Dayton kept Mr. Rhys in her hand as they walked, her palm cupped like she was carrying something breakable she refused to admit was breakable. Her fingers formed a loose cage around him whenever a kid got too close. Not tight. Not squeezing. Just… present.
Hayden leaned into her space like she belonged there, shoulder brushing Dayton’s sleeve every few steps. She was smiling now, the tension from the Thomas thing already fading the way it always did with them, like a rubber band snapping back.
“So,” Hayden said, dragging the word out, eyes glittering with mischief, “are we just not gonna talk about how I almost got murdered in the hallway?”
Dayton didn’t even look at her. “You weren’t almost murdered. You were almost corrected.”
“That’s literally worse,” Hayden said, laughing. “You do it with your whole soul. Like you’re gonna pull out a PowerPoint and be like, ‘Slide one: why you’re wrong.’”
Dayton’s mouth twitched. “Slide two: consequences.”
“Slide three: my funeral,” Hayden added, and bumped her shoulder again like she was trying to get Dayton to crack.
Dayton finally looked sideways at her, eyes narrowing. “You’re so dramatic.”
Hayden gasped. “Me? Dramatic? In this economy?”
Mr. Rhys sat still as the girls’ banter ricocheted around him. It was… normal. Jarringly normal. Like the world hadn’t just tilted off its axis.
From where he was, the hallway was a canyon of moving legs and swinging backpacks. The sound came in layers: laughter sharp as popped bubblegum, locker doors clanging, someone yelling “Bro!” with desperate conviction, and the distant bark of a teacher trying to enforce “no running” on a species that ran on teenage chaos.
Dayton’s skin was warm under his feet. The lines of her palm felt like ridges in sand. Every step she took sent a soft rhythm up through her hand, like he was riding on the deck of a ship and pretending he didn’t get seasick.
He tried not to stare at how easily she held him. How natural.
Like she’d been carrying him for weeks, not hours.
Hayden tilted her head, peeking down at Mr. Rhys with the careful curiosity of someone looking at a museum exhibit they weren’t sure they were allowed to photograph.
“Are you okay?” she asked him, and the question came out surprisingly gentle.
Mr. Rhys’s throat tightened. He hated that his first instinct was to answer like a teacher.
“I’m… aware,” he said, which was not an answer to her question.
Hayden nodded like that made perfect sense. “Valid.”
Dayton huffed a laugh under her breath. “He’s in his ‘I’m above this’ era.”
Mr. Rhys looked up at her, sharply. “I am not in an era.”
Hayden’s grin widened. “You’re in your ‘I’m not in an era’ era.”
Dayton laughed for real then, a quick bright sound that cut through the hallway noise like a bell. She angled her hand slightly, as if instinctively trying to keep Mr. Rhys steady while her body shook with it.
Hayden watched her laugh, and her expression softened into something that wasn’t teasing, not fully. Something private. Proud, almost. Like she liked being the person who could make Dayton laugh in public.
“You’re gonna get lines,” Hayden said, casual, “from scowling at everyone. Like, relax your face.”
Dayton rolled her eyes. “My face is fine.”
“Your face is like… if a security guard became a person,” Hayden said. Then she leaned in, dropping her voice to an exaggerated whisper. “Like you’re gonna be like, ‘Ma’am, your lip gloss is expired. Please step to the side.’”
Dayton snorted. “That is not what security guards do.”
“It is what you would do,” Hayden said.
Dayton’s lips pressed together, fighting a smile. “Okay, first of all, I would never say ‘ma’am’ because I’m not eighty.”
“You’d say ‘bestie,’” Hayden countered immediately. “‘Bestie, your lip gloss is expired, hand it over.’”
Dayton finally broke. She laughed again, shaking her head, and for a second the tightness in her shoulders unknotted. She looked like a kid. A thirteen-year-old kid in a hallway with her friend, not an authority figure holding a former teacher.
