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[gt-brainrot]

a strange appearance, part six

Stranger Swap Masterpost | ao3 First | Prev | Next

word count: ~2900 cws: fear, angst, hunger, reference to past abuse, reference to last chapter's mention of human-ish experimentation (nothing new)

Phoebe

Phoebe yelped as the ground slipped out from underneath her without warning. Or, table, as it were. She reached the floor sooner than she should have, and her leg banged against the edge of the coffee table and stayed there. She caught her breath and sat up and was briefly confused by what she saw. Her apartment, the front room, exactly as it had been the night before.

“Oww,” she said loudly, but the shock was probably worse than the impact.

It was over.

She rubbed at the fresh sore spot on the back of her head and briefly considered how hard she’d hit it. None of the morning was possible and it would be far from the first time Phoebe had fallen asleep in front of a screen instead of in her bed. Again, the idea presented itself: the whole thing had been an unwanted dream.

But she looked down (down, thank god!) to the coffee table and there was her phone, still open to an obscure journal article. And there was the sheet scrap she’d tied around herself like the world's tiniest toga. Dull pain all over assured her that she’d done more than lay around on the couch. She caught a flash of movement out of the corner of her eye as something darted out from underneath a sweatshirt left empty on the couch.

Val, she realized.

She didn’t have time yet to marvel. They scrambled across the couch cushion much faster than she’d expected, and then kept going. She only got a glance at their face, but they were obviously panicking again. They clawed their way up the back of the couch frantically, but had nowhere back there to go but a jump to the hard floor on the other side.

“Woah, woah, stop! Hey!” she cried.

Phoebe lurched unsteadily to catch them before they could fall. They flailed for a second, trying to find a new handhold in the upholstery, then fell limp against her grasping fingers. She cupped her other hand around them and pulled them away from the couch.

It went without saying, but they were so small. It was almost easier to understand the scale looking at them than what she’d already gone through this morning. Val didn’t even fill up her palm. How many things their size had she lost, she wondered, running a finger along the length of their stringy tail. It twitched as she reached the end, tickling her with its trail of fluff, and then jerked away to curl up around Val’s leg. She took a sharp breath.

How many things their size had she broken?

She realized that Val definitely hadn’t meant to hurt her earlier because would be all too easy to accidentally hurt them now. A sudden twitch would send them to the floor, a tight squeeze might break bones. She angled her palm to try and make a more comfortable seat and wondered if that was even possible.

Val looked past her hand as if sizing up the fall, until she moved to block their jump. They shook and hunched forward, hugging their knees, as if they were trying to make themself even smaller. Or maybe just trying to keep warm? They’d been wearing a thick sweatshirt all morning and now they were back to the nude. Phoebe wondered if their size gave them trouble with temperature. She hadn't felt too cold but...they weren't human.

“I’m sorry,” they whispered.

“For what? You’re good, I just don’t want you to hurt yourself. I can put you down on the table here if you’ve calmed down a bit,” she said.

She didn’t want to let go of them. She wanted to turn them over and over in her hands like a puzzle until she had more answers. But she was curious, not heartless: she could wait.

“This is normal for you, right? Like nothing else happened?” she asked. They finally looked up to meet her gaze, their expression uncertain.

“Y-yeah, yes. And please, put me down. Please. I’ll be good.”

Val’s tone made her uneasy. There was a sudden bitter taste in her mouth as she re-contextualized the scars down their torso. The size of them, the symmetry of the scratches. That burn on their shoulder looked horribly circular and unnatural, not something likely to have come about accidentally. She felt sick realizing they probably hadn’t been speaking hypothetically about being hurt if a human discovered them. Her disgust must have slipped out onto her face and been misinterpreted because their heart rate suddenly spiked and they leaned forward.

“C-calm, I mean! I’ll sit still. Please,” Val’s voice cracked and wavered.

Phoebe bit her tongue and slowly knelt down to let them on the table. She was still hovering way above them and wasn’t sure how to fix that without laying down which seemed just as uncomfortable. Val dropped almost immediately dropped into a seated position and sat with a tense, unnaturally straight posture and waited for her to say something.

"Dude, it's okay, I'm not gonna hurt you," she said.

She didn’t like this. She’d never been especially good with uncomfortable feelings, whether they were her own or someone else’s. She tried to joke about things being so normal again to the tiny person sitting on a coaster and it didn’t help. She laughed nervously and after a pause just long enough that even she was sure it was still uncomfortable, Val joined her. She didn’t know what else to do and mumbled something about going to get dressed, pointing out the scrap she’d been wearing so they could do the same if they wanted.

