#Daph just let them do whatever everyone felt was necessary because she didn't know any better herself

[belethlegwen]

The Faerie Spell - Chp 3

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Words: 2831

Summary: Cal comes over for a smoke break to try and offer their friend some companionship, Daphne continues to struggle with being treated as small as she is.

Even the lightest taps on the window pane sounded like something trying to come through the side of the house. Normally by this many hours into a shift I’d have gotten used to everything being stupidly loud, but I didn’t exactly have a lot of conversation happening around me today and that was more my fault than anyone else’s. The sound startled me so badly that I shot straight upright and stared at the window, my eyes landing on the massive brown ones of Cal.

Their face lit up with that lopsided, cocky grin they always had when they saw me, their shaggy dark-blonde hair poking out at odd angles from beneath their beanie. I had been coasting in the zone of too-pissed-to-sleep-but-too-tired-to-be-awake for stars-only-know how long, so all I could do was blink as they held up a grocery bag presumably full of snacks in one hand and their weird wooden pipe in the other.

I stood, trying to fix my messy tangle of a bun and my PJs a little as I heard the familiar sound of Cal jostling the window in the way they knew would bypass the broken lock on it. I’m positive that if today hadn’t been such a shitshow already that I would’ve been happy to see them, but right now I was just tired and still cranky.

“Shmoke break~” they sang once it was open, the pipe clamped between their teeth, smoke already drifting up from the bowl.

“Not in the house!” I shouted, making my way down the stairs to the desk again. “If Sheri smells it I’m gonna have to listen to her bitching all--”

“Wha-?” Cal asked, trying to push themselves up and through the window, brow furrowed as they looked at me. They hauled the pipe out with a hand as they dangled partially in the house. “D’you forget your stones?”

“Yes!” I yelled, gesturing toward my pajamas, Cal taking a second to look me up and down. “DON’T. SMOKE. IN. HERE.”

“Oh, right, fuck,” Cal muttered, shoving themselves back out the window and putting the pipe on the ground before shoving themselves back through the window again. “You need PJ pants with pockets,” they said through grunts as they slipped onto the floor awkwardly with a couple of loud, desk-shaking thuds.

I waited until they were back up to eye-level at least, a hand slamming onto the desk near me and making me jump as they pulled themselves from the floor. Cal wasn’t the most… delicate or considerate about my condition, but honestly that was better than Gem acting like I was liable to shatter under the lightest surprise movement. “They do, I don’t like having to move the stones too much between outfit changes because I’m worried I’ll forget them,” I called to them.

“Worked well for you today,” they groaned, trying to take deep breaths but only able to do so much with their binder on. 

“Fuck off,” I snapped, flipping them the bird.

“No, you,” they quipped back, flipping me one in return next to that cocky grin. 

Ok, maybe I was alright with Cal being here today.

“Where do you keep ‘em?” They asked, pulling themselves up to stand and shifting the desk just a little, making me stumble beyond their notice while their eyes scanned the long studio-bedroom situation I had going on. “Ah.”

I didn’t have time to tell them not to bother before they walked off to my bedside table and poked at them, picking up the turquoise one and heading back to me with it. “I can’t exactly carry it with me!” I called up to them as they came back, frowning up as my neck craned.

“Just sit on it while we’re outside, I don’t wanna spend the whole time guessing what you’re saying out there,” they said, reaching for me.

“I don’t wanna go outsi--” I tried to shout but it was no use, Cal’s thumb and fingers pinched around my torso and lifted me, knocking the wind out of me enough that the words just died in my throat.

“Naw, c’mon,” they said, their voice like thunder as they swung up toward their chest and dropped me in the breast pocket of their coat. “Smoke break.”

The motions of being in the pocket were always rough, and I hated how routine it had all become. I was fine with it at the start because hands and being lifted and carried were terrifying; at least in the pocket I couldn’t see anything, so some of the vertigo was at least negated. Being in Cal’s pocket though was a whole other kind of nightmare as I felt them bend and turn and twist and slide themselves out of the window, my gravity changing in a dozen different ways. I swung and slammed and bounced off of their chest a number of times; this was a coat they wore even when they weren’t wearing the binder, so there was a notable amount of slack.

“Use your whole hand,” I tried to request bitterly as the pinching-fingers came back into the pocket to pluck me out, Cal having walked to one of the big wooden lounge-chairs on the deck and plopped into it. They gave me a curious look before tipping their hand and letting me go enough that I dropped into their palm, the breath getting knocked out of me again.