Mr. Rhys felt something in his chest snag.
This was the part he couldn’t reconcile. Not the law, not the collar, not the physical indignity of being smaller than a pencil case.
It was the fact that Dayton could be this light, this easy, this normal, while his entire existence had been rewritten.
He shifted, the tiny movement barely a whisper against her skin.
Dayton’s eyes flicked down immediately. Not startled. Just… attentive.
“You good?” she asked him.
It was the same tone she used with Hayden. Not formal. Not performative. Real.
Mr. Rhys wanted to say no. Wanted to tell her that nothing about this was “good,” that the word itself was insulting.
Instead, what came out was quieter.
“I’m here,” he said.
Dayton nodded once, like that was enough for now, and lifted her hand closer to her chest as they flowed around a knot of students arguing about who copied whose homework.
Hayden leaned closer, dropping her voice again. “Okay, serious question.”
Dayton groaned preemptively. “I’m scared.”
“No, like actually serious,” Hayden insisted. “Are you gonna do the thing where you name him something?”
Dayton’s eyebrows knitted. “What thing.”
“You know,” Hayden said, tilting her head toward Mr. Rhys like he was a tiny celebrity. “Like how some people name theirs. Like, ‘This is my little, Sparkles.’”
Dayton made a face so instant and so disgusted it was almost impressive. “Absolutely not.”
Hayden burst out laughing. “Okay, because I was about to bully you.”
“You already bully me,” Dayton said.
“I bully you because I love you,” Hayden replied, as if explaining a law of physics. Then she added, softer, “And because you need it. Otherwise you’d become like… a robot. A tiny robot with a whistle.”
Dayton’s gaze slid to Hayden, and she bumped Hayden’s shoulder again, gentler this time. “I’m not a robot.”
“You’re like… fifty percent robot,” Hayden said. “But like, cute robot. Like Wall-E.”
Dayton’s eyes widened. “Wall-E is not cute. He’s… sad.”
Hayden’s grin turned triumphant. “You do have feelings. Confirmed.”
Dayton shoved her lightly, and Hayden stumbled dramatically into a locker, clutching her heart.
“Ow,” Hayden said, deadpan. “I’m suing.”
“You’re fine,” Dayton said, but there was warmth in it. Her voice always did that with Hayden. Like the edges softened without Dayton noticing.
Mr. Rhys watched them the way someone watches a language they don’t speak but desperately wants to understand. The casual touches. The shared rhythm. The way Hayden could say something ridiculous and Dayton would pretend to hate it while obviously loving it.
They were tight-knit in a way adults rarely noticed because it didn’t look like anything official. It looked like laughter. It looked like familiarity.
It looked like a kind of loyalty that would absolutely turn into a weapon if someone messed with either of them.
And that, Mr. Rhys realized with a cold little twist in his stomach, was part of the cage he was in now.
Not just Dayton.
Dayton’s people.
Hayden glanced at him again, eyes squinting slightly like she was trying to solve a puzzle. “So like… are you mad at her?”
Mr. Rhys didn’t answer right away.
Dayton’s thumb brushed lightly against the edge of his shoulder, not pushing, not warning. Just… there. A quiet reminder that she was listening.
Mr. Rhys chose his words carefully, because the hallway had ears, and because the wrong sentence would turn into a story by lunch.
“I am… adjusting,” he said.
Hayden nodded slowly. “That’s fair.”
Dayton exhaled, and Mr. Rhys felt the warm drift of it against his hair, like a faint gust. She didn’t look at him when she spoke, but her voice dropped half a notch.
“You can be mad,” she said. “Just… don’t do anything dumb in the hallway. Please.”
Hayden’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait, what counts as dumb.”
“Like trying to jump out of my hand,” Dayton said, flat.
Hayden made a face. “Yeah, don’t do that. You’d get like… stepped on in literally two seconds.”
