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sweetsmollthings · 13 days

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Ok so with my post about external shrinking triggers I did keep thinking on it more and wrote something……

Contains: shrinking in spurts, triggered by keywords; shrinking to about 5’3”; shrinking to about 3’6”; shrinking to 3”; an almost-kidnapping; a rescue; fear and angst; probably inaccurate grocery store things (because the author has never worked in customer service jobs)

“Ah—!”

Paige jolted, then looked towards the neighboring cashier. “Val? Are you—?”

“Don’t talk to me,” Val snapped, yanking out her earbuds much too fast (which she clearly regretted, judging from how she winced) and fumbling with her phone. Paige faintly heard a snippet of whatever she was listening to (something about miniatures?) before she finally managed to turn it off.

Paige frowned. The brusque attitude wasn’t unexpected—in all the time they had worked together, Val had always avoided talking to coworkers and customers alike, pointedly keeping her earbuds on to drown out everybody else. She probably took the late night shift to interact with as few people as possible (which, fair); even so, Paige would have liked some appreciation. She considered leaving her alone as requested.

…But the way that Val curled up, clutching her phone tight, breathing much too fast, was too concerning to ignore.

“Hey,” Paige said softly, moving closer. “Deep breaths, alright? Let’s calm down—wait, why are you so short??”

Maybe that was a strange thing to focus on for what was clearly a panic attack, but when someone was a whole head shorter than they should be, how could you not comment on it?

And, when someone got even shorter right before your eyes, could you blame a person for getting derailed? “Wha— huh??? What??? You—“

“Shut up,” Val hissed, shooting out a hand to presumably cover Paige’s mouth, but clearly misjudging the distance because she ended up bopping Paige on the chin instead. Her short sleeves billowed with the movement. Her other hand held a now too-big shirt to her chest. “Just—go away! I’m taking a break—“ Val suddenly grabbed her pants in the middle of turning around, stopping them from falling. Paige saw her ears go red.

“I, um,” Paige stuttered, then wordlessly retreated to her cash register and tried to be normal about this. Don’t stare, don’t stare, don’t stare…

It was impossible. Paige snuck a glance and startled, at first thinking that Val had gotten even smaller, but no. She was just crouching down. Hiding, probably.

Paige hesitated, then reached over to turn off Val’s checkstand light.

After a very quiet half hour, Val stood up again. Full height, this time. She glared at Paige. “Don’t say a word. To anyone.”

Paige nodded. (Not like anybody would believe her.) “So…about all that…”

But Val was already plugging in her earbuds, back to tuning out the world.

…Well. Probably best not to pry.

After that incident, Val seemed to put extra effort into avoiding Paige at all costs. Which wasn’t difficult, especially since Paige decided to not pursue the many questions she had. Whatever happened, it wasn’t any of her business. Maybe it never happened in the first place. Maybe she had been dreaming or delirious—never mind that she had felt totally awake—after all, shrinking was obviously impossible.

The unspoken arrangement worked out well. At least until one day, passing by the bathroom door, someone grabbed Paige’s arm.

Screeching, she swung a fist towards the offender and only hit the door (ow). As she nursed her hand, she actually looked at the door and saw Val peeking from behind it. At a much lower angle than she should be. Like, way lower. “Change the song,” she begged, which was…sorta creepy, actually.

“Huh?” Paige said, still trying to reconcile Val’s current impossible height and shift in demeanor.

“On the PA, stupid!” she hissed. (Ah, there we go.) But it turned into a whimper as, all of a sudden, she shot down a few inches. Above them, the speakers cheerfully sang, “a little bit of Monica in my life, a little bit of Erica by my side…”

“R-right! Hang on,” Paige said, running to the office. Somehow, she managed to make it before the chorus ended.

When she ran back, the bathroom door was closed again. She knocked. “It’s me. Are you…okay?”

The only answer was a clumsy click as the door opened again. Val peeked out, definitely much shorter. Child-sized, even. She clearly had to reach up for the door handle and looked miserable about that fact. “Thanks,” she mumbled. Then, “I need you to help me home.”

Glancing around to make sure nobody was watching, Paige crouched down. “Can’t you just grow back? You did last time.”

“It’s past midnight,” Val explained bitterly. “I’m stuck like this for now. Just get me home. You have a car, don’t you? It’s just a…quick drive.”

“But my shift isn’t over,” Paige said, then realized how ridiculous that was in this context. “Um. Okay. Just…follow me, I guess.”

Val opened the door a little wider and waddled out, hefting a bundle of what seemed to be almost all her clothes—thankfully, she still had a dress on. That is, her shirt, which was long enough to be a dress. Or rather, she was small enough for it to be a dress. The bundle looked like it would explode out of her arms and Paige briefly considered offering to hold it for her, but then decided that would be too weird.

