A/N: Here's another story based off of Backward to School Night. What can I say? Little Dakota is adorable and I want to write about him.
People would be surprised how often Murphy's law was in effect, even when no one in the Murphy family was around.
It was supposed to be a fairly easy task. Cavendish and Dakota frequently used to ruin their pistachio saving assignments. How hard could it be to intentionally sabotage the same mission?
Apparently, quite hard.
The two of them had to put quite a bit of effort into making sure that Brick and Savannah didn't accomplish in five minutes what the two of them couldn't do even after months of working at it. Dakota sometimes felt guilty for intentionally sabotaging a mission, but that guilt was quickly pushed to the side when he reminded himself that the fate of the future could very well depend on the extinction of the pistachio, and, really, Brick and Savannah kinda had this coming anyways.
Most of the time stopping them from protecting the pistachio was a pretty straight forward deal. Sometimes though, it wasn't. Sometimes Brick and Savannah would split up, so Dakota and Cavendish had to do the same. And when the two groups of partners weren't together, things tended to happen. Without having a partner around to tell them when things were maybe getting a little out of hand, mistakes were made.
Mistakes such as Dakota getting reckless when he was tailing Brick and getting caught. Mistakes like mentioning that he had stolen some of their time devices, and being forced to return them (even if he had been planning on doing that anyways). Mistakes like Dakota picking up the age regressor ray, just because he thought it was cool. Mistakes like Brick getting angry and trying to take back the device.
Mistakes like forgetting how touchy the age regressor ray was.
In their scuffle over the age regressor ray, one of the time travelers, and neither of them could confidently say which one, accidentally activated the device. And Dakota just so happened to be the unlucky guy at the receiving end of the shot.
One second Dakota was an adult time traveler who was trying to save the world from a pistachio overlord, the next he was a three year old toddler who had no idea where he was or what he was doing there, and he didn't really care.
Toddler Dakota blinked and looked around curiously. It scared him a little bit that he didn't know where he was, but he was more curious and excited than he was scared. It wasn't very often that he was outside, and it was a new experience for him. Dakota did lift his hands to his face to double check that yes, he was wearing his sunglasses. That was good. Then he wouldn't have to worry about the sun hurting his eyes.
Dakota, who was sitting on the ground, put his hands on the sidewalk under him, and then immediately drew them back. The ground felt weird to him. It felt both smooth and rocky at the same time, and he didn't like it. And it was hard, so it hurt to sit on. Dakota didn't like that either, so he pushed himself to his feet.
Once he wasn't focusing on the ground or the sky Dakota noticed that he wasn't the only one there. Lots of people were walking around, and there was even a man standing right next to him. Dakota lifted his head to look up at the man and giggled slightly at the funny look on his face.
"This is ridiculous." The funny man loudly. "Look at what you just did, you...you id-hey!" Dakota had quickly lost interest in what the man was saying when his attention was caught by the funny looking toy in his hands. Dakota climbed up the man's leg, he was good at climbing on things, and tried to grab the toy for himself. The man didn't like that very much.
"Will you stop that?" The man spoke loudly again. Dakota didn't get it. He got in trouble for being too loud, but this man did the same thing, and he wasn't getting in trouble for it. The man grabbed Dakota and pulled him off of him. He placed the child on the ground. "You can't just climb on people." The man frowned when he saw Dakota reaching for the weird toy in his hands again. The man held it further out of his reach. "And you absolutely can't touch this. You can't be trusted with this as an adult, let alone as a child."
Dakota whimpered and soon started crying. He wanted the toy, and the mean man wasn't giving it to him. This confused and upset him, because Dakota was always being told that he needed to share his things or he couldn't use them at all, but this man wasn't sharing his toy. How come the man kept on doing things that Dakota was always told not to do?
The man was not happy that he was crying. Most grown ups weren't. He didn't react the same way that other grown ups did though. The mean man didn't yell at him to be quiet, and he definitely didn't try to offer comfort. The man didn't really do anything. He just...wasn't happy.
"I don't have time for this." The man said. His voice wasn't as loud as it had been before, but it was still pretty mean. The man took his toy and pointed it at Dakota, which made the boy think that he was finally going to give it to him. Dakota reached up for the toy again, but he still couldn't reach it.
"I'm trying to turn you back to normal and you're still trying to stop me?" The man gave him a look that wasn't quite angry, but almost was. The then got a funny look on his face. Not the kind of funny look that made Dakota giggle, but the kind of funny look that confused him because he didn't know what it meant.