Mr. Rhys’s chest tightened. The matter-of-factness of it. The way they said it like it was the same as dropping your AirPods.
He forced himself to breathe anyway.
The reality was settling. Not like acceptance. More like sediment sinking in a glass of water. The more he struggled, the more the world stayed the same, and the more his body learned the new shape of things.
Dayton’s hand. The hallway. The height.
The fact that he was the little of Dayton Harris.
And that, as far as the world was concerned, it wasn’t a tragedy.
It was a schedule.
Hayden suddenly brightened again, as if she’d decided they were done being heavy for the day. “Okay, switching topics before I start feeling emotions and throwing up,” she said. “Did you see Chloe’s post?”
“Yeah, she looked gorgeous yet casual”
“She did that thing with the eyeliner,” Hayden said, miming a dramatic wing with her finger. “Like, the whole ‘I woke up like this’ but it took two hours.”
Dayton’s lips twitched. “She literally texted me ‘I’m late’ while she was doing it.”
Hayden cackled. “That’s so Chloe.”
Dayton shook her head, smiling despite herself. “She’s gonna be late to her own wedding someday because she was contouring.”
Hayden clutched her chest again. “Not Chloe catching strays.”
“She’ll survive,” Dayton said.
“Will she,” Hayden said, solemn. “Or will she collapse because her highlight wasn’t highlighted enough.”
Dayton laughed, and Hayden laughed with her, and for a few seconds they were just two girls in a hallway, locked into their own orbit.
Mr. Rhys listened to their laughter and felt the strange dissonance of it. How the sound could be so bright while his own thoughts were so dark.
He looked down at Dayton’s palm again, at the faint imprint his feet left in the soft give of her skin, and a humiliating thought rose up uninvited.
She could close her fingers and he’d disappear.
Not metaphorically. Literally.
And she didn’t.
She kept her hand open. Kept him visible. Kept him safe.
He hated that the word safe belonged to her now.
They drifted past a group of eighth graders and Dayton’s posture changed, subtle but immediate. Her chin lifted. Her gaze leveled. The group looked at her hand, looked at her face, and then looked away.
Hayden leaned toward Dayton, whispering like it was a joke. “You see? Security guard energy.”
Dayton muttered, “Shut up.”
Hayden grinned. “Bestie, your lip gloss is expired.”
Dayton snorted so hard she almost tripped, catching herself at the last second. Mr. Rhys swayed in her hand, and Dayton instantly steadied him with a careful curl of her fingers.
Hayden saw it. Her grin softened.
“You’re doing good,” Hayden said quietly, like she meant Dayton, not him.
Dayton didn’t answer right away. She just walked, holding her hand close, eyes forward, like she’d decided this was her responsibility and that was the end of the discussion.
Then she said, still not looking at Hayden, “Yeah. Well. I have to.”
Hayden nodded like she understood something deeper than the words. She bumped Dayton’s shoulder again, gentler than before.
“I know,” she said.
The hallway noise surged around them, the tide pulling them onward toward their next class.
They just kept walking, laughing and nudging and trading stupid little jokes like breadcrumbs on a path, while Mr. Rhys sat in Dayton’s hand and felt the glass of his old life finally, irrevocably, stop shaking.
Loved this episode, and I can see the change in Dayton. She wants to do good for Mr. Rhys in comparison to how she treated Jordan when they first met.
Growth I felt was important to show. Glad you liked the episode.
That is a good take. I think Dayton has changed for the better, having more of a protect the weak mindset. I think Reys still has the issue of he cant believe he is a little and he is at the mercy of one of his old students for protection. I think he needs a good talk with Kingsley to get is mind dialed into being a little. I think Dayton and Hayden would make a good couple, they seem to fill in each others differences lol.
