Real Person Fic - CW: In the Small of My Heart [Part 1/2]
PART ONE
"There's a new giant at the big house."
She says it casually, like it's just an interesting tidbit of information she picked up, and when Jared looks up from his bowl, Megan is staring back at him, an expression on her face that's both innocent and a little excited.
Ma chokes on her soup and Jared's fingers tighten around his spoon. There's only one way she could know something like that, and if she was stupid enough to go out alone, she should at least know better than to announce it at the dinner table.
"What do you mean, Meg?" Jared asks. His words are tight, and he makes a face at her that is trying very hard to say 'lie, lie through your teeth, make something up and I'll cover for you.'
"I was out in the garden," she begins. Jared sighs, sinking back into his chair, and Ma's eyes widen. The shit is about to hit the fan. "And there were tons of them walking around, back and forth. They were all wearing these dark blue uniforms and carrying big boxes from this huge van to the house. So I crept in and I heard them talking about-"
"Megan Padalecki, what have I told you about going out there without your brother?" Ma puts her spoon down and glares at Jared like this is his fault. "What did I tell you about watching her?"
"I can't watch her all the time," he defends. "I do have a job, you know."
"You could have been killed," Ma continues, now turning back to Meg. "They might have stepped on you without even noticing. Or-or worse. They might have caught you. They could have found us all."
"The cat could have eaten you," Jared adds, spreading his arms out and grinning. "Teeth this big."
"Yes, thank you, Jared," Ma snaps. "That'll be enough."
"Okay, but they didn't," Meg insists. "I was careful! I'm always careful. I'd be dead by now if I wasn't."
"Your father was always careful, too," Ma replies, slamming her hand on the table. As soon as she says it, her hand flies up to cover her mouth, but it's too late. Meg's defiant expression has broken down, gone all hurt instead, and her bottom lip begins to tremble.
Jared reaches out, putting a hand on her shoulder and looking up at Ma across the table. "She's careful, Ma. I've caught her a few times. Which, you know, bad. But it means I've seen her, and I promise she's real good."
"I know," Ma says, her tone softer now. She reaches out to pat Meg's hand. "I know you're both very careful, but that's not always enough."
"So maybe it's time I learn," Meg says, and Jared shakes his head. He should have seen where Meg was going to try to go with this and shut it down as soon as she admitted to going outside. "Maybe it's time for Jared to take me on a borrowing."
"Absolutely not."
"But Ma-"
"I said no!"
The both look to him to back them up, and Jared drums his fingers on the tabletop. "She has to learn eventually," he says as judiciously as he can. "And she is nearly 16 already. That's two years older than when Dad took me on my first borrowing."
"Things were different then," Ma replies. "The answer is no."
"This is so unfair," Meg whines, but Jared gestures at her to shut up, and by some miracle, she listens.
He leans closer to their mother. "Ma, she's going to keep going out there whether we give her permission or not and you know it. It's not fair keeping her cooped up, and if she's gonna be out, she might as well be trained." He raises his voice and gives Meg a confident smile. "Anyway, if there's gonna be another giant to watch out for, I could use an extra pair of hands to help me get things done faster. We'll both be safer if-"
"We'll have to move," Ma says. "We should have years ago."
The table goes quiet at the reminder. When Dad got caught, every other family had cleared out of the neighborhood, down the river to the next big house. The other borrowers had all been convinced Dad would give them up, whereas Ma had insisted they stay, just as sure he would get away from the giants and return to them. Turns out everyone was wrong on that front. Dad hadn't told the giants where to find more borrowers, but he hadn't come home, either. He wasn't ever going to.
"It's too late for that," Jared says, trying to keep his voice even. It is what it is, and it's over, and it's not Ma's fault she hadn't wanted to give up on her husband. But it is her fault they're alone-that Jared had to watch Genevieve and Misha and even Chad disappear, one family at a time. Meg can't help it if she's bored at home with no one but him and Ma to talk to. Jared can't blame her for wanting to explore a little. "You know it's too late, so drop it."
"There must be a way to get in touch with some of the other families. Someone must have left behind a hint of where they went. We can go looking for them and find them-"
"And if we don't?" Jared shakes his head. "We're more likely to die out in the world going on a wild goose chase for a new home than we are here because of one giant."
"He's not even dangerous," Meg says.
Jared and Ma both turn to her, raising their eyebrows. "And how do you know that?" Jared asks at the same time Ma insists, "They're always dangerous!"
Meg licks her lips and looks to Jared, apparently deciding he's more likely to hear her out. "I was trying to say earlier, before you both freaked out on me. When I snuck into the big house I heard the giants talking. It was the one who lives out back, the caretaker, and another older lady. The old lady was saying that the giant who's coming is sick, that he's out here to keep calm and probably won't even be getting out of bed very often. Then I saw him coming in through the garden. He looked like the walk from the car was too much-I can outrun him, at least."
"He's got pretty long legs, I bet," Jared says. "All he has to do is take a step."
"I thought you were on my side," says Meg.
Jared sighs. "I am, but if I'm going to take you out there, I need to know you won't underestimate them. Not any of them, okay? He doesn't need to be in good health to squash you like a microbe."
"Yeah, yeah," Meg says. She pouts for another second and then adds, "What if he's nice? Who says they all want to kill us?"
Ma's eyes nearly jump out of her head, and Jared just gives her a flat look. "Dinner is excused," he says. "Before you give poor Ma a heart attack. We'll talk about your borrowing later."
_______________________________________________________________
Jared goes out on his own the next day, hoping to get a glimpse of the new giant. Okay, so it's a stupid idea, but Megan didn't get her idiotic sense of adventure from nowhere.
He wants a peek-that's it-one quick look at the new giant so he can assess the situation and then he'll slip back home to safety and start planning how to deal with this. Decide if Ma is right and they should just call it quits and move. She's left the choice up to Jared; Jared really hates responsibility.
The fastest route to information is always the kitchen. In Jared's experience, giants love to stand around in there (not that Jared blames them for that, he'd probably never move either if he had one room so well-stocked with food), and the open space, tiled floors and walls, make sound carry better than any of the other usual gathering spots.
It's a nine-staple climb to the mouse hole he uses to get into the kitchen on his borrowings. Ma told him once that the holes are the main reason borrowers originally moved in here. The family of giants that own the house got rid of the mice decades ago, but they never found all the holes to close up. It made for ideal borrowing, as long as they were always careful to mind the hunting cats.
Jared's arms are already aching when he reaches the entrance, but he climbs out into the kitchen cabinet, relieved to see a bag of sugar in front of him. It hides him from the giants, which is damn lucky considering that the cabinet is wide open and there are voices coming from the room, just like Jared guessed there would be.
"No, ma'am," one of the voices rumbles, so low Jared feels the tremors as the sound carries. He talks softer than the other giants, like he can't quite manage to put force into it, but his words are deep and rich. "No girlfriend. In fact, I'm not expecting any visitors at all. I won't be making much work for you. You'll hardly know I'm here."
"Don't you worry about that none-I'm here to help out and happy to do it. You know where the staff house is?"
"Yeah," he says. "Down that way about a third of a mile?"
"You call me if you need anything and I'll be over in a second. Don't even hesitate." There's a pause, and then she adds, "And don't you think of walking over to get me, either. Your mother told me all about your tendency to push too hard."
"A third of a mile isn't really pushing that hard," he replies, but then he sighs. "Yeah, yeah. I promise. Thanks, Mrs. Ferris."
"Sam, Jensen. How many times do I have to tell you to call me Sam?"
"Thanks, Sam," he says, his voice a little thin.
Jared is curious enough that he can't help trying to push the sugar aside to see the giant for himself. He manages to get it a few inches over as the woman pats the man on his shoulder and watches him give her a smile that falls as soon as she's out of the room.
