They call me "The Dumpster" around the dorms, but my roommate, Liam? He just calls me "a biohazard."
Liam was your classic buzzkill. You know the type: color-coded highlighters, a mini-vacuum for his desk, and a strictly enforced "shoes off at the door" policy that I violated about five times a day. He was studying Pre-Med, stressing over organic chemistry while I was out on the field, grinding through three hours of football practice in ninety-degree heat. He was uptight, sterile, and desperately in need of an intervention.
And I had just the tools for the job.
I walked in that Tuesday evening, dragging a cloud of humidity and turf with me. I didn't even bother with the door handle; I just shouldered it open and collapsed onto my bed. The room smelled like lemon pledge and anxiety. Liam was hunched over his desk, back rigid.
"Kai, seriously?" he groaned without turning around. "I can smell you from here. Did you roll in a swamp?"
"It's called pheromones, buddy. It’s the scent of victory," I laughed, kicking my legs up. I looked down at my Nikes,battered, white-ish leather that had seen better days and definitely better smells. They were practically radiating heat.
I caught my reflection in the mirror,smug grin, polo shirt slightly unbuttoned. Then I looked at the shoe in my hand, and I saw the faint, greenish-yellow haze rising from the sole. It was like a cartoon, but real. The funk was so potent it was manifesting visually.
"Take a shower, Kai. Please," Liam begged, finally turning around. He pinched his nose, his eyes watering instantly.
"You know, Liam, your problem is you fight nature," I said, my voice dropping an octave, smooth and commanding. "You're too tense. You need to breathe it in."
I sat up, extending my right leg. The sock was grey, damp, and practically vibrating with the day's sweat. I held up my left sneaker in my hand, aiming the opening right at him like a cannon.
"What are you doing?" Liam started to stand up, panic flickering in his eyes. He tried to back away, but the dorm room was small. "Kai, put that away. I’m serious, I’m gonna throw up."
"No, you're not," I said, locking eyes with him. "You're gonna relax."
I waved the socked foot in a slow, rhythmic circle. The yellow mist seemed to swirl, catching the fluorescent light. Liam’s gaze got snagged on it. He tried to look away, to cover his face, but the scent was already hitting him,a thick, heavy wall of earthy musk, old leather, and pure, unfiltered locker room. It wasn't just a smell; it was a presence.
"It’s heavy, isn't it?" I whispered. "Makes your eyelids heavy. Makes your brain foggy."
Liam stumbled, his knees hitting the edge of my bed. "I... I can't..."
"Don't fight it. Embrace the funk."
He was wobbling now. The sharp, intellectual glare was fading, replaced by a dull, watery confusion. He swatted at the air, trying to push the smell away, but it was useless. I saw the moment his will cracked. He took a shallow breath, then coughed, but he didn't pull away.
"Now for the main course," I grinned.
I lunged forward, not aggressively, but with undeniable purpose. Before he could dodge, I cupped the heel of my sneaker and clamped the opening directly over his nose and mouth.
"Breathe, Liam."
He thrashed instantly. His hands flew up to grab my wrist, his muffled shouts vibrating through the leather sole against my palm. He was trying to hold his breath, his eyes bulging as he stared right into the dark, humid abyss of the shoe's interior. But the body needs air.
He gasped.
I watched the transformation kick in immediately. The shoe was a concentrated chamber of everything he hated, and now, it was becoming everything he was. As he inhaled that thick, heated air, the fight drained out of his arms. His grip on my wrist went from a desperate claw to a loose hold, and finally, his hands just dropped to his sides.
The transformation was fascinating to watch. It started in the face. The tension in his jaw unspooled completely. His furrowed brow, usually etched with worry about GPAs and exams, smoothed out into a vacant, blissful slackness. His eyes, previously sharp and alert, rolled back slightly before settling into a heavy-lidded, glazed stare.
Then it hit his posture. The "clean" Liam stood with a rod in his spine. The new Liam melted. His shoulders slumped forward, losing all that rigid academic tension. He leaned into the shoe now, not away from it. He was practically nuzzling the insole, chasing the source of the fog.
I pulled the shoe back a few inches. A visible trail of that green funk seemed to connect the sole to his nostrils.
"How we feelin', bro?" I asked.
Liam stood there, swaying. He looked... different. Dirtier, somehow, even though he hadn't touched anything. His pristine button-down shirt suddenly looked uncomfortable on him. He tugged at the collar, popping a button loose. He ran a hand through his perfectly gelled hair, messing it up into a spiked, disheveled mop that mirrored mine.
"I feel..." Liam's voice was deeper, slower. "Chill."
"Yeah? You worried about that Chem test?"
Liam blinked, looking at his desk like he didn't recognize it. He looked back at my foot,the source of his new enlightenment. "Chem? Nah. Whatever."
