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ravetillyoucry · 5 months ago

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PUPARIA

Chapter 17 - Absentee

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The dark, uncharted corner's of Hosah's mind once served to be quite comforting, but even now, the sense of familiarity in his dream he'd always found himself back in had began to slip. As the plot thickened, so did the miles of dense and viscous mud that pulled him down and kept him in place, soon he'd be unable to move completely, it was just a matter of when. And when that happened, he was sure to suffocate under the weight of his own deep rooted mental struggle that even he couldn't reach or understand in the depths of his sleep.

The shifter awoke with a start, gasping for air that had been there the whole time, as his mind and soul had once again connected with his physical form, reaching the blinding light in the sky which was consciousness. It was just a shame he'd happened to have been rustled back to life in the belly of the night, surely now being unable to fall back asleep after years of struggling in his dream's time, although just a few hours in the world he resided in.

To Hosah's surprise, the man laid next to him was also awake, and staring at him with wide eyes and a flushed face, his reading glasses having slipped down to the tip of his annoyingly perfect straight nose.

"Bad dream?" He asked, turning over and leaning down onto the shifter's level.

The three inch tall figure rustled between the various sheets and blankets sat breathless for a few seconds before being able to respond accordingly, "Not necessarily, just, knocked the wind out of me."

"Watching you shrink in your sleep in real time is so surreal." Teddy spoke without really considering what the shifter had to say about his previous question.

All Hosah could think to say was, "How long have you been awake?", as the bedside lamp remained on as it did when he'd first fallen asleep hours ago.

"Oh, I haven't slept yet." The giant said these kinds of things so casually, you wouldn't think it were a real health concern if tone was the only thing to go off of.

Then again, Hosah was similar in that right. They could both worry about eachother as long as they neglected the ability to worry about themselves first, a nice balance.

Quiescence like this had become a reoccurring theme in the shifter's life, in a world that moved so fast and attacked him so viciously, it was nice to find a safe haven in the ornately decorated apartment. At first, he found it garish and tacky, but he'd come to appreciate every single object that Teddy held onto so dearly. Soon, they'd probably have to do a little clear out as the Hosah got all of his things officially moved in, but for now, he could enjoy all of the clutter, even if it annoyed him at times.

Teddy turned to lay on his stomach, his face leaning against his folded arms as he edged down the bed which was already too small for him, just so he could be at eye level with the shrunken man that sat beside him.

"You should go back to sleep." The giant put on a tired voice, but Hosah knew he wouldn't also be going back to bed even if the shifter decided to.

Instead, he shrugged and stood to his full, minute size, "I'm awake now. And it's not like you're drifting off anytime soon." Hosah leant forward with his arms crossed, his eyes squinting in the dark as Teddy's form blocked all light from the lamp beside them, "You should read to me. You're always reading."

"Hmm," Teddy hummed, his smile poking out from underneath his bare arms, "I don't think you'd like it; it's not a story or anything. Trying to learn greek."

"Jesus christ," The shifter sighed, "You know enough languages, you're so greedy for.. Knowledge."

"That's a good thing! Everyone should be greedy when it comes to learning, get with the times, we have all this information right in-front of us, the New York public library is one of the biggest in the world," Hosah wasn't really listening to what exactly the giant was ranting about, but he enjoyed the sound of his voice nonetheless, his accent poking through with his melodic intonation, almost acting like a lullaby to the already sleepy shifter.

"Keep talking, I might be able to fall back asleep," He said as he climbed his way up the giant's arm, who'd now turned to lay on his back again, making his way into the space between the collarbones.

The vibrations from Teddy's contracting diaphragm as he laughed proved to be extremely satisfying, shaking through the shifters whole body, feeling every hum rattle his innards, "What, am I boring you?"

"Mm," Hosah lay flat against the exposed skin multiple shades lighter than his own, "Don't stop, it's nice,"

"Okay," The giant whispered, a hand inching closer until it coincidentally fell right over the sprawled out shifter, a finger stroking up and down the protruding spine almost as rhythmically as his speech, "Tell me about the dream you had,"

God, where should he even start. "I have the same one every time I shrink in my sleep. It's like.. I don't even know. My body freezes up and my blood freezes, it's like being mummified whilst still being alive or something."

"Sounds more like a nightmare." Teddy commented, the movement of his hand stopping, his grip around the shifter's waist tightening just slightly.

Suddenly, Hosah didn't really want to talk about it anymore. It always made him think of his uncle, despite the lack of connection between the two, whenever he was sleeping he always felt like his soul was only half of himself, his unconscious form being partially the man that came before him, like twins that were conjoined at the hip, two minds fighting for control over one body.