Val flinched again, the fur on their tail bristling as the shadow of her gesture approached but otherwise they were nearly perfectly still. Her cheeks pinked as she realized they may not want to wrap up in some old, trashy rag a near-stranger had just been wearing. She decided she should just get herself dressed first and shifted uncomfortably, debating whether or not she should leave them here or if that would strand them on the table. Was she supposed to cut up another outfit to be a good host? Finally, Val stood and shuffled to the fraying purple scrap.

“What are you going to with me?” they asked quietly.

“What?”

“I thought it would be nice to know before you… I don’t know. Sorry. I can just get dressed,” they muttered.

“No, what do you mean? I’m not gonna do anything to you,” Phoebe said.

They bristled and turned to consider her with eyes wide enough that she could see the iris properly, even from here. They looked bewildered and disbelieving. That sick feeling in Phoebe’s stomach grew, along with a pressing need to defend herself—was it that unbelievable? Were their experiences so universally awful that they thought humans were all just as cruel? The disgust must have slipped out onto her face because they recoiled and slunk back to grab the scrap.

“No, I’m sorry, no, it’s just I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with you. Or, no, I’m not doing anything with you, that’s not what I meant, I mean—I’m not going to hurt you or kick you out or anything. I’ve never had a guest that’s…like you before. That I knew of anyway.”

Val managed a smile at that, if only for a second.

“I—it’s not that I think you want to hurt me or anything but…after…I don’t think anyone would blame you for…you could, you know?” they said, voice soft.

“If you mean like, for earlier, I’m not mad. Like, all these bruises don’t feel great but you were having a bad morning, I get it. Kinda. But I don’t want to get payback, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she said. It was enough to get them to relax at least a hair.

“I—we probably should get dressed, like you said. My um, my clothes are under your dresser from this morning, if you don’t mind giving me a lift over there. O-or you could bring them here, if you don’t want to—it’s awkward, now I know,” they said with an empty laugh.

“What would you prefer?” Phoebe asked and they startled.

“Oh! Um, either is fine, thank you. Whatever’s easier for you.”

Phoebe was skeptical of that, given how skittish they’d been, but held out a hand for them. She didn’t want to dig around on the floor, she had spent enough time down there today. Val cringed at first as she reached for them, then loosened as they looked at her open, waiting palm. They bundled up the sheet scrap to cover their chest before looking up at her with a shy smile.

“Thanks. Um, for not grabbing me again. And…just, thank you for not being mad,” they said.

Phoebe nodded uncomfortably. She’d only been trying to keep them from hurting themself, had she hurt them instead? They didn’t look injured. Her hand wavered, but they bounded easily up her fingers and sat on the cushion of her palm with a lightness that took her breath away. They had an easy balance even on her uneven flesh and settled comfortably against her fingers as if they had been made to fit there.

They were so impossibly small and spectacularly delicate-looking. Their eyes were big and wet and they were altogether cute in the same way as a kitten, if she pretended she didn’t know about those brutal scars. She brushed her thumb through their hair and felt their ear twitch as her fingertip passed it by. The fur on the end of their tail tickled her palm as—also like a cat—they thumped it against her hand in apparent annoyance until she sheepishly apologized.

“It’s alright, you’re not the first. I already knew I’m pretty,” Val said.

Phoebe rolled her eyes and stood up. They set a hand on her thumb as if for balance, little claws resting in the ridges of her fingerprint, but she could tell they didn’t need the support—there was no weight in the gesture. Unlike her, they were used to this. They barely swayed as she started to walk.

“Hey, so, before we uh, turned back, we were talking about other people like you? You said you were a borrower, was it?” she asked.

“R-right, I was… we were looking at those… right. Yeah, borrower. I don’t know if that’s the ‘right’ word, scientifically. It’s like…you’re human but call yourself mankind? I think there’s another word,” they mumbled.

“Like what?”

They took a deep breath and crossed their arms like they were hugging themself. She could feel the tension ripple down their back. She waited for them to decide on how much they were willing to share.

“I always just say borrower, but, um…I think it also starts with b, maybe. Not sprite, though. I’ve never heard that.”

“I’ve never heard sprite describe anything real, just fantasy creatures. I guess I’ve never heard of anything like you being real either,” Phoebe said.

This time Val muttered too quietly for her to hear and gestured towards the dresser. They must be with questioning again. She set them down on the floor and shuffled backwards to the closet, hyperaware of how heavy her footsteps were, before turning around to grab her own clothes and offer them some privacy in process.