“This better?” They asked, their fingers and thumb coiling around me and pinning my arms to my sides. Their grip was at least loose enough that I could wiggle my arms free and throw them over the top, pinning the digits to me as I looked at them.

“Less rough next time, but yeah,” I managed to get out once my lungs were working right again. I didn’t wanna look at them yet, especially this close to their face. Faces were so terrifying from this size, and while I had gotten a little more used to it over the last six times this had happened, I just didn’t want to have the conversation about how having to look at it while I was literally dangling in their hand was a bit too much. Plus, Cal had a bad habit of staring when I was zonked like this.

“Sorry bro,” Cal said, and I felt myself shifting just slightly as they obviously gave me another full look over. My cheeks were red and my stomach was doing backflips, and whether it was because they noticed I was uncomfortable or they had just sated their curiosity again, they plopped me down on the armrest of the lounge and started to re-light the pipe. “So Sher’s bein’ a pill again today, huh?” They asked with the pipe between their teeth.

“I tried to talk to them about the--” I started, before Cal held up a finger and reached into one of their other pockets, plopping down my blue stone next to me and pointing at it. I sighed and took a seat, rubbing it with a hand and muttering the activation word. “I tried to talk to them about the vacuuming,” I said, my voice amplifying to a regular speaking volume for Cal as they nodded approvingly. “Didn’t go great.”

“Of course it wasn’t gonna go great,” Cal muttered before taking a long drag off of the pipe, holding the smoke in their lungs and wiping off the mouthpiece with the bottom of their shirt before holding it out to me. I took it in my hands and frowned, trying to hold the thing steady as Cal swayed. I didn’t even know if I was up for a hit right now, but arguing about it was just going to make me more tired. “The bitch hates cleaning. She always has. You were already doing almost all of it before this shit happened.”

I pressed the bottom of my face to the mouthpiece; Cal saved this pipe for me because it was the only thing either of us had that I could manage at my size. I sucked in a huge breath, the long stem still full of smoke after Cal’s pull, and let it out slowly through my nose as I let the pipe go back to them. “Yeah but I didn’t really care before--”

“Bullshit~” they sang again. Despite the patchy, stubbly beard they had finally started to grow, Cal could still hit those Soprano notes when they wanted. Not even falsetto-- just like they hadn’t gone through either of their puberties at all. “You did and I know you did. It just wasn’t worth the fight before now.” 

“Yeah well,” I admitted bitterly while they took another long pull, “maybe if I hadn’t waited so long it wouldn’t have been so much of a fight.”

“Naaaaw,” Cal breathed out on the exhale, smirking at their own smoke plume. The pipe swung back to me and I tried my best to not get hit by the stem as they turned it without looking. “It would’ve been. Y’knew that, s’why you didn’t bother before now. I’m just pissed on your account that the bitch got to pretend she won because your flitty friend decided to go hit the town early.”

“She didn’t pretend she won--” I started back after finally managing to take a pull, feeling a little bad about shit-talking Sher so much.

“You’re not in the other group chat,” Cal said bluntly, sinking into the chair and actually turning their eyes to me with a frown. “I imagine I’m about to be uninvited, too, but yeah she absolutely thought she won today and jumped in to vent that you had been giving her a shit time about vacuuming when she ‘has to take care of you all the time now’.”

“Are you fucking serious?” I shouted, my own voice rumbling so loud around me through the amplifying stone that it vibrated me a bit closer down the armrest toward Cal’s elbow. Some birds in the trees near the apartment took off, getting both of our attentions for different reasons, just emphasizing how pissed I was.

“I told her off. Gem was trying to do her centrist-horseshit but was also on your side, for whatever that’s worth, and Mak hasn’t been in the chats yet at all today but I assume he’s gonna be on your side as well despite him also being a lazy sack of shit when it comes to cleaning.”

“Mak lives alone,” I said pointedly, waving for the pipe again while Cal seemed to gaze off into the treetops in search of more birds. “He’s allowed to be a fuckin’ slob on his own time.”

“Yeah that’s his angle on it,” Cal agreed, swinging the pipe back around and smirking as they watched me take too big a hit and start coughing. They passed the pipe to their other hand and pressed the free one to my back, tapping me annoyingly with a finger. I didn’t wanna bother telling them it wasn’t a help; I knew what they were trying to do and the thought was nice enough, I guess, for the situation. “When me and he were roomin’ though he did put in the effort, he just bitched the entire time to the point that I gave him like, two or three jobs to do weekly and did the rest myself just to save on the fuckin’ headaches, y’know?”