He sat down heavily on his own bed, kicking off his loafers without undoing the laces, letting them clatter against the wall,a mortal sin for the old Liam. He slumped back, spreading his arms wide, taking up space. He took a deep sniff of the air, which still reeked of my three-hour practice, and instead of gagging, a lazy smile spread across his face.
"Smells like... victory," he mumbled, echoing me.
I laughed, tossing the sneaker onto his lap. He didn't push it away. He just rested his hand on it, like it was a pet.
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warnings: presumed character death, mentions of death and injury, miscommunication, angst, psychological warfare between 2 fools, poor life choices, cliffhanger (?)
-
The human was acting weird.
That in itself wasn’t unusual– almost every human Virgil had ever seen was engaged in some incomprehensible nonsense, and the tales Roman had told him only further solidified his personal belief that beans had only managed to make it this far through a combination of size and luck alone.
Even that simple memory of sharing stories made his eyes sting. He’d been forcing himself to think about Roman more often lately, like he was picking at a barely healed scab. Any time he thought about Janus– no, the human without the proper amount of sickened fury, he ran his mind through the horrible facts, digging his nails in deeper until the wound felt freshly made.
(The facts were as follows: Roman had been caught and caged and killed. Virgil would never see his best friend again. And it was all the human’s fault.)
The injury wasn’t allowed to heal, not now, maybe not ever. It didn’t matter if the human shared his name or treated his wounds or gave him food. It didn’t matter how many little quirks and habits that he noticed, the little things that turned someone from a stranger to a fully-formed person. It didn’t matter because Virgil would never fall for the facade, would never forget that a borrower’s life wasn’t worth anything to the monster before him.
So, he refused to give up a single smudge of ground, his jaw locked and glare sharp. The human kept providing food and medicine and idle commentary, and Virgil kept himself from softening through constant mental reminders.
He wouldn’t need food or medicine if the human hadn’t captured him in the first place. He could certainly live without the snarky remarks and sarcastic flattery, no matter how much he sometimes wished to snap back, and the human’s apparent delight on the few rare instances he did bite out a scathing response. It was easier to keep quiet when he thought about how gullible Roman could be, how easily he might have fallen for simple acts of decency and insincere compliments.
It was harder when the human did things like spend an afternoon building a makeshift bed for him. It hadn’t been a hand-me-down; Virgil had overheard several hissed swears throughout the process, and seen the shiny burns notched across a few of Janus’s fingers as he set the bed down with a flourish. Still, at first he’d stalwartly refused to so much as glance at the wooden frame, its bumpy hot-glue edges, or the soft, hand sewn pillow serving as a tiny mattress.
Oddly, the human never seemed particularly put out by his stubborn refusals to engage. Wryly amused, maybe, but he hadn’t watched Virgil with those cold, hawk-sharp eyes since those first couple of days. The little interrogation session seemed to have reassured him greatly, forebodingly enough.
It was hard to feel good about the schemes that had to be going on out of sight, with Janus indubitably planning to root out the rest of the small colony in the walls, but at least the shift in demeanor meant Virgil was less likely to keel over from stress alone. His instincts had been worn to a thin, frazzled thread from all that intent staring, and he was glad for a break from it.
Still, because he was who he was, he couldn’t help but think about what might happen once the season turned. He didn’t want a human to catch any more borrowers, even ones who had so thoroughly screwed him over, but if summer arrived and the human hadn’t succeeded, Virgil was well within reach, small and injured and easy to take out a fit of temper on.
If the human didn’t believe he was telling the truth, subjected him to a more painful sort of interrogation to try and get the information Virgil just didn’t have, it could prove lethal. One break was bad enough, but if the weak spot was re-shattered? He could be left adjusting to life with one usable leg, with no family or companions to act as a safety net as he relearned vital skills. The life of an outside borrower was harrowing when one did know they were doing, let alone when they didn’t. The first time he messed up, he’d be as good as dead.
If the human did catch the other borrowers, well. Virgil wouldn’t have any more use to him, at that point. If he continued to sit here helplessly, his fate would probably match Roman’s.
(Why had Janus been stupid enough to kill Roman before figuring out what he needed to know in the first place? Had he misjudged his own strength and killed him accidentally? Or had it been an active, malicious choice, made with full confidence that he’d be able to catch more borrowers to replace Roman?
He had to stop thinking about this. He was going to make himself sick.)
So, no matter which outcome, he had to escape before then.
Easier said than done, of course, but nothing in his life had ever been easy, and he was still trying. At the very least, he thought the human’s strangely accommodating behavior could be turned to his advantage. If Janus thought he was falling for the nice guy act, he’d lower his guard, the same way he’d lowered it when Virgil had lost himself to panic and hunger before.
If a snappish prisoner was entertaining to the human, he would stop keeping his replies trapped behind his teeth. He would banter and complain and drop little bits of useless information whenever his captor pried, pretend that he was softening under the improved treatment. He would do what he had to do, give as good a performance as he could through the bitter hatred, if it meant upping his chances.