By the time she turned back around, Val had vanished. She called out and looked under and around the dresser for where they could have hidden themself, but they were gone.

-

Val

Val spent what felt like an eternity tucked against the side of the mattress waiting for Phoebe to give up and leave. There was a terrifying minute where they chose not to breathe as the shadow beneath them deepened and Phoebe searched in the dusty space below the bed. She sighed when all she could find was her own clutter. They were glad they were themself again but they wanted this whole thing to be done and over. They worried it never would be.

They should come out, they knew that. It was awful and rude to run off and disappear without a word of goodby, worse to skulk around where they didn’t belong. Even if she really wasn’t upset with them already, she’d have every right to be furious when she found them. And it was a matter of when, not if, unless they moved away from her apartment entirely. She knew now and Val was a mediocre borrower on their best days. She’d catch them eventually. Their gut told them it would have been better to stay and cooperate and just hope they could convince her not to use them as a lab rat.

They had only run because the colony was so close—running was the right thing to do by borrower standards, or the least wrong anyway. If they could convince the colony that it hadn’t been their fault… Better yet, they could try to cover it up like it had never even happened. They’d never be able to do that if they stayed with her.

All Val wanted was a place in the colony where they could pick up some specialist trade and never had to leave the walls again. They were more learned than most borrowers after all, entirely literate, they could be useful. They didn’t mind tedious busywork. They didn’t mind being ordered around. They were tired of being fending for themself alone like this.

“I guess you went home. Not sure how I feel about you skulking around my room, but... alright. I’d still like to talk about… well, everything, really, if you’re willing to come back sometime,” Phoebe said eventually.

Talk. Would she really be willing to leave it at talk?

They let another few minutes pass after she left the room before rushing for the nearest escape. The climb home was long and laborious without their gear and once they made it, they collapsed onto their little sponge bed and stayed there for days.

-

Val listlessly re-arranged their shelf in a futile search for a forgotten stash of food. There hadn’t been anything there yesterday, or the day before, but the day before that they had found a little pile of sunflower seeds they didn’t remember taking. Those had only lasted so long.

They hadn’t left their loft since they made it back home. They’d barely left their bed. They had lost track of how many days had passed—at least a week. They should have been packing. They should have packed, past tense. They should be gone. They should have sent word to the colony in the center of the complex that one of the tenants knew, (that maybe everyone knew), but how could they defend themself this time—the truth was too unbelievable to be an excuse. And how many times could they mess this up before Parsley and the rest of their council told Val that they were no longer allowed to live in the complex?

The idea terrified them more than starving did. They weren’t built to survive outside, not with the weather and the cold and about five hungry, violent creatures for every one Val had already heard of. No, they’d much rather starve than get banished to the wild to be eaten.

But it was getting late. The unit downstairs had pets and the one next door had another outcast rumored to have been exiled for his violent tendencies. Val didn’t have the energy to navigate around either. They barely had the energy to trudge around their own loft. If they didn’t do something now, this was going to get even worse and then they would die.

They wrapped themself in another layer of flannel and glared at the floor. As if in mockery, the kitchen below them smelled amazing. It was so close. Hot, seasoned food. They could almost see it through the drywall, simmering on the stove.

Muffled music bounced through the walls, occasionally joined by Phoebe's off-key alto. They listened when she spoke up now, in case she was saying something that they needed to know. Several times, she had addressed them directly as if they were in the room with her. She wanted to see them again.

She said she didn’t mind if they stayed.

They squeezed their eyes closed and rolled deeper into their bedding. Bad idea.

Of course she said didn’t mind if they stayed. She was more than curious, prying. She had let them go, but Val had felt the hesitation. The slight jerk of her hand when they went to leave, the desire to keep them for herself to study. Val shuddered at the thought of those photos and pulled their blankets tighter around themself.

Maybe some ants would make their way into the loft, now that Val had choked down the last of the herbs they’d been using as pest deterrents. Their empty stomach lurched in distaste that roiled into another pang of hunger. They had never liked their mother’s awful outdoorsy, survivalist eats. God, they envied how long a human could go without food—what good did the ability even serve, when they had all the food they could want?

Maybe they should risk the cabinet once they were sure Phoebe was away from the kitchen. Maybe she hadn’t set any traps. Maybe they could get lucky again. Maybe it wouldn’t so bad.

-

taglist: @da3dm @whumpsday @gt-daboss

(To be added/removed from the taglist please comment, ask, or message, I’ll forget if it’s just in the tags of a reblog!)

