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reborrowing · 1 year ago

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siblings and secrets (Stranger Swap)

For GT July - Secret

I live on the west coast! I have 15 minutes left of day three!!

Hollow secretly checks in on his outcast younger sibling when he has the chance and finds out Val has been keeping a much more dangerous, exotic secret from the local borrower colony. Word Count: ~1800 content warning for fear and hand stabbing, I guess. Stranger Swap main post

Hollow snuck along the attic rafters to the far east end of the apartment complex. Whenever he was supposed to go out and meet with traders, he got up early to run this errand first. He didn’t think anyone had ever noticed. Val certainly hadn’t, even though it was Val that he was checking on.

He dropped down and followed a pipe to the cavity overhanging the kitchen. It was a comfortably cramped space, kept at a good temperature by an overhead duct and had easy access to both a water pipe and the most important space in the inner apartment. Some day he or Chai or someone was going to have to talk to Val about installing real security, but for today he just took advantage of how easy it was to get into the loft.

He slowed as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. Val had left an electric tea light flickering on the table. A cap full of crushed mint gave a pleasant smell to an otherwise musty space. The pantry shelves were satisfactory, though the contents were bland. No perishables, nothing too fresh, and not particularly balanced, but Hollow wasn’t concerned with any of that. He wasn’t trying to ensure his sibling was living in luxury, he just wanted to make sure the runt was keeping themself alive.

In the next room over, Hollow had expected to find his sibling curled up in the corner, given the early evening hour but the bed was empty. His hackles rose as he swept through the loft more carefully, checking every nook a nervous borrower might choose to curl up in. He found Val’s bag slung over a cork stool and a knotted harness hanging on the wall, but no Val.

He tried to convince himself that it was nothing to worry about. Val didn’t need to be home, they were free to live life on their own weird, daytime schedule if they wanted. But Hollow had a gut feeling that he couldn’t ignore, that something was wrong. It had been just a few months since Val had said they’d been discovered, hadn’t it? Those tenants had left, but what if it had happened again? Or worse.

Hollow followed a stapled ladder down into the apartment and squeezed through a hole carved into the back of the cupboard. The sounds of the apartment grew less muffled and he paused. Someone was home, he could hear them chattering and moving around. They weren’t close, but they were here. It would be smart to simply come back later once the lights were off. But he was already here on the wrong side of the complex, and he had other plans for the night that he couldn’t put off without someone asking what he was up to. And he’d gone dumber places to do dumber things, really.

He picked a careful path through the cupboard. It was such a tightly-packed mess that it was difficult to maneuver through, even at Hollow’s size. He wove around haphazardly balanced packages towards the door panel and forcefully shoved his shoulder against it to get the latch to disengage.

He froze as the conversation in the apartment picked up again. The voices were still distorted, but they were much louder. A large shadow passed over the thin line of light where he’d cracked the cupboard open and Hollow drew back. How had he missed the footsteps drawing so close?

“Seriously, it’s not that hard, I promise. Kids do it, you’ll be fine” a woman said.

“You bought a fire extinguisher after last time.”

Hollow’s stomach sank. That was Val. He didn’t know what they were talking about, but that was Val’s voice. They didn’t sound afraid or hurt, at least, but that only mattered so much. Too much of anything was dangerous. And humans were too much of everything. Even their kindness could smother and crush.

Not to mention that the colony would probably kick them out of the complex if they found out Val was breaking the main rules again.

The woman with Val laughed.

“I should’ve had one before! But besides, this is basically just boiling water, you can’t mess it up. It’s barely even cooking,” the woman said.

“You said that about the eggs.”

“And now I’ve had second thoughts about how much you’ve never had to know, and came up with something easier.”

A set of fingers dug behind the door just below and Hollow staggered back into the mess of the cupboard. He dove into an empty space as light flooded into the compartment. In his rush, he tripped over a bag of chocolate chips, sending a box overhead teetering and crashing into the newly opened space where the human stood.

Val grunted and Hollow automatically leaned forward with concern. It wasn’t enough to get himself seen, but thought he could steal a look at the tenant and what the human might be doing with his sister. At first, all he saw was a downturned head of curls.

“Sorry! I keep meaning to clean that out, especially since…well, you,” the woman said.

“It’s fine,” Val sighed.

The face tilted back up to scan the cupboard and Hollow jerked backwards in horror. It wasn’t just the idea of being discovered, he was still sure that he hadn’t been seen. It was…His thoughts kept shattering before they could finish the very impossible thought.

He knew that face. He recognized it. Or, flashes of it, because it refused to add it up to a whole. The dark curls, the angle of their jaw, the tawny skin, the unusual golden eyes. Their mothers’ nose, the same shape as Hollow’s own.