Then the giant's eyebrows draw together, and he looks up, confused, right in Jared's direction. Jared feels his heart stop as he pulls back and tries to be completely hidden behind the big white bag again, but it's too late. The giant's lips curve up into a smile at the corner, and he walks over to the cabinet.
Jared can't dodge back into his hole, not without risking drawing even more attention. So he pulls into himself and holds his breath and hopes that somehow he'll get past this.
"Hey," the giant says in a whisper. Jared can hear him approaching, the padding of his big steps as they make their way across the tile. "Is someone there?"
Still holding his breath, Jared risks peeking out from the very back corner. The giant won't be able to see him here-not unless he moves the sugar, and if he does that, Jared's done for no matter what.
"You don't have to be scared of me," the giant continues in the same hushed tone, as if they’re in on this together. "I saw you out in the garden yesterday, didn't I?"
Jared's hands curl into fists. Megan forgot to mention the part where the giant spotted her when she told the story. Not that Jared's been any more successful, but he wouldn't have even risked coming here if he'd known the giant was on to them.
The giant is right at the cabinet now; Jared can see his eye-this giant, monster thing that's the size of Jared's head if not bigger-as it darts around looking for him. The face is every bit as grotesque as the giants Jared's parents always warned him about, with big brown splotches all along the bridge of his nose, sharp hairs sticking out on his cheek, and pores so large Jared thinks he could drown in them. And that eye, that's even worse than his impossibly huge teeth. Jared knows it's silly, but it doesn't seem possible to hide from an eye that big. When it sweeps to the left, to where the bag Jared is hiding behind is propped, Jared half expects it to see right through his shield.
But then the giant blinks and pulls back far enough for Jared to see the whole. He's not as hideous when he's not so close. In fact, taken all together, the only really ugly thing about him is the pallid tone of his skin. Jared wonders if maybe, to other giants at least, this one is even kind of attractive.
He brings up a hand and grabs the sugar, and Jared's legs shake so hard he won't be able to hold himself up for long. The fingers pressing in on each side of the bag must be as big as Jared, if not bigger. It's all over.
But the giant stops before pulling the bag down, letting out a huff of a laugh that stirs the dust and spilled sugar around Jared's feet.
"Yeah, that's good, Jensen," the giant says as he turns away. "Might as well go crazy too."
Jared listens to the loud footsteps as they leave the kitchen and pokes his head out one last time. He's still shaking so bad it's hard not to fall as he makes for the mouse hole and gets the hell out of dodge.
_______________________________________________________________
"You left something out the other day when you were telling us about the giant," Jared says.
Meg hums and continues working, tying the hook of an earring to a string of floss. "What do you mean?"
Jared checks over their supplies, doubled now to accommodate his sister. He'd be nervous enough taking her on her first borrowing if the big house was still empty. But they need at least a thumbtack full of bread crumbs or a few crackers, and Jared can't really tell Ma he's choosing to starve them out because they both went and got spotted.
"He saw you in the garden," Jared tells her.
Meg's face pales, and she looks up from her work. "Jay, don't tell Ma. Please. I'll be careful from now on. It was an accident and I ran so fast, I bet he doesn't even believe what he saw-he didn't even try to catch me."
"Calm down," says Jared. "I wouldn't know he saw you if he hadn't told me."
"You talked to him?" she asks, her voice caught somewhere between admiration and wanting to stab Jared with the hook in her hand. "Are you nuts?"
Jared shakes his head. "I didn't talk to him. He talked to me."
"But he saw you?"
"Yeah, maybe, I don't know. I think he talked himself out of it. You know how good they are at that."
"He's pretty sharp for a giant." She kind of laughs as she says it, and Jared knows if Ma were here he'd have to give her a lecture about taking this seriously, but instead he smiles and holds his hand out for the coiled floss his sister prepared for him.
She grins back, helping Jared settle it safely into his pack. She's been doing this part for years, helping him prepare for borrowings, and his chest feels weird and achy watching as she hoists her own pack up onto her shoulder. This is it. She's all grown up, and Jared got her there.
He coughs and brushes the back of his hand over his eye, and Meg smirks knowingly. "Don't cry, you big pussy," she tells him.
He kicks her square in the ass. "Don't get us both killed, you big fuck up."
"Good luck to you, too."
They creep out just after 3:30 a.m. Jared figures they should be safe-even giants with hawk eyes have to sleep some time. They hit the kitchen first, though they use a less convenient hole to get in, just in case the giant decided to booby trap the one he used last time. Jared figures paranoid is better than stuck in a glue trap.
It goes better than he could have imagined. He sits back and lets Meg get the crackers. She hooks the top of the counter as easy as anything and climbs up with only a few setbacks. Jared nearly cracks up remembering how many times he'd slid back down the floss and onto the floor on his first borrowing. Dad had nearly had to step in. Meg doesn't screw up nearly as much, and Jared feels another stupid, warm surge of pride. He taught that kid everything she knows.
She scores two crackers and even tosses down a grape for Jared to bring back. That'll give them juice for a week, and there's no way Jared could have carried everything they need plus a grape back on his own. It's good to have a partner again.
"Anything else?" she asks once she's back on the ground, her feet safe and secure beneath her. She shakes until the hook comes loose and they both move a few inches out of the way so that when it falls to the floor it doesn't fall on them. Meg gathers it back up, starting with the floss.
Jared thinks it over. He'd only been planning to get the bare necessities, what with the giant being tipped off and this being Meg's first job. But it's going so well that he decides to get a little bolder. "We could use some tissue."
"I'll go get it!" she says excitedly, taking three quick steps toward the mouse hole they entered from.
Jared laughs and catches her by the back of her shirt, dragging her in. "We'll both go," he says, and then he catches her eye and gives her a small smile. "And just how did you plan to find the tissue when you don't know how to get to the bedroom?"
She looks humbled for all of a second before she's off again. "Okay, so tell me where it is, then."
Jared chooses one of the smaller bedrooms on the second floor to pinch tissue from. One of the bathrooms would have been the obvious choice, but Jared knows it's not out of the realm of possibility that the giant will go into one of them in the middle of the night. But he probably chose to sleep in the master bedroom, which means this one should be as empty as ever.
They're halfway across the nightstand when he realizes how wrong he was.
"I know you're there. And I know you're real."
Megan, good girl that she is, does exactly as she's been trained to do. She runs so fast she drops one of the crackers she'd been carrying as she goes. But Jared feels frozen to the spot. There's no way the goddamn giant is really lying in that bed, his back turned to the side Jared is on. There's no way the guy has caught him again-Jared is a better borrower than this.
"I can see your shadow," the giant continues in his usual, quiet tone. "It's okay if you want to run. I won't hurt you. I won't even turn to look if you don't want to be looked at."
Jared still doesn't move; it's like his feet are stuck. Something about the giant's voice is…almost heart breaking. He keeps talking, even though Jared's not answering, like he almost doesn't really care if someone's listening.
"My grandma used to tell me stories about you. Well, maybe not about you exactly. About the little people who lived in this house, though. She was friends with one of you." The giant laughs. "Maybe it was your grandma. Maybe we're old family friends."
Jared shakes his head, wanting to punch himself for it a second later. But he doesn't believe the story. Borrowers can't be friends with giants. Certainly not any borrower in his family. He would have heard about that.
"She forgot a lot before she died, but she was always so insistent about the little people. My mom and dad told me it was just a story she'd been telling so long she'd made herself believe it. They thought she was crazy. But she never, never got confused about it. Not even when she couldn't tell me from my dad, she never-" The giant is quiet for a long time before he adds, "She was the only person who ever treated me like I wasn't already dead."
Jared tries to take a step back, but the giant rises to his elbow in response. "Don't leave," he says. "She said she used to put out food for the little people. I can take care of you, too. Just please don't leave."