[gt-brainrot]

I MEAN THEY

borrowers when they finally return the stuff they took or something idk i never read the book

[gt-brainrot]

Yeah besides, we only borrow little bits of stuff at a time!

borrowers when they finally return the stuff they took or something idk i never read the book

[gt-brainrot]

Oh no we are dangerously close to insertion stuff, veer away, veer away. Can't ask what they'd look like being licked from head to toe either, that's the same problem, uhhhhh. Tiny bondage maybe? Or at least restraining him might be easy enough right, let's do that.

literally like 5 minutes before i got this ask i was telling dawn abt how Tana definitely pinned Lux down by the wings like butterfly display board to threaten him at some point

[gt-brainrot]

Likewise here, thought I haven't actually posted in like 6 months lol

If you post g/t or follow the g/t tag please interact with this post in someway so I can follow you. I need to know all of the peeps so I can collect them like a g/t infinity gauntlet

[gt-brainrot]

holds u gently. mwah

*through tears of joy*

Can anyone else see this? 🥺♥️

I'd wear a hoodie backwards and let you sleep in the hood 💞

[gt-brainrot]

bowl bath lol

[gt-brainrot]

I need to run a survey really quick. This isn't serious, but I need people to cooperate and not cheat for the sake of it because it'll skew the results.

Imagine you wake up tomorrow and you realize you (and everyone else in the world) can turn into an animal (And back into a human) at will.

Please go to this link to see what animal it will be for you:

(this is random, and yes, you only get one, no redos)

With this in mind, please reply to the following questions as truthfully as possible based on your current situation. (Not an ideal fantasy one.)

[gt-brainrot]

Been thinking a lot about minigiants lately, not because that size difference is particularly my style(I'm usually tiny in my daydreams), but because there have been a couple moments recently that have made me feel very much like a minigiant.

(Mildly sexual content below the cut)

So I'm a lady on the taller side (like 6'4") and I was recently making out with this 5'2" dude at a party. We were going at it for a while, but eventually he stops and says "hey I need water can you *put me down*"

And I realize. That I've unconsciously picked up this man so he could better reach my face. And have been holding him there for several minutes.

Not a bridal carry either, I had put my forearm behind his knees and he was just sort of sitting on my arm like a ventriloquist dummy.

So anyway yeah I got kind of flustered and went to find an open surface to put him down on and the whole time I was just thinking like *no way no way no fucking way* and I've mostly just been thinking that since.

Anyway yeah

[gt-brainrot]

Ok so I saw someone post a bit ago (I don't remember who, sorry) about borrowers having a medieval level of medicine, with no painkillers, disinfectants, etc. And I think that's really cool but also I've been thinking about like. A borrower doctor that collects pills and scrapes off scaled-down doses for their patients. Like what if you were a sick borrower and you went to the doctor's house with a fever and they scraped a bit of ibuprofen out of a broken-in-half pill, mixed it with a drop or two of liquid tylenol from a broken gel cap and sent you on your way. Anyway idk I just think it'd be neat.

[gt-brainrot]

moooom, râmă's drawing fairy lux comics agaaaain

[gt-brainrot]

small musicians who don't post their lyrics online anywhere. Why do you hate me

[gt-brainrot]

[gt-brainrot]

curses and confessions, part 2 (Stranger Swap)

prev | Stranger Swap masterpost

somehow Hollow's deal with the witch doesn't work out quite how he wanted word count: ~2k

Phoebe

After Phoebe woke up for the third time that night, she decided it was time to give up on sleeping. It was an absurd hour to be awake, but it was her understanding that it was technically daytime to some people. She shoved herself out of bed to look for that gorgeous sunrise the morning people go on about and sighed when she saw the sky was still dark enough for stars, however faintly.

“Phoebe?”

She jumped at the small voice before she realized Val was on her pillow. She was glad she had happened to roll in the opposite direction getting out of bed because it hadn’t occurred to her to look. Val didn’t usually stick around long once she was asleep to avoid getting themselves pinned somewhere awkward (again).

“Morning, Val. Kinda early for you to be up, isn’t it? Or late, I guess?” she said.

“Late, yeah. It’s not a problem, is it?”

“Mm, little weird that you were watching me sleep.”

Phoebe gave them an amused smile as she slid back onto the bed. They didn’t meet her gaze, only adjusted their balance as her weight pulled them forward. They were busy weaving the edge of a torn flannel scrap back together. Everything about their body language screamed tense, from the folded ears to the furrowed brow to the twitch in their tail. 