1) “You weren’t almost murdered. You were almost corrected.” Well, Dayton does like ‘correcting’ people
2) ““You do it with your whole soul. Like you’re gonna pull out a PowerPoint and be like, ‘Slide one: why you’re wrong.’” sounds like Dayton
3) “He tried not to stare at how easily she held him. How natural. Like she’d been carrying him for weeks, not hours” she definitely practices with dolls when she’s home alone.
4) “Are you okay?” Hayden checking in on him is good.
5) “My face is fine.” It could use a slap or two
6) “Your face is like… if a security guard became a person,” Security guards are people
7) “Like you’re gonna be like, ‘Ma’am, your lip gloss is expired. Please step to the side.’” – “That is not what security guards do.” That’s more fashion police’s jurisdiction
8) “Okay, first of all, I would never say ‘ma’am’ because I’m not eighty.” but demand to be called ‘Miss Harris’ despite being 13
9) “This was the part he couldn’t reconcile… It was the fact that Dayton could be this light, this easy, this normal, while his entire existence had been rewritten.” Well it shows the difference between how she treats you vs people she actually likes, what dropping her mask looks like even briefly
10) “Mr. Rhys wanted to say no. Wanted to tell her that nothing about this was “good,” that the word itself was insulting.” man he should have.
11) “I’m here,” neutral answer is probably smarter
12) “Like how some people name theirs. Like, ‘This is my little, Sparkles.’” Dayton picking some “Boddie Hottie-esque” nickname might have been in character before Sara started calling him “Jordy”, but I can’t see her giving an affectionate nickname to someone she has no affection for.
13) “Absolutely not.” – “Okay, because I was about to bully you.” Good on ya Hayden
14) “Wall-E is not cute. He’s… sad.” Them’s fighting words Dayton
15) “Mr. Rhys watched them the way someone watches a language they don’t speak but desperately wants to understand. The casual touches. The shared rhythm.” What Ezra got no friends or something?
16) “So like… are you mad at her?” don’t ask him such a loaded question with her still holding him, idiot. There’s no reason to trust the answer he gives.
17) “I am… adjusting,” another neutral answer, I’m starting to think we’ll be gettin alot of those.
18) “You can be mad, just… don’t do anything dumb in the hallway. Please.” You can have emotion, just don’t act on them, granted Dayton acted emotionally and that’s how we got in this situation, but you know how it is ‘one rule for he, another for she.’
19) “Like trying to jump out of my hand,” something I’m sure Dayton’s seen multiple videos of Littles doing that and similar.
20) “The fact that he was the Little of Dayton Harris. And that, as far as the world was concerned, it wasn’t a tragedy.” Don’t worry, I still see it as a tragedy.
21) “She’s gonna be late to her own wedding someday because she was contouring.” Like Sara isn’t way too controlling to let that happen, she’d have counter measures baked into the plan for that.
22) “Not Chloe catching strays.” – “She’ll survive,” As much as I don’t like Chloe slander, she can wipe any tears away with $100 bills
23) “Mr. Rhys listened to their laughter and felt the strange dissonance of it. How the sound could be so bright while his own thoughts were so dark.” because they don’t care about what you’re thinking, so their sounds won’t reflect it.
24) “She kept her hand open. Kept him visible. Kept him safe.” safe from some things, at least for now.
25) “You’re doing good,” Dayton praise, disgusting
26) “Yeah. Well. I have to.” After all the bravado and self adulation she hyped herself up with, plus SEA looking over her shoulders, yeah, and mistake will be highlighted and dragged
1) Fair enough, Although that was fairly playful.
2) It does sound give off dayton energy. Hayden isnt worng here.
3) Yeah, that wouldnt surprise me. She practiced little walking with Thomas alot too till she got it right in the story earlier.
4) yeah, it takes a village to raise a little.
5) I feel like there are a number of guardians you would slap if given the opportunity.
6)not to 13 year olds
7) They are 13 year olds horsing around. atleast that was the idea behind it like dumb nonsensical joke.