He can hear his sister whispering for him to run like hell, and he looks back at her, then to the enormous body spread out on the bed under him.
"I'm going to turn around, and if you're still there, we can talk, alright?" the giant tells him cautiously. "And if you're not, I'll just tell myself this was a dream when I wake up tomorrow."
Jared pulls his grape tightly to his chest and runs as fast as he can.
_______________________________________________________________
They don't tell Ma. For the first time ever, Jared ends up having to be the one to beg Meg not to squeal, but Meg's got just as much invested in convincing her the borrowing went well, so they just come home and set down their scores without comment.
Ma grins and congratulates Meg, and then she teases Jared that she could have used some tissue paper. He has to avert his eyes at that and heads straight to bed, not that he sleeps much. He's still got way too much adrenaline pumping through him, and, well. He knows you can’t trust giants. Of course he knows that. They'll say anything to make you show yourself, and then they'll trap you and you'll wish they'd only killed you.
But he'd sounded so sad.
Jared wakes up the next morning because Meg is shaking him roughly. He blinks his eyes open and then swats her away and is about to tell her just what a pain in his ass she is until he sees the worried expression on her face.
"You better come see this," she says.
She leads him to the garden, to the grate she likes to use when she's coming out here against Ma's orders.
"This is where he saw me the first day," she says. She points down at the ground, and Jared sees two crackers, one cracked just like the one she'd dropped on their borrowing. Under them there's a folded piece of paper, so Jared shoves them off and unfolds it.
Did you forget something?
"He brought us back what we dropped," Meg says when Jared stares at the note instead of reacting. "He even brought us extra. Maybe he really isn't so-"
Jared shakes his head. "Take these and get back inside," he tells her harshly. "And don't come back out here anymore. Not until he's gone or done being suspicious."
"But Jare-"
"Go, Meg, I am not fucking joking."
She pouts a bit as she picks up the crackers and starts off toward home, but at least she does it. Jared stands there like an idiot with the note in his hand, until he looks up and sees that the giant is still in the garden. He's sitting under a nearby tree, a book in his hand and the cat curled up on his lap like it's a pet and not a killing machine.
Jared takes a deep breath and sets his shoulders in a determined line and decides it's about time to end this. He marches across the yard, growing more and more unsure of himself with every foot he crosses. But he keeps going, keeps going until he reaches the flower closest to the giant and climbs up it, using the leaves as a ladder.
He stands in the center, braces one hand at his side, and holds out the slip of paper with the note the giant wrote on it. "Please leave us alone."
The giant startles, nearly smacking his hand on Jared's flower and sending Jared flying out to god knows where. The cat growls at the sudden movement and walks off, apparently unwilling to forgive her master for waking her.
"You're real," the giant says, his eyes growing wide when they settle on Jared. "Hi. You're really real."
"We don't need or want your help, so just forget you ever saw us. That's all I wanted to say."
Jared drops the note then and begins to climb down, but the giant reaches out to stop him. Jared tenses, ready to be captured and squeezed between two giant fingers, but it never happens. The giant is holding his hands up in surrender.
"Please don't go. I'm not gonna hurt you." He smiles and presses one of his hands against his chest, the other still up in the air. "I'm Jensen."
"Jensen," Jared says. "Please leave us alone."
Jensen's smile only widens. "What's your name?"
"Leaving," Jared replies, dropping down from the flower.
The laugh that follows him is warm and bright, and Jared gets distracted by it, so he doesn’t see that he's walking right into the cat until her paw is hovering just above him, and her mouth opens on a nasty sound. The gap between her sharp teeth is big enough for Jared to disappear into, but instead Jared feels his feet lift off the ground and he realizes he's caught up in one of Jensen's hands just as the other shoos the cat away.
"Bad girl," Jensen says. "No trying to eat the little man, Dani. The little man is our friend."
He holds Jared out to the cat, and Jared closes his eyes and turns his face away, but all that happens is a few seconds of sniffing before the cat begins to purr. She circles a few times and then sits back down, and Jared, recognizing that one threat is gone, begins to fight against the other.
"Let me go," he says, wiggling as much as he can in the tight grasp. "Put me down."
"Hey, relax," says Jensen. He sets Jared back on the flower he'd been standing on earlier and grins. "You sure have some balls for someone so tiny."
"I'm not tiny," Jared snaps. "I'm nearly four and a half inches tall." Jensen starts laughing as if that's the best thing he's ever heard, and Jared's eyes narrow. "Hey! That's really big for a borrower."
"A borrower," Jensen echoes. "Is that what you are? I thought maybe you were fairies."
"I'm not a fairy," Jared answers, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm a borrower."
"Hey, don't look so insulted," Jensen says, grinning. "Being a fairy isn't so bad."
"What do you know about being a fairy?" Jared asks.
He laughs and ducks his head. "A little bit."
"Fairies aren't real," Jared tells him.
"Not the kind with wings, maybe." Jensen keeps smiling at whatever the joke Jared doesn't get is, then he shakes his head and returns his attention to Jared. "What's a borrower?"
"We borrow what we need to live off. We don't steal because we don't take enough for giants to miss, and we sure as hell don't need giants bringing us our food."
For the first time since Jared came over here, Jensen's smile turns down. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I was just trying to help," he says. "Won't you just tell me your name?"
"It's not any of your business," Jared replies, but he sees how Jensen's eyes dim and for some reason, that gets to him. "If I tell you, will you promise to stop bothering us?"
"If I'm bothering you, I'll stop." Jensen puts a hand down in the grass. "You don't have to tell me your name if you don't want to."
"It's Jared."
"Jared," Jensen says slowly, like he's testing it out. "It's real nice to meet you, Jared."
"The pleasure is all yours," Jared replies. "Please hold your cat back. I'm leaving now."
"We can be friends, Jared," Jensen says, even as he does what Jared asked and pulls the cat into his lap. "I'd like that."
"Borrowers aren't friends with giants," Jared tells him.
"Why not?" Jensen asks. "I'm very charming once you get to know me."
"Because when you change your mind and decide not to be charming anymore, we end up dead or in a jar somewhere being studied."
"I've got no reason to turn on you," Jensen insists. "I already have more money than time to spend it and it's not like there's any point trying to get famous when you're just gonna…" He breaks off and frowns down at the ground. "All I want is someone to talk to."
All he wants is a friend, and Jared can't help thinking me too. Ever since the other families left, he's had no one but Ma and Megan, and his sister is great, but it's just not the same. So, yeah, maybe a part of Jared is yearning to take the chance and try being friends with this giant.
But then he remembers what happened to his dad, and to all the stupid borrowers in the stories he heard growing up. He gives Jensen one last shake of his head and drops into the grass, disappearing into the tall, tall blades.
_______________________________________________________________
Jared doesn't go borrowing again for nearly two weeks. It's too damn risky with Jensen around now, and too confusing besides that. Jared watches him some days, because there isn’t much else to do when a giant moves into the house you've been working your whole life. You have to track him.
He's never seen anything as sad as Jensen. The giant spends most days in bed reading or on the couch in the living room watching TV. He only gets the energy to go out in the garden once after Jared meets him there, and he goes in after a few hours looking disappointed. Some days, even the walk downstairs to the kitchen leaves Jensen holding his hand to his chest and making a face like something is cutting right through every inch of him.
But that's not really the worst part. The worst part is that he's alone. The caretaker stops by every few days, like she said she would, but Jensen tells her he's fine, and she believes him. Not that Jared blames him. She comes in and fusses over him as if he's a sick child, but she doesn't stop to talk to him or really see how he's doing. She does her job and she leaves. Jared wouldn't really want that kind of company, either.
