- Text Size +
Story Notes:

This is something that's been in my head since at least a year ago, but i've only started working on it since last month or so. It's really the polar opposite of my last tale, The Virgin, so it's my foray back into very gentle gts stuff, whereas Matt and Amelia and the like have been kinda in between. In fact, the plot/outline was conceived around the same time as The Virgin.

Anyway, my goal with this story was really more an exercise to improve my writing, so it may be slightly different than what I usually write from a literary standpoint.

Anyway. I really had a lot of fun writing this, I love the two characters involved, and I really hope you enjoy reading this.

A big fat thank you to Nostory for his insightful feedback and thoughts on characters and plot.

 

Note: tags will be added accordingly when chapters are added.

Author's Chapter Notes:

Meet Darcy and Andrew

---------------------------------------------

 

 

 

“Look, it was an accident,” the woman said to the tiny man sitting at her plate, “I’m sorry! Won’t you please eat something? I know you like breakfast…”

 

The tiny man in question was cross-legged at the edge of the woman’s breakfast, folding his arms in resolute defiance, not even bothering to look at the portion of bacon and eggs that she had lovingly cut from her own. There was even a sliver of toast to boot.  The woman watched him with a frown as she chewed her last bit of bacon- he was determined, it seemed, to win out this battle of attrition. Silly, she realized, since she had already apologized to him. 

 

Darcy knew that he was intentionally prolonging this out- her roommate had pulled this tactic several times during their tenure together, some for slights and others for actual insults. For as long as Darcy had known Andrew, she had known his propensity for long and dramatic broods- it was something of his character, a trait that was all at once annoying and yet impossibly endearing. 

 

When she had first met him at the party of a mutual friend, they had gotten into an argument about some such or other, but she remembered vividly about how adamant he was about his point. He argued empathetically, letting his emotions play a large part of it. He was deathly determined to win, and even when it was clear that she'd the stronger argument, he wouldn't be put down. The argument continued even on the begrudged 'date' their mutual friend had set them up on while still under the influence. Andrew was cute and all, and they got along fine and well as friends, but Darcy didn’t feel the spark she (or more accurately their mutual friend) expected. She told him as much, and he agreed. He was nice enough to let her win the bowling game, paying for the drinks anyhow. After, they met by chance, and they became something she valued even more- good friends, and eventually, roommates.

 

She finally set her fork down, putting her arms on the table and lowering her head slightly. He needed to eat something, she knew- at his current size, there was no telling how badly he needed the nutrition. He would need to be tip top today for his appointment.

 

“Andrew,” she said, softly, “I didn’t mean to be so insensitive. I know that this is a pretty scary time right now for you, and I should have thought about that before I," she slowed, reaching for the right words, "well, before I said what I said." Then as an afterthought, surprising to her because it sounded like an excuse, "but I was only trying to make things lighter!”

 

He was silent for a moment, but then looked up at her. It was a shock to her, how piercing his eyes could be.

 

“Darcy, you called me your pet,” was the curt reply. It cut her deeply, and she felt the pang and weight of her carelessness run through her.

 

She nodded her head, and folded her arms back down on her lap. She had to take the bullet for this one, she knew- and rightfully so, she thought. Ever since Andrew had shrunk down to a little smaller than the size of her thumb, he’d been understandably on edge about it. It was something that happened occasionally to people, seemingly at random, and scientists still after a couple of years had no clue why. It certainly wasn’t a death sentence - but for some, it might as well be. The news never ended without at least one report of a reduction or a death related to it. A recent one in popular memory was a European prime minister being smothered under his wife during sleep. The accidents, while slowly getting less frequent (or at least less reported), were still in abundant supply, and always on the public mind. Such fears were present during a chat the two roommates had shortly after she had discovered him in his new size. Darcy, in a possibly ill-thought and misguided attempt to lighten the mood shortly after Andrew's accident, suggested that even though he was shrunken down, they could still be roommates- he could live in a bird cage and sing for her and she would teach him to stand on her shoulder and squawk. She had giggled at the thought, but that turned to horror when she realized that Andrew wasn’t laughing at the quip. Quite the opposite she realized; he hadn’t spoken to her for the rest of that night. And now, she was paying the piper, even after making his favorite meal for him.

 

 “I did, I know.” She looked up back at him, her eyes sincere. “And I’m sorry. I really am, Andrew.”

 

Darcy held out her finger to the tiny man across the plate. It still amazed her that he was this tiny- he was dwarfed by only her little bit of her finger- if she ran it into him, he would have been knocked over. She felt a tinge of regret, right then in having those thoughts, solidifying her guilt in demeaning him to be her handheld pet. Here Andrew was, still in a familiar place with a familiar face, but now very, very small, where even something as simple as breakfast became difficult to accomplish without assistance. How would he live, how would he eat, survive? Find shelter? It must have been terrifying for him, she realized. Worse, she thought, to hear such lightness being made by the very person he'd come to rely on. 

