Finders Keepers, Losers Weepers (But Also Please Stop Crying I'm New To This)
Working for a pest control company had its ups and downs, but for the most part the benefits were satisfactory. Good insurance, optional overtime, the chance to acquire a child who conveniently fit into a shirt pocket while you try to figure out what to do now.
Not quite sure there's a parenting handbook that covers the care and keeping of an abandoned borrower.
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AO3 Link
My Christmas gift to @hiddendreamer67 (:
Word Count: 9K
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Humans had many different reactions upon discovering the existence of miniature people living within the walls of their house. Sometimes they would shriek in terror, sometimes they would immediately try to capture them, and sometimes they simply killed them without a second thought like common pests. Sometimes they even liked killing them. Exterminators typically fell into the third category whether they realized it or not, unaware of what else they were poisoning with bait traps and fumes, sealing all the hidden exits to ensure they suffocated with the rats.
Milo didn’t know what sort of reaction an exterminator would have upon learning the true nature of the infestation, but it certainly wasn’t eyes widening followed by a soft, calm “oh.”
The borrower child trembled where he sat on the kitchen counter, desperately trying to push himself deeper into the corner of the wall in the hope that maybe he’d be able to phase through it. He wanted to yank against the twine tangled around his body again as if it would yield a different result than before, but if he pulled any harder the largest knot binding his wrists would turn his hands purple. All he could do was stare at the tan uniformed man looming over him with horrified eyes and hope his impending doom was swift. He was a professional, after all, so what would be the point of sparing another vermin?
The man moved the coffee machine the borrower had been hidden behind to get a better look at Milo’s bound and shaking form. The exterminator’s brows furrowed as he took in the mess of tangles the little one was caught in, but it was not an expression Milo wanted to see when a gloved hand began reaching for him. Attempts to back away were just as futile as they were thirty seconds ago; the most he was able to do was kick his pinched legs until his back slid up the backsplash and granted him a standing position.
Warm fingers covered in latex still managed to find a way to curl behind his back, pulling the borrower closer before lifting him up to the man’s chest. The fingers mercifully opened so Milo was splayed flat on the human’s palm. The child squeezed his eyes shut to avoid staring at the harsh blue eyes carefully inspecting him. Another gloved hand came up and experimented tugging a few loose threads wrapped around the trembling borrower only to achieve the same results Milo had, which were nothing.
“You’re really stuck in there, aren’t you…” the human murmured, receiving a strangled squeak of terror in response, one that had been pent inside Milo’s tight throat since he was first spotted by the exterminator.
Teary brown eyes struggled to find the courage to open. He could hear the former prodding hand disappear into the equipment bag set on the counter. Milo’s uneven breathing quickly turned to hyperventilation as the technician dug around for something specific, unable to imagine what kind of extermination device the human was surely looking for. The contemplative hum above him did little to settle his nerves. How many instruments of torture could he possibly have in one bag?! Just pick one and get it over wi-!
“Were you able to find anything, sir?” a woman asked from the kitchen door, the borrower instantly recognizing her as the homeowner. She was such a sweet, older woman, the kind that would make a pie for every new neighbor moving in no matter the street. Evidently, her kindness didn’t extend to rodents, or what she thought were rodents scurrying about her kitchen at night. Milo knew he should have been faster, should have waited until he was sure the coast was clear, but instead he had to be as bold and impatient as any other six year old. How was he supposed to know she’d turn around so quickly?!
Well, he probably could have expected it, since she always did have a habit of misplacing her glasses as soon as she needed them. He had thought he was lucky she couldn’t make out exactly what his silhouette was when he ducked under the fridge until she called for pest control the next morning. All the most important rules had been broken that night and now the golden rule of never being seen by a human was fractured twice .
He deserved to be left behind.
The only outward signs that the human had been equally startled by the owner’s unexpected presence was a silent hitch in his chest and fingers twitching to cage his little captive more securely. The overwhelming need to get away was coursing through Milo’s veins more than ever, barely able to process the mere idea of being in clear view of two humans at once. Luckily, or unluckily, the exterminator seemed to have no desire to show off his catch to his customer, instead quickly sliding the little bundle of borrower into his shirt pocket before turning to address the woman.