It feels like something slaps Jared across the face the day the phone rings. Jensen answers, and it's his mother on the other end. Jared listens to the back and forth, Jensen's end of the conversation a steady stream of reassurances that Jared is around enough to know aren't true. No, he's not doing fine. He's not feeling better. Everything isn't great in Texas, and he's not happy to be here. Jared gets irrationally angry, because anyone would be able to see that Jensen was lying if they'd just take the time to visit.
The call lasts about fifteen minutes.
And Jared thought being a borrower was lonely.
But it's not his problem. Jensen is not his family. He can't, under any circumstances, let himself care.
He finally ventures another borrowing because they're running so low on food that the only other option is to go hungry. Jared figures Ma will get pretty suspicious about his misplaced sympathy for the giant if he'd rather live without food than risk sneaking into Jensen's house and not being able to resist the urge to be nice.
He doesn't take Meg with him. She whines about how unfair it is and how what happened last time wasn't her fault, and Jared feels bad, because she's right. But if Jensen sees them (again) and calls out his name, Jared is going to catch hell.
He doesn't really get very far into his borrowing before he gets caught. Maybe he's distracted, or maybe-maybe deep down he wants to talk to Jensen again. He waits ten minutes to see if anything moves in the section of the kitchen he wants to work, which is the best he can do, because the only entrance he can see the whole kitchen from is the cabinet, and he's still too scared to use that one.
Nothing even stirs, and Jared has never known a giant to be that steady, so he starts out across the table, picking up a spoon and loading it with the cube of sugar he needs. About two-thirds of the way to the edge, he gets a real fright as what he thought was the wall curls down at the corner.
It's a newspaper. Jared wrote off that side of the table because the wall was there, and didn't even look hard enough to realize the 'wall' was a fucking newspaper, and hiding behind it…
"Good mornin', Jared," Jensen says.
Only the side of his face is poking out for Jared to see. One big, green eye, and the corner of a lip tugged into a knowing smile. Jared pauses, then turns to face the guy, because it's not like there's any point pretending he's not there now.
"Have you seriously been sitting there this whole time waiting for me to come out?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Jensen replies casually as he turns the page of his newspaper. "Just having breakfast and getting caught up on the state of the world."
"Uh huh," Jared says. "How many times did you read that one page in the time you spent sitting there not turning it?"
Jensen laughs and folds the paper, setting it aside on the half of the table Jared was making his way toward. "It pains me that we have to keep meeting like this," he says.
"We don’t have to meet at all," Jared tells him. "Won't you just let me do my job?"
Jensen scoops up a spoonful of cereal and shrugs as he chews and swallows. "Yeah, you can take whatever you want. But it's my kitchen, I'm allowed to be here when you do it."
Jared makes a frustrated noise, and Jensen just keeps smiling at him over the edge of a mug of coffee taller than Jared. "You're infuriating."
"Oh, you too," Jensen replies, sounding anything but infuriated.
"Fine," Jared replies. He turns his face to the floor and keeps right on walking, hoping to ignore Jensen, but the giant laughs at him again, and Jared can't help looking up.
For someone so unhappy, Jensen sure does spend a lot of time smiling. Jared wonders if the smiles are fake, or if Jensen's just that glad to have company. This smile doesn't look fake; it's a nice smile, incisors big enough to split Jared in half notwithstanding.
"What're you here for?" Jensen asks.
"It's not any of your business."
"You are a stubborn little-ah, but I forgot. You're not little."
Jared puts the spoon down, because apparently they're talking and giant-sized spoons are heavy. "No, I am not. Thank you very much."
Jensen leans in closer and looks at him for a long time. "You're beautiful."
"What?"
Jensen's eyes sweep over him one more time, and his smile loses the teeth. "I couldn't see you that well last time. But you're kind of beautiful. You know, for a Polly Pocket. If you were regular-sized, you'd be pretty hot."
"Uh, thanks," Jared replies. "Right back at you? I guess?"
Jensen chuckles. "Bet you drive all the little lady borrowers crazy."
Jared can't help frowning at that, and Jensen's tone softens. "Or all the other little gentlemen? No shame in being a fairy."
"There aren't any," Jared says. "Others."
"You're alone," Jensen whispers, like it's something dirty and if he doesn't say it loud enough it won't be true. "No. I saw the girl."
Dammit. So much for playing the 'last of my kind' card. "My sister," he says.
"It's just you two?"
"It's just our family," Jared answers. "Anyway, it's none of your-"
"None of my business," Jensen says. "Right." He takes another sip of coffee. "Well, I'm glad you have your family, anyway."
Jared hovers awkwardly over his spoon. Jensen has gone quiet, not trying to draw out a conversation for the first time in Jared's experience of him, and he can't tell what he should do. Maybe just pick up his work and get back to it. It's not his place to say 'I'm sorry your family sucks.'
For his part, Jensen has decided to stare down at his cereal, swirling his spoon in it. Jared watches, wondering if Jensen is trying to give him a chance to slip away quietly, but then the giant looks up at him; his smile is now very obviously fake.
"I'm being rude," he says in a shaky voice. "Would you like some breakfast?"
Jared raises an eyebrow at him and sits down cross-legged on the table. "Got a bowl my size in one of those cabinets?"
Jensen stands and crosses to the kitchen sink and returns with a bottle cap in his hand. It's already been washed out and Jared can't help wondering as Jensen sets it down if it was waiting there for exactly this kind of scenario. It's still way too big for him, but he'll at least be able to pick it up.
Jensen picks up a single flake of the cereal he's eating and crushes it, sprinkling it into the makeshift bowl. Then he grabs a container of milk Jared could use as a house and very carefully pours a few drops into it.
He bites the inside of his cheek. "I don't have a spoon your size."
"Got any tin foil?" Jared asks.
Jensen grins. "That's smart!"
He gets up and fetches a roll of aluminum foil out of one of the cabinets, tearing off a little piece and handing it to Jared so he can shape it into a spoon.
"I'll leave it here," Jensen says, patting the foil as he watches Jared work. "And that way if you need any, you'll be able to get it without trouble."
"We can manage on our own."
"I don't doubt it for a second," Jensen says. "But if I can make it easier for you, why shouldn't I?"
"Because we're not friends," Jared tells him. "We can't be friends. Don't you understand that?"
Jensen looks hurt for a half of a second, but then he shrugs and pushes the bottle cap of cereal toward Jared. "We don't have to be friends. We can make a deal."
"A deal?" Jared takes a bite of his cereal. "What kind of deal?"
"Come see me. You don't have to stay for long. Just come and talk to me for a little while every day, and I'll give you anything in this house that you want."
"That's not a real exchange," Jared says.
Jensen's smile finally slips completely, and he doesn't force another one. "Am I that bad of company?" he asks. "I can't even pay someone to come talk to me?"
"No, I didn’t mean that." Jared stands up and walks over to Jensen's hand, pressing both of his own against it. "I'm sorry, Jensen. I didn't mean it like that."
Jensen gives him a weak smile and wiggles the pinky of the hand Jared is leaning on. He laughs, because just that little movement makes him tumble face first into the back of Jensen's fingers. Jensen's skin is soft and warm as it catches him, and Jared finds his feet again in seconds.
"I didn't mean to sound pathetic," Jensen tells him. "You can earn what I give you. I'd really like to help you out and if you tell me what you need, I can carry it to one of the holes. That way you can take more stuff in one trip. It'll be good for you, too."
Jared looks down at his feet. He thinks of all the rules dad taught him about borrowing. Borrowers don't accept handouts. Borrowers don't make friends with giants. They certainly don't let themselves be dependent on giants.
But he looks up at Jensen as he's trying to think of a way to say this nicely, and there's so much hope in those massive eyes. So what Jared says instead is, "Just the sugar and some bread. That's what I came here for. But we could really use some tissue, too."
Jensen grins so wide it must hurt and tells Jared to eat his cereal while he fetches his things.