“Teasing,” she said.

“Oh. Right. I—Sorry. But it’s fine if I stay for awhile? A few days, maybe?” 

She reached toward them instead of answering, and the movement made them finally look up. They leaned against her finger, shoulders relaxing ever so slightly. They sighed as she ran her thumb over their hair.

“Is something wrong?” she asked. 

“I’m fine,” they said hesitantly.

“Actually fine, or just because you like saying that?”

They looked back down at the scrap in their lap and picked at the edge. Several seconds passed before they answered.

“It’s just that it’s starting to get cold outside. It’s easy to stay warm in here, with the heater and everything,” they said. 

Phoebe frowned. Val kept secrets like knives in their chest and trying to pry just left them with open wounds. She wished they would recognize that it hurt them just as bad to keep them there and not say anything. They trusted her with their life, enough to sit in her palms and sleep on her desk while she studied, it couldn’t be that much worse to trust her with their feelings, could it?

But it was 5:30 in the morning and Phoebe was hardly in the right mind for a delicate conversation.

“If it’s alright with you. But I can go, if—” Val stammered.

“No, no, please, stay. Even without the temperature, it’s got to be more comfortable here than in the walls. You always come back with a weird musty smell. Stay however long you need to, you’re going to be here anyway,” Phoebe said.

Val thanked her with a soft laugh and gestured for a lift. They tucked their flannel thing through their belt as they stood. Their hand lingered possessively on the fabric as the two discussed the logistics of what exactly Val meant when they said they wanted to stay over.

They didn’t want to stay in anything they’d set up for Phoebe during one of their size trades, which all felt too exposed for Val’s taste. They would rather stay hidden than be able to call out for help. They insisted that they weren’t just trying to spend more time with her, either—but they were at Phoebe’s side much more often than in the drawer she had haphazardly cleared out for them. The second morning, they half suggested she take them with her to campus over breakfast before stuffing their face with a handful of scrambled egg.

“Okay, seriously, what’s your deal? What’s going on in my wall right now?”

“Nothing that’ll bother you,” they said, following it up with a muttered probably—which was not the most reassuring reassurance she’d ever received.

When she pressed, they rolled their eyes and apologized for mentioning anything. She couldn’t tell if this was their usual borrower neurosis at work or if she should be worried too. 

Until she came home. They obviously hadn’t slept, which was concerning. Phoebe missing a night of sleep was hardly worth mentioning. She was always missing sleep here and there and just upped her caffeine to compensate. But Val slept like a cat—darling purring included—with long, frequent naps throughout the day and started slowing down around noon if they went without.

They weren’t themself after a day without sleep. They were almost clumsy as they crossed the kitchen island to greet her. They barely jumped when she dropped her keys. And they were interrupted by a yawning fit before they could even get out a hello. Something had kept them up.

“Hey, you’re sure you’re alright? You don’t look it,” she said. 

“I just didn’t sleep,” they said, looking down to pick at their sleeve. “Um, I was thinking if I’m going to be like your roommate, out here all the time, it would be easier if I was uh…day-turnal? Is that the word? You know, not nocturnal.”

“Is that healthy?”

“...it won’t kill me.”

“Not for the first time, I am begging you to set the bar higher than that. You should take better care of yourself,” Phoebe sighed. 

“Maybe when survival stops taking up so much of my time,” they muttered.

“It’s been easier with me, hasn’t it?” she asked.

Putting aside today’s sleep deprivation, Val looked healthier than when she’d first met them, less bony and more smiling. They were less afraid, even if they were still overly preoccupied with how they were failing to impress their nearby colony. They had learned how to relax.

“Mm. Mostly.”

She held out her hand to offer them a ride and they flopped forward onto their palm. They chatted for awhile as she put away her things, and as she started to make dinner, they scuttled up her hoodie sleeve to free up her second hand. They settled on her shoulder and slumped against her neck after a few minutes of quiet. She smiled and tucked them into her hood. They shifted suddenly, startled, then sighed and curled up to drift back off to sleep. and they cozied up against her neck in the collar of her hoodie. 

Yeah, they’re struggling to survive alright.

She let them settle into position so they wouldn’t fall while she made dinner. They were incredibly still and light that she could almost forget they were there, aside from when she shifted in a way that brushed them against her bare skin. Normally it was flattering to have them fall asleep against her, knowing how terrified they’d been of her at first, but today it was just concerning.

