what happened.”

Pearce explained, starting with the morning–he’d forgotten his phone, missed his alarm, and Grace had woken up sometime that morning well after their day was supposed to begin…then she’d refused to wake him up in turn.

“Five hours, though,” Brains said, finally. “That’s…Pearce, that’s a lot.”

“I know,” Pearce shrugged. “But, like…if she’s going to insist I do the whole thing, I can’t really back out, can I?”

“Honestly?” Brains said. “You shouldn’t. She deserves it.”

Pearce stopped to look flatly at Brains. “That’s unusually harsh.”

“You messed up by accident,” he replied. “She let you sleep on purpose. Intention matters. If anything, she should be apologizing to you.”

Sighing, Pearce looked back at his computer, then at Brains. “She’s still mad.”

“That doesn’t mean she didn’t purposefully hurt you.”

Pearce shrugged. “You’re right.”

“I am?” Brains said, almost surprised at saying something insightful.

“You are, but I’m going to ignore you anyways,” Pearce said. “It all comes back to the bet–I’d been thinking of it as rules, but it’s more than that. Grace really has the emotional regulation skills of a toddler, and I shouldn’t have been expecting her to handle an adult relationship.”

That surprised Brains less–he was used to that. “Then what are you going to do? Let her out of time out?”

“No,” Pearce said. “She made her diaper, she can sit in it. But I’m the adult here, the one in charge. I just need to start following the rules.”