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RAGGHHHHH IM SO NORMAL ABOUT THEM

PUPARIA

Chapter 6 - two reverse

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"You sure this is the movie you want to see?" Teddy anxiously fidgeted with the scarf Hosah was hiding in so they could avoid being charged for two tickets.

"Why not? I mean, 't just came out, everyone seems excited for it," The tiny man beneath the fabric was right, the queue they were standing in had gotten exponentially longer since they'd joined, and it wasn't like they were anywhere near the front either. "It's too late to turn back now, Teddy, you've reached... Your final destination." Although Hosah's corny pun was funny, in an ironic way of course, his assistant was not laughing.

"It's- it's not that I have an issue with it, I just don't wanna waste my money on a bad movie, you know?" Maybe it was just the fact that is was too hot to be wearing so many layers that made Teddy sweat. There was no way a man, who's dealt with death head on, would be so scared of some movie.

Hosah didn't have to say anything in response, his snickering was enough.

The line moved fast, and before they knew it, the two detectives were in their singular seat, having paid for a singular ticket. To say it was nine o' clock on a Tuesday, the theatre was packed. Hosah had never been particularly interested in the horror genre, but The Final Destination was the only recent release that would be playing shortly after they'd both arrived, aside from reruns of The Notebook, which he'd already seen more times than his parents in the last five years.

Once the lights had dimmed and everyone seemed to be seated, the shrunken man wriggled out from under the layers of fabric until he had a good view of the screen. Teddy's height was a real plus, as even from his shoulder, no heads were obstructing the view of the screen.

With the amount of medication he was on, Hosah found it hard to keep his eyes open, being wrapped up so cozily in Teddy's scarf by the crook of his neck. Any sort of warmth and that was it, the shifter was out like a light. Although he was definitely more of a dog person, Hosah could understand the common comparison between him and a cat, as he found himself getting drowsy in even the most chaotic of situations, much like this one. Despite the ear-splitting loudness of the surrounding speakers, and Teddy's constant flinches at the movie jumpscares, Hosah had to fight his body's urge to drift off into a deep slumber.

The screams from the surrounding movie goers regularly jolted the tiny man back to reality, but even then, he struggled to stay fully aware of his surroundings for more than five minutes or so. Realising he wasn't particularly built for this sort of thing, Hosah wondered why he didn't just invite his assistant to watch movies in the comfort of his apartment instead. Oh well, this was probably fun for Teddy, at least.

In a room so filled with people, there was no way Hosah was going to be able to keep his attention on the movie. The best part of the theatre was watching the people around you react anyway, at least in his opinion. The shifter had never really though twice about any movie he'd ever seen, even in the moments, the awareness of the fact everything was a work of fiction was enough to take Hosah completely out of the horror enjoyment experience, so seeing other people getting scared was his main source of enjoyment from the media.

Fortunately for him, Teddy was most definitely getting scared. The concept itself wasn't even remotely disturbing, some curse or whatever, avoiding death once means it'll come back to get you, a situation Hosah couldn't picture himself being in, but it seemed terrifying enough to the people around him. Maybe he was just too critical, or maybe he just had bad taste.

As Hosah felt the giant's shoulders tense up beneath him once more, his eyes began to droop against his will, falling into his own subconscious. Lately, he'd been having weirder and weirder dreams. Sure, the reoccurring nightmare of his own metamorphosis was weird, but these were all next level. Hosah didn't think his brain had the ability to create such scenarios, but every night he would live through them, and awake with the vivid memory of them all. Recently, they'd mostly been about Teddy. He couldn't really make sense of them, with no rhyme or reason behind any of the events, not that Hosah would know how to describe or even comprehend them, and no consistency amongst them all, besides the fact they were all about his assistant, of course.

It was weird, Hosah didn't usually dream of people he knew, especially so soon after meeting them. Maybe he really would have to get into spirituality some time soon, as the spirits lurking around in his mind were clearly trying to send some kind of message, the thing was, the shifter just couldn't understand what it all meant. Hosah didn't remember the event's specifically, just the feelings he experienced. Over the past few days, he'd woken up with his heart beating out of his chest, face flushed and body shivering. At first, he considered the possibility just being sick, but that didn't explain why the feeling went away once he'd gained full consciousness and awareness of his surroundings.