“There’s definitely a lot of gaps in your baseboards, especially in the kitchen and dining room,” he explained, subtly crossing his arms to still the squirming bulge with his hand. “They look like they’ve been there for a good while, so whatever made them could be gone by now.”
“Oh, dear,” the woman sighed. “Maybe it’s to be expected for an older house, but...well, I’m sure I saw something just the other day running across the floor!”
I have a pretty good idea of what it could be, the man thought. “It’s possible a new animal has taken up residence in the old nests,” he said instead. He grabbed his bag to pull out a notepad of order slips, hastily scribbling all the requirements per company policy. “We can either patch the openings and set a few traps, which you could do yourself if you don’t want to pay any labor fees, of course, or we can schedule an appointment to fumigate your house. You would need to stay somewhere else for at least three days, though.”
She waved her hand dismissively, “No, no, give me the earliest time you have to fumigate. I want to be absolutely certain there are no other little guests living with me.”
Milo was barely holding onto the conversation, every word the technician said reverberating in his bones while the silence was drowned out by a heart beating louder than his own. He caught a few scant words thrown around, something traps and...fu-mi-gate? He hadn’t the slightest idea what that was supposed to mean, but to be fair he was more preoccupied with the reality that he was stuck in a pocket! There was no way out but up, to which he’d never be able to climb with his arms tied with various knots and cradled in the natural curve of the fabric, especially not without the human noticing.
He felt himself being rocked when the man started moving, presumably exchanging pleasantries and leaving the home out into the cool autumn air. Not just the woman’s home, Milo’s home - the only home he had ever known, the only home he was just learning to navigate without holding his mother’s hand, the only home he had destroyed when his family discovered the grave mistake he’d made the night earlier. It was becoming harder to contain the whimpers that so desperately wanted to come out, but he swallowed down the lump in his throat as best he could lest he annoy the human with his cries.
It was as if the exterminator had completely forgotten about the unwilling passenger nestled against his chest, silent and relatively still the entire drive save for the couple of times he adjusted his seatbelt to keep the strap from smushing Milo against him. Occasionally, he would glance down at the borrower though Milo never once looked up as he chose to focus all his anxious attention on clenching his hands over and over until his nails threatened to draw blood from his now raw palms. He had no idea how long he had been confined, any time frame far too long for his liking, but he wasn’t snapped back into awful reality until the human was shifting around again. Milo hadn’t even noticed the humming vibration of the truck was missing until he was back to being rocked by the man’s gait, hearing the cacophonous slam of a gigantic door as the exterminator stepped inside.
Inside. Inside somewhere new and unfamiliar. Inside with some one new and unfamiliar, with no tools or family to rely on this time.
Light poured in from above when the pocket was pulled open, only to be blotted out seconds later by fingers fishing around for a solid grip on their prey. It wasn’t like he could do much to prevent the hand from wrapping around him given his limited space and bound limbs, but Milo still squirmed and cried out when he was lifted from his prison. He felt himself being lowered immediately afterwards, gently placed on his back against a cool, hard surface while lingering fingers were careful that he didn’t smack the back of his head when they let go.
Despite being freed from any physical contact with the human, Milo was paralyzed where he lay in primal fear, unable to command his body to shift in his current state. All he could do was shake uncontrollably and use the last of his willpower to pry his clenched eyes open until they adjusted to the light, shifting his gaze to the technician. The man had crossed his arms and was leaning on them against the counter Milo had been placed on, watching him with a very... unimpressed expression. His calculating gaze was darkened by the shadow cast by the bill of his cap, filled the borrower’s racing mind with images of agonizing, torturous ends, wondering over and over what was going to happen if the human didn’t even find him interesting enough to keep around.
“So,” a voice called to him, much clearer to understand now that he wasn’t directly against the source, “what’s your name?”
Milo was practically yanked out from his self deprecating bubble and met the human’s eyes with his own. It was a small mercy he had no tears left. He knew he had been asked a question and could see the man was clearly waiting for a reply, but the borrower couldn’t cough up any words past his quivering lips, only growing more anxious by the second. He needed to answer now before the human punished him for his insubordination, but he couldn’t talk, couldn’t focus, couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t couldn’t couldn’t!
He must have finally taken too long because the man sighed through his nose with a small eye roll, “Whatever, worth a shot, I guess.”