“I’m gonna just quickly check the carts,” Paige told the manager, who just waved her off, not even looking up from his phone. Val padded behind her on bare feet, ducking her head even though she really didn’t need to. She couldn’t be seen over the register even if she stood up straight.

It was as quick a drive as Val said, just across the street and around the corner. Completely walkable, under normal circumstances. But under abnormal circumstances, Val needed to be helped in and out of the car and escorted to the steps. She couldn’t even unlock the door on her own. Val didn’t say a word the whole time, not even a thank you before shutting the door in Paige’s face.

So clearly, for whatever reason, Val shrunk any time she heard any word that meant “small” and grew back at midnight, like some sort of bizarre Cinderella. Her general demeanor made a lot more sense now. Why be friendly with people if conversations were a landmine for triggering a…curse? Probably a curse. This seemed pretty curse-like.

Being privy to this secret didn’t afford Paige any exemption to Val’s antipathy, though. It did afford her a lot more requests for help, and while she did understand that she was probably the only one who could help (since the cat was out of the bag anyways), it was sort of getting stressful, considering that most of the requests involved sneaking her out of work. Sometimes when she wasn’t even that small.

“Can’t you get noise-cancelling headphones or something?” Paige asked tersely on one of their secret drives.

Val looked at her, surprised. Even after their arrangement began, they never really exchanged words during the drives. It was just a given that they should be done in silence. After a long pause, she tugged at her shirt (which wasn’t even that baggy this time) and replied, “They hurt after a while. And it’s not like they work perfectly.”

“It’s better than nothing. I can’t keep doing this for you, I’ll lose my job.”

Val glared hard at the glovebox. “Okay. Got it,” she said coldly, sending a twinge of guilt through Paige. But really, it was unreasonable to ask her to do this. She wasn’t in the wrong here. Val should be figuring out how to handle this herself.

“Who’s that?”

Paige blinked, coming out of her automatic check-out mode, and looked at where the shopper pointed. “Huh? Val?”

The shopper nodded. “Thanks. I don’t need a receipt.”

“Alright,” Paige said slowly. That…was a little weird, right? Should she tell Val? But it’s been pretty awkward ever since their last conversation. And she could handle herself. She should handle herself, really. Paige wasn’t her keeper.

When their shift ended, Paige got into her car and headed home—her home, not Val’s. Which, of course, was how it should be. It was late. She needed some sleep before class. They weren’t friends.

…

Sighing heavily, Paige turned around and drove back to the road she had grown so familiar with, peering ahead for any sign of a person on the empty sidewalks. As she approached Val’s house, her headlights caught a lone figure, crouching close to the ground, over a pile of clothes—

Paige quickly parked, launched herself out of her car, and punched the shopper from before in the solar plexus. In one fluid motion, she scooped up the clothes and retreated, jumping back in (and knocking her head on the top of her car, ow), and slamming the door behind her—wait, was Val even in the clothes? She couldn’t feel her weight, did she drop her? Paige tore at the bundle of clothes in her lap and yes, she could see a small form squirming around, thank god—

The shopper suddenly slammed a hand on her window and she screamed, dropping Val in the cupholder and slamming on the gas. She didn’t stop until fifteen minutes later, when it was pretty clear there was no car following her. She pulled to the side of the road. “Okay, pretty sure we’re good,” she announced. “Let’s get you out of—“

The tiny hand that slapped at her fingers when she reached into the cupholder barely registered, but Paige flinched back anyways. As the adrenaline wore off, she became aware of soft crying.

And with that came the extra awareness of how…small Val was at the moment, the smallest she’d ever seen her. So small that she fit in a cupholder. So small, she could easily be whisked away.

“I-I’ve never—it’s never been th-this bad before,” Val managed between sobs, tripping over her self-censorship. “Wh-what if I don’t grow back this time?”

“I mean, you always grow back, right? No reason that’ll change. You’ll be normal again in…” …twenty-two hours.

Paige flinched as the wailing just grew louder. Not by much. Being just a few inches tall affected your volume, as it turns out.

“…Want to go to my place?” Paige offered meekly. Neither of them brought up the obvious fact that Val couldn’t stay at her own place. Possibly couldn’t ever go back, considering that her would-be kidnapper knew where she lived.

The cupholder gave no answer other than more weeping. So Paige just quietly drove home.

#g/t #g/t writing #giant/tiny #shrinking #I don’t really know what happens after #the only thing in mind is that like #val has obviously been isolated since she’s afraid of what might happen #Paige helps her get some amount of social life by being able to sort of #being her bodyguard and getting her able to escape before anybody notices what’s up #why does Val shrink? iunno. whatever. you won’t get backstory or lore from me #because there is none lol #I’d like to think that Val does eventually find some amount of comfort being small around Paige #I definitely usually would write that sort of stuff instead of like…this more angsty stuff #I like fluff I want comfort in being small u_u #also playfulness. but oh well I hope this is still good

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