Her eyes kept wandering towards the soffit over the cabinets. She had a rough idea of where Val’s home was up there, after watching them try to talk with their sibling last month, but that was about all she knew about their living quarters. When they traded sizes, she was in no shape to climb through the dark maze that would lead her there. And she’d have to take a hammer to the drywall to find it like this, which she wasn’t quite willing to do in a rental unit. This wasn’t the first time she had wondered just what was back there but it was the first time her stomach twisted so sharply at that particular unknown. 

—

Hollow

Hollow was furious. Rain practically steamed off his back as he stormed through the muddy garden back to Glenwood Court. The witch was worse than useless. The winged asshole had made him wait for hours while he tended to other folks seeking help, only to tell Hollow nothing about what Val had gotten themself into. 

The witch had rambled on for quite some time, talking about auras and signatures and essence and dreams and a dozen other terms Hollow didn’t understand, only to summarize that he had no idea what Val had gotten themself into or who had dragged them there. Rather, he had said that no one had done this for Val. The spell was Val’s doing. 

The suggestion was terrifying and absurd. When would Val have had time to learn magic? When they were locked in that girl’s cage? When they were half-dead with fever? While struggling to survive with only half the skills they needed? 

Ely had pulled out a plastic lens to show off his discovery, then retrieved an armful of things he’d borrowed from Val. He proudly said there was only one signature-whatever on them, as if that meant anything, and gestured for Hollow to see for himself.

Hollow saw red as he took in the sight of the collection and stormed, but not before without snatching up the collection. Ely had no fucking right to these things. It wasn’t borrowing if it was something the last owner still needed, especially if you could live without it. It wasn’t borrowing if the owner would notice your findings were gone. 

Hollow didn’t recognize everything Ely had stolen, but he could tell it was important. A sturdy hook, several worn glass beads, a handful of wax, and a torn scrap of flannel that Hollow did recognize as old and precious. There’s no way Val wouldn’t notice this stuff missing. And Ely wasn’t going to take it back, he’d just let it all turn to dust in that rat nest he had in his shed now that it had served its purpose. So Hollow was going to do so instead.

Probably.

He started to doubt himself once he squeezed his way back into the cool, dry wall. It would be so much easier to keep heading west to make his way home and go to bed for the day

But the witch had given him one useful piece of information. Good news, even, theoretically. Whatever magic Hollow had seen Val using wasn’t permanent—Val had been asleep in bed when the witch’s associate had arrived to raid the place, not human. So they might even be home now. Awake. Hollow could, as the witch had suggested, talk to them himself. 

He stood near the entrance to Val’s loft for a long while to work up the nerve to go inside or let his resolve fall apart completely. He hadn’t checked in on them at all since last month, when they’d been…not normal. He’d been avoiding the entirety of the east wing as much as he could. 

He grit his teeth and dropped in.

The same electric candle still flickered on the table, casting dancing shadows over a complete mess. Not the disheveled hoard that most borrowers kept and certainly not the tidy shelves that Hollow had come to expect from Val. Things had been thrown around in a hurry. Hollow’s fur bristled. It was quiet, with no sound but the water flowing through one of the pipes overhead.

“Val? You home?” he whispered.

They weren’t. Hollow chewed his lip. He was worrying about nothing, probably. He should just set Val’s things on their bed and go back to his own life. Val would come home 

Except Hollow hardly believed there was any such thing as a borrower worrying too much. 

Ely was a big guy, near six inches tall. It would have been entirely reasonable for Val to abandon their nest if they’d been awake when the witch broke in. They would have had to defend it themself, since the colony had kept them in exile in the east wing and obviously hadn’t been willing to do that, if Ely had thought they slept through the whole thing. 

They could’ve run anywhere, but Hollow had a sick feeling that they’d leave the walls and hope the host protected them. The whole reason they weren’t allowed into the colony was because Sage believed they had a dangerous fondness for humans—a rumor Hollow had done nothing to quash to maintain his own reputation. Maybe the rumor was true after all. That host had to have noticed them at some point, if they had magicked themself up to her scale. But that didn’t mean she would like them. 

Hollow took a deep breath and crept back down into the cupboard. It might be nice to not make the runt’s life worse, for once.

-

taglist: @da3dm @gt-daboss @whumpsday

[gt-brainrot]

curses and confession, part 1 (Stranger Swap)

okayyy this has gotten past 6k and I really want to post so I'm just gonna slice it up since my chapters are usually ~2k anyways!

next | Stranger Swap masterpost Hollow deals with a witch after having an unprecedented close call while checking in on his sibling (probably read that first if you havent!) word count: ~1.8k contains: angst, fear, survivor’s guilt, self-loathing

Hollow

The property behind Glenwood Court apartments had an old, dilapidated shed that the owner mostly used for storage, when they remembered it exists at all. Amid all their junk and forgotten landscaping tools lived an unusual little man named Ely, though most who knew of him referred to him as the garden witch. 