8) I cant speak for other cultures but there wide gulf in america between miss and ma’am
9) This side of dayton is not reserved for MR. Rhys thats for sure.
10) You love pushing him into bad situations.
11) Yeah, slowly feel it out would be the most wise.
12) I would agree with that.
13) While I know you dont like dayton how would rank and rate her friends.
14) Becuse she said he is sad or becuase she said he is not cute
15) Its more the way they are interacting so naturally and such. Plus they are young so the way the speak and interact can be different hten he would talk and act.
16) that is fair. I actually have someone say that in a episode this week. Not that exact phrasing but something similar. SO its funny you used it.
17) Well he could also be waiting for a better time then the middle of a middle school hallway.
18) She never said he can’t have emotions she said dont do anything dumb. If a person is incapable of showing emotion without doing something dumb. They have more problems then being infeced with Smallara.
19) IM sure she has seen it happen. It would be odd within the world if it hadnt. I dont know about mulitple as it snot like she is seeking them out.
20) Everyone likes to be seen. Glad to see you are doing your part to prop up Mr. Rhys.
21) Sara 100% would. That wedding would be planned down to the second. It would be funny if she made Jordy her Maid of honor.
22) 100 dollar bills? You have her reduced to using what amounts to 1 ply toilet paper or something?
23) yup. They would reflect how Dayton feels as they arent friends with him. Its kind of human nature not even becuase he is a little. But even if Mr. Rhys had a heart attack. They might feel sadness in the moment. But its not like beyond that they would feel sad all day or anything. It would be for them a life goes on moment. As thats human nature. I remember my wife commenting when her mom died that she was broke into pieces and everyone else its just tuesday or whatever they are going to work, getting coffee, etc. Its just another day.
24) thats as close as she will get to lethal praise
25) Would you rather hear Sara praise, Dayton Priase or Mia Praise. and in what order would you put htem in.
26) dayton would never. lol
4) Littles raised in the Village would be happier, I agree
5) There are.
8) point is she wouldn’t use an honorific yet demand one.
10) He’s a dick, which makes it easier to not care if he’s in danger.
13) Based on what we know it goes, Nicole, Hayden, Hannah, but that’s only with brief information.
14) Because she said he’s not cute. (that movie is a treasured memory of mine)
15) Fair enough, adult men act differently to teenage girls
17) I’m sure it’ll come up again
18) Agreed, but it also begs the question of what counts as “dumb” I agree that the jumping ut of hands example Dayton brings up is dumb
19) I’m thinking a safety class during guardian taining. And didn’t she say she’s “watched countless videos of Littles getting hurt”
21) Obviously Jordan would be the pageboy (ring bearer), driving his Little car down he Isle with the rings displayed proudly on the hood.
And Ellie would genuinely fist fight Jordan is Sara named him maid of Honor.
23) That’s true-ish I’d agree if Ezra wasn’t Dayton’s Little now, this isn’t something they (or at least Dayton) can shrug and laugh off, his life is a footnote to hers now.
25) Since you’re twisting my arm lol, Sara, Dayton then Mia
21) Actually I’m gonna head Cannon right now
Sara’s wedding party,
Maid of Honour:
Ellie Montgomery
Bride’s Maids
Kayla Wallace & Kelli Wallace & Dayton Harris
Chloe’s Wedding party
Matron of Honour:
Mal Bak
Bride’s Maids
Avery Greacewood & Steph Wilson & Alejandra Jimenez (they’ve grown closer at this point).
Pageboys
Jordan Reeves & Gavin Bak
Flower Girl
Avery’s dog, (or Ellie’s future Little I guess, IDFK*
(Feel free to add in any info I may have missed, especially on flowergirl)
Lisa Wilson could also be flower girl
(25) For me, it would be Dayton, Mia, and then Sara. I rate Mia higher because I see more potential for growth in terms of character development.
15) Does he have any friends?
He has some friends. I wouldn’t say it’s a extensive list.