Oh no, no, no, he messed up. He made him angry. Why can’t he just learn to listen! The mess of apologies he wanted to ramble were stuck behind the bottled up sobs filling his chest, almost closing off his windpipe as the human’s attention returned to his work bag once again. This time, however, it didn’t take him very long to find what he was searching for. Milo stared apprehensively at the slim tool that fit completely within the man’s palm and when he pulled a piece from its side to brandish a blade that was conveniently the same size as his trembling body, his voice finally found the strength to push through.
“M-Milo! Milo!” he cried, twisting around in hopes that his renewed energy would be strong enough to break through the string binding him.
The man paused at his delayed answer, blinking at his struggling captive as he took a moment to understand what Milo was even referring to. “Oh. I’m Ben.” The hand armed with a swiss army knife started descending towards him rapidly, “hold still, please, Milo.”
Milo, decidedly, did not want to hold still in the face of a blade aiming to slice into him. He squealed, his body finally catching up with his mind’s screaming instincts to flee. Despite the twine continuing to pin his arms to his chest and rub sore patches behind his knees, the borrower felt a renewed vigor to fight against his bonds for the umpteenth time, as if it was in this convenient moment that he would be able to free himself and hide. Though even if that were the case, it would do him little good now. He was still in a different home with a stranger, nothing in sight that could be of any use. Slipping into the walls or being recaptured by the exterminator left him with similarly bleak results – Milo was as good as dead.
A sob finally managed to escape his heaving chest when gloved fingers reached to still him. This was it. This was the last consequence to his actions. It didn’t matter to him how the massive hand gave a twitch in hesitation at his downright pathetic display, nor was Milo able to make out the flash of emotion passing on the human’s face when his vision was blurred with newfound tears. He didn’t want to be killed like this; skinned and gutted like a rat, maybe even handed off to be dissected into a million pieces by big, scary humans in white coats and masks. There was no one else to blame but himself for the downfall of all borrower kind, centuries of well kept secrets undone in a single night by a careless child. His uncles were right to string him up with a broken climbing hook while everyone else was busy evacuating before the scheduled pest control visit. His cousins were right to taunt him with the knowledge he’d be snuffed out with the roaches in the wall.
But all he wanted was to hold his mother’s hand one last time. One last moment of comfort before the painful unknown. Had she realized he was left behind on purpose by now? Did she care? Was she about to risk being snared in a mousetrap in a futile attempt to rescue her sweet baby, or was she shaking her head in disappointment that her own child had caused such pandemonium? Milo didn’t know which mental scenario hurt more to imagine. Maybe he should have stayed tucked up behind the kitchen tiles rather than scooching himself until he could wriggle through an opening behind the counter outlet. At least then he could have gone to the grave with his mistake instead of having his corpse on display.
Milo was so deep in what he thought were his last, morbid musings to notice the tip of the knife slid under the many layers of string as opposed to his flesh. The cool metal pulled upwards instead of plunging down, easily snapping through the bindings with hardly a flick of the wrist. Of course it was nothing to a human, but to the borrower they might have well been iron chains. Pressure was instantly released from around his arms and chest, letting the tingling limbs relax and regain proper blood flow. For a moment, Milo mistook the feeling of freedom as his soul ascending before he realized he was still trapped in an unmarred body.
Wide eyes blinked their sight clear just in time to see the blade saw against the largest knot that clamped the boy’s wrists together, snapping the last thread and giving him full mobility of his upper half again. He was still processing the fact he wasn’t being flayed for fun while the exterminator worked on cutting Milo’s legs free as well, effectively breaking him out of his half hearted cocoon.
“How the hel-... heck did you manage to do this, anyways?” The man asked, using his fingers to pull away the remaining bits of twine off of Milo. At this point, it really wouldn’t make much difference for the borrower to speak with a human considering he had already offered up his name. There were no more secrets left to hold, yet the poor thing felt himself clamming up again. Perhaps it had less to do with preserving what little he could of borrowerkind and more along the lines of not wanting to air his wrongdoings and the ensuing punishment. How embarrassing to tell his captor, possibly his killer, that he had been left to gag on fumes by the family he had endangered.
