Tommy couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t that he wasn’t trying- he really couldn’t fucking breathe. The oxygen was stale around him and every inhale left his lungs aching.
Panicking he desperately clawed at the lid above him while the world swayed. He didn’t know how long he’d been in there, or how much longer it would be until he was freed.
But after everything that had happened he wasn’t sure if he even wanted to be freed...he couldn’t imagine whatever awaited him was any better than this. So after clawing at the lid until his hands felt numb, Tommy sunk back down into the bottom of the jar.
His warped reflection stared back at him from the glass and he wanted nothing more than to smash it into a million tiny pieces.
‘Why did I have to be this way?’ he asked himself.
His eyes bore into his reflection and he felt hatred well up inside of him; this was all because of his size. Everything was because of his size.
If he was just human like all of his other friends he would never have found himself trapped in a jar by some criminal.
He fucking hated it.
He stared at himself until he could barely keep his eyes open. However, he couldn’t fall asleep; he just couldn’t risk it. So Tommy forced himself to try to focus on anything except for how exhausted he felt and how terrified he was.
He curled in on himself and tried to focus on his breathing. Niki had told him once about how it helped her when she was stressed; he hoped it would help him a little bit.
When he got out (if he got out) he’d have to thank her.
He was on the last breath of the exercise when a loud ding rang out around him. For a moment he panicked thinking it was the man’s phone until a light reflected off the glass around him.
His phone!
Tommy felt stupid that he hadn’t thought of it before but in his complete panic he had forgotten. Quickly he whipped it out and read the messages already filling the discord.
‘Tommy you coming back?’
‘Hey dude what’s up why you’ve been gone for so long?’
‘Toms you’re worrying everyone if this is a prank again it’s not funny’
‘Seriously Tom were worried’
‘Tommy we’ve all been looking for like an hour where are you’
‘Tommy pls are you ok?’
The messages went on and on and the further down he scrolled the more panicked they got. Quickly Tommy typed out all he knew and sent it to his friends. He hoped any of them would be able to come.
It was too late though as soon as he saw the message had sent the bag shook around him and a loud noise came from above as the zipper was opened. Tommy quickly stuffed his phone back into his pocket so that man wouldn’t see before a large hand wrapped around the jar.
“There’s my little pet, hope the jar treated you well,” the man grinned.
He turned the bottle back and forth and laughed each time Tommy stumbled. He sped up the movements until eventually Tommy gave up, just letting his body be thrown back and forth.
“Oh that’s no fun come on little guy I can’t give a customer a dead one,” he smirked before undoing the lid at the top.
Tommy tried to shuffle to the corner of the jar away from the man’s prodding fingers, but the jar was tilted until he was being pressed into the man’s fist. He felt the hot fingers press tightly against his chest making it difficult to take a proper breath.
“Come on you were so fun before what happened?” The man grumbled.
A finger poked at Tommy’s face but as soon as it got close Tommy tried to lunge forward to bite at the man. Immediately the stranger’s face turned cold as he yanked the boy up to his face.
“Don’t you fucking dare pull that shit on me or I’ll bite your fucking head off,” he whispered, “You got that?”
He snarled at the frightened tiny before huffing and throwing him back into the jar; a weak cough escaped his body. From outside he saw the man glare at him.
After a few minutes the man pulled out his phone and started talking to someone on the other side, but Tommy could barely make out the words through the glass so he instead focused on figuring out where he was. The jar laid on a small picnic table that looked worse-for-wear. Occasionally bike riders passed by or groups of people Tommy assumed were going to the con, but it was otherwise quiet.
He assumed he wasn’t very far from the con...he hoped that meant someone woukd help.
As soon as the man hang up Tommy felt his body go numb, cruel eyes turned towards him and a grim smile spread across the man’s face.
“We’ve got a buyer,” he cooed to the jar.
Tommy felt the fire in his heart rekindle and immediately he was pounding at the glass. He shrieked and cursed at the man but all he did was grin.
“You can fight all you want but I can’t let you go,” he chuckled while he absentmindedly scrolled through his phone.
His leg tapped back and forth calmly in a way that made anger boil up inside Tommy. How dare this man be so calm when Tommy felt like he was a second away from exploding?
Tommy sucked in a deep breath to continue his onslaught of screams before the man’s head snapped up and his hand knocked the jar over.
“Hey fuck you bitch what the-“ Tommy screamed until he noticed the man was trying to run away.
The tiny squinted his eyes at the situation and saw two tall figures approaching the man who had kidnapped him. There was yelling and it looked like one of the figures hit the man before suddenly the lid of the jar came unsealed.
When he looked up this time though it wasn’t to the face of his kidnapped but to that of his friend.
“Bad?” he asked with wide eyes.
The human stared at him with concern written all over his face and nodded. He tipped over the jar and gently shook Tommy out onto his palm.
“You found him?” Another voice, Skeppy, asked.
“Yeah,” Bad replied, “He doesn’t look hurt can you tell them.”
Tommy looked back and forth at the two before a finger was prodding at his sides. Immediately he flinched away from the touch, his mind racing with the memories of being pulled at and squished.
“Oh jeez I’m sorry,” Bad muttered, “I should’ve asked, does anything hurt?”
Tommy looked up at the caring eyes of the human and finally let himself start to relax. From the corner of his eye he saw Skeppy on the phone glaring down at the stranger.
Quiet sobs came from his kidnapped as he cradled his broken nose with his hands.
“No im...yeah I’m fine Bad,” Tommy whispered.
Bad gave Tommy a thin smile and carefully pulled him close to his chest. Tommy wanted to pull away from the pressure, it reminded him too much of the tight threatening hold of the man, but Bad’s touch started to help him relax.
The soft warmth and gentle beating of his friend’s heart pulled at his already exhausted mind and begged him to sleep. He watched only half-awake as a police car pulled up and promptly took away the kidnapper. However, as a soft thumb slowly slid over his back he couldn’t help but fall asleep.