 

Andrew looked up from his scowl and looked at his roommate's finger, extended out to him, the long fingernail, unpolished but well-kept, protruding out. He then looked up at her, saw her hopeful but cautious face. He looked at her curiously. He might've been coming around, she thought. 

 

“I’m a big dummy, I know,” Darcy continued, “but can you please forgive me?” She smiled at him hopefully, grinning a bit.  

 

The tiny man with the scowl cracked into a smirky grin of his own- he rose up from off the table and brushed off his shirt. With a gusto that Darcy knew to be acceptance, she watched as Andrew stuck out his hands to take her finger. She had to giggle when she felt his movements of shaking her finger up and down violently; it was so strange to see how different even something like a handshake was when their scales differed. When the hand/arm/finger shake was over, Andrew bounced back and stretched up to the sky, now much further away for him.

 

“Of course I can! Noooo sweat.”

 

Darcy smiled at that- this was typical of Andrew: lightning fast disposition changes. It took some getting used to, to be sure, but Darcy came to see it as something indispensable from Andrew- she saw that he just simply wouldn’t be him without that trait. He was the forgiving type, and that was something she admired greatly in the little man. 

 

“I guess,” he started sheepishly, but still possessing of a bravado, “that I had overreacted a little to what you said.”

 

The girl chuckled, folding her arms close to her stomach and leaning forward slightly, relieved.

 

“A little?”

 

He grinned, toothy like a kid covered in mud, “OK, maybe a lot.”

 

She chuckled, smirking a bit herself. In truth, he was a little bit of a drama king. Emphasis on little, she supposed now.

 

“Uhh yeah no. You were on one, buddy.”

 

She giggled again when he shook his head and folded his arms. He was taking this admirably.

 

“Anyway,” she began again, desirous to switch gears, “I’m going to go shower. Are you going to eat? Or should I heat it up?” The relief she felt was palpable, but so welcome. 

 

Andrew had already begun to sit down when Darcy started to talk, right next to the plate that she had been eating off of. He scooped a bit of egg and started eating. He shook his head, saying, “No, it’s alright like this.”

 

She nodded, satisfied.

 

“Well then,” she began, pushing out slightly from the table, “I guess I’ll head to the bathroom. Do you need anything before I go?”

 

Andrew shook his head, his mouth occupied by the handful of bacon that he was working on. Darcy smiled at his attention to his meal. She nodded at him, satisfied that he would be ok. She pushed out from the table some more, standing up from the chair to her full height and on her toes, stretching her arms up. The stretch brought up the short night shirt and exposed her stomach. Morning still hadn’t quite left her, and the early spring chill was still in her bones, making waking up difficult still. Not that her guilt from sleepless last night helped her any better. She looked down again at her tiny roommate, and found that he was looking at her, his handful of yolk halfway between the plate and his mouth.

 

“Can I help you, buddy?” she teased, smiling then laughing as he quickly shot his face back down to his plate. He started to shovel handfuls of food into his mouth embarrassingly, not taking his eyes off of his plate. Darcy laughed at that- at a normal size she might have reprimanded or even yelled at him, but at this size, she thought it was cute, adorable even.

 

She got done stretching and set her hands back down at her sides, letting the RHCP shirt recover her stomach once again. She walked towards the bathroom, carpet soft under bare feet, still giggling at the incident. Darcy, to her knowledge, knew that Andrew had been a long time dry when it came to girls, so she supposed that it was natural that he had snuck a peek. It had been a long time since he had brought a girl home, for drinks or for something else. Granted, she knew that he was a lawyer, a contract lawyer, and that kept him fairly occupied, especially at his busy firm. When she had met him at that party years ago, from what she heard from his friends, he had been something of a player or ladies man, and that had even continued for some time while working at his law firm. She wondered why that had dropped off- she supposed it had something to do with work. Occasionally, however, he would bring home flowers and put them in a vase, but Darcy had never seen a note from a girl or from a friend. This happened quite frequently, she realized. Maybe he was sprucing up the place. He was a graduated professional, after all.

 

Despite his lack of female callers, Andrew was ever a perfect gentleman. More than once had he been her crying shoulder after a difficult break up or bad day always seemingly ready with a cold brew or a peanut butter cup (her favorite!), seemingly always stocked. He was always respectful of distance and privacy, save for the few times that she had caught him lookylooing- but that was always from a distance and it never came off as lecherous to her. More so, he was tidy, clean, and always considerate. Andrew was, by all counts, a good guy. A good man- if not a little dorky. She supposed that he could have an excuse to be a lecher every once so often. 