The lack of response made Ben give a small frown and the borrower felt his heart drop. Obviously, he knew Milo could talk, hence how he knew the child’s name was Milo in the first place. There was no sense in pretending there was any type of language barrier between them that would prevent the little one from spilling all the lore he knew. All it would do is worsen the treatment he received when the human pried the information out of him, both metaphorically and literally. Still, the best he could offer up was a strained whimper, immediately throwing his arms up in front of his tear stricken face to hide when the human leaned closer on the counter. The hand that had moved to curl behind him gingerly touched his back, creating an aftershock of trembling down Milo’s spine.
“How old are you?” The exterminator tried instead. When that gave him the same non-answer, he huffed. As much as Milo wished he could make this easier on himself, six years of well ingrained instincts kept overriding the desire to comply. If only that could have been the case forty-eight hours ago.
“C’mon, bud, make this a little easy for me,” Ben said softly. “I don’t exactly know what I’m supposed to be doing here…”
He wasn’t supposed to be doing anything because he wasn’t supposed to ever know borrowers were a race of people that existed. He wasn’t meant to find out his profession made him one of the top killers of Milo’s species, what with his poisons and traps and heavy boots. Who was to say how many lives had been lost in his line of duty, not to mention the child was intended to be added to the death toll. The human could have gone on with his life blissfully unaware the little one he was cradling in his hand should have been suffocating in the walls to die in agony alone. Ben never would have cared about him then, not that he truly cared about him now. He was curious, yes, but eventually the novelty would wear off and be replaced with boredom. Tiny bodies like Milo’s were not made to withstand the types of entertainment humans often put them through.
The tip of a gloved finger stroked the top of Milo’s head, flattening the black waves down and accidentally plucking a few strands out when they would catch on the latex material. Surely the gesture was intended to be comforting rather than mildly unpleasant, but the borrower couldn’t help but wince at the too rough touches. He ducked his head further into his arms to avoid any more petting, though Ben hardly seemed to take the hint he didn’t want to be fiddled with in any capacity.
“Are you…hurt? Bleeding? Tired?” If he wasn’t going to get a direct answer, the technician was just going to have to resort to guessing games. Unfortunately, his limited experience with children and non existent knowhow of borrowers quickly left him floundering. “Look, just…tell me what you want. Please? You’re making me feel bad about this.”
If Milo knew what audacity was, he would feel quite a bit of it for Ben trying to make it out like he was the unreasonable one. It was hard to say how much longer his patience would last for the borrower’s antics before he grew tired of talking to himself. After all, if he was destined to be experimented on and responsible for a mass extinction, it probably wouldn’t make much difference if he spoke now or not ever, if only to stay a few more minutes out of a vacuum sealed baggie.
Milo sniffled, curling in on himself tighter and muffling his words “...h-home…”
Having not been expecting another verbal response, Ben blinked in mild surprise. “Hm?”
“ H-home ,” Milo repeated, the word choking him. “I wanna go home…w-with Momma…”
“Oh, bud, I, uh…I don’t know if that’s really…”
Whatever awkward excuse the human was trying to come up with as a means to soften the blow that Milo won’t be returning to his family any time soon was cut off by the sharp ring of his work phone. He cursed under his breath, cringing as soon as the dirty word left his mouth with a glance at the child huddled against his palm. The borrower had heard plenty of swears before, especially when the news had broken about the homeowner spotting him. Still, Milo jolted at the foreign sound of a cell phone, a grating noise different to the landline he was more accustomed to hearing from time to time. He had never known those little talking things could be cordless and boxy until Ben fished the device from his back pocket to answer.
“Hey, yeah, what’s up?” He asked into it, his focus shifting to the faint voice on the other end that the child couldn’t pick up. “No, no, I’m fine, yeah, just a bit… busy , I guess.”
‘Busy’ meant that he was anticipating being preoccupied with Milo for an extended period of time. Long enough that the human would need to devote a considerable amount of attention to him and not be bothered by anyone else. The color drained from his flushed cheeks, the awful reality sinking in further for the borrower. Ben could go ahead and blab about his discovery to whoever he was talking to right now, offer to bring him over for proof, laugh as they schemed together the best way to make a profit from this discovery. One mention would be all it took before the rumor spread like wildfire with living evidence to back up the claim.
But the exterminator didn’t say a word, instead letting the conversation be directed about another job he was being requested to pick up this afternoon. No details about what happened at the old woman’s house, no unwarranted gossip about a fun little secret. A half breath of relief escaped Milo without him fully understanding why.
