Do Borrowers Like Musicals?
~~~~~
Remus just wanted to see the musical (it was actually a good one for once).
It wasn't his fault that the best viewing spot was the ceiling vent.
~~~~~
Remus was a pretty good borrower, he decided. He always made sure never to get caught, and he was fairly certain the human didn’t suspect anything.
That was to be expected, since he had only lived in this particular house a few days, but so far this was the house he was certain he wouldn’t have to leave. There weren’t a lot of clean places, which made it absolutely perfect for borrowing without notice. There were lots of fabrics and pins, and while he didn’t have much use for fabric, the absolute abundance of pins was perfect.
There was no way any rats would survive a fight if Remus had seven pins on his person at all times! No rats were to be eating through all of his supplies this time! He started collecting them, knowing the human would be out of the house for at least another two hours.
He ran into the walls, intent on sharpening his new weapons even more. They were good at piercing fabric, but they were just a little bit too blunt for much else. He grinned maniacally every time he looked at a perfectly sharpened point, thinking about how much damage he could do with such a weapon.
He started planning exactly how he could carry and conceal seven pins about his person after each and every pin was sharpened to perfection, until he heard the tell-tale sound of the human returning from wherever he went every day. Probably that ‘school’ thing he always heard about.
Didn’t sound much like fun, if he was honest. He looked out of a very small hole in the wall, probably not even noticeable to the human, and saw him sat at a table on his weird information machine. He was pretty sure it was called a computer, but he didn’t really care. Instead he just watched as much of the ‘video’ as he could
Everyone in it seemed to be singing for some reason, but Remus loved it. All the inappropriate jokes made by people dressed like those stupid characters the human was so fond of? That seemed more up his alley than the original characters themselves.
The human seemed to like it as well, with him periodically chuckling at some of the jokes, and singing along with the love duet. Remus decided that he needed to get closer, or at least just a better angle so the human’s head wasn’t blocking half of the screen. The best angle just happened to be from the vent cover on the ceiling.
Probably not the best idea, but then again, who was gonna stop him? A brief thought of rationality crossed his mind, reminding him that stupid things like that were the reason he kept having to move house. He pushed that thought down
Besides, he had enough pins that he could possibly take on the human in a fight if need be. He climbed up to the vent in the duration of a song that seemed to sound similar to the one from that movie the human liked, if with more interesting lyrics of course. He watched for a while until he got to the scene with two plot twists and audibly gasped.
The human paused the musical and looked up at the vent, which, of course, chose that exact moment fall open from his limited weight. He fell onto the cushion next to where the human was sat, and looked up to where the human was staring right at him, seemingly in shock
Remus bit back the swelling fear in his mind, and drew one of his pins, pointing it at the human
“Sta-Stay back!”
-
Roman was just trying to watch a stupid musical after college, but no, of course he couldn’t just watch the musical in peace, could he? He got about 3/4 of the way through it before hearing a gasp from the fucking ceiling.
Setting aside the musical for a few moments, he looked up at the vent cover. He was sure that he could see something too small, too small to be human, but it was moving slightly. The vent cover suddenly opened and a tiny person fell out, onto the couch
Roman watched them get up and start backing away, brandishing a pin at him. “Sta-Stay back!”
Roman reached out, intent on grabbing the little person, to inspect what the fuck they were. He felt a sharp sting on his finger and retracted his hand “What the fuck, man?”
“I told you to stay back, and you didn’t listen. I didn’t spend all that time sharpening this pin for it to not do anything, anyway” The tiny person didn’t seem all that scared, but Roman was a theatre major. He could sense fake confidence from a mile away
He pinched the end of the pin between two fingers, and took it away from the tiny person, sighing. He couldn’t see anymore pins, so he reached out again, only to get stabbed once more. The second perfectly sharpened pin was being held in a slightly shaking grasp.
Roman sighed, glaring slightly “Will you stop stabbing me?” he grabbed the pin again, placing it with the other. “I just wanna pick you up, I’m not gonna hurt you”
The little person crossed their arms “Well don’t come near me, and you won’t get stabbed,” Roman could hear the (admittedly well masked) fear in their voice and sighed.
“What’s it gonna take for you to let me pick you up? I already said I wasn’t gonna hurt you!”
“Well how would you like it if a giant suddenly found you and refused to leave you alone whilst taking your only form of defence away from you and disrespecting your boundaries? Hmm?”
Roman rolled his eyes “I’m not a giant, you’re just impossibly small. Besides, you don’t need to defend yourself”
The tiny person scoffed, uncrossing their arms “Do you know just how many horror stories I’ve heard about humans? And most of them have been true, by the way. I have no way of knowing what you plan on doing with me, and while I usually love being spontaneous, being spontaneously shoved into this shitshow of a situation is not my idea of fun”
-
Remus was terrified. He chose not to show it though, it would be hard to have a compelling argument if your voice quivered every two seconds.
The human was really getting on his nerves. The decades worth of stories were flashing through his mind, each gorier than the last. He vaguely registered the human talking again, but Remus couldn’t care. Maybe he should just not speak, then the human wouldn’t get annoyed at him.
Annoyed humans were more likely to be dangerous, so he should probably just shut up
“Are you listening to me? I asked you a question” The human sounded more annoyed, and Remus gulped, starting to think if it would be worth it to stay in the conversation or if he should take one of his perfectly sharpened pins right to his heart. Would be better than a human killing him, he reasoned, though he didn’t get his pin out
“I didn’t hear you, what did you say?” He asked, keeping up his confident demeanour, desperately trying to keep his voice from shaking
He liked the feeling of being scared sometimes, but not this time. He liked when he would very nearly fall from a high place but didn’t, the heart and adrenaline rush he would get, but to be face to face with an annoyed human was a different matter.