"You and Cavendish mucked up your own assignment, and now you're trying to do the same thing for ours." Dakota didn't think that he liked the way that the mean man was looking at him. "You can't stop us if you're a child though, and there's nothing stopping me from just turning you back when we're done, is there?"
"No!" Dakota had no idea what the man was saying.
The man smiled, but it wasn't a happy, nice smile. "Exactly." The mean man lowered the toy and Dakota once again reached out to grab it, but the toy got pulled out of his reach again. The man got that not quite angry look on his face again. "I can't waste my time babysitting you though."
"No." Dakota said, because he didn't like babysitters. They were mean. They always got mad at him for reasons that he didn't understand. Dakota's eyes widened in shock when the weird, mean man picked him up. Sometimes Dakota was okay with being held by adults, even ones that he didn't know, but this man held him in a weird way and the boy didn't like it. Dakota struggled and tried to get out of the man's grasp, but he wasn't letting go.
Dakota's struggling was reckless and a little out of control. In his desperation to try to get away from the man Dakota accidentally hit his arms against his sunglasses. The first hit knocked them askew without him even noticing it, and the second hit knocked them clean off his face and right onto the ground.
"No!" Dakota yelped and immediately shut his eyes tight and put his hands over them. "Mine!" He needed his sunglasses back. But he couldn't reach them from here, and he couldn't even see where they were without opening his eyes, which was the last thing that he wanted to do.
Dakota felt the mean man bend down and assumed that he was grabbing his sunglasses for him. "Mine." Dakota said again as he hoped that the man would give them back to him.
"You really care about these things, don't you?" The mean man asked in a weird voice. "How about we make a deal, Dakota? If you behave yourself, then maybe I'll give these back to you when I'm done with my job. Okay?"
"No!" Dakota all but screamed. "Mine!" He needed his sunglasses. Why wasn't the mean man giving them back to him?
"Would you stop screaming?" The man said, which were words that Dakota was used to hearing. As usual though, he didn't fully listen to them. In Dakota's experience, if you wanted someone to listen to you, then you had to be louder than them. It was hard to ignore screams and cries, and most grown ups would do anything to get him to stop.
Not this one though.
"Dakota, I told you that I would give these back to you if you behaved yourself, and you're not really doing that right now, are you?" That got Dakota to quiet down with a whimper. He just wanted his sunglasses back. "That's better." Dakota hoped for a moment that he had done good and the man would give him his glasses back. He didn't though.
The man, still holding Dakota in an awkward and uncomfortable way, carried him...somewhere. Because Dakota's eyes were still shut tight he had no idea where the man was taking him, and even if he did look he probably still wouldn't know, because he didn't know where he was in the first place.
After a minute there were some weird noises as the man adjusted his hold on him and, a moment later, set him down on something that was kinda soft. "Stay there." The man said sternly, and Dakota knew that if he didn't listen then he wouldn't ever get his sunglasses back, and he didn't want that. So Dakota didn't move a muscle as he heard the man move away from him.
There was a slamming sound that made Dakota flinch slightly. A few moments later he heard a small click but not quite click sounds, followed by more rustling and then another slam. A second later there was a rumbling sound that made Dakota's seat shake a little, and then it felt like they were moving.
...Oh, he was in a car. But where was the car going?
Dakota felt scared. He didn't like not knowing what was going on. He wanted to know where the mean man was taking him. Dakota slowly brought his hands away from his face and then opened his eyes just enough to be able to see. He immediately regretted it though. WIthout his sunglasses, the world was too bright, and it hurt his eyes.
Dakota whimpered and drew his knees close to his chest. He burrowed his face against his legs and tried to block out all the light. He wasn't very good at it though, and it wasn't long before his eyes and head started to hurt. His head hurt like he had hit it against something really hard. His eyes were worse though. It felt like someone was pressing their fingers into the skin right above his eyes, except the pressure came from inside his head instead of outside.
It hurt a lot, and Dakota had no way of making the pain stop or lessen. All he could do was curl up in the seat, cry as quietly as he could, and hope that the mean man wouldn't get mad at him again.
He just wanted it all to stop.
"Milo, where are we going, again?" Zack asked somewhat anxiously. The three teenagers had been walking around town for nearly an hour and a half.