With one hand holding the cellphone, the other no longer prodding him, and Ben’s gaze elsewhere while he was focused on the call, Milo saw no better opportunity to make his great escape than this very second. Humans could be so distracted with their distant talks that they never noticed a tiny person scuttling right under their feet with an armful of safety pins. Granted, the borrower hasn’t the faintest idea what the best path would be for the most secure holding spot, but most kitchens should be the same, right? Any outlet in the kitchen would be prime real estate for a getaway tunnel, assuming borrowers had already settled down in the house previously and loosened the panel.
Well, even if that weren’t the case, there were plenty of tight spaces and hidden gaps that Milo could stuff himself into where giant fingers wouldn’t be able to pass. So long as Ben didn’t see where Milo had scampered off to, he was in the clear of never being found and thus giving up the search fairly quickly. Then again, this was a human with a deadly profession. The house could be booby trapped in a matter of minutes after he disappeared under the floorboards, sealing him in his hidey hole forever. Or worse, the exterminator had already secured his home with poison and sticky paper as a precaution to other pests that may dare enter his domain.
It was a risk he was going to have to take. Yes, Ben might have seen him and spoken to him, but so long as Milo never interacted with him again, it would be his word against no one. That was one of the few redeeming qualities about humans: if there was no proof, no other person would believe their ‘outlandish’ claims. Little people living in the walls? Really? How asinine! Were they also supposed to believe fairies and goblins existed within the mushroom rings found deep in overgrown forests?
Milo scrubbed his face dry to the best of his abilities with the back of his hands, gulping down a few shuddering breaths to hopefully steel his nerves. Now was not the time to be a baby anymore. He needed to be brave and strong like a real borrower. Inch by slow inch, he scooted himself away from the idle hand still cupped behind him, fully intending to stand up and bolt as soon as he was far enough away that fingers couldn’t hook around him. Unfortunately, things never worked out the way Milo planned if past instances were anything to go by. No sooner had his plan begun it was brought to a screeching halt the second Ben caught his movements out of the corner of his eye. The poor boy hadn’t even been able to push himself off his knees before he was cut off by a hand in front of him.
The gloved barrier startled Milo enough to yelp, replacing his somewhat thought out course of action with the haphazard need to get away get away get away! Little legs scrambled to find purchase on the counter to send him off into a sprint, but it was of no use at this point when his failed escape had been spotted this close to a handsy human. He’d manage to run one, two, three full steps when Ben’s thumb and forefinger pinched the back of his tiny green tunic and lifted him into the air. Being so high up made the boy’s stomach turn unpleasantly, imaging what it would be like if he was dropped from this height onto the linoleum floor and splattering next to the technician’s boots. Either way, the thought didn’t dissuade Milo from struggling in this new hold, clawing at the fingers behind him and kicking his legs fierce enough that he swung back and forth.
“No, no, no! Let go! Lemme go! ” The tears were back and freely cascading down the borrower’s cheeks, but sorrow no longer tugged at his heart. It was replaced with something more primal, more raw, that made Milo feel like he was seeing stars with every labored cry that left him winded. Panic, pure and unfiltered. “ Momma! ”
As if the exterminator was only plucking a piece of lint and not a tiny child in the midst of an anxiety attack, Ben hardly acknowledged the little one’s tantrum so as to not lose his place in the phone conversation. He maneuvered his cellphone to be balanced between his cheek and raised shoulder to free up his second hand, turning to lean back against the counter’s edge. The squirming borrower was then deposited into his awaiting palm, squishing Milo against his chest before any flailing limbs could climb over his fingers and send him tumbling below. Though it would be more ideal to shush and coo at the sobbing child being forced to cuddle into the tan fabric of his uniform, he couldn’t let his supervisor in on the fact he was comforting a person one twelfth the size of a typical first grader. Which would somehow be just as difficult to explain how he had come into care for a random kid to begin with.
Tiny fists punched and pushed on his sternum, unable to put a fraction of distance between their two bodies. And here Ben thought he was on to something by making the borrower subconsciously follow the rhythm of his breathing and heartbeat in an attempt to coddle him. Perhaps that was just a trick that worked on newborn puppies; that was what his sister told him was a bonafide trick to settle motherless litters at her vet clinic. Then again, this wasn’t an orphaned kitten mewling for a mama cat. This was an actual child, missing its mother all the same, but presumably with the cognitive function of a human to mourn the loss of their parent and fear the monster who separated them all the same.