“I always forget you two were roomies,” I said with a sigh as the coughing dissipated. Cal wobbled the lip of the pipe in front of me tauntingly, wordlessly asking if I wanted another hit and I shoved the thing away while they laughed.

“That’s by my request,” Cal said, taking a look at the bowl and reaching into their pocket for the cap to smother it and save whatever was left for later. “Told him to think of me as a whole new person now, and it’s to the point when he’s tellin’ stories about his roommates I never realize he’s talking about me half the time anymore.”

“...I don’t think I’m cut out for roommates,” I said after a minute, trying to duck away from Cal’s idle fingers as they poked at me.

“Shit time to figure that out,” they said, raising an eyebrow at me skeptically. “You’re not gonna be able--”

“I fucking know, Cal,” I snapped, their hands leaping into the air defensively with a massive sigh that washed over me. “I’m very fucking aware I’m not gonna be able to live without a permanent babysitter, thanks.”

“...If it makes you feel any better, I egged that witch’s house over the weekend.”

They had offered the information so casually I could’ve sworn it was a joke. I turned to face them a bit better, sliding the stone back up the armrest to get an easier angle as I kicked back a few steps with my feet. “It would make me feel better if it happened, yeah, but--”

Cal’s cocky grin came back and they reached into their pocket for their phone.

“No,” I breathed, brow furrowing. “Cal you didn’t actually throw eggs at a witch’s house, please tell me you didn’t.”

“‘Course I fuckin’ did,” Cal laughed, pulling up the photos and spinning the phone around to show me.

“You’re a fucking lunatic,” I laughed, shaking my head and realizing how dizzy the weed was already making me. “You’re going to get a curse put on you if she finds out.”

“Yeah that’s a pretty big if, though,” Cal said, shoving the phone back in their pocket and resting their head back against the chair, closing their eyes. “...’sides, figured you’d be ok with a curse buddy.”

“Wouldn’t mind it if y’all had a bit better idea how this feels, I won’t lie,” I said with a bitter shrug.

“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” Cal replied, adjusting themself and shaking the seat so much I had to brace my feet on the wood to stop from slipping.

I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that if they had any idea they wouldn’t grab me like they do, or they’d probably quiet down at least a bit when they were talking. I couldn’t dredge up the energy to tell them that if they had any clue what this was like they’d be trying to find a better witch or someone to help break curses set by fae, instead of just egging the house of the one that ran me out of her shop when I came in to ask for help.

I couldn’t bring myself to do any of that, so I just sat on my lumpy rock in the sunlight of the apartment’s open backyard and tried not to look into the windows of my neighbours in the row-house styled building. At the risk of being evicted, they hadn’t been informed there was a walking curse in the complex yet, though we had some excuses lined up if any of them ever got wind of it.

“I brought twinkies,” Cal said, almost apologetically, and I blinked before turning my eyes back to them. I didn’t realize they had been staring again, or that I had been staring off for stars-only-know how long. “You want?”

“Yeah,” I said, offering a tired smirk. “It cool if we eat it inside though? I don’t want the neighbours or the birds seeing me.”

“Can I kick it on your bed?” Cal asked, fingers already moving to grab me again. I made a face, ready to just suck up the pinching, when they seemed to remember the request from earlier and wrapped their whole hand around me. A bit too high-- my whole back end felt like it was dangling-- but it was just a short ride to the pocket so I didn’t bother to say anything.

“Yeah you might as well. I’ll just bitch if there are crumbs in it when I finally get to use it again.”

“I’d tell you to just use it now, but I imagine you’re still pretty triggered from the first time,” Cal offered as they pushed themselves out of the seat and grabbed their things, heading back to the window.

“It was twenty minutes at least,” I called, Cal dropping the stone into the pocket next to me. “I felt like I was going to suffocate. It was the worst nightmare I had ever had… up until I found my way out.”

Cal laughed, sliding through the window on their back awkwardly. “I’m not sayin’ it probably wasn’t terrifying or whatever,” they said, plucking me and the stone out of their pocket and plopping us both onto the bedside table next to the other enchanted rocks before they tossed themselves onto my mattress and blankets. “...But it’s a double. Could you imagine if you had a Queen?”

“I don’t wanna think about it,” I muttered, sitting down on the rock again. “Pass me a twinkie and let’s talk about something else.”

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