-~-

"You fell asleep? How? I could barely hear myself think," Teddy laughed in astonishment, at this point he shouldn't have been surprised by this fact at all.

Despite knowing the giant couldn't see him from his own shoulder, Hosah shrugged, "That just happens when it's dark and I'm all warm and cozy."

It was true, even now, with Teddy squatted down on the side of the busy street waiting for their cab, the tiny man was painfully aware of his heavy eyelids and weakened muscles.

His assistant didn't respond, only chuckling to himself, probably thinking of something Hosah definitely didn't want to know about for his own dignity.

"So, was it bad?" The shifter pulled himself up from under the layers, now stood on the collar of his assistant's dress shirt, fighting the urge to grab hold of his auburn hair for balance.

"I mean," Teddy turned his face in the opposite direction, pretending to look out for the taxi, "It wasn't good,".

As the giant shifted his view as far away from the detective as possible, Hosah craned his neck to get a better view of his assistant's, very red, face. "Aww, glad I slept through it then. I'm not really a huge horror fan anyway. Never really got to me."

Despite not being able to properly see pocket-sized man, Teddy turned his face back the way it came from. Although he really wanted to say 'Why'd you make me sit through that then?' , instead he asked, "What movies do you like, then?"

Teddy already knew the answer to his question, as he'd nosied around the shifter's TV stand whilst he was busy doing whatever it was he did instead of just asking for help. He didn't have many DVDs in his collection, but the ones he did have seemed mismatched at best, ones he'd never thought he'd see all together in one place. Out of the five all together, Twilight seemed to be the one Hosah watched the most, as it sat by the TV, case opened, and with its disc nowhere to be seen.

Hosah took a second to think before giving an answer, "Oh, you know, the classics. Pulp Fiction, The Godfather." Teddy felt the tiny man brush back and forth past his neck. That was one thing he'd noticed Hosah did a lot, he swayed back and forth whenever he told stupid lies.

"Really?" Despite wanting to call him out on the falsehoods, the assistant played along, seeing how far he could push before Hosah broke and admitted the truth.

He scoffed, although it was obvious he was more nervous than smug, "Of course. I mean, who doesn't love, I don't fuckin' know, Taxi Driver."

"What's that about? Never heard of it."

".. A taxi driver??" Hosah stumbled on his words a little, if the giant could see him as he stood perched on his shoulder, his face would probably be as equally red as his own was earlier.

On the topic of taxi drivers, a familiar face could be seen in the window of the bright yellow car pulling up by the side of the pavement where the two detectives off duty were waiting. Despite having a weird at best first meeting, Teddy called the number on the business card he'd been given two days prior and asked for Felix. There was something about the familiar European accent and his uncomfortable nicknames that were so endearing to him, there was no way he couldn't form a relationship with the guy.

Felix waved the two, who were already approaching, over with large gestures out the window, calling out a few words neither of the detectives could really hear or understand.

As Teddy climbed into the backseat, hand holding his scarf, which the tiny man had found himself wrapped up in once again, the driver gave a comment which could actually be heard this time, "Just you today? Where's Pupa?"

Hosah shuffled his top half out from under the polyester in response, face still flushed, partially from the sudden movements in which he was pushed and pulled every which way by the debilitating force of gravity, and partially because he had no idea of the meaning what he'd just been referred to as had.

He only became more confused as his assistant seemed to find the term to be extremely humorous. Hosah wanted to ask what it meant, but there was an invisible force that took away his ability to speak whenever he was tiny in front of multiple people all at once, especially when that included strangers. The taxi driver turned around, leaning as far as he could into the back seat whilst still sitting down,

"Where to?" if he were anyone else, this would've been a perfectly normal and socially acceptable question for him to ask, but the fact Felix sat staring directly at the shifter instead of Teddy deeply unsettled the tiny figure. He'd actually never felt so, perceived in his life.