"The convenience store, I think." Milo answered. It had been an impulsive decision to go to the convenience store, because Milo had suddenly started craving some chips and they hadn't been too far away. With Murphy's Law following them wherever they went, the three had had to backtrack, find an entirely different route, and run away from a pack of escaped guard dogs. By the time things calmed down to a relatively normal pace again, they were further away from the convenience store than they had been when they started, and it probably wouldn't be worth it to try to make their way there again.
"Maybe we should cut our losses now and just go back to your place." Melissa suggested.
"Yes!" Zack said quickly.
"It would probably be sm-wait a second." Milo stopped where he was and tilted his head. "Do you guys hear that?"
Zack and Melissa stopped to and listened carefully to hear what he was talking about. For a moment neither of them could hear anything, but just before Zack was about to tell Milo that he heard it. The sound was muffled, but it very distinctly sounded like a little kid crying.
Melissa had heard it too. "Where's it coming from?" She asked in concern, because they could only see two or three little kids from where they were, and none of them were crying.
Milo listened carefully for a moment and turned his head to the right where there was a parking lot. "Over there, I think." He said.
"You don't think some kid is stuck in one of those cars, do you?" Zack asked worriedly.
"They'd better not be." Melissa said as a brief flash of anger came to her eyes at the thought. "It is extremely dangerous to leave kids or pets in a car."
"Well we'd better go check." Milo grabbed his backpack straps and ran into the parking lot, with Melissa and Zack right behind him. Zack and Melissa quickly checked through the windows of the cars that they passed. Milo just listened carefully and continued to where it got louder. Before too long he stopped in front of a limo.
"I think they're in here." Milo said. He, Zack and Melissa tried to look through the windows, but they were tinted too darkly. They couldn't see anybody, but they could all hear that somebody was in the limo.
"There's definitely somebody in there." Melissa said, her voice dripping with concern and anger. Zack tried to open the door, but it didn't work.
"It's locked." Zack said. "What're we going to do?"
"Hang on," Milo took off his backpack and began looking through it really quickly. "I think I have something in here to...oh, here it is." Milo took something out that looked like it would be useless for this situation, but when he turned to the door he only had to fiddle with it for a few moments before he got it open.
"Wow, Milo." Zack raised an eyebrow. "Where'd you learn how to pick locks?"
"You have no idea how often I've locked things in cars." Milo said as he put his tool back in his backpack and slung it back over his shoulders. "It's a surprisingly useful skill, and, if done right, shouldn't do any damage to the car itself."
Melissa had already pushed past the two boys as they talked and entered the limo. She quickly spotted the kid curled up on the seats, crying so hard that it sounded like his lungs were going to collapse from the effort. He looked about three years old, and after taking one look at his hair and tracksuit Melissa was fairly certain that she recognized him.
"Uh, Milo?" Melissa called out to her friend as she grew more and more confused at the situation. Milo popped his head into the vehicle and Melissa pointed to the crying little boy. "Please tell me that's not Dakota."
Milo's eyes widened. "I think that's Dakota." Milo got all the way into the vehicle and sat down on the seat next to the boy. He gently pulled Dakota onto his lap and started trying to calm him down.
"Dakota?" Zack looked ready to freak out as he joined them. "What's he doing as a little kid again?" Zack looked around. "And where's Cavendish?"
"And why was locked in a limo?" Melissa crossed her arms.
Milo was asking himself these questions too, but there was something else that he was more concerned about. "Guys, I think he's hurt." Milo said. Throughout his life he had heard lots of different kinds of screams and cries. Scared ones, angry ones, excited ones, mildly annoyed ones, and, his least favorite, pain filled ones. This was definitely a pain filled cry, with just a hint of fear.
Milo put his hand on Dakota's back. The poor boy stiffened and began crying even louder. "Hey, it's okay." Milo began to rub his back in a soothing way. "I'm not going to hurt you. I just want to help you."
Thankfully, little Dakota was calmed by his gentle and comforting voice, and he began to calm down, even if it was just a little bit. At least Milo knew that he was listening to him.
"There we go." Milo smiled, even though the kid couldn't see him. "Are you hurt?
"...Uh huh." Dakota nodded with a sniffle.
"Where does it hurt?" Melissa asked as she sat down on Dakota's other side. Zack sat down on the seats across from them.
"Eyes." Dakota whimpered. "Hurts."
"...Can we take a look at your eyes?" Zack asked cautiously. Dakota sharply shook his head and curled himself up even more than before.