His dad always told him how much they looked alike. The few photos he had of his brother, Hosah would confuse them for his own. Even when looking in the mirror, he'd see glimpses of the man in the pictures, in the corner of his eye when he wasn't really paying too much attention. Before it scared him, he didn't particularly believe in ghosts or any sort of supernatural entities, but there were times where he truly thought there was a wandering soul fighting for his bodily power. But now, the thought was more comforting than anything, so much so in fact that the shifter found himself addressing his uncle when monologuing in his head, or even just when speaking to himself out loud, expecting a response from someone that was never there in the first place.

".. Hosah? Are you asleep?" The giant whispered, his voice gentle and velvety on the ears, although the humming of his chest beneath the shrunken figure he addressed was anything but soft, shaking him to his core.

He debated not saying anything, but in the end, Hosah decided to just tell the truth, "No, I'm just thinking."

The room fell into an expectant silence, the shifter holding his breath as he tried to fight the unusual urge to carry on and verbalise what exactly he was thinking about.

"..What's the date?" Hosah said in a sigh.

"Um," Teddy sat up, instinctively holding the shifter to his chest as he did so, and checked his phone, "September twenty ninth.. Why?"

"That's right. It's the anniversary of the day my uncle was declared dead. Twenty eight years." He spoke quietly, almost being completely unheard if the giant hadn't trained his ears to pick up on the, close to, silent voice by now. "..He'd probably been dead a while before everyone decided he wouldn't be coming back, but, you know."

The finger that once rested perfectly in the space between the shifter's neck and upper back moved to ruffle the hair on his head, "I'm sorry. Were you close?"

Hosah wished he had a glass of water or something to spit out for dramatic effect, "Do I look older than twenty eight?!" He choked.

"No- wait," The hand from underneath the shifter moved frantically, his shrunken form now up close to the giant's face as he laid sprawled out in the cupped palm, "I didn't hear the last part of what you said properly,"

Hosah laughed as the warm breath ruffled through his hair, raising a hand to just barely touch the bridge of the giant's nose, "Sure, sure, It's your birthday soon anyway, you'll be the old one."

"Oh, god, right," Teddy's smile dropped slightly, his eyes lingering off into the distance.

The shifter sat up onto his knees, his palm now able to fully rest on the face in front of him, "What, do you not like your birthday?"

"Well, I don't dislike it," The giant exhaled sharply, "I've just never really celebrated, it's a lot of pressure, I feel like this it's the one day I have to do something and I have to have the most fun possible, then I get stressed out about it and end up not doing anything at all."

Hosah wasn't really sure how he could fix everything, how he could make it all better, but god would he try. "What would you want to do?" He asked.

The prospect of doing anything he'd like for one day was one that brought the light back into Teddy's expression, putting that 'up-to-no-good' smile right back onto his face.

"Let's go on a date. Like, a real actual date at a nice restaurant or something."

Great. Sounds perfect. Making a public display of his romantic relations was probably the last thing Hosah would ever choose to do himself, but if that's what the giant really truly wanted, who was he to deny him the right to do what he pleased on his birthday of all days. The thought of anyone else knowing how he felt towards Teddy terrified him. Sure, there was the possibility of facing bigotry, which the shifter was far too used to to even consider that aspect to be the worst part, but the real thing that scared him so deeply was the chance that his stalker would target the one thing in the world the shifter actually loved and cherished at this point in time. So far, Teddy hadn't really been mentioned in the countless letters of empty threats made towards his life, but the prospect of the person hellbent on getting him seeing their relationship and deciding to specifically try to destroy it was a thought that kept Hosah awake at night.

Despite all his worries, the shifter just couldn't voice his concerns. He didn't want Teddy to get the wrong idea, it's not that he didn't want people to know about them, not that Hosah wasn't extremely proud of the person he was with, and it would kill him to know that's how the person he loves the most perceives his feelings on the matter.

Instead of saying what he truly felt, the shifter gave his best, most convincing smile, patting the giant's nose as he spoke, "Cool. I'll look into some places we could go, make some reservations, whatever you want," .

The conversation had long shifted from the matter, but even in the seemingly sweet moments, Hosah still thought about his uncle, and what he'd do if given the privilege of living that the shifter currently held, and took for granted. He never knew the man, which made him even more curious to know what he'd do if put into the situations he'd found himself in. But most of all, Hosah wondered if he'd be proud of the person that continued his legacy in the form of taking his name. There was no way to answer these burning questions, but god could he hope the truth would lean one way rather than the other.

-~-

When it came to actually beginning to plan for the occasion, Hosah was completely and utterly stumped. It was clear he didn't go out to eat in the city often for various obvious reasons, as when he actually sat and thought about where exactly he knew to take Teddy, he couldn't name a single place. Now that they were off work for the day, the pair of detectives decided to do some loitering around Manhattan to seek out some potential options for how they would spent the upcoming October nineteenth.