ON TO PART TWO
or
BACK TO MASTERPOST
"There's a new giant at the big house."
She says it casually, like it's just an interesting tidbit of information she picked up, and when Jared looks up from his bowl, Megan is staring back at him, an expression on her face that's both innocent and a little excited.
Ma chokes on her soup and Jared's fingers tighten around his spoon. There's only one way she could know something like that, and if she was stupid enough to go out alone, she should at least know better than to announce it at the dinner table.
"What do you mean, Meg?" Jared asks. His words are tight, and he makes a face at her that is trying very hard to say 'lie, lie through your teeth, make something up and I'll cover for you.'
"I was out in the garden," she begins. Jared sighs, sinking back into his chair, and Ma's eyes widen. The shit is about to hit the fan. "And there were tons of them walking around, back and forth. They were all wearing these dark blue uniforms and carrying big boxes from this huge van to the house. So I crept in and I heard them talking about-"
"Megan Padalecki, what have I told you about going out there without your brother?" Ma puts her spoon down and glares at Jared like this is his fault. "What did I tell you about watching her?"
"I can't watch her all the time," he defends. "I do have a job, you know."
"You could have been killed," Ma continues, now turning back to Meg. "They might have stepped on you without even noticing. Or-or worse. They might have caught you. They could have found us all."
"The cat could have eaten you," Jared adds, spreading his arms out and grinning. "Teeth this big."
"Yes, thank you, Jared," Ma snaps. "That'll be enough."
"Okay, but they didn't," Meg insists. "I was careful! I'm always careful. I'd be dead by now if I wasn't."
"Your father was always careful, too," Ma replies, slamming her hand on the table. As soon as she says it, her hand flies up to cover her mouth, but it's too late. Meg's defiant expression has broken down, gone all hurt instead, and her bottom lip begins to tremble.
Jared reaches out, putting a hand on her shoulder and looking up at Ma across the table. "She's careful, Ma. I've caught her a few times. Which, you know, bad. But it means I've seen her, and I promise she's real good."
"I know," Ma says, her tone softer now. She reaches out to pat Meg's hand. "I know you're both very careful, but that's not always enough."
"So maybe it's time I learn," Meg says, and Jared shakes his head. He should have seen where Meg was going to try to go with this and shut it down as soon as she admitted to going outside. "Maybe it's time for Jared to take me on a borrowing."
"Absolutely not."
"But Ma-"
"I said no!"
The both look to him to back them up, and Jared drums his fingers on the tabletop. "She has to learn eventually," he says as judiciously as he can. "And she is nearly 16 already. That's two years older than when Dad took me on my first borrowing."
"Things were different then," Ma replies. "The answer is no."
"This is so unfair," Meg whines, but Jared gestures at her to shut up, and by some miracle, she listens.
He leans closer to their mother. "Ma, she's going to keep going out there whether we give her permission or not and you know it. It's not fair keeping her cooped up, and if she's gonna be out, she might as well be trained." He raises his voice and gives Meg a confident smile. "Anyway, if there's gonna be another giant to watch out for, I could use an extra pair of hands to help me get things done faster. We'll both be safer if-"
"We'll have to move," Ma says. "We should have years ago."
The table goes quiet at the reminder. When Dad got caught, every other family had cleared out of the neighborhood, down the river to the next big house. The other borrowers had all been convinced Dad would give them up, whereas Ma had insisted they stay, just as sure he would get away from the giants and return to them. Turns out everyone was wrong on that front. Dad hadn't told the giants where to find more borrowers, but he hadn't come home, either. He wasn't ever going to.
"It's too late for that," Jared says, trying to keep his voice even. It is what it is, and it's over, and it's not Ma's fault she hadn't wanted to give up on her husband. But it is her fault they're alone-that Jared had to watch Genevieve and Misha and even Chad disappear, one family at a time. Meg can't help it if she's bored at home with no one but him and Ma to talk to. Jared can't blame her for wanting to explore a little. "You know it's too late, so drop it."
"There must be a way to get in touch with some of the other families. Someone must have left behind a hint of where they went. We can go looking for them and find them-"
"And if we don't?" Jared shakes his head. "We're more likely to die out in the world going on a wild goose chase for a new home than we are here because of one giant."
"He's not even dangerous," Meg says.
Jared and Ma both turn to her, raising their eyebrows. "And how do you know that?" Jared asks at the same time Ma insists, "They're always dangerous!"
Meg licks her lips and looks to Jared, apparently deciding he's more likely to hear her out. "I was trying to say earlier, before you both freaked out on me. When I snuck into the big house I heard the giants talking. It was the one who lives out back, the caretaker, and another older lady. The old lady was saying that the giant who's coming is sick, that he's out here to keep calm and probably won't even be getting out of bed very often. Then I saw him coming in through the garden. He looked like the walk from the car was too much-I can outrun him, at least."
"He's got pretty long legs, I bet," Jared says. "All he has to do is take a step."
"I thought you were on my side," says Meg.
Jared sighs. "I am, but if I'm going to take you out there, I need to know you won't underestimate them. Not any of them, okay? He doesn't need to be in good health to squash you like a microbe."
"Yeah, yeah," Meg says. She pouts for another second and then adds, "What if he's nice? Who says they all want to kill us?"
Ma's eyes nearly jump out of her head, and Jared just gives her a flat look. "Dinner is excused," he says. "Before you give poor Ma a heart attack. We'll talk about your borrowing later."
_______________________________________________________________
Jared goes out on his own the next day, hoping to get a glimpse of the new giant. Okay, so it's a stupid idea, but Megan didn't get her idiotic sense of adventure from nowhere.
He wants a peek-that's it-one quick look at the new giant so he can assess the situation and then he'll slip back home to safety and start planning how to deal with this. Decide if Ma is right and they should just call it quits and move. She's left the choice up to Jared; Jared really hates responsibility.
The fastest route to information is always the kitchen. In Jared's experience, giants love to stand around in there (not that Jared blames them for that, he'd probably never move either if he had one room so well-stocked with food), and the open space, tiled floors and walls, make sound carry better than any of the other usual gathering spots.
It's a nine-staple climb to the mouse hole he uses to get into the kitchen on his borrowings. Ma told him once that the holes are the main reason borrowers originally moved in here. The family of giants that own the house got rid of the mice decades ago, but they never found all the holes to close up. It made for ideal borrowing, as long as they were always careful to mind the hunting cats.
Jared's arms are already aching when he reaches the entrance, but he climbs out into the kitchen cabinet, relieved to see a bag of sugar in front of him. It hides him from the giants, which is damn lucky considering that the cabinet is wide open and there are voices coming from the room, just like Jared guessed there would be.
"No, ma'am," one of the voices rumbles, so low Jared feels the tremors as the sound carries. He talks softer than the other giants, like he can't quite manage to put force into it, but his words are deep and rich. "No girlfriend. In fact, I'm not expecting any visitors at all. I won't be making much work for you. You'll hardly know I'm here."
"Don't you worry about that none-I'm here to help out and happy to do it. You know where the staff house is?"
"Yeah," he says. "Down that way about a third of a mile?"
"You call me if you need anything and I'll be over in a second. Don't even hesitate." There's a pause, and then she adds, "And don't you think of walking over to get me, either. Your mother told me all about your tendency to push too hard."
"A third of a mile isn't really pushing that hard," he replies, but then he sighs. "Yeah, yeah. I promise. Thanks, Mrs. Ferris."
"Sam, Jensen. How many times do I have to tell you to call me Sam?"
"Thanks, Sam," he says, his voice a little thin.
Jared is curious enough that he can't help trying to push the sugar aside to see the giant for himself. He manages to get it a few inches over as the woman pats the man on his shoulder and watches him give her a smile that falls as soon as she's out of the room.