“I asked what you were doing in the ceiling vent in the first place, which you would know if you were paying attention” the human rolled his eyes once again
“I’m sorry, it’s hard to pay attention when you’re thinking about how you’re probably gonna die and reveal your entire kind and endanger everyone you know. But you don’t care about what I might be feeling in this situation, do you? No, of course you don’t. You care that I don’t want to be picked up, and don’t always listen to what you say, but have you ever considered how fucking awful this situation is for me?” He snapped, grabbing another pin and pointing it once again
The human stared at him, and he finally realised that he was crying. That was stupid, he was stupid.
“what do you mean that you’re gonna die? I have reassured you time and time again that I am not going to hurt you”
Remus inhaled shakily “Yeah, but you’re human. Do you think I wasn’t trying my hardest to not show vulnerability or fear so you wouldn’t realise just how much power you have over me? You think my mind hasn’t been flooded with thoughts about all the things you could do and the different ways you could kill me? And do you know what doesn’t fucking help? You taking all my defences! I only have a few weapons, and if you take them from me so easily, do you know how fucking terrifying that can be?! To know that the only thing protecting you does practically nothing” He was backing away the entire time he was talking, preparing for whatever the human would do after his outburst
For a few moments, the human was silent, and Remus could feel himself shaking
“You really think you’re gonna die, don’t you?” though it was phrased as a question, it was most definitely a statement
“Of course I do! Who wouldn’t? There is no one of my kind who wouldn’t be terrified in this situation!”
Remus was still holding out his pin, but it was very noticeably shaking. He put it down, sighing
“Why did you put your pin down? Do you trust me now?”
Remus laughed slightly “Of course not, but you’re just gonna take it anyway, so I’ve decided it would be better to stop fighting and hope I get a quick death” He looked down, wanting to get it over with
Maybe now he would get the answer to the question he always asked himself. What did death feel like?
“I’m not gonna kill you, I promise” the human
Remus started to wonder what the human would actually do to him, keep him as a pet? Torture him? Sell him to scientists? Show him to other people and endanger borrowers everywhere? Probably the last one, if he was being honest
He had seen the humans friend once or twice, and he immediately understood that they were the type of friends who told everything to each other, which really didn’t bode well for him or other borrowers.
Whilst Remus wasn’t paying attention, the human had started reaching for him again. He flinched but he didn’t move away or fight back this time. The more he annoyed the human, the more pain it would mean for him. That was what was always drilled into his head since he was old enough to listen.
Don’t talk to humans, don’t get caught, don’t annoy them, and don’t let them reveal your existence to more people. He had already broken 3/4 rules and soon enough, the fourth would be broken.
He was placed into a jar, and while Remus knew it wouldn’t happen, his brain started imagining all the things that could happen. Screwing the lid on and waiting ‘til he ran out of air, dropping the jar from a large height and him dying from the glass shards and bruises. He shuddered.
The human was using that weird device that Remus was pretty sure was known as a phone. He knew why it was being used, there was no way he was gonna keep this discovery to himself.
He watched the human talk to his friend through the phone and flinched. So, this was how he would end up dying. Causing the deaths of hundreds of others. He curled up in the bottom of the jar, awaiting his fate.
-
Virgil wasn’t expecting to get a cryptic phone call from his best friend.
“#No, I can’t explain- just come over please. It’s too crazy to say over the phone, please just show up#” Roman’s voice seemed pleading, so Virgil rolled his eyes and agreed
“I swear to God, if this is for something stupid I will kill you, Princey” he warned jokingly, walking the few minutes to Roman’s house, still on the phone
“#I don’t think it’s stupid, but it’s certainly absurd to say the least#”
He wished Roman had told him a little more than that when they were on the phone, because when he walked into the house, Roman whisked him aside in the hall and told him ‘not to freak out because it could scare them more’
So that was a fun experience that definitely didn’t make Virgil start panicking a little.
Roman led him into the living room, where a jar was sat on the coffee table and a tiny person was in the fucking jar.
He looked over at where Roman was stood awkwardly “Roman, what the actual fuck” The tiny person flinched, curling in on themselves more. His gaze softened slightly, and he dragged Roman out of the room
“Roman. Why on Earth is there a tiny person on your coffee table and why are they in a Fucking Jar?! What did you do this time?”
“It’s not even my fault this time! They fell out of the ceiling vent whilst I was watching Twisted, and they think they’re going to die, Virgil. They think I’m gonna kill them, and I don’t know what to do”
“Why do they think you’re gonna kill them?” He raised an eyebrow. What stupid decisions had Roman made this time?
“Still not my fault! They stabbed my fingers a few times when I was trying to grab them, but eventually, they just broke down crying and said they were just hoping I’d make it quick. I’d told them multiple times I wasn’t gonna hurt them, it’s not my fault if they didn’t believe me”
Virgil sighed, shaking his head “And you still stuffed them into a jar? How do you think they feel now? Probably even worse, and you added me into the mix? What do you think is going on in their head?”
Roman looked down, guiltily “I guess I didn’t think about that... What do you think I should do about this?”
“First of all, don’t keep them in a fucking jar. That’s probably making them more scared. Second of all, let them go. Maybe ask them a few questions, but do let them go. Third, make sure they have enough food, and just don’t fucking pick them up if they very obviously don’t wanna be picked up. Like seriously, if someone stabs your fingers when you try pick them up, maybe just stop trying? What were they even stabbing you with? People sure as fuck don’t make knives that size”
Roman reached into his pocket and brought out two sharpened pins “They have at least one more with them right now, and I really don’t know where these things came from”
Virgil looked back into the living room for a moment.
Today was a really weird day...
~~~~~
Taglist: @a-chilly-pepper