The mall was a new edition to the general area, as far as Hosah knew since he'd never actually cared to really pay much mind to it, and this particularly day seemed perfect to give it a chance, especially since word of an integrated shifter-friendly area had been spreading around like wild fire. The shifter himself had the great pleasure of overhearing plenty down right cruel opinions on the matter, what a waste of money it was, how 'those people' need to just suck it up and control it as if they wouldn't already being doing as such if it were possible. As much as it pained him to just ignore these kinds of people, it was probably the better choice to make, it's not like they're particularly open for discussion or changing their views either way, so Hosah didn't really feel the need to bother himself by entertaining the idea of that possibility, even though he so desperately wanted to be the one to show them the truth, to change their ways, it just wasn't an option, at least not for an actual shifter like himself.

As foretold, Hosah's eyes instantly landed on the various different kids of fencing around the walls, with signs all around telling people of Teddy's height to watch their step, and on the contrary, some images more to his own scale saying that shifters should try walk alongside the walls. Then, his gaze rose, from the space on the giant's shoulder, the whole shifter section was visible. Tiny replicas of identical concourses covered by a thin glass wall. Looking back at the doll house adjacent shopping centre almost made Hosah feel normal sized, despite the lack of actual people utilising the space.

There were many different integrated spaces being put into place for shifters nowadays, with those in power even going as far as to encourage people to live their lives in their small forms as a variety of different shrunken towns were created around different places of the world, despite imminent disaster lingering around every new welcoming space that existed. It had barely been five years since a similar structure was built back nearby his hometown, and some unsupervised serial killer in the making had already come over with a kettle of boiling water in an attempt to kill everyone who dared utilise what little they were given. Hosah was sure he'd be seeing that face again across the table from him in an interrogation room after hearing of the incident on the news.

This, however, seemed to be going swimmingly. Both Teddy and the shifter himself stood, mesmerised by the sight for a moment. He wondered what the giant actually thought of it all, it was something he'd been meaning to ask actually. There were a lot of different things to debate with non-shifters, their stance on whether they even really saw you as human at all being a telling one of how they'd treat you. Of course, he has no worry that Teddy would be that type, given how he'd been with the shifter so far. How he got so lucky, Hosah would never know. Maybe it was to make up for all the terrible things that had been going on, a beacon of light that'd stop

him from just completely giving up.

"You should go check it out." Teddy commented, turning his head toward the shifter, although given his position on the shoulder, neither of them could properly see each other's face, "The, I don't know what it's called, the shifter-space?"

The title the giant had given the size appropriate add on to the mall lightened Hosah's mood, having it being soured by all the memories of how badly these kinds of things usually went despite their good intentions.

"Hm, there are some things I need, I guess.. Okay, yeah, I will check it out." Usually, Hosah didn't bother with any accommodation to his size, preferring to just ignore the fact all together, pretending like it wasn't a big deal to be only slightly bigger than someone's thumb whilst living amongst those that weren't as vertically challenged as himself.

What was on his list again? Right, new clothes, for a start, and maybe some stuff for the apartment if there were any shops like that in the newly built shrunken mall. Lately, all his things hung loose on his body as he'd uncontrollably been losing so much weight. That reminded him, he had another therapists and doctor's appointment coming up later in the week, how fun. It's not like he didn't want to get something nice to wear whilst celebrating Teddy's birthday either way, so it did really seem like things were finally working in his favour after all, he just hoped there weren't some crazy shifter hating folk waiting to run up and cause a scene.

The giant looked around briefly, before quickly and discreetly shuffling his way toward the integrated so called 'shifter space'. The flight of stairs appointed to the section that Hosah would have to hike went up at least six feet, nothing to Teddy as he was already about four inches taller than that, but quite the trek for such tiny legs, surely. It was much easier to let the shrunken man slip down from his hand right where he needed to be, they just needed to time it right when the various employees and security guards weren't hanging around and watching over the area.

Letting Hosah slip down from his palm onto the little balcony and parting ways wasn't going to be easy. His brain felt fuzzy, along with the rest of his body as the giant felt himself almost trembling as he reached his hand out to allow the shifter into his grasp. He'd be fine, surely. They'd be separated for maybe an hour at most, there was security pacing back and forth around the area almost constantly, but he still couldn't help but feel as though he was about to make a terrible mistake upon letting Hosah go, even if it's just for a short while.

Teddy wasn't sure what to do with himself. As the pair parted ways, they both looked back at each other once, but it was Teddy that looked back two times. It reminded him of the greek myths his latin teacher was so interested in, at the time, he was frustrated that Orpheus had gone such a long way just to fail at the last moment, but he could understand where he was coming from now. He wandered aimlessly, despite having supposed to be looking out for places he'd like to eat on his birthday, he couldn't see the positives in anything at the moment. All he could do was worry deeply.