Then the giant's eyebrows draw together, and he looks up, confused, right in Jared's direction. Jared feels his heart stop as he pulls back and tries to be completely hidden behind the big white bag again, but it's too late. The giant's lips curve up into a smile at the corner, and he walks over to the cabinet.
Jared can't dodge back into his hole, not without risking drawing even more attention. So he pulls into himself and holds his breath and hopes that somehow he'll get past this.
"Hey," the giant says in a whisper. Jared can hear him approaching, the padding of his big steps as they make their way across the tile. "Is someone there?"
Still holding his breath, Jared risks peeking out from the very back corner. The giant won't be able to see him here-not unless he moves the sugar, and if he does that, Jared's done for no matter what.
"You don't have to be scared of me," the giant continues in the same hushed tone, as if they’re in on this together. "I saw you out in the garden yesterday, didn't I?"
Jared's hands curl into fists. Megan forgot to mention the part where the giant spotted her when she told the story. Not that Jared's been any more successful, but he wouldn't have even risked coming here if he'd known the giant was on to them.
The giant is right at the cabinet now; Jared can see his eye-this giant, monster thing that's the size of Jared's head if not bigger-as it darts around looking for him. The face is every bit as grotesque as the giants Jared's parents always warned him about, with big brown splotches all along the bridge of his nose, sharp hairs sticking out on his cheek, and pores so large Jared thinks he could drown in them. And that eye, that's even worse than his impossibly huge teeth. Jared knows it's silly, but it doesn't seem possible to hide from an eye that big. When it sweeps to the left, to where the bag Jared is hiding behind is propped, Jared half expects it to see right through his shield.
But then the giant blinks and pulls back far enough for Jared to see the whole. He's not as hideous when he's not so close. In fact, taken all together, the only really ugly thing about him is the pallid tone of his skin. Jared wonders if maybe, to other giants at least, this one is even kind of attractive.
He brings up a hand and grabs the sugar, and Jared's legs shake so hard he won't be able to hold himself up for long. The fingers pressing in on each side of the bag must be as big as Jared, if not bigger. It's all over.
But the giant stops before pulling the bag down, letting out a huff of a laugh that stirs the dust and spilled sugar around Jared's feet.
"Yeah, that's good, Jensen," the giant says as he turns away. "Might as well go crazy too."
Jared listens to the loud footsteps as they leave the kitchen and pokes his head out one last time. He's still shaking so bad it's hard not to fall as he makes for the mouse hole and gets the hell out of dodge.
_______________________________________________________________
"You left something out the other day when you were telling us about the giant," Jared says.
Meg hums and continues working, tying the hook of an earring to a string of floss. "What do you mean?"
Jared checks over their supplies, doubled now to accommodate his sister. He'd be nervous enough taking her on her first borrowing if the big house was still empty. But they need at least a thumbtack full of bread crumbs or a few crackers, and Jared can't really tell Ma he's choosing to starve them out because they both went and got spotted.
"He saw you in the garden," Jared tells her.
Meg's face pales, and she looks up from her work. "Jay, don't tell Ma. Please. I'll be careful from now on. It was an accident and I ran so fast, I bet he doesn't even believe what he saw-he didn't even try to catch me."
"Calm down," says Jared. "I wouldn't know he saw you if he hadn't told me."
"You talked to him?" she asks, her voice caught somewhere between admiration and wanting to stab Jared with the hook in her hand. "Are you nuts?"
Jared shakes his head. "I didn't talk to him. He talked to me."
"But he saw you?"
"Yeah, maybe, I don't know. I think he talked himself out of it. You know how good they are at that."
"He's pretty sharp for a giant." She kind of laughs as she says it, and Jared knows if Ma were here he'd have to give her a lecture about taking this seriously, but instead he smiles and holds his hand out for the coiled floss his sister prepared for him.
She grins back, helping Jared settle it safely into his pack. She's been doing this part for years, helping him prepare for borrowings, and his chest feels weird and achy watching as she hoists her own pack up onto her shoulder. This is it. She's all grown up, and Jared got her there.
He coughs and brushes the back of his hand over his eye, and Meg smirks knowingly. "Don't cry, you big pussy," she tells him.
He kicks her square in the ass. "Don't get us both killed, you big fuck up."
"Good luck to you, too."
They creep out just after 3:30 a.m. Jared figures they should be safe-even giants with hawk eyes have to sleep some time. They hit the kitchen first, though they use a less convenient hole to get in, just in case the giant decided to booby trap the one he used last time. Jared figures paranoid is better than stuck in a glue trap.
It goes better than he could have imagined. He sits back and lets Meg get the crackers. She hooks the top of the counter as easy as anything and climbs up with only a few setbacks. Jared nearly cracks up remembering how many times he'd slid back down the floss and onto the floor on his first borrowing. Dad had nearly had to step in. Meg doesn't screw up nearly as much, and Jared feels another stupid, warm surge of pride. He taught that kid everything she knows.
She scores two crackers and even tosses down a grape for Jared to bring back. That'll give them juice for a week, and there's no way Jared could have carried everything they need plus a grape back on his own. It's good to have a partner again.
"Anything else?" she asks once she's back on the ground, her feet safe and secure beneath her. She shakes until the hook comes loose and they both move a few inches out of the way so that when it falls to the floor it doesn't fall on them. Meg gathers it back up, starting with the floss.
Jared thinks it over. He'd only been planning to get the bare necessities, what with the giant being tipped off and this being Meg's first job. But it's going so well that he decides to get a little bolder. "We could use some tissue."
"I'll go get it!" she says excitedly, taking three quick steps toward the mouse hole they entered from.
Jared laughs and catches her by the back of her shirt, dragging her in. "We'll both go," he says, and then he catches her eye and gives her a small smile. "And just how did you plan to find the tissue when you don't know how to get to the bedroom?"
She looks humbled for all of a second before she's off again. "Okay, so tell me where it is, then."
Jared chooses one of the smaller bedrooms on the second floor to pinch tissue from. One of the bathrooms would have been the obvious choice, but Jared knows it's not out of the realm of possibility that the giant will go into one of them in the middle of the night. But he probably chose to sleep in the master bedroom, which means this one should be as empty as ever.
They're halfway across the nightstand when he realizes how wrong he was.
"I know you're there. And I know you're real."
Megan, good girl that she is, does exactly as she's been trained to do. She runs so fast she drops one of the crackers she'd been carrying as she goes. But Jared feels frozen to the spot. There's no way the goddamn giant is really lying in that bed, his back turned to the side Jared is on. There's no way the guy has caught him again-Jared is a better borrower than this.
"I can see your shadow," the giant continues in his usual, quiet tone. "It's okay if you want to run. I won't hurt you. I won't even turn to look if you don't want to be looked at."
Jared still doesn't move; it's like his feet are stuck. Something about the giant's voice is…almost heart breaking. He keeps talking, even though Jared's not answering, like he almost doesn't really care if someone's listening.
"My grandma used to tell me stories about you. Well, maybe not about you exactly. About the little people who lived in this house, though. She was friends with one of you." The giant laughs. "Maybe it was your grandma. Maybe we're old family friends."
Jared shakes his head, wanting to punch himself for it a second later. But he doesn't believe the story. Borrowers can't be friends with giants. Certainly not any borrower in his family. He would have heard about that.
"She forgot a lot before she died, but she was always so insistent about the little people. My mom and dad told me it was just a story she'd been telling so long she'd made herself believe it. They thought she was crazy. But she never, never got confused about it. Not even when she couldn't tell me from my dad, she never-" The giant is quiet for a long time before he adds, "She was the only person who ever treated me like I wasn't already dead."
Jared tries to take a step back, but the giant rises to his elbow in response. "Don't leave," he says. "She said she used to put out food for the little people. I can take care of you, too. Just please don't leave."