 

She stepped into the bathroom, closed the door, and then locked it. Shortly afterward, she unlocked it, realizing the futility of the action. As she undressed, she examined herself in the mirror, one of her morning rituals. She was a tall girl, she knew, called lanky by some, skinny by others, but always and invariably ‘hopelessly skinny, you need to eat, dear’ by her grandmother. It was funny to Darcy; no matter how much she ate, there always seemed to reappear more food on her plate while visiting family. Her hair, a wild and curly black fro (as per her mother), was pushed to one side thanks to her sleeping position. Her face, centered on her dark almond eyes, shapely nose, and full lips, was looking, for once, to her delight, very clean. Those pore strips were working.

 

“Yaaaaaaay,” she celebrated as much as morning would allow, using her finger to inspect more.

Her skin, although notorious for breakouts, was a warm café au lait, a gift from her white physician father and her black collegiate mother, a tenured academic working in a university just north in Appalachia. More than once Andrew had called Darcy 'latte girl' on account of her complexion. Andrew himself, with his blonde hair and blue eyes, was shot back as ‘die übermensch’ by her. She had heard, however, that occasionally the appearance of the affected persons changed as they shrank down. Small things, like eye color or hair color- even one report that skin pigmentation had been affected. Then again, Darcy hadn’t really thought much about appearances outside of the fact that he was now the size of a child’s toy.

 

“Small enough to…” she let her voice trail off.

 

She remembered that she found him on the ground, screaming his lungs out when she had just entered the door.  She had just come from work, and noticed something, something very tiny, moving near her feet. She looked down, and nearly screamed- there he was, jumping up and down, banging his fists on her red canvas sneaker. The real horror, she realized later that night, was when she realized how close her foot was to him when she noticed her tiny friend.

 

She had nearly stepped on him.

 

The thought even now made her shudder- she would never hurt anyone, let alone step on them. She, like every other person, heard occasional horror stories that came with the growing population of people who were now tiny; horror stories like crushed spouses and siblings, or sex slavery. But she always thought that these were deviants, not the norm.

 

Right?

 

Shaking her head from those kinds of thoughts, Darcy turned the water on and stepped into the shower. Regardless of how it came to be (no one really knew why shrinking happened), today would be a life changing event for Andrew.

 

Darcy had made the call shortly after finding him yesterday, a call that the government advised everyone afflicted by this certain condition, or their family or friends, to make. After a brief hold by what sounded like a very tired woman not but days to retirement, she was connected with a local physician's office that specialized in something called 'post-incident well-being and psychological assessment and counseling.' Darcy was no doctor, but she could reckon well enough what that meant- it was a check-up. She had no clue what the details were, but she knew it was necessary.

 

Despite her knowing that things would be alright, Darcy couldn’t help but feeling that things were about to change forever. It was a bit in her stomach that grew while she had made the call. Whether I was just anxiety or adrenaline from the incident, she could not tell. She couldn’t tell anyone why, but it just made her hair stand up on end, or that sinking feelings. She knew that this would be good for Andrew, no matter how it played out. He would be safe, in good hands.

 

Right?

 

 

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

When she emerged out of the bathroom, her towel on her head, she found Andrew sitting on the table next to his now very clean plate. He was hovering over his phone, something that now dwarfed him. She smirked at that thought: in a world of large screen phones, her roommate had insisted on a smaller one; she wondered if he could see the irony of it. He was playing a game, and even at this size he could use his hand to direct incensed avians into verdant boars. His fist popped up into the air in apparent victory.

 

“Three stars?" she called out, approaching the table.

 

He looked up from his phone, almost surprised to see her there. He looked up and cranked his head way back, straining to see Darcy, who had come up to the table and rested her hands on it. She was leaning over him, and her shadow fell directly on top of him.

 

“Ahh, no, I didn’t, just two of them.”

 

“Ha, still beating you at it, I see.”

 

He raspberried his tongue and scoffed.

 

“Anyway,” she said, grinning and leaning back, “are you ready for a shower?” she stopped herself, knowing that wasn’t true, “err, your bath? Your washing?”

 

She took the towel off her hair, and curly, fluffy locks spilled out in all directions. She shook her head, trying to get all the strands loose, as he answered.

 

“Yeah, I am… by the way,” he said turning off his phone and smirking, “Don King called- he wants his wig back.”

 

“Ah-ha! Ah-ha,” she exaggerated, leaning down, hands on her knees and bringing her face close to him, “You funny! Little! Bastard,” she said, accentuating each word. “You should do comedy!”

 

Andrew smirked his smirk and stood up to stretch. “Y’know, you’re right,” he began, his arms going behind his head, “I should ditch my two hundred thousand dollar education and make people laugh through slapstick and cheap shots. You think the firm would dig that?”