"We're trying to help you, Dakota." Milo said. "We can't help if we don't know what's wrong. Can we please see your eyes?"
Dakota hesitated for a minute, but he did slowly lift his head away from where he had all but buried it. Dakota's eyes were still shut tight, but he slowly opened them to a small squint. They were barely open at all, but if Dakota's whimper of pain was anything to go by, it still hurt a lot.
"Is there something in your eyes?" Milo asked.
Dakota nodded. "Light." He said. "Too much. Hurts."
"...the light is hurting your eyes?" Milo asked with confusion.
"Uh huh." Dakota said again as he shut his eyes tight and pushed his palms over them.
"Oh." Melissa's eyes widened in realization. "He has photophobia."
"...A fear or having his picture taken?" Zack raised a dubious eyebrow. Melissa sent him an annoyed look.
"It's not that kind of phobia." Melissa explained. "Photophobia is basically where your eyes are very sensitive to light."
"Well, that would explain why he wears sunglasses all the time." Milo said. He then frowned when he took another look at Dakota's face. "Wait a second. Where are his sunglasses?"
"Gone." Dakota whimpered.
"Gone where?" Zack pressed.
Dakota stiffened. "...mean man."
The teenagers looked at each other. "Are you saying that a mean man took your sunglasses?" Milo asked. Dakota nodded.
"Is this the same guy who left you locked in here by yourself?" Melissa asked. Another nod. "Well, I say we go find this guy."
"I think we should go find Cavendish." Milo said. "He might know what happened, or how to fix this."
"Guys, what if mean man and Cavendish are the same person?" Zack asked worriedly. Milo and Melissa fell silent as they considered the possibility.
"I don't think so." Milo said slowly. He reached into his bag and, after shifting through his things for a moment, pulled out a pair of sunglasses. He put them on Dakota's face. "These are a little big, but they should work fine. Is that better?" Milo asked the boy who was cautiously opening his eyes. Dakota's eyes widened when he saw through the sunglasses, which Milo guessed was a good sign that it dimmed out enough of the dark.
"It's dark." Dakota muttered
"Well, at least we know they work." Zack said. "So, what are we going to do with him?"
"Well, this limo is a time vehicle." Milo remembered that from the pistachio incident. "Whoever owns it has to be around here somewhere, and they probably have that device to reverse this."
"Yeah, and they're probably the ones who did this in the first place." Melissa crossed her arms. "And they locked him in here by himself."
"And probably stole his sunglasses." Zack added.
"We'll just have to be careful then." Still holding little Dakota, Milo stood up.. He and his friends had previously learned that when it came to adults turned kids, it was best to work things out quickly before things went badly. And Milo was hoping to find Cavendish somewhere nearby, because, as far as he knew, the two time travelers were rarely not around each other, so it was a bit concerning that they were apart.
Melissa and Zack didn't look entirely convinced that this was a good plan, but they followed Milo out of the limo anyways. Milo didn't blame them for their doubt, because, honestly, even he wasn't completely convinced that this plan would even work, or that it was even a full plan at all. After all, they were just going to wander around and hope for the best. But Milo had come to realize over the years that, usually, life did a pretty good job at working out in the end.
And life didn't disappoint him this time.
Not five minutes after they left the limo Zack spotted a familiar looking run down, three wheeled vehicle parked on the side of the street. Even from a distance the three of them could see that somebody was sitting in the front seat. It was Cavendish.
Milo grew excited and began to run towards the beat up car. Zack and Melissa beat him there though. It was a little awkward for Milo to run when a three year old Dakota had his face buried in Milo's shoulder.
"Cavendish!" Milo shouted, even though the man had already noticed him coming. "We have a situation here."
Cavendish looked mildly annoyed, like he usually did when Milo was around, but that annoyance soon became shock and concern when he laid eyes on the child in Milo's arms.
"Is that-?" Cavendish trailed off.
"We think it's Dakota." Milo handed the child over to Cavendish, who took him willingly. "We don't know what happened though."
"We found him like this." Melissa said. "He was locked in a limo."
"And he was crying a lot." Zack added. "He says his eyes hurt, and that a mean man took his sunglasses."
"What?" Cavendish's eyes widened further in shock. A moment later though the look in his darkened and he glared down the street where there were two pistachio vendors. "Brick. I knew that something like this was going to happen, but you just had to insist that we split up, didn't you?" Cavendish's question was aimed at the young boy in his arms, but the three teenagers could tell that his anger wasn't towards him.