He really, really wasn’t trying to be the bad guy here, though it was hard to dispute that narrative while he was silencing Milo with a hug and pretending there was nothing out of the ordinary for his call.
“Mm, sure, I can be out in Bilmore before five, as long as it’s just for an ant spray. Kyle owes me,” Ben agreed. Picking up a coworker’s shift was the exact opposite of what he had in mind, but he was too deep in the farce that everything was totally normal on his end to refute. The exterminator most definitely did not have an absurdly small person trying to bite through the latex of his gloves in hopes of returning from whence it came from some old lady’s house, no sir.
Thankfully, Milo was so caught up in his hysterics that most of his heart wrenching cries were concealed behind gently rubbing fingers, preventing any noises from being picked up on the receiver. Would it have been any more of a disservice to him if another human became aware of his pathetic situation? Probably not. There was little more harm that could be done for the reputation of borrowers at this point. Therefore, the child allowed himself to slip into the throes of his breakdown, the full weight of everything finally crushing his tiny self. He was abandoned by the only family he had. He had lost his mother. He had doomed his species. He was trapped by a man who was so much bigger and older and stronger and scarier . He was going to die.
Milo didn’t want to die, he had barely gotten the chance to live! He hadn’t even learned how to scale the rafters yet, or to know which order of symbols spelt out words to avoid and words to stuff his face with. Hell, Ben could set out a pile of rat poison and a pile of stale cereal bits and the borrower wouldn’t know the difference. Perhaps Ben would be merciful enough to grant him a quick and painless death, just popping his head under the heel of his boot or something. Please, please, just let it be something that doesn't hurt. His heart already hurt so much and now Milo’s head was beginning to pound from the excessive sobbing. All he wanted was for everything to stop and to go back to normal.
His mother would have known how to fix this. She knew how to fix anything he broke.
At some point, Milo stopped fruitlessly slapping at the fingers that caged him close and instead gripped onto the uniform of his captor. It was nowhere near the same level of comfort he was seeking out, but it would have to make do in his final hours. It was warm, there was a loudness in the chest he was nestled against, and a repeated touch stroking from his head to his lower back could almost be mistaken as familiar. For that reason alone, the borrower cried harder. Not loud, panicked wails like before, but soft whimpers heavy with tears that soaked into the human’s shirt with barely any notice. His headache was getting worse now, dehydration making him more miserable than ever.
“Alright, I’ll head out in a bit, thanks,” With that, the technician shifted Milo to be cradled in one hand so that he could hang up the call. “...that was a stupid idea. Why did I do that?” He mumbled.
Immediately, the borrower started fretting again from the movement. The dread that was building in the pit of his stomach wasn’t helped when Ben sighed and rubbed the side of his temple, briefly nudging his hat up to free a few blonde strands.
Blue eyes glanced down at watery brown ones. “What am I going to do with you now?”
His throat was still raw from the hoarse sobs he had worked himself up over, but words still found a way to push out of his mouth between shuddering pants. “L-lemme go…”
Ben pursed his lips, appearing to actually consider Milo’s request. A spark of hope dared to make his itty bitty heart beat out of his chest, but the fleeting feeling was snuffed out when the human shook his head in disagreement.
“No, you’re just going to get hurt. I mean, I guess I could take you with me but…” He looked at his tool bag, noting how very not safe or comfortable it would be to tote around a child in. There was the option of putting him in his pocket again, but the borrower didn’t seem like he knew how to stay still. “It would be easier if you just stayed put until I got back.”
The problem was Milo did not want to ‘stay put’, of which they were both aware of. As soon as Ben would release him on solid ground, the borrower would make a run for it. Whether or not his latest escape attempt would be successful was to be determined, but Ben was more worried about the poor kid getting injured in an unfamiliar house than actually managing to find a way home. There were simply too many dangers the exterminator already foresaw given his experience with unlucky critters. Exposed wires delivering a deadly shock, a hot pipe scalding flesh, openings too narrow to back out of, hidden scavengers pouncing on an easy meal. The list went on and on. Pint sized or not, these weren’t things any child would be able to fend off without help, and if Ben didn’t know where he was…
A kick that felt more like a tap against his rib shook him from his worries, reminding the technician the problem was still, quite literally, at hand. Milo was trying to push himself up and out of Ben’s grip, uncaring that freeing himself would just mean careening several stories below. Further evidence that the child didn’t have the rational survival skills necessary to be on his own.