Such a simple question, so simple that Hosah zoned out when his assistant gave the response and Felix had long since turned around and started driving, but he couldn't stop replaying the look in his head, a thousand times over. It wasn't like being stared at when he was tiny was out of the ordinary, in fact, he'd grown accustomed to being a spectacle, but that's what made the interaction so unsettling, the fact Felix didn't look at him as if he were a strange trinket or some kind of car crash that, despite knowing they shouldn't, people can't seem to take their eyes away from.

It was the first time someone had looked at Hosah, when he was such a way, as an equal human being. The same way Felix looked at Teddy in the same sentence. For once, he felt as though he was on equal grounds to just about anyone in the city, which was probably what scared him so much, as he realised it wasn't just the taxi driver that gave him such a kind of look.

Things like this always meant the most to him. Maybe it was just because he was so small, he could see the details so much clearer, that even a shift in the glint of someone's eyes meant a lot. Or he just had a bad habit of overthinking all the minute things in his life. Probably the latter, but Hosah preferred the first standpoint. Being three inches tall sucked most of the time, but being able to enjoy the smallest parts of life was pretty cool. Pillows being huge, empty plains of fluffy bliss, food always being in abundance, being able to count the freckles on a certain someone's cheeks, all the things he wouldn't be able to appreciate if not fulfilling his hereditary curse that was being a shifter.

Right now especially, Hosah could appreciate how warm and soft the flesh of his assistant's neck was, blended with the polyester of his scarf. If he couldn't keep his eyes open an hour and a half ago, he definitely couldn't right now. The giant voices mindlessly chatting were loud, but his lack of sleep over the past couple of days was louder.

As he rested his eyes, Hosah couldn't help but think back to the current case. If a random taxi driver he'd met once before could see him as an equal human being, why couldn't this sick monster see the fifteen people he'd taken the lives of as sentient beings at the very least? Even at his most lethargic of states, the detective's job kept him awake. If he'd had gotten there sooner, maybe they'd have had a better shot at saving the final body, or even identifying the man that had run away from the scene of the crime.

Hosah knew far too well not to get his head stuck on this topic, as he'd been repeatedly told by the two people currently closest to him, but it was something he couldn't help. Getting into a state of debilitating self hatred was his default, the one constant he could rely on for any sense of comfort when he had no control over anything going on in his life.

He wondered why Jules would ever seek him of all people to join the team five years ago. She knew him better than anyone, she knew the kinds of things he'd do to cope, it was a known fact to everyone in his life, that being a detective would be no good for Hosah, but being a stupid twenty one year old with no other prospects in life, Jules also knew he was a people pleaser, one that would do anything she requested of him.

Which is why, later in the evening, long since he and Teddy had ordered and eaten their takeout, both falling asleep together with the TV still playing, Hosah rushed to answer her call.

The ringing of the phone jolted the shifter awake so suddenly. He couldn't really think about the position he found himself in, still by the crook of his assistants neck, somebody was calling, and he needed to answer.

Carefully, in an attempt not to wake Teddy, he climbed down the creases in the unbuttoned dress shirt, using the wrinkles of the cotton as supports for under his feet. Hosah rushed over to the buzzing mobile on the coffee table, taking a risky leap from couch to the surface despite being unable to see where one things started and the other ended in the depths of the night's darkness.

He half expected it to be his dad calling drunk, or maybe Jeanne with more depressing news, but Hosah definitely didn't expect the name on the small screen to be Jules'. He hopped onto the other side of the phone, pressing whatever buttons he could under his heel until it picked up the call.

At first, he could only hear static and wind, but after a second or so, a familiar voice could be deciphered from the background noise, "Thank god you're up, aha. Sorry to disturb you in your down time, but, you know that guy I hired on the night shifts to watch all those cameras we got installed like, last year?" Surely when she called out of the blue at two in the morning, context was important. "Well, turns out he caught someone hand delivering a package, around twenty minutes ago."

Hosah couldn't quite understand what he was hearing for a second, due to both the fact he'd just woken up and also the absurdity of the scenario, "A.. A package? What, is it a pipe bomb or something? Call the police, not me, Juliette."

"That's the thing, it's addressed to you." She laughed down the phone, even though the situation was not funny at all.

As he stumbled on all the questions flowing from his head and out of his mouth, the shuffling from beside him took Hosah completely out of any coherent trains of thoughts he could form.