He was a borrower by most metrics: small, secretive, and prone to hoarding any trinkets left unattended. He had a tail and the same sharp hearing you would expect a borrower to have. But he was also quite visibly something Other. Ostentatious, absolutely out of line with a borrower's instinctual pull towards the shadows. He had a love of light and glitter that accentuated the pair of iridescent wings that hung limply down his back. And the tallest borrower he’d ever met had still only been at eye level with his chest.

Most borrowers were afraid of him. Of course they were, they were such a naturally skittish people. But they had good reason to come visit him anyways. Ely was a miracle worker. Something out of a children’s story. A magician. A witch.

He had clients come from all over the neighborhood, maybe even further corners of the city, because he made trades no one else could. The last of your rice for a cloak you lost a decade ago. A secret for a pinch of luck exactly when you needed it most. Give up a warm enough memory and never go cold again. Odd trades for small impossibilities. The prices didn’t always make sense up front, but they always worked out in the end. He didn’t give out anything for free, Hollow had seen that much. 

She watched with a fascinated sort of disgust as the witch molded a stranger’s words into physical paste with a practiced hand. The stranger walked off with a handful of dust and a smile they tried to swallow when they noticed someone was looking.

The witch called Hollow forward. She swallowed nervously and took a seat on a hackysack across from the small giant. The shed was silent for a few seconds as Hollow tried to remember what it was she had planned on saying. 

“You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” the witch said through a thoughtful expression

“Ah, yeah. I–a couple times,” she said. Chai had dragged him here for a sleep aid during the pregnancy, and again shortly after Sunny was born for a sleep alternative.

“I almost don’t recognize you without the piebald. Are they alright?”

“Xe’s fine, I’m not here for…xe doesn’t know I’m here,” Hollow said.

The witch raised a brow as his lips bent into an impish smirk. Hollow tensed as she leaned forward like some housewife gathering gossip. 

“Making trouble, are we? Or are we planning a surprise? I promise I’m quite good at either, for the right price,” he said.

“It’s nothing to do with xem, I just had some questions. About magic. Just questions, I don’t need you to cast…it’s about something I saw happen to someone else. Um, my sibling. Val? I wanted to know, how…did you trade with them?”

The witch drummed his fingers contemplatively against his work table in a quick rhythm, then shook his head. He didn’t remember anyone by that name.

Hollow bit her lip as he worried about where else magic might come from, but he wasn’t entirely surprised. The shed was next door and Val had never exactly been the adventurous sort. Not that Hollow knew about, anyway. She could hardly imagine them climbing through the fence. Although lately, every time she tried to imagine much of anything about her sibling, she fell back into nightmares about Val’s hands punching through the colony walls and burying her in rubble or…or worse. 

“Then, do you know where else they could’ve found magic? Or, however you say that. Bargained for it,” Hollow said.

“Other magic? There’s plenty, if you know how to look. I can’t say I know of many others in the area with my level of expertise, but I can ask around. What is it you think you saw?”

“I know what I saw, I’m not stupid.” Hollow said tersely. She glanced around to be sure there was no one who might overhear. “They were huge. Human.”

“Human,” the witch echoed doubtfully. Several seconds passed as the witch considered Hollow’s claim. 

“You saw this? Were they…solid, do you know? Real?”

“They threw me across the cupboard, so yeah, I’d say they were real,” Hollow scoffed.

“How curious.”

The witch smiled and golden wire bangles clattered down his wrist as he abruptly stood up to jump up onto the next shelf. His wings flared for a second, catching the candlelight, even though the jump onto the bracket was low enough that Hollow could’ve easily cleared it. She fidgeted with the frayed edge of his sleeve, not sure if she was supposed to follow. She didn’t really want to see the witch’s full collection of eccentricities.

There was a cluster of thumps overhead as Ely fumbled with whatever it was he was doing. It sounded like a bag full of pebbles, or maybe marbles. Some nonsense. Hollow hated believing in this shit, that someone could just break reality by waving their hands just wrong. There was enough to fear in the world without worrying about finding magic lurking in the shadows beside her.