“No! Put me down!” Milo yelled with a couple more kicks. The tears were drying into itchy tracks on his cheeks, though no more clouded his vision like before. It was more of a temper tantrum from not getting his way than the primal panic that had been easily ignored during the human’s phone call.
“Milo, stop, you’re going to hurt yourself flailing like that.”
“No, I’m not!” Spoken like a true kid. “I don’t wanna be held!”
The exterminator huffed. “If I put you down, are you going to run away?”
The struggling stopped at this, having not expected any sort of compromise from his captor. Milo needed to tread very carefully. Tempting as it was to blindly agree and turn tail as soon as he could, it felt wrong to break his promise to an adult. Even if that adult was twelve times his size and had an arsenal of deadly traps that could be used as punishment. It didn’t feel good to lie, whereas if he listened to whatever rules were laid out to him, the borrower might be rewarded. Returning to his home and into the warm embrace of his mother was probably too steep of a prize to be earned for staying on the kitchen counter, but maybe it was a goal that could be worked towards.
So, Milo shook his head in silent agreement that he wouldn’t try to flee. True to his word, Ben turned around and lowered the child back to the granite countertop. His legs felt like jelly, causing Milo to sit on his knees when the hand behind him uncurled to leave him be. It would be so, so easy to get up and make a mad dash for an outlet or the crevice where the fridge and backsplash met. Anywhere that human fingers would take too long to pry open, the borrower being long gone in the inner workings of the house by the time they found a big enough opening to prod. But he didn’t move a muscle. A part of him wasn’t sure he even could. Everything felt numb and tingly, like when he’d sleep on his arm weird and be unable to move it until after breakfast.
Still, the exterminator was content with his obedience. He folded his hands together and rested his chin on top, looking down at Milo who was struggling to maintain any type of eye contact. “I think we both have a couple questions.”
“I want to go home.”
“Yeah, you’ve made that really clear.”
“ Please take me home?”
“Look, kid, I,” The human struggled to find the appropriate words. “...well, really, I don’t know what you are. Or where you came from. Or what home is. So, you gotta help me out here, because I’m sure as sh-, sure as heck not leaving you all by yourself.”
If Milo was a foolish borrower, which some may argue he was in the same vein that most six year olds were naive to a fault, he would have happily blabbed away answers to all of Ben’s questions. They were simple enough and it dangled the promise of being carried home then and there as soon as he spilled the beans. However, Milo knew the rules, even if he broke the most important ones. An exterminator knowing the full ins and outs of borrower colonies would only be looking to line his pockets rather than keeping the vague promise of a safe return. For the good of the rest of us , his teenage cousin had sneered.
The child looked away from Ben’s unintentionally cold gaze. He wished the human had soft, warm eyes like his mother and himself did. Hazel tones felt much friendlier than the frozen blue boring down from above. “I can’t tell you,” Milo mumbled.
The man tilted his head. “Why?”
“It’s a secret.”
“Great,” he groaned, and Milo couldn’t help but flinch for the wrong answer he gave. Would he be punished now or later, he wondered. “So, how exactly am I meant to take you home if you don’t tell me where it is?”
That…was a good question. A loophole that Milo’s child brain was not expecting to have to factor in. Well, if they were speaking only in technical truths, it wasn’t that all of Milo’s home was hidden, just the parts that were within the home of another human. Similar to a concept of saying what state or city a person lived in without giving the exact address of their dwelling. That said, he wouldn’t really be revealing anything Ben hadn’t already figured out. Milo was found at the old woman’s house, so he lived somewhere in the old woman’s house. As long as he was dropped off somewhere inside and the exterminator took his leave, the borrower could scamper to one of the many concealed openings back into the tunnels without exposing further secrets.
“It’s, um…w-we were already there,” The borrower said softly. The words left a bitter taste in his mouth, like it was the most vile confession of his lifetime.