He can hear his sister whispering for him to run like hell, and he looks back at her, then to the enormous body spread out on the bed under him.
"I'm going to turn around, and if you're still there, we can talk, alright?" the giant tells him cautiously. "And if you're not, I'll just tell myself this was a dream when I wake up tomorrow."
Jared pulls his grape tightly to his chest and runs as fast as he can.
_______________________________________________________________
They don't tell Ma. For the first time ever, Jared ends up having to be the one to beg Meg not to squeal, but Meg's got just as much invested in convincing her the borrowing went well, so they just come home and set down their scores without comment.
Ma grins and congratulates Meg, and then she teases Jared that she could have used some tissue paper. He has to avert his eyes at that and heads straight to bed, not that he sleeps much. He's still got way too much adrenaline pumping through him, and, well. He knows you can’t trust giants. Of course he knows that. They'll say anything to make you show yourself, and then they'll trap you and you'll wish they'd only killed you.
But he'd sounded so sad.
Jared wakes up the next morning because Meg is shaking him roughly. He blinks his eyes open and then swats her away and is about to tell her just what a pain in his ass she is until he sees the worried expression on her face.
"You better come see this," she says.
She leads him to the garden, to the grate she likes to use when she's coming out here against Ma's orders.
"This is where he saw me the first day," she says. She points down at the ground, and Jared sees two crackers, one cracked just like the one she'd dropped on their borrowing. Under them there's a folded piece of paper, so Jared shoves them off and unfolds it.
Did you forget something?
"He brought us back what we dropped," Meg says when Jared stares at the note instead of reacting. "He even brought us extra. Maybe he really isn't so-"
Jared shakes his head. "Take these and get back inside," he tells her harshly. "And don't come back out here anymore. Not until he's gone or done being suspicious."
"But Jare-"
"Go, Meg, I am not fucking joking."
She pouts a bit as she picks up the crackers and starts off toward home, but at least she does it. Jared stands there like an idiot with the note in his hand, until he looks up and sees that the giant is still in the garden. He's sitting under a nearby tree, a book in his hand and the cat curled up on his lap like it's a pet and not a killing machine.
Jared takes a deep breath and sets his shoulders in a determined line and decides it's about time to end this. He marches across the yard, growing more and more unsure of himself with every foot he crosses. But he keeps going, keeps going until he reaches the flower closest to the giant and climbs up it, using the leaves as a ladder.
He stands in the center, braces one hand at his side, and holds out the slip of paper with the note the giant wrote on it. "Please leave us alone."
The giant startles, nearly smacking his hand on Jared's flower and sending Jared flying out to god knows where. The cat growls at the sudden movement and walks off, apparently unwilling to forgive her master for waking her.
"You're real," the giant says, his eyes growing wide when they settle on Jared. "Hi. You're really real."
"We don't need or want your help, so just forget you ever saw us. That's all I wanted to say."
Jared drops the note then and begins to climb down, but the giant reaches out to stop him. Jared tenses, ready to be captured and squeezed between two giant fingers, but it never happens. The giant is holding his hands up in surrender.
"Please don't go. I'm not gonna hurt you." He smiles and presses one of his hands against his chest, the other still up in the air. "I'm Jensen."
"Jensen," Jared says. "Please leave us alone."
Jensen's smile only widens. "What's your name?"
"Leaving," Jared replies, dropping down from the flower.
The laugh that follows him is warm and bright, and Jared gets distracted by it, so he doesn’t see that he's walking right into the cat until her paw is hovering just above him, and her mouth opens on a nasty sound. The gap between her sharp teeth is big enough for Jared to disappear into, but instead Jared feels his feet lift off the ground and he realizes he's caught up in one of Jensen's hands just as the other shoos the cat away.
"Bad girl," Jensen says. "No trying to eat the little man, Dani. The little man is our friend."
He holds Jared out to the cat, and Jared closes his eyes and turns his face away, but all that happens is a few seconds of sniffing before the cat begins to purr. She circles a few times and then sits back down, and Jared, recognizing that one threat is gone, begins to fight against the other.
"Let me go," he says, wiggling as much as he can in the tight grasp. "Put me down."
"Hey, relax," says Jensen. He sets Jared back on the flower he'd been standing on earlier and grins. "You sure have some balls for someone so tiny."
"I'm not tiny," Jared snaps. "I'm nearly four and a half inches tall." Jensen starts laughing as if that's the best thing he's ever heard, and Jared's eyes narrow. "Hey! That's really big for a borrower."
"A borrower," Jensen echoes. "Is that what you are? I thought maybe you were fairies."
"I'm not a fairy," Jared answers, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm a borrower."
"Hey, don't look so insulted," Jensen says, grinning. "Being a fairy isn't so bad."
"What do you know about being a fairy?" Jared asks.
He laughs and ducks his head. "A little bit."
"Fairies aren't real," Jared tells him.
"Not the kind with wings, maybe." Jensen keeps smiling at whatever the joke Jared doesn't get is, then he shakes his head and returns his attention to Jared. "What's a borrower?"
"We borrow what we need to live off. We don't steal because we don't take enough for giants to miss, and we sure as hell don't need giants bringing us our food."
For the first time since Jared came over here, Jensen's smile turns down. "I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I was just trying to help," he says. "Won't you just tell me your name?"
"It's not any of your business," Jared replies, but he sees how Jensen's eyes dim and for some reason, that gets to him. "If I tell you, will you promise to stop bothering us?"
"If I'm bothering you, I'll stop." Jensen puts a hand down in the grass. "You don't have to tell me your name if you don't want to."
"It's Jared."
"Jared," Jensen says slowly, like he's testing it out. "It's real nice to meet you, Jared."
"The pleasure is all yours," Jared replies. "Please hold your cat back. I'm leaving now."
"We can be friends, Jared," Jensen says, even as he does what Jared asked and pulls the cat into his lap. "I'd like that."
"Borrowers aren't friends with giants," Jared tells him.
"Why not?" Jensen asks. "I'm very charming once you get to know me."
"Because when you change your mind and decide not to be charming anymore, we end up dead or in a jar somewhere being studied."
"I've got no reason to turn on you," Jensen insists. "I already have more money than time to spend it and it's not like there's any point trying to get famous when you're just gonna…" He breaks off and frowns down at the ground. "All I want is someone to talk to."
All he wants is a friend, and Jared can't help thinking me too. Ever since the other families left, he's had no one but Ma and Megan, and his sister is great, but it's just not the same. So, yeah, maybe a part of Jared is yearning to take the chance and try being friends with this giant.
But then he remembers what happened to his dad, and to all the stupid borrowers in the stories he heard growing up. He gives Jensen one last shake of his head and drops into the grass, disappearing into the tall, tall blades.
_______________________________________________________________
Jared doesn't go borrowing again for nearly two weeks. It's too damn risky with Jensen around now, and too confusing besides that. Jared watches him some days, because there isn’t much else to do when a giant moves into the house you've been working your whole life. You have to track him.
He's never seen anything as sad as Jensen. The giant spends most days in bed reading or on the couch in the living room watching TV. He only gets the energy to go out in the garden once after Jared meets him there, and he goes in after a few hours looking disappointed. Some days, even the walk downstairs to the kitchen leaves Jensen holding his hand to his chest and making a face like something is cutting right through every inch of him.
But that's not really the worst part. The worst part is that he's alone. The caretaker stops by every few days, like she said she would, but Jensen tells her he's fine, and she believes him. Not that Jared blames him. She comes in and fusses over him as if he's a sick child, but she doesn't stop to talk to him or really see how he's doing. She does her job and she leaves. Jared wouldn't really want that kind of company, either.