Cavendish adjusted his hold on Dakota, who did some adjusting himself to keep Milo's sunglasses from falling off. A determined look was on Cavendish's face...well, more determined than usual.
"If you children will excuse me, I need to go and have a few words with one of my...colleagues." Cavendish all but growled his last word as he stormed down the street. Milo, Melissa and Zack all looked at each other before running after him. None of them was completely sure of what was going on, but, clearly, Cavendish did, and they were curious. Plus, they wanted to be there in case things went wrong. Though, with Milo around, that was practically a guarantee.
"Brick!" Cavendish shouted as he neared the pistachio vendors. The man and woman working the stand looked annoyed and frustrated with his presence. "Do you care to tell me what the meaning of this is?"
"Cavendish," The man, Brick, rolled his eyes and glared at Cavendish, who matched the look. "I knew you had to be around here somewhere. And it looks like you found your little partner." Brick almost sounded disappointed by that.
"Uh, actually, we did." Zack said as he, Melissa and Milo stood next to Cavendish.
"We found him locked in your limo." Melissa crossed her arms. "Don't you know how dangerous that is?"
"It hasn't even been half an hour." Brick said defensively. "And I wasn't about to just bring the kid along."
"Well, here's an idea," Cavendish said. "You could have taken your age regressor ray and turned him back!" Cavendish knew that Dakota was reckless, but he wasn't so reckless that he would decide to mess around with the age regressor ray again. He had learned his lesson from the first time.
"He would just try to sabotage our mission." Brick crossed his arms. Not even the smallest bit of regret was in his eyes. "Like you are doing."
"I couldn't care less about your pointless pistachio mission." Cavendish said irritably. That may have been his goal five minutes before, but things change. "All I'm trying to do is get my partner back to normal. So, if you would please, give me the age regressor ray!" Dakota may have stolen it from them, but he had also promised to give it back at the first given opportunity, which had been that day. Dakota may be reckless and impulsive sometimes, but he didn't break promises.
"Too loud." Dakota said loudly as he squirmed in Cavendish's arms. "No fighting."
Cavendish's anger seemed to drain away as he looked at the boy in his arms. He tightened his grip on Dakota protectively and sighed. "At the very least, could you give him back his sunglasses?" Cavendish's tone was quieter.
"Why would I do that?" Brick asked defensively.
"Because if you don't then we'll report you to your boss." Zack said confidently, even though he didn't know much about the bureau of time travel. "Unless you think your boss would be cool with you de-aging your coworker and then mildly torturing him for at least half an hour."
Brick and his partner's eyes widened in shock. "Wait a second, did you just say torture?" Savannah asked.
"If he doesn't have sunglasses than the world looks too bright and it hurts him to look at." Milo explained.
Savannah's eyes narrowed and she glared at her partner in annoyance. She then sighed and turned to Cavendish. "Look, none of us want to be in trouble with Mr. Block, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to finish this assignment, and we'll turn Dakota back to normal as soon as we're done. We won't even tell the boss about how you two have intentionally been trying to sabotage us, as long as you don't tell Mr. Block what Brick did.
Cavendish considered her offer. "I suppose that's fair." He muttered, though he still wasn't completely satisfied. "But, you must return Dakota's sunglasses. Now."
"Done." Savannah glared at her partner until he reluctantly reached into his pocket and brought out Dakota's sunglasses. He carelessly tossed them to Cavendish, who easily caught them. "There, now get out of here and let us do our job." Savannah then turned to her partner. "And as for you-"
Cavendish was not pleased with the situation at all, but he knew that he couldn't complain much about Savannah's compromise. It was fair to both sides, though considering she just wanted to get her job done and didn't want to get in trouble because of something her feelish partner had done, it only made sense.
Cavendish didn't necessarily want to wait for them to finish their assignment before he could get his partner back to normal, especially since he really didn't want them to finish their assignment in the first place. Cavendish was relieved though that Dakota was safe and had his sunglasses back, even if the circumstances weren't ideal.
Besides, Cavendish knew that he didn't have to be around to prevent Brick and Savannah from protecting the pistachios. He just had to make sure that Milo stayed around them.
"Milo, would you mind staying in this general area?" Cavendish asked as he handed Dakota his glasses.
Mine!" Dakota squealed happily when he got his sunglasses back.
Melissa put her hands on her fists. "Yeah, I think those guys deserve some Murphy's Law thrown their way."