So be it. As long as this human insisted on pretending to have a heart, Virgil would gladly take advantage of every faux beat of it.
He wasn’t going to just lie down and accept his fate. He refused to give the human the satisfaction of an easy kill. If he couldn’t escape, he would at least go down fighting tooth and nail, vicious and determined all the way to the end.
He thought Roman would have wanted that much, at least.
–
Janus was feeling good about the progress he’d made with his little guest.
Sure, they had gotten off to a poor start, what with the violation of several ethical, moral, and legal boundaries, and certainly, his first impression had been a ludicrously evil one, but even so!
V didn’t spend as much time sulking behind the fake shrubbery lately, had been eating and drinking with reassuring regularity, and after an initial period of resentful silence, had even occasionally deigned to reply to one of Janus’s mostly-cursory questions. All promising signs, though Janus still felt like the olive branch he’d extended was always a mere moment from being sharply swatted away.
That was fine; he didn’t really have to make nice with the borrower he’d abducted, in the end. In fact, he doubted that V was truly feeling as grumpily peaceable as he seemed. The borrower had spent the first week of their acquaintance trying dedicatedly to escape, and his placidity now was likely just a long con.
It didn’t matter. So long as he could retrieve what had been stolen, he didn’t mind at all if V vanished without a trace the very next day. Janus was oozing with charisma and wit. He certainly wouldn’t miss the reticent company of someone so morose and petulant, even if that someone also happened to have a dry sense of humor and a remarkable talent for razor-sharp rebuttals.
Janus suspected that he would have an easier time ignoring his tiny hostage’s sparkling personality if he hadn’t taken to spending at least one meal a day forcing V to endure his presence, but his recent attempts to become a more gracious host didn’t extend that far. He had to take his amusements where he could find them, and lately he’d been finding them in bothering his snappish guest.
It was during one such meal that he was forced to admit, even if only to himself, that V truly had been an innocent bystander.
Janus was an expert at convincing himself, but the evidence was overwhelming— the most obvious being that there were quite a few marked differences between V and the other borrowers he’d spotted.
For one, their knowledge bases.
He’d realized early on that in order to survive in such close quarters with humans, borrowers needed to have excessive knowledge of not only human architecture and technology, but also of humans themselves, particularly the routines, habits, and personalities of the ones they robbed. They certainly wouldn’t have managed to get one over on him without that keen understanding of the layout of his apartment and his schedule alike.
V, on the other hand, had nearly concussed himself trying to hide in faux foliage the first time Janus had turned on the television.
The borrower tended to survey everything with a level of narrow-eyed suspicion, but whenever he was confronted with something he didn’t understand, that wariness was joined by a somewhat comical expression of poorly-hidden bewilderment. Janus had noticed that V even tilted his head sometimes, as though trying to use a different angle to puzzle out the function of a toaster.
(The little gesture was not charming. Not remotely. Janus remained thoroughly uncharmed.)
If V had truly been living in the walls of this apartment with the others, he would have been spotted by Janus long before the current situation. So then, the question became: where had V been living?
To his horror, the answer became more and more clear with every sour response V provided during their mealtime conversations.
Simple offhand comments that went like,
“Something that bright is bound to be poisonous. Do you even know who harvested it? You might be fine making yourself sick, but I’m not.”
and,
“Look, it doesn’t matter if it warms up, not even insiders are idiotic enough to try and move homes during the spring. A single thunderstorm and they’d lose most of their supplies, if not their lives, to the mudslides.”
and even,
“I’m not scared of a little garden snake. It couldn’t eat me if it tried, and besides, I’ve fought bigger beasts as a teenager.”
If Janus had been perturbed by the knowledge of tiny people secretly living in the walls and watching his every move to steal from him, he was outright horrified by the realization that there were some borrowers who lived outdoors, entirely in the elements.
Outside, where they were towered over by squirrels and storm clouds alike. Frankly, he considered it a miracle that V had survived long enough to be pushed into his sink. Maybe he did care if V escaped, if it meant that he would return to living the terror-filled life of, essentially, a wild mouse with thumbs.
Janus had felt the rapid near-buzz pattering of V’s heartbeat, held the weight of V’s life in the palm of his hand, knew that he was so incredibly small and breakable and determined to survive despite it all. To imagine the borrower being snuffed out by something as banal as the life cycle made an inexplicable unpleasant twisting begin in his gut.
Not that he actually cared about the guy or anything. It was simply a shame, and horrifying to think about to boot.
Still, the thoughts were pervasive enough for him to begin reconsidering the terrarium V was currently residing in. It had sufficed as a temporary holding cell for a borrower he planned to release once he’d reclaimed what was his, and he’d added a few small touches for comfort, but it certainly wouldn’t do as a more permanent residence.
If he planned on extending V’s stay past the season’s turn, he would have to come up with something better. Luckily, he had the perfect starting point: he’d recently run into a neighbor a few doors down with a particularly undersized hobby…