It feels like something slaps Jared across the face the day the phone rings. Jensen answers, and it's his mother on the other end. Jared listens to the back and forth, Jensen's end of the conversation a steady stream of reassurances that Jared is around enough to know aren't true. No, he's not doing fine. He's not feeling better. Everything isn't great in Texas, and he's not happy to be here. Jared gets irrationally angry, because anyone would be able to see that Jensen was lying if they'd just take the time to visit.
The call lasts about fifteen minutes.
And Jared thought being a borrower was lonely.
But it's not his problem. Jensen is not his family. He can't, under any circumstances, let himself care.
He finally ventures another borrowing because they're running so low on food that the only other option is to go hungry. Jared figures Ma will get pretty suspicious about his misplaced sympathy for the giant if he'd rather live without food than risk sneaking into Jensen's house and not being able to resist the urge to be nice.
He doesn't take Meg with him. She whines about how unfair it is and how what happened last time wasn't her fault, and Jared feels bad, because she's right. But if Jensen sees them (again) and calls out his name, Jared is going to catch hell.
He doesn't really get very far into his borrowing before he gets caught. Maybe he's distracted, or maybe-maybe deep down he wants to talk to Jensen again. He waits ten minutes to see if anything moves in the section of the kitchen he wants to work, which is the best he can do, because the only entrance he can see the whole kitchen from is the cabinet, and he's still too scared to use that one.
Nothing even stirs, and Jared has never known a giant to be that steady, so he starts out across the table, picking up a spoon and loading it with the cube of sugar he needs. About two-thirds of the way to the edge, he gets a real fright as what he thought was the wall curls down at the corner.
It's a newspaper. Jared wrote off that side of the table because the wall was there, and didn't even look hard enough to realize the 'wall' was a fucking newspaper, and hiding behind it…
"Good mornin', Jared," Jensen says.
Only the side of his face is poking out for Jared to see. One big, green eye, and the corner of a lip tugged into a knowing smile. Jared pauses, then turns to face the guy, because it's not like there's any point pretending he's not there now.
"Have you seriously been sitting there this whole time waiting for me to come out?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Jensen replies casually as he turns the page of his newspaper. "Just having breakfast and getting caught up on the state of the world."
"Uh huh," Jared says. "How many times did you read that one page in the time you spent sitting there not turning it?"
Jensen laughs and folds the paper, setting it aside on the half of the table Jared was making his way toward. "It pains me that we have to keep meeting like this," he says.
"We don’t have to meet at all," Jared tells him. "Won't you just let me do my job?"
Jensen scoops up a spoonful of cereal and shrugs as he chews and swallows. "Yeah, you can take whatever you want. But it's my kitchen, I'm allowed to be here when you do it."
Jared makes a frustrated noise, and Jensen just keeps smiling at him over the edge of a mug of coffee taller than Jared. "You're infuriating."
"Oh, you too," Jensen replies, sounding anything but infuriated.
"Fine," Jared replies. He turns his face to the floor and keeps right on walking, hoping to ignore Jensen, but the giant laughs at him again, and Jared can't help looking up.
For someone so unhappy, Jensen sure does spend a lot of time smiling. Jared wonders if the smiles are fake, or if Jensen's just that glad to have company. This smile doesn't look fake; it's a nice smile, incisors big enough to split Jared in half notwithstanding.
"What're you here for?" Jensen asks.
"It's not any of your business."
"You are a stubborn little-ah, but I forgot. You're not little."
Jared puts the spoon down, because apparently they're talking and giant-sized spoons are heavy. "No, I am not. Thank you very much."
Jensen leans in closer and looks at him for a long time. "You're beautiful."
"What?"
Jensen's eyes sweep over him one more time, and his smile loses the teeth. "I couldn't see you that well last time. But you're kind of beautiful. You know, for a Polly Pocket. If you were regular-sized, you'd be pretty hot."
"Uh, thanks," Jared replies. "Right back at you? I guess?"
Jensen chuckles. "Bet you drive all the little lady borrowers crazy."
Jared can't help frowning at that, and Jensen's tone softens. "Or all the other little gentlemen? No shame in being a fairy."
"There aren't any," Jared says. "Others."
"You're alone," Jensen whispers, like it's something dirty and if he doesn't say it loud enough it won't be true. "No. I saw the girl."
Dammit. So much for playing the 'last of my kind' card. "My sister," he says.
"It's just you two?"
"It's just our family," Jared answers. "Anyway, it's none of your-"
"None of my business," Jensen says. "Right." He takes another sip of coffee. "Well, I'm glad you have your family, anyway."
Jared hovers awkwardly over his spoon. Jensen has gone quiet, not trying to draw out a conversation for the first time in Jared's experience of him, and he can't tell what he should do. Maybe just pick up his work and get back to it. It's not his place to say 'I'm sorry your family sucks.'
For his part, Jensen has decided to stare down at his cereal, swirling his spoon in it. Jared watches, wondering if Jensen is trying to give him a chance to slip away quietly, but then the giant looks up at him; his smile is now very obviously fake.
"I'm being rude," he says in a shaky voice. "Would you like some breakfast?"
Jared raises an eyebrow at him and sits down cross-legged on the table. "Got a bowl my size in one of those cabinets?"
Jensen stands and crosses to the kitchen sink and returns with a bottle cap in his hand. It's already been washed out and Jared can't help wondering as Jensen sets it down if it was waiting there for exactly this kind of scenario. It's still way too big for him, but he'll at least be able to pick it up.
Jensen picks up a single flake of the cereal he's eating and crushes it, sprinkling it into the makeshift bowl. Then he grabs a container of milk Jared could use as a house and very carefully pours a few drops into it.
He bites the inside of his cheek. "I don't have a spoon your size."
"Got any tin foil?" Jared asks.
Jensen grins. "That's smart!"
He gets up and fetches a roll of aluminum foil out of one of the cabinets, tearing off a little piece and handing it to Jared so he can shape it into a spoon.
"I'll leave it here," Jensen says, patting the foil as he watches Jared work. "And that way if you need any, you'll be able to get it without trouble."
"We can manage on our own."
"I don't doubt it for a second," Jensen says. "But if I can make it easier for you, why shouldn't I?"
"Because we're not friends," Jared tells him. "We can't be friends. Don't you understand that?"
Jensen looks hurt for a half of a second, but then he shrugs and pushes the bottle cap of cereal toward Jared. "We don't have to be friends. We can make a deal."
"A deal?" Jared takes a bite of his cereal. "What kind of deal?"
"Come see me. You don't have to stay for long. Just come and talk to me for a little while every day, and I'll give you anything in this house that you want."
"That's not a real exchange," Jared says.
Jensen's smile finally slips completely, and he doesn't force another one. "Am I that bad of company?" he asks. "I can't even pay someone to come talk to me?"
"No, I didn’t mean that." Jared stands up and walks over to Jensen's hand, pressing both of his own against it. "I'm sorry, Jensen. I didn't mean it like that."
Jensen gives him a weak smile and wiggles the pinky of the hand Jared is leaning on. He laughs, because just that little movement makes him tumble face first into the back of Jensen's fingers. Jensen's skin is soft and warm as it catches him, and Jared finds his feet again in seconds.
"I didn't mean to sound pathetic," Jensen tells him. "You can earn what I give you. I'd really like to help you out and if you tell me what you need, I can carry it to one of the holes. That way you can take more stuff in one trip. It'll be good for you, too."
Jared looks down at his feet. He thinks of all the rules dad taught him about borrowing. Borrowers don't accept handouts. Borrowers don't make friends with giants. They certainly don't let themselves be dependent on giants.
But he looks up at Jensen as he's trying to think of a way to say this nicely, and there's so much hope in those massive eyes. So what Jared says instead is, "Just the sugar and some bread. That's what I came here for. But we could really use some tissue, too."
Jensen grins so wide it must hurt and tells Jared to eat his cereal while he fetches his things.
ON TO PART TWO
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