Chapter Text
Steven stands at 4 1/2 inches tall. And he’s still shrinking.
The curse was silly- Khonshu reassured them that it was an easy fix and everything would be over within the week. There was no rush- besides Steven’s need to be 5’8 again and how badly he wanted Marc to stop looking at him like he was going to disappear- the spell was harmless. Sure, it took his height and made it easy for Marc and Jake to toss him around, but nothing physically damaging.
It was funny.
Until he got smaller.
It was the third day after he got cursed that they found out. The teacup he used the day before was much too tiny for him to comfortably bath in, but he endured it.
A day later, the cup fits him perfectly.
Steven voiced his concerns the minute after his private bath- courtesy of Layla setting up an open book on the counter but found out that not only had he shrunk, but his voice was starting to become too soft to hear.
Marc’s ear had nearly swallowed him before he got his message across, but by then, the constant screaming had only made his voice worse.
They took some time to think. Though, some people didn’t know enough.
Jake had suggested that ‘maybe the cup grew,’ and Steven didn’t talk to him for an hour after that. He hid in the bookshelf. Cowering and scurrying around like a little mouse until Layla caught him reading “ When Women Ruled The World” and stuck him in a shoe box until he finally spoke to them. His voice was still high, and his throat begged him to shut up.
Marc must have noticed his struggle- thank the gods he did- and called for a time-out. He offered his hand out, and Steven, still slightly embarrassed by the hand-to-hand transportation, begrudgingly stepped aboard.
He has rewarded a vegan muffin for his troubles and sipped some water out of a water bottle cap. Soothing and moisturizing his throat enough for him to help Jake and Marc look through his plethora of books for answers.
Steven had never felt so useless at that moment, but there wasn’t much he could do. Strength doesn’t cross over into height when you shrink because Steven could barely lift a spoon.
He spent most of the time sitting beside someone’s workspace. His arms crossed, maybe a small snack in hand and his cheeks puffed in frustration. He knows Layla has already taken multiple pictures of him, embarrassing ones, but once he’s back to normal, Steven has promised himself that he would restrain from smashing her phone.
Maybe…
There’s usually no end in sight to studying when Steven was big, but the second he even blinks his eyes too slowly, it’s time for bed. No questions asked or no arguments. Whoever he’s standing closest to would snatch him up, allow him to change, and then put him back in the shoe box for a bed, which they turned into quite the soft mattress with a few tissues and some cotton balls.
It may tickle his nose, but at least it’s comfortable.
Steven would go to bed at night feeling loved and safe. As if the spell wasn’t a thing, and he was sleeping without a care in the world. Yes, sleep would allow him to dream of better things. To de-stress and breathe deeply.
But, in the mornings, it would all fly back to him.
It was tough when he woke up one morning and couldn’t get out of the shoe box by himself. Marc- with his stupidly worried face- had to scoop him up and carry Steven over to the counter to run him a nice bath with the warm sink water.
Steven was glad he was allowed some privacy after that. The teacup was swallowing him up now…and that fact brought tears to his eyes and three agonizing minutes of aggressive sobbing until the water was cold.
When he got out, Steven could immediately tell that Jake had spied on him when he wasn’t looking. His normally upturned face was empathetic, a slight frown hiding under his atrocious mustache when he went to gather Steven in his hands.
Jake didn’t crack a joke when Steven cried- which he apprenticed- but when Jake stepped out onto the balcony, cupping Steven to shield him from the wind and Layla and Marc’s concerned gazes, he cried harder. His little voice was now nothing more than a squeak to an average person. Unable to be understood and making Steven feel all the more alone.
He didn’t even eat the rest of his muffins after Jake brought them back inside. Steven just stared at the delicious treat, imagining it coating his mouth in a fine layer of chocolate. But all that would come out of it would be the taste of ash. Molecules too big for him to comprehend or swallow.
Steven sipped his bottle cap water and allowed Layla to carry him around without a fuss. Unbeknownst to him, worrying the two men that had yet to make contact with Khonshu since the day he left.
But, like how they didn’t know what Steven was feeling, Steven didn’t know that he would end the week 5’7 inches shorter than he was the week before.
And he was still shrinking.
At only an inch tall, Steven spent the next night under the watchful eyes of his companions. They situated the shoe box in the middle of their three-person circle and watched Steven like he was in a cage at the zoo.
They tried their best to communicate with them, but Steven couldn’t understand their warbled gibberish, even if it would make him big again.
So, they sat in silence until they all, one by one, fell asleep.
Steven was the last to close his eyes- taking in what he could see of his flat above the shoe box- and ingrained it into the backs of his eyelids. Squeezing so hard that only one tear could pop out and wet the tissue blanket beneath him.
Steven fell asleep at 1 1/2 inches tall.
He woke up the following day and nearly drowned in the cotton balls of his once comfortable bed. Now having shrunk past the size of a fingertip, past the size of a small crumb…he was gone. Cursed to live in a shoe box for all eternity- or until his friends cut their losses and throw him out, all while still shrinking and shrinking and shrinking.
Steven didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at that moment. In the grand scheme of things, it was all ridiculous. Shrinking a grown man into nonexistence? That’s what you only hear about in the movies, of which Steven was now actively living—arousing the upsetting side of the situation.
His imminent death.
Sure, he could try and survive off of cotton balls. Those girls in that movie practically ate them for lunch every day, but they had sauces? Didn’t they?
Where he was going to get something like that, Steven had no idea, but he would rather choke on a mouthful of cotton than grow so small he had to hope from atom to atom.
A much less painful death.
Steven didn’t have a concept of time, and so he didn’t know how long he was sinking deeper into that cursed shoe box that he took his first bite of the cotton. Choking it down was hard enough, but enduring the angry bubbling in his stomach was much worse. Steven was sure he’d eaten a quarter of one before he had to stop. The delicate, dry taste in his mouth making him cough and seize every time he swallowed.
It was traumatizing, but he endured it.
He endured all of it until the day he grew thirsty, his bladder full.
Steven refused to believe drinking your piss was the sanest option in difficult situations- even in the desert, you could crack open a cactus and suck its insides out, but he didn’t have any other choices. None that was ‘humane’ anyway.
Though, in the end, Steven didn’t drink his piss. No matter how desperate he was, Steven would rather go down thirsty than with a stomach full of piss.
Humans can go three days without water before they die. Steven must have reached the halfway point because a sudden homicidal rage filled him.
One minute he was dreaming about seeing the world again, and the next…he stuffed his throat full of so much cotton that he laid himself down—awaiting the inevitable end in a bed of cotton atoms he had chosen. At least with that knowledge, Steven knew he had some control over his death.
But only a little.
Steven was starting to grow sleepy ten seconds in. Black spots danced in his vision, and he smiled the more prominent they grew. He braced death with open arms when the world started to tilt and let the last bite of air out of his lungs with a sigh.
Steven left the world quietly.
His body, even in death, shrinking still.