[ prp ] It's the Little Things (Taymerica)

[lizbot]

"I'm gonna buy a bunch of jellos." This is both an agreement and a warning.

Carefully, she steps into his hand, grabbing onto his thumb to steady herself. "Okay, now put me up against your chest." The talk of pocketed shirts has given her A Thought.

rejam

 

[Rejam]

lizbot

"That's an irrelevant response," he says, "because as I've said before, jello isn't a food."

Moving gingerly he leans back to make things easier, drawing her up close as he realizes what she's after. "You can do this when you're the normal size too, you know," he says quietly. It's not even remotely the same feeling but he's forcibly reminded of holding a baby to his chest--the way their fussiness soothes and subsides when they're consumed with the enormity of a full-sized heartbeat; not far off from holding a kitten, or Ivy back when she was still shaking and mange-stricken and terrified. It's different wefts strung onto the same warp--the idea of being a comfort and a shield to something small and vulnerable. The idea of that small and vulnerable thing ever being his self-assured and terrifying girlfriend is more than a little alien even when she's the normal size, let alone now.  

[lizbot]

Spreading her arms wide, America gives him both the biggest and tiniest of hugs, then rests her head against him. The sound of his heart and bellows of his lungs are massive, thundering steadily through ribs and flesh and she wonders if this is what people feel when they believe in a god worth loving, when they step into a church to bow their head and humble their heart. It's easy to get caught up in the rythmic thrum thrum of life, easy to get caught up in the perfection of a human body, working as intended.

It’s harder to find her own for once, small and fast and feather light by comparison. But it's there, and in finding both, she finds her tension easing out of the space between. And then that space begins to change, her heart beat trying to meet the powerful march of his own, its stride stretching to catch up and up and up

And then she exhales with him, breath warm against his chest, arms falling gently to either side of the man, no longer some powerful giant. Another breath and then she tilts her head up to look at him with a dazed smile, and says, of all things, "Obadiah Thompson, you're all kinds of amazing."

rejam

 

[Rejam]

lizbot

He is silent for a long, long time, and then he laughs. It is a strange and incredulous laugh and it goes on a little longer than is his wont, with his hands tight on her arms. It is, maybe, slightly hysterical, a point underscored by the sudden uptick in that self-same heartbeat. He's the sort of person whose anxiety spikes catch up to him, sometimes.

"You literally just Alice-in-Wonderlanded and came back and you're gonna give me the bullshit line that I'm the amazing one. OK." And then he lifts her chin on his fingertips, tipping her face this way and that in a strangely clinical way, like he's looking for some kind of scar. "You're OK, right? No harm done? I'm not gonna buy you a ******** Barbie dream house if you're not OK."  

[lizbot]

"You are, you..." dipping her head out of his grip, she kisses his palm. "I got lucky with this. You did too, obviously," she adds in order to reassure him that she was not at all addled by magic and was still very much America Jones.

"I'm good. Need to figure out the how and maybe the why of it, but it wasn't a bad way to wake up."

A pause.

"We should look at the toy ponies too, see if they got any sturdy little saddles."

rejam

 

[Rejam]

lizbot

He closes his eyes again, trying to ward off that terrifying mental image. That is a worry for another time.

"You might wanna text Jeremiah and let him know you're the right size again, at some point," he says. "Sorry, wasn't sure who else to ask." It would be extraordinarily easy for that thought to lead to since Sunny isn't here, not really and so he breezes past it and onto the next thought. "Glad it wasn't a bad way to wake up for you." The for you just barely manages to be polite instead of pointed. A pause. "And then if--if this is like when you were--learning the first thing, if you need me for that again." To just be there, helpless, an anchor. "I can do that. But I'm still not letting you climb my beard, that's weird."  

[lizbot]

Jeremiah gets a full-size selfie to go with the fun-sized one later. For now, the only appropriate answer for that sort of statement is to shamelessly reach up, proceed to molest his face, and ask him if he's really, really sure about that.