Usually by now, Jules would've hung up, but despite the terrible quality of the device, she could probably hear the fact Hosah wasn't alone through the speaker.

"Hosah?" Teddy sat up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, "Who are you talking to?"

Before he was able to explain himself, their boss chimed in, "What are you doing with Edward at two in the morning?"

"Ah, what are you doing calling me at two in the morning? Just get the police over tomorrow and have them take the package to forensics or something. I don't care if it's for me, I don't online shop." If he were more conscious, he'd probably be a lot more disturbed.

In fact, Hosah was annoyed if anything, all he really wanted was to curl back up in the space between Teddy’s shoulder and neck, but he gathered that probably wasn’t an option anymore.

The static picked back up again as Jules spoke up once more with a sigh, “Well, if you want to come take a look, a couple of us are already here. You don’t even have to bother calling Edward, ‘t seems.”

The tiny man frantically shuffled across the keys of the phone, hanging up as quickly as he could to avoid any sort of further teasing he knew his boss loved to indulge in, especially regarding Hosah and any relationship he forms with the men around him. She knew too much, and he didn’t trust her not to share what he wished he’d just kept to himself all those years ago.

The shifter gathered his breath in one exasperated sigh, turning his attention back to Teddy, who’s structure was complimented by the glow of the single table-side lamp the pair had forgotten to turn off before falling asleep. The yellow bulb’s luminosity clung to the giant’s face, wrapping perfectly around his prominent square jaw and high cheekbones. If he didn’t already know better, Hosah would’ve just assumed he was some kind of model.

“So..” Teddy fidgeted, his eyes shifting over to the humming TV infront of him, “What was that about?”

Hosah shrugged as he often did when he knew all too well what the answers to the giant’s questions were, “Someone’s hand delivered a package to the office. Got my name on it. Probably a threat, these fucking..” the tiny man waved his hands around in a similar fashion to how Teddy would, “Anti-shifter lunatics. Hah, it’s not the first time they’ve put some kind of bounty over my head. They don’t think we’re deserving of any sort of place in society. Never mind in the criminal justice system.”

His assistant hummed in melancholic agreement, “If they knew you, they’d understand. What you said earlier, it was powerful, you know you should go do speeches or something, got a way with words.”

“I don’t remember what I said,” The shrunken man could only laugh at the thought of himself up on a podium, “I say a lot of things, you throw a hundred things at a wall, at least one of thems gonna stick,”

“It was about you all being one. All shifters, I mean, that you need to look out for each other.” Teddy was looking right at him now; the same way he would look at any other person of his same size, except this time with a remarkably warm smile, “I think you say a lot of, fucking.. cool stuff. I don’t know. I’m sorry.” The giant wiped the sleep from his eyes once more as an excuse to cover his flustered face.

“.. Yeah, I guess that was cool of me.” The shifter was well and truly flattered, wanting to cover his own blushing face too.

“Well, anyway, we’re up now, how about breakfast?”

Food did sound good, Hosah had intentionally spoken more than he’d eaten earlier, meaning he’d gone almost the whole previous day without any sort of substance. When in front of others, he’d always resorted to shifting things around his plate so it looks like he’d had more than the reality of the situation, he didn’t know why, it’s not like he was embarrassed, it had just become a bad habit.

The giant stood to his full height, with the coffee table Hosah lounging on barely being at knee height. Teddy paused for a moment, realising he’d almost forgotten something.

“You coming?” He knelt down, hand open on the edge of the table. The man, just the right size to fit in the palm being offered to him, froze. He weighed up his options, he could experience the touch of which he hadn’t felt in years since moving to the city, or he could do his usual climbing act back onto Teddy’s shoulder.

Ah, whatever, it’s not that big of a deal. Hosah cautiously made his way over to the hand which waited patiently for him, suddenly hit with a wave of shyness that couldn’t be shaken. Despite having done this a hundred times before, he found himself nervously planning out his footing as he observed the palm in-front of him.