Cavendish breathed a sigh of relief and adjusted his grip on Dakota, who had taken to wiggling around excitedly. Cavendish considered putting him down, but he knew that Dakota had a tendency to get tired when he was exposed to too much light. Cavendish knew that any moment now Dakota would tire himself out and fall asleep.
Which would be a relief, because Cavendish didn't want to deal with a hyper three year old Dakota again. He had barely managed it the first time, and he didn't want to see if he could survive a second go. He wouldn't test his luck like that. Especially when they were in the street. Cavendish really didn't want to worry about Dakota running off into the road and getting himself hurt, or worse.
Dakota wasn't exactly an irresponsible person, but he could be very reckless. He didn't always think things through before he acted. It was why Cavendish had been so hesitant to split up, because he couldn't know whether Dakota had done something wrong or was in trouble, and he wouldn't be around to rein him in if things went a little too far
(Cavendish often wondered where Dakota would be without him).
They had gotten lucky that day. Things had gone wrong, but they could have always been worse. Milo might not have had his own pair of sunglasses for Dakota to borrow. The children might not have found Dakota at all, or he could have been seriously injured before they got to him. Cavendish didn't want to think about what could have happened. He had to focus on preventing anything else from happening.
Cavendish knew he couldn't stay around here, or else Brick and Savannah would tell Mr. Block about what they had been trying to do, and Cavendish knew that they wouldn't be able to prevent them from protecting the pistachios if they were fired.
Besides, he didn't trust Brick anywhere near young Dakota. Not after what had happened that day. Cavendish would keep an eye on Dakota elsewhere, and he would trust Murphy's Law to take care of Brick and Savannah's mission. Cavendish really didn't like giving up control, but when things like this happened there really wasn't much else he could do.
Really, the only thing that Cavendish could do in this situation was keep Dakota safe until he could get him back to normal. He knew that taking care of a child was exhausting, especially when that child was Dakota, but Cavendish wasn't too concerned about it. After all, it was Dakota, and if there was one thing that Cavendish had done a lot of it was keeping an eye on Dakota.
And, Cavendish noticed with relief, it would be fairly simple to keep an eye on child Dakota, who was actually starting to nod off. If things went well, they would have him back to normal before he even woke up. In the meantime though, Cavendish would appreciate the quiet.
He didn't get to experience quiet very often...it was nicer than he remembered it being. Still, Cavendish was determined to get Dakota back to normal as soon as possible. Because as loud and annoying as Dakota could be at times, they were still partners, and Cavendish didn't think that he would want it any other way. He had grown so used to having Dakota around, that even just the thought of him not being there was a cause for concern.
Cavendish may occasionally wonder what Dakota would do if he wasn't around to ground him. But just as often he wondered what he would do if Dakota wasn't around to...just be Dakota. They were complete opposites, but they balanced each other out, and that was what made them such good partners.
(Not that Cavendish would ever admit this to Dakota. The younger man had a large enough head as it was).
A/N: Geez, this last part just did not want to be written. I hate it when that happens, when I'm three quarters of the way done with writing something, and then my motivation just plummets. I feel like the quality of my writing suffers, and that it doesn't make much sense, and I begin second judging my own story idea. But, I pressed through with writing it, because it was almost done anyways.
On another note, as you probably noticed, I did write Dakota with Heterochromia. I love the idea of his eyes being two different colors, but I went for a different approach this time around. There are just so many reasons why Dakota constantly wears those tinted glasses, and photophobia just happened to be the one that I decided to go with. And it just so happened to work really well with me writing about young Dakota.
I don't know if anybody else has noticed this, but I've watched Backward to School Night about five times, and after about the second or third viewing I noticed that Dakota looks the same age as the other kids, but he acts younger. His vocabulary consists of three words, he climbs Cavendish like a tree, and, most strange to me, he kept putting the age regressor ray in his mouth and just sucked/chewed on it. I'm not exactly a child expert, but this doesn't seem like normal behavior for a three year old. I even asked my mom (who, unlike me, has actually had kids) and she said that this kind of behavior in children usually wears off when they're a year and a half old. So Dakota acts a year to a year and a half younger than his child self apparently is.
There are multiple reasons for this, but I was leaning more towards autism when I was writing this. Which would also explain the photophobia, as it is sometimes a symptom of autism. I'm not necessarily saying that this is how I always have and always will see Dakota, but in the setting of this story it's what's going on.