 

She shook her head, smiling. She really didn’t know too well the firm that he worked for, she thought, but she knew it was pretty ancient. She’d met his boss once, and the term ‘held together with a prayer’ came to mind. However, that brought up an interesting question for her, one that she didn’t even consider during the hullabaloo. Thinking about how to word it, Darcy rose her face up and set her hand down, palm facing up. Andrew, seeing the hand, looked at it for a second, and glanced back up at her. She gave a wry smile- this was literally the only viable way she felt comfortable transporting him.

 

He gingerly stepped up onto her palm, and for half a thought Darcy didn’t think she felt him. It was only after the other half of the thought that the sensation registered in her hand- his tiny footsteps pressed onto her hand, and she was reminded of a mouse that she’d kept as a pet (she cringed, the recency of such an implication fresh in her mind) when she was younger, and how lightly its tiny feet felt on her palm. Finally, Andrew sat down with an ‘ayumph’ in the center of her palm.

 

“By the way,” she began, lifting her hand up, “do you know…” she stopped talking and made a quiet but sharp inhalation- she looked down at Andrew, sitting placidly in her palm, and she found herself awestruck- how light he was! It took Darcy’s heart in a grip, a poignant combination of sadness and… something else. She didn’t know what, but it made her feel, or rather know very acutely, that there was a tiny person, a tiny man, sitting in her palm. How surreal! She felt… big. She felt… an inkling in her lower stomach.

 

But she couldn't identify it. She shook herself from the almost trance and took a step forward. Of course she felt big, duh. The lanky woman that she was already put most people she knew below her forehead- it was natural that she tower, quite literally, over this little guy. She supposed that she would feel those feelings, wouldn’t she?

 

“Yes?” Andrew prompted, curious about the question that Darcy left hanging, “do I know…?”

 

Darcy, snapped out of her trance, reformed the question in her mind.

 

“Oh, uh, do you know what you’re going to do about the firm?” she asked, making her way to the bathroom. She opened the door and felt a mild blast of moisture- it was still wet in there. “I know you had mentioned them, and I was just curious. What will you do?”

 

Andrew thought about it for a moment. She took the time to place her hand on the bathroom counter to allow him to step off, which he did. She then got the faucet running and kept her finger under it to test it.

 

He said something, but she didn’t hear him.

 

“What?”

 

He said it again, this time with his hands cupping his mouth.

 

“Hold on,” she said, leaning over to turn the faucet off. Once it was off, she asked, “ok, sorry, one more time?”

 

“I said,” Andrew cried, then lowering his voice once he realized that he was shouting, “I think I’ll call them after the appointment today. Talk to them about it.”

 

“Hmm,” Darcy said, grabbing a small washcloth from out of the sink cupboard, “what do you think’s going to happen?” She turned the faucet on again, running the washcloth under, filling it with warm water.

 

“I really don’t know,” he said, uncertainty creeping into his voice. Andrew had that bravado with him almost always, but now, it was different. And why wouldn’t it be? 

 

“But,” he continued, “we’ll figure something out!”

 

She smiled, glad his confidence had returned. Or at least, his optimism. She set the moist towel on the counter, folding it so it would retain warmth during his washing. She realized that she'd never explained to Andrew what she was had in mind, so she did, and he nodded thoughtfully. 

"Better than swimming in a warm, slick bottom pool." 

 

"Yep," she affirmed, and reaching into the shower, she grabbed his bottle of shampoo and a sliver of soap. She set a drop on the towel and then placed the sliver next to it. 

 

"That should cover it," she said, placing hands on hips. "Anything else? I'll come back in ten minutes."

 

"Okay. Oh," he snapped his finger, pointing to another washcloth, "may I have a towel please?" 

 

She nodded and set one down next to the wet washcloth before leaving. Just as she closed the the door, she heard something muffled come through the wood. Perplexed, she opened the door just a crack to speak inside.

 

"What was that?" She inquired.

 

"I said," Andrew called back, still struggling to get his clothes off of him, "thanks, for everything," said he through the muffle of his shirt. When he finally was able to yank it off, he looked over at Darcy, who had poked her head in.

 

"Seriously," he continued, “it means a lot to me." He gave a warm smile at her and she returned it.

 

"'Course!" She exclaimed, scratching her nose, "I'd do this anytime for you. You'd do the same for me, I thinks." Her smile turned to a concerned frown. "I hope," she began, "that it doesn't happen to me." She let that hang for a moment, then added, almost hurriedly, "at least, not before we get stuff sorted for you."

 

Andrew chuckled. 

 

"You're telling me. Who would take me out of the bathroom then?"

 

She stuck her tongue out at him and closed the door after her.

 

Chapter End Notes:

So it is. I would absolutely love to hear feedback and criticisms.

Thank you for reading!

You must login (register) to review.