Honestly, he half expected Teddy to take the piss and poke a little fun at him, but he didn’t. The giant waited without a word. No kinds of encouragement or teasing, no talking down to him, just silent patience. Hosah liked that about him, he knew his place even when he clearly had the upper hand in these situations.

Just as he was about to take the first step, something came to Hosah’s memory, “Teddy, what does Pupa mean?”

“Oh, um,” his assistant laughed to himself with surprise at the sudden question, “In Latin, it means doll.”

“Eugh, god. How come you get the cool name like Sancho?” Hosah thought himself to be very smart as he used to conversation to distract himself from all of his nerves surrounding the hand in front of him, crawling into the palm with the grace of a fish out of water.

Without thinking too much about it, Teddy stood to his full height now that the shrunken figure sat comfortably, “No, no, Sancho is so much worse. That’s like, the male equivalent to English’s ‘mistress’.”

This fact made Hosah feel quite a lot better about his own nickname.

Almost as soon as he’d stepped onto the palm, it was time to be lowered back down onto his familiar kitchen counters. Curse Teddy his stupidly long legs, the shifter was just starting to enjoy the warmth radiating from underneath him.

The view from the counter was quite nice, though, he could always appreciate a good forearm. Hosah watched with a little shame brewing in his stomach as his assistant checked through his cupboards, revealing nothing but half a loaf of bread, an unopened can of chopped tomatoes, and a small glass bottle of vanilla extract.

The fridge was equally barren, only barely having the ingredients Teddy needed to prepare whatever he was thinking about.

“You know how you said you always carry ground cinnamon with you?” He asked, leaning forward against the countertop, his shadow cast over Hosah’s tiny form.

Embarrassed by both the position he’d found himself in and the fact Teddy had remembered the fact, Hosah hummed as if to say ‘go on,’.

“Where do you keep that?” The giant elaborated,

If he wasn’t shy before, Hosah was most definitely shy now, “In my- coat pocket. On the inside. It’s .. hung up by the door,” Despite being small enough, the shifter shrunk back into himself, pointing out back into the living room.

As if he didn’t do anything at all, Teddy casually went over and collected what little he had left in the spice shaker. Returning with all of the ingredients laid out in front of him, he explained himself,

“I’m making French Toast.” Teddy said, going through the under-the-counter cupboards to retrieve both a small skillet and a shallow bowl that Hosah didn’t recall ever owning. “Out of everything you had, it’s lucky you seemed to stock all the ingredients. Do you make it yourself often?”

In all honesty, Hosah didn’t even know how one made french toast. “Nah. I don’t really

cook all that much. Unless you count adding hot water to noodle cups.”

“I see,” Teddy laughed, “My dad’s a chef so, I always spent a lot of time with him learning recipes and such. Plus my grandparents were sort of incapable by the time I got old enough to use the kitchen, so I ended up helping them out a lot in that way.”

The shifter looked up curiously with those familiar big brown eyes, Teddy’s voice was very sweet, honey to the ears as his slight accent slipped into some of the words he said. Hosah wondered if he’d mind being asked to read him bedtime stories any time soon.

“Anyway, do your parents do anything cool?” Hosah taken out of the moment as the conversation was shifted onto himself,

“Ah, not really. You ever heard of Etsy? Kind of new, my dad’s a warrior on there. Always doing some kind of order. He’s a woodworking teacher at my hometown’s highschool, but lately he’s been focusing on his own online shop. It’s cool. He can make just about anything.” Hosah could go on for days in praise of his dad.

As he whisked the mixture of egg, cinnamon, and vanilla extract, the giant replied, “What do you mean not really? That is cool.”

The shifter looked down to his feet with a flustered smile, “Yeah, it is, I guess.”

“What about your mom?”

“Oh, she’s a nurse. Always pretty busy when we were kids. My parents had kind of an unconventional relationship, stay-at-home dad with my mom bringing home the bacon. Or, bread, we can’t eat bacon. I don’t know.”

“Hmm, you don’t like pork?” The clicking of the gas being lit on the stove sort of muffled what Teddy had asked, placing the soaked bread slices onto the lightly greased skillet.