The witch came back down a minute later, holding a book of scrap paper with messy stitches for binding. It was about half as tall as Hollow was, large enough to be awkward in even the witch’s hands. He sat on the floor and flipped through it, too fast for Hollow to try reading along, though she noticed there were a lot of symbols that weren't a part the alphabet she did know. A minute passed and Ely hmmed and shook his head, evidently there was nothing useful there for him either. 

“Did your sibling say anything about what had happened?”

Hollow fidgeted with her climbing floss. She felt the witch staring at him even without looking up. 

“I didn’t ask. We…didn’t talk. I just ran when they saw me. And then they…that was when they threw me. I wasn’t there long,” she said.

“When was this, anyway? You went and saw your sibling without speaking to them?” 

Hollow hadn’t spoken with Val since she had abandoned them—10 years, give or take. Even when Ritos had shown up with Val limping along behind him, Hollow had only been able to stare. They were a ghost back then and a monster now. What was she supposed to say?

Sorry I left you with her, but I was sure she was going to kill me. Sorry I didn’t come back, but I figured you’d be dead. I’m sorry I didn’t do more for you.

Please don’t hurt me. I’m sorry.

“I came here for answers, not to be questioned,” she said stiffly.

“Patience, dear. I don’t know any magic like what you’ve described, and wouldn’t it be nice if I didn’t waste time finding you answers you don’t even want?”

“What does it matter whether or not I talked to them?”

The witch took a seat beside her as if they were two close friends instead of near strangers. Hollow flinched as one of Ely’s long fingers tilted her chin so the two were making eye contact. Unnatural. Everything about this man was unnatural.

“What does it matter? If you’re not on speaking terms with your sibling, what does it matter what magics they play with in their free time? Why are the answers so important that you’ll come out and deal with me?”

“It’s dangerous. Them, I mean, or…if they’re h—if they can pass themself off as human like that, they could come after the colony just like any real human. I don’t need to explain why that’s a problem, do I?”

“Fear? Then why waste time coming to me for answers? Your council has its ways to deal with threats, doesn’t it? Even humans,” Ely said. 

“I don’t know if I want them…dealt with. I don’t know where they’d even go or…”

“So what do you want from me?” the witch asked.

“Answers. I want to know what’s going on,” Hollow said stubbornly. 

“Yes, and I don’t have your answers on hand. How I go about finding them depends on why you want them. It will be a lot more work if you’re looking to imitate whatever spell they’ve used.”

Hollow’s face flushed—she’d thought about it. She assumed everyone imagined being human now and then, even if they didn’t talk about it. Who wouldn’t want to know what the world really looked like from human eyes? And Hollow had a list of giants she’d love to confront face-to-face if given the chance: that girl, the leafblower asshole, the gardener, the dog owner across the street, the miniature maker…but it was a daydream. If this sort of thing was real, then dreaming about that sort of violence could invite it. She didn’t really want to fight every other giant that had ever inconvenienced her, even if she could do it without getting hurt. Aggression was their game. 

“I just want to know what happened.”

Ely tilted his head. He looked unsatisfied, like a cat whose prey managed to get out of reach. Hollow looked back down at her lap and took a breath. She didn’t talk about this. She tried not to think about it. There was no good to come of it, just crushed feelings and guilt.

“And…I, yeah, I worry about Val, too. I’m afraid of what they might have gotten themself into. I want to know if they’re…okay. It’s hardly a sin that I care about my sibling, is it?”

It felt like a sin. How dare she? After everything she had failed to do, how dare she claim to care? She’d abandoned them to a horrible fate and then lied about it so no one would find out what she’d done.

“Maybe this was a mistake,” Hollow muttered. 

Ely rubbed her back and for a split second, Hollow felt like a child getting pulled into her mother’s lap after a bad day. And then the overlarge borrower inhaled deeply, almost dreamily, and Hollow pulled away.

“I do love a good confession,” Ely sighed, “Even when the truth is so...plain. You’d likely be better going back and talking to Val yourself, but I’ll see what I can find out, without harming your sibling. Is this agreeable?”

“What do you want from me in exchange?”

Ely smiled, toothy as any predator. Hollow stood up to put at least a few centimeters of distance between them. 

“Don’t worry about payment. I enjoy an excuse to research with my kin and…this has been even more pleasant. I should have some sort of answer for you after the full moon, but you’re welcome to return any time if you need anything else.”

Hollow shook the witch’s hand to seal the deal, then hurried off the shelf. She didn’t want to spend a second more than necessary in that wretched shed.

~

taglist: @da3dm @whumpsday

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hououhuhg my god i love them sm

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whoever made the decision to make umpires wear cameras... you are a legend

this is genuinely the funniest thing i've ever seen