He found himself in a tech store, strolling through the aisles upon aisles of televisions, looking at all the fancy new flatscreens that had began to rapidly grow in popularity. Teddy preferred his big clunky thing, he thought it looked a lot nicer than the sleek and modern design of the LCD systems, as did most 'vintage' things, to be honest. All of the screens were set to the news, in sync as the reporter's voice echoed all around him.

A familiar voice, in fact. And no doubt about it, a familiar face. What a pleasant surprise to see Arthur Emily facing him from the other side of the screen. It would've felt surreal to see someone whose house you were just in a few days ago on the TV if Teddy wasn't already far too used to it given his father's career.

"Well, it's just a waste of money, Emily. I mean, I'm sure many of you can relate, you've been to the hospital and had an insane medical bill, or you've got a relative waiting and rotting away waiting for some kind of aid in the back end of their life, and this is what our taxes go to? You see what I'm saying here? It's ridiculous, we're working American citizens that actually provide for our country and society, what do those shifters do aside from get killed and drain our money on being inclusive toward them?"

Eugh. The political figure spoke as if the people he was arguing against the basic rights for weren't even people at all. And what business did Arthur Emily have being the opposing side to the argument, besides the fact having someone he can have in his hand gets him hard to the point where he's willing to pay for such kind of attention, of course. He was a comedian, a radio host, someone to make the argument for shifter rights look ridiculous, that's what he was. It made him so, uncontrollably frustrated, but even worse, it made him feel guilty. Guilty he held the privilege of being his height.

"It's an infringement of human rights, to not allow a group of people equal chances just because of their genetic makeup, I mean, I thought we learnt this with the equality act, right? We're all just people, shouldn't we be blaming our government for the mess of a world we live in rather than the people that are trying to get by alongside us? It's those in power that are the enemy."

"That's what I'm saying, can we even consider them to be human? The spider you crush just for being in your kitchen doesn't get accommodations in your city, so why should these shifters that are wiped out just as easily?"

"Why not? If we're punishing those whose only crime was to be small, then god, are we overdue for an armageddon."

Yeah, that was about all Teddy needed to hear before he'd gotten a gist of what the debate was over and how it would end. As much as he disliked Arthur Emily, he had to admit, he was on the right side of history with his argument. The prophetic perfect tense used when describing the mortality of shifters was disturbing to say the least. It was a given that they were to die in possibly the most gruesome and horrific ways, so much so that these events weren’t even being reported on, they were just expected, so normal that they might as well have already happened. Maybe that’s what caused such a change in heart in Mr Emily, being face to face with death in the form of his… ‘Friend’.

Meanwhile, Hosah was more struggling to find sign of human life in the small section of various shops that catered to shifters and shifters alone. He’d seen maybe three other shifters in the past twenty minutes, other than the single cashier in the only shop he’d been in. Two teenagers using tech-decks as size appropriate skateboards had passed him by not too long ago as they took pleasure in all the empty, smooth floors they had to ride around on. As annoying as it was, Hosah couldn’t be annoyed. They reminded him too much of himself and his older brother. Oh, how he missed the nineties, being a teenager, and being able to spend all day riding skateboards and loitering, despite how much his parents hated it.

Entering the only other clothing store that seemed to even be open, Hosah told himself it was here or nothing, not that he’d have any alternative choice on the matter anyway. The last shop’s smallest size in men’s was a small, which wouldn’t have been a problem if Hosah wasn’t below average in every way of the word. How even the smallest of clothes hung loosely around his body, even when buttoned all the way up, his chest still poked out, his painfully sharp collarbones drawing in all the attention despite how badly he’d wanted to cover them, to cover his entire body. He wanted to change for the better, so, so badly, but he’d grown used to seeing himself all disheveled and sickly. As embarrassing as it was to exist in this form, it was all he really knew anymore.

There really wasn’t much in Hosah’s preferred style. V-necks and scarves paired together was an insanely popular male fashion trend, but the shifter himself hated the hipster style. Same with skinny jeans and graphic tees, all the shifter wanted was a nice button up, or even a nice woven sweater. There was nothing wrong with dressing like a grandpa, in his eyes. Honestly, what there wasn’t much of was a real point to this all. He’d searched and searched but again, everything just looked far too big to ever fit him comfortably. It was frustrating, not only because everything was grossly up to date with the latest fashion, but because Hosah had been hit with this inexplicable feeling of guilt and disappointment in himself as he felt inadequate and unable to impress Teddy.

The sudden realisation of the feeling brought a hot flush over his entire form, he’d never felt this way about anything, never mind a single person.

If just his clothes were going to cause this much stress, god, please help him on the actual day.

#Ugh finally #Ok #Now I can get to the Juicy parts #Boring ah chapter sorry #How about some Hosah number 1 lore next time 👀#g/t #giant tiny #g/t ocs #gianttiny #giant/tiny #oc hosah #oc teddy #g/t writing #g/t author #Puparia_tag

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