“ Nah, ‘ts not kosher. I don’t even know, I don’t even really believe in religion all that strongly, but I’ve been doing it my whole life so, what’s the point in stopping now?” Hosah rambled on, unsure if what he was saying could be heard by whatever higher being he’d dedicated his life to pleasing, and if it’d come up in purification.

“Oh god I get that. I still find myself thinking back to some of the shit I learnt in school, ‘You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a woman’ , man tell that to all of your priests then, you know?” The shifter was kind of taken aback with how much passion Teddy seemed to have on the topic, and also with what he may or may not have just told him. His heart beat out of his chest, realising he might actually have a shot at what he’d been trying to scrub from his mind whenever he looked at the giant.

“Y-yeah, totally. It’s still nice though, I guess. Hope of something after life, reaping your rewards, finding out you were right the whole time and every one else was getting it all wrong.” Hosah turned, hiding his red face despite the fact his assistant was far too distracted with the task in front of him to notice.

Teddy exhaled a contemptuous ‘Pshh’ , “That’s the thing though, what if everyone else was right? I don’t even really believe in an afterlife, to be honest. I always just thought you were put back on earth at square one, with past lives and all that.” he shrugged, “I don’t know, I’m a Libra, I’m indecisive. I might tell you the opposite tomorrow.”

“I don’t even know what my zodiac sign is, not the most spiritual guy out there.”

“Well,” Teddy turned his head away from the sizzling pan and down onto the shrunken figure, “When’s your birthday?”

“June first.”

The giant squinted with a familiar coy smile that meant he was definitely up to no good,

“Gemini. Yeah. That makes so much sense.”

“Why, what does that mean, how does that make sense?” Hosah needed an explanation to why the giant seemed to be so understanding of the answer.

Teddy’s eyes adverted back in that annoying nonchalant way, “Well, they say you guys are clever, impulsive, communicative, and you contradict yourselves a lot.” That same smile curled up onto his face as he remembered one more thing, “And you’re bad at sex. But then again, these are just loose traits, they can apply to just about anyone. It’s fun to think about though.”

The statement completely flustered Hosah into a stunned silence, with no idea what to say or how to respond, so instead, Teddy added more to his side of the conversation,

“They do say that Libras and Geminis are really strong matches though, so we have that going for us. I’d like to think there’s some truth in it all. It’s just interesting, I like it.”

Hosah coughed out his words in embarrassment, “When’s your birthday, then?”

“October nineteenth. My sister’s birthday is only two days before mine.”

“Eugh, I’d hate that. Are you the youngest or the oldest?” Hosah acted as if he knew all too well about the middle child syndrome of being forgotten, despite being fully aware of his dad’s blatant favouritism in his favour.

Teddy reached over to the dried dish pile by the sink, the smell of the cooked toast wafting throughout the whole apartment, “Youngest. There’s only eighteen months between me and my sister though, so we’ve always been more like twins if anything.” Turning the heat off of the stove, he continued, “What about you? You have siblings also, right?”

“Mm, two brothers. One older, one younger. It was always kind of awkward, because me and my older brother are so close in age, but then my little brother and I have a ten year age gap. Felt like he missed out on a lot of older brother growing up experiences, made me feel bad and stuff.”

Teddy gave a sympathetic ‘Mmm’ in response, too distracted dishing out breakfast to really think of any sort of heartfelt reply.

“Aaand breakfast is served,” The giant turned his body to face the tiny figure to his left, although he had a sort of disappointed pout on his face. “Wish we had some syrup or something. Ah, oh well, maybe next time?”

The way his face shifted so quickly and with such ease was fascinating to Hosah, Teddy could go from upset to overjoyed in about half a second, or so, that’s how it looked on the outside.

He offered the palm once more after washing them thoroughly, and this time, Hosah had no trouble diving straight onto it, quickly becoming accustomed to the familiar feeling he thought he’d long forgotten.

In these mundane moments of making breakfast together, it was almost like Hosah could forget there was someone going around killing off shifters like flies being trapped in a cobweb. As if there wasn’t something waiting for him back at the office, hand delivered with his name inked on the front. What it was, he had no idea, and he was enjoying his blissful ignorance too much to dwell. After all, his brain didn’t really work normally at such early hours in the morning, and he was in no rush to reach full conscious stability.

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