Chapter Text
Dante has no idea what happened.
He was in the living room, and everything was normal. Then suddenly his head started pounding. He felt really hot and sweaty, and his muscles started aching ferociously. The pressure he felt all around him was immense. It felt like the universe itself was trying to squeeze him out of existence. He fell to the carpeted floor on his hands and knees gasping for air. When the pain subsided and he finally opened his eyes again, everything was very much not normal.
Dante looks up, and up, and up like he was trying to see the top of a skyscraper from the sidewalk in front of it. Except he’s looking at the couch he was just sitting on. The now monolithic piece of furniture towers over him. The huge sneakers next to him are his own. His mind reels at the fact that moments ago, he was wearing them, he had kicked off, and now they dwarf him.
What is going on.
He stares at his surroundings, eyes wide. This can’t be real, right now. It’s not physically possible! He crosses the massive living room, traveling under neath their gigantic coffee table and taking in the expanse of the gigantic room.
Suddenly, floor starts shaking. Slow rhythmic pulses pound across the floor, getting stronger each time. Then he sees him. His roommate, Tyler. His gigantic roommate, Tyler. His massive, unfathomably gigantic and heading his direction roommate, Tyler. The sight of him makes Dante’s knees feel weak, like they might give up on trying to support him any second now. This isn’t physically possible. He thinks again.
His brain and his body are at odds with one another. His mind is spinning trying to rationalize what’s going on in any way that makes sense. His body however fires on self-preservation instincts and next thing he knows he’s running in the opposite direction. Logically, he has no reason to be afraid of his roommate, aside from the fact that his roommate looks like he’s over a hundred feet tall. But he isn’t acting on logic right now, his brain is still stuck on how big the couch is.
The thick carpet of the living room is not an ideal running surface. Also, he realizes that he really should vacuum more often, but that isn’t important right now. What’s important is his giant roommate is heading into the living room, each step shaking the ground more violently than the last. Should he try to get his attention? Where is he going right now? Does he see me? Is it worse if he doesn’t see me? A million thoughts flood Dante’s mind all at once. He stumbles, falling over and twisting to look up as Tyler, taller than a damn sky scraper continues to head straight for him. He doesn’t see him. Dante doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. If he see’s him they’d have to deal with the situation at hand and admit that this is really happening. But if he doesn’t then he might get stepped on, which ok- not being seen is worse. As soon as his body and his mind stop fighting he’ll try to wave, or call out or something.
Then something stops him. Rather, someone stops him.
“Watch out, dummy!” a voice hisses suddenly, yanking him up from the floor where he was stuck gawking up at his strikingly large roommate. He stumbles after the stranger as she pulls him into the wall. She opens up a little door hidden in the floorboard that he had never noticed before, and they are now standing inside the wall of his apartment. He blinks, adjusting to the shift from light to dark. He’s met with an angry scowl fixed right on him. The scowl belongs to someone his size, his new size that is. Her dark hair is pulled back away though some wispy curls have fallen out and frame her face.
“What are- how are- who-” He stammers, still stunned and dizzy.
“What the hell was that out there?!“ Her voice is a harsh whisper. "Are you crazy or suicidal or something? You were practically asking that bean to see you.”
“B-bean…? What's—” he begins, but she isn’t having it. She places a heavy hand on his shoulder, pressing his back against the wall. I’m going to die here, inside the walls of my own apartment, aren’t I?
“Look bud, this is my turf, alright? I don’t know what community you came from before, but this isn’t like that. I work alone,” She practically growls.
“Wha-what? I’m sorry. What?? You’re- I- I’m—”
“The only reason I saved your ass back there is because if you get discovered then they’ll all be looking around for more of us, and It’ll blow my whole operation. I’ve got a good thing here, and I’m not about to let you ruin it for me,” she says, jabbing a finger into his chest. “Do you understand me?”
“I.. ye-“ his first instinct is to just nod and go along with what she’s saying, since he’s being threatened and all. Or at least, even though she hasn’t really drawn a weapon on him or anything, she seems pretty threatening. But, he really doesn’t understand her at all. "No! No, I don’t know what’s going on!” His voice raises in pitch with his panic. “I’m sorry, but… what! We are so tiny! We’re tiny?? You are- I- I am! How- who are- what are… how is any of this real?” He feels like everything he has ever known about reality is slipping through his fingers.
“Um… Are you good, dude?” She raises her eyebrows, looking at him like he’s the weird one. “What? Have you never seen another borrower before?” She looks him up and down, he feels incredibly judged in this moment.
“No? uh… What’s a borrower?” He asks, her words, in this context are complete nonsense to him.
“Sheesh, did you fall and hit your head or something?” She looks at him incredulously. “You. Me. Borrowers,” she says gesturing between them, speaking slowly. “Them. Out there,” she points towards the world outside of the wall, “Beans. Big, mean, scary. Any of this ringing any bells for you?”
“Borrowers… beans… ye-yeah I got it.” Ignoring her patronizing tone, he really has no clue what she’s talking about, but he’s trying to follow.
“Alright,” she says after staring at him for a long moment. “You must have like a serious concussion or something,” She releases her hold on him to run a hand across her face. "Why does this kind of stuff always happen to me,” she says, heaving a sigh.
“I-I…. I.. No. Look, I don’t belong here. Something… something is horribly wrong. I-” he begins, his brow furrowing, trying to figure out what really happened here.