As he edged further into the shadows, his elbow rubbed against the same bag he’d tripped over a few seconds ago. The rustling sound was soft, barely noticeable. Those golden eyes flicked right towards it. Right towards Hollow. His heart skipped a beat as they focused on him and flashed with recognition, then shock. The two stared at each other without moving for several long seconds.

“Hollow?” whispered the thing that looked like Val.

This wasn’t happening, this wasn’t possible.

This wasn’t worth getting caught over.

Whatever had actually happened to Val, whatever this thing was, Hollow would deal with it at another time. He bolted and if something wasn’t between him and his escape, he didn’t care to think about it. He went much quicker now that he didn’t care about knocking things over or making noise.

“Wait!”

Humans’ speed was always surprising, given their size, and Hollow could swear that this thing was even faster. They hopped onto the counter for better reach. Massive shadows danced overhead as they tore apart the contents of the cupboard.

“Woah, hey! What’s hollow? What are you doing?” asked the woman he’d heard earlier.

“There’s someone in there,” they answered as they dragged away a plastic bin that had been just in front of Hollow.

Hollow stopped suddenly, his stomach twisting with dread. They weren’t ripping away pieces of cover at random. They knew where Hollow was going. They knew more about how to get back into the walls of this unit better than Hollow did and they had a good headstart getting to them.

“Hollow, I won’t hurt you. It’s just me,” Val said softly.

They could hardly be just anything if they had figured out how to turn themself into a human, let alone just Val. He didn’t want to know what someone would have to do to become such a monster.

“You know them?” the woman asked.

“We’re siblings,” Val said.

There was a pause.

“They live here too?” the woman asked, sounding guarded.

“Not here-here, no, but closeby. I don’t know what he’s doing here,” Val said. “Hollow, could you please at least answer me? Can we talk?”

Several seconds passed. Hollow felt his throat drying out and swelling shut, he couldn’t imagine what he was supposed to say. The two weren’t close anymore. He didn’t know how he was supposed to reconcile his memory and mental image of timid, fawning Val with the giant standing in the apartment. He grit his teeth and tensed to try and keep himself from trembling.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” Val said.

Too late, Hollow realized that it was a warning.

His stomach lurched as Val’s fingers wrapped around the box behind him. He panicked at the idea of being exposed, at being grabbed again, and rammed the blade of his prosthetic into the nearest finger.

“Ow! I’m not grabbing you, shithead, just the—you don’t have to stab me!” they snapped.

They flinched backwards, yanking Hollow off the stable floor of the shelf before he could manage to free his blade. He smacked against the side of the box as Val knocked it over. He landed against a paper bag that showered him in a cloud of sugar for a few dazed seconds. Val—it wasn’t fair—runty Val had just flung them across a cupboard. Reflexively. His chest tightened as he pushed himself back up to run while they were dealing with their hand.

“He stabbed you? Are you okay? Is he okay? Oh my god, you’re bleeding!”

“No kidding!” they hissed.

Hollow risked a glance back. Val pressed on the wound with their other hand, graciously giving him the space he needed to make it to the hole in the wall and escape. Val took a breath and squeezed their eyes shut for a moment to keep their temper down.

“I’m fine,” they said. “And he’s…shit, stop! Hollow!”

There was a long, defenseless moment when Val could’ve easily grabbed him. That crack in the wall was narrow and it took time to squirm through. His heart hammered in anticipation as he fully expected to feel something clamp down around his legs and pull him back into the light. He flopped safely onto unfinished wood. His heart kept racing as half-expected those massive fingers to try to pry their way into the walls.

He didn’t sit around to wait for that to happen and got up to sprint for the ladder. He stopped to catch his breath once he reached the loft and ended up sinking to the floor in tears as he tried to make sense of what just happened. He had just wanted to make sure Val was safe. He wasn't sure how to answer that now.

The wall of the loft shuddered as something on the other side tapped against the drywall. Hollow slithered in the opposite direction.

Of course.

Of course Val knew where their own damn loft was.

“Look, I don’t know what you're doing here, if you're spying on me or... I get it if you don't want to talk with me like this. Just, don’t tell anyone about this. Please,” Val said.

As if anyone would believe me.

#g/t #gtjuly #gtjuly2023 #giant/tiny #gt #giant tiny #gt writing #my writing #stranger swap #oc: hollow #oc: val #oc: phoebe #hhhhh I feel way more anxious posting writing I'm not sure about than visual art I'm not sure about #which is wild because art almost always gets put in front of more eyes #also I hate posting stuff at this time but I want to keep up the streak whoops

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