“Yeah, you’re telling me. I was serious about the whole, this is my turf thing. BUT I will let you stay with me for a little while. I’m serious, just for a little while. Just until you figure out,” she waves a hand towards him, looking him up and down once more, “all of that. And don’t think that you’re going to stay here for free, alright? You have to pull your weight, I’m not just going to let you eat all my supplies, you hear me?” She starts walking off, turning over her shoulder to see he’s still unmoving and staring at her, looking like a fish out of water. “Come on! I’m doing you a favor, don’t make me rethink it.”
“O-okay,” is all he can say as he follows her through the walls of his apartment. He can’t get over the fact that they are literally inside the walls. There is a tiny person living in the walls. How long has she been here? Why? How? His head hasn’t stopped spinning. He leads her up a staircase. Is this safe? He wonders, but she strides up the steps confidently. Did she build these? He questions as he makes his way up behind her. Out of all the questions he has his brain just keeps repeating: What is happening? and How is this real? Each piece of new information he receives just turns out to be more confusing than the last.
“Alright. This is my place,” she says, pushing open a makeshift door and flipping a switch, illuminating a string of battery-operated fairy lights.
“Oh wow.” He mumbles under his breath, staring slack-jawed at the space. It looks like a one-bedroom studio, but all of the furniture is made out of different gigantic objects.
In one corner, there’s a kitchen set up. A legit kitchen, with counters and everything. Except, instead of being made of some kind of stone, the countertop is an old wooden ruler. He sees bottle caps and guitar picks that she must use as bowls and plates, a thimble as a large cup. Metal bars lattice over a section of her counter, there’s a tealight underneath and some matches nearby. That must be her stove. There is a basin of clean water in the corner, and a box that must be something akin to a pantry. There’s a table with two chairs in the center of the room.
“This is incredible,” he says awestruck. “Did you build all this furniture?” he asks looking across her room. Her bed is along the far wall. The bedframe used to be a box of playing cards. There are four posts made from empty pens, and a canopy of fabric draped over her bed. He doesn’t know what the mattress is made of as it’s covered by thick blankets and pillows. The wall behind the bed is covered in drawings, and pretty stamps stuck to the wall.
“Where else would I have gotten it from?” She asks, shaking her head, “You are so weird.”
“Sorry. I’ve just never seen anything like this. How long did this take you?”
“A long time, I don’t know. I’ve been working on it for as long as I lived here and I’ve been here for uh, three years maybe?” She guesses, shrugging. That’s before we moved in. He realizes.“Anyway, down to business. What supplies are you working with?”
“Supplies,” he parrots, lost again. He’s still waiting for things to suddenly start making sense.
“Will you stop doing that?” She asks, frustrated.
“Doing what?” He asks.
“That! You just keep repeating what I say, but as a question. Come on. Keep up. Your borrowing supplies. What do you have?”
“I don’t… I don’t have anything,” he says lamely.
“How are you still alive, dude.” She raises her brows, looking him over. Her nose crinkles as she openly takes him in for the first time in the light. “You’ve got some fancy clothes,” she says in such a way that he’s not sure if ‘fancy’ is a positive or negative assessment. He’s wearing a black hoodie with a tuxedo printed on the front dark jeans, and pair of socks. He had kicked his shoes off before his body decided to randomly condense, so those didn’t get to come with him. He’s just thankful that the rest of his clothes changed size with him. He has no clue how any of this happened, in his mind none of this should be possible. So, he is just going to be thankful that he wasn’t left without clothes, and he’s not going to think too hard about it.
“What are they, doll clothes?” She asks. He doesn’t know how to answer that, so he makes a vague sort or nod, sort of shrug gesture. She takes it though, nodding to herself, “You have to be careful with that kind of stuff. Sometimes they keep track of it and would notice if it went missing.”
“Right,” he says nodding slowly, looking down at his outfit, then looking to see what she’s wearing. Her outfit is… strange. It’s probably just as strange to him, as his outfit is to her. She’s wearing a dark knitted cloak over a pair of overalls and a simple t-shirt. The overalls were obviously patched together from several different fabrics. The stitches are made of thick thread. They’re just as much a part of the design as they are functionally holding the garment together. The reality of the scale of things around here inescapable.
“Alright. No supplies,” she sighs and goes over to her shelves of mis-matched stuff lining a whole wall. Paperclips, coins, pen nubs, pencil lead, rubber bands. There are threads hanging from small pegs, piles of fabric, weird tools that she must have custom made, because he doesn’t recognize them. There’s a roll of washi tape next to a small pincushion that looks more like an ottoman, it’s holding needles and thumbtacks. An entire x-acto knife leans against the wall like a spear, the blade wrapped in a fabric sheath. It’s stood up next to a small bundle of hot glue gun sticks. It’s mind-boggling how much stuff she has collected. “Have a seat,” she says, waving an arm over to her table absently.
He follows her directions, taking a seat at the table in the center of the room. Upon closer inspection he sees that it used to be a cork coaster that she’s affixed legs to. The chairs are empty spools of thread with cushions and backs added to them. He sits down slowly, testing that it can actually handle his weight, but it seems sturdy enough.
“My name is Dante, by the way.” He says, watching her pick over the things on her shelves. She collects objects into her arms confidently, like she knows exactly what they are meant to be used for.
“I’m Vivienne,” she says dropping her armful of random objects on the table in front of him. “Let’s make you some equipment, shall we?