“The place in Anville? Where you were all tangled up?” Milo nodded in confirmation. “I…don’t think it would be possible to take you back there right now.” Or ever, was the unspoken truth Ben didn’t have the heart to admit. The house was due to be smoked by the end of the week, effectively killing any and all living creatures that had taken up residence without the woman’s permission. Taking the child back would only ensure his demise not long after, and taking him after the fumigation was done was only inviting insurmountable trauma for what he might find inside where his family once was…
Assuming they were still there at all. It was a little odd to Ben that the borrower had been so perfectly wound up in double and triple knots with no signs of a guardian near him. Of course, said guardian could have taken cover before they, too, were scooped up by the technician. But shouldn’t their first instinct be to protect their child, to fend off any threats, make some kind of distraction so they could get Milo to safety? Ben didn’t want to judge the parenting styles of someone he never met, yet he couldn’t shake the idea that the set up for their first encounter didn’t completely sit right with him.
Milo shrank in on himself at Ben’s dismissal. “Wh…why not?”
“Well, no one is scheduled to go back there for a couple days. And when they do it’ll be…y’know, fumigated. That’s not good,” Ben tried to explain.
“Oh,” The borrower said, as if he knew most of those big words. “When will that be done?”
Ben shrugged. “Everything will be all cleared in two weeks, I’m sure.”
“And then I can go home?”
What was the most child friendly way to tell a six year old if they returned and also didn’t fall victim to one of the many, many preventative traps left behind, they would more than likely come across the poisoned bodies of their loved ones? Ben would be lying if he said he didn’t feel a bit guilty for that fact there was no conceivable way for him to go back and warn ‘Momma’ of her impending doom, at least for the hope of a happy family reunion afterwards. The reality was that if she was still there, looking for her troublesome baby, she would suffocate alone and unknowing if her child had suffered the same tragic fate. It was miserable to imagine, much less explain to a kid who barely trusted him to begin with.
Rather than opening up this new can of worms that would no doubt reignite the wails and thrashing from ten minutes ago, Ben chose to glance at his watch. If he wanted to make it to Bilmore in time, he needed to get going, which brought him all the way back to square one of what the fuck is he supposed to do with a three inch tall kiddo?
“How about we talk about this when I get back, okay?” He pushed himself up from the counter, only to drop to a crouch so he could root around the cabinet under his sink. “I gotta head out for a bit.”
“To my house?” Milo asked, tepidly crawling near the edge of the counter to get a peek of what the human was doing.
“No. Different house. We can talk more about your house later,” A rattling of metal and a few squeaky hinges were exactly what Ben was looking for, returning to his full height with a small cage in his hands.
Milo knew what a cage was. Milo did not like cages. Cages were what birds and things were kept in, like the old woman’s pretty canary. It seemed too cramped for an animal meant to soar through the sky and the borrower felt terribly sorry for it to be cooped up for so many hours of the day. His aunt, the silly one with three missing teeth, had warned him of humans locking borrowers up in similar prisons. Tiny, cold little cells so the human could be entertained at their leisure by the borrower’s misery. No privacy, no comfort, no being able to run around the rafters and steal the crumbs of chocolate chip cookies. An awful existence, one of the worst fates for a borrower should they ever be caught alive.
The terror that drained all color from the child’s face for a second time made Ben feel even more horrible about this, but he had no choice! This was the only safe place he could think of for Milo to stay alone without running the risk of him getting into trouble. Besides, it’s not like he would force the borrower to stay in there forever, just…an hour or two, until he finished that stupid job he never should have agreed to cover. If nothing else, this gave him the opportunity to get a few supplies while he was already driving around to make his impromptu guest a tad more comfortable. Some bedding, maybe a couple dollhouse toys, books for guys who didn’t know the first thing about caring for kids, books for small rodent care for new owners.
There was no sense in acting like this was going to be a short term fostering. As of now, Benjamin Riley, age twenty-eight, was the self appointed guardian of a mysterious child who was in serious need of a growth spurt.
“Hey, it’s okay, look,” Ben tried to soothe, setting the cage on the counter near Milo. “It’s a humane trap, it’s not going to hurt you. I promise.”
His promises clearly meant nothing to Milo, who still had little to no reason to assume any of his words were truthful. As far as the little one was concerned, the exterminator had shown up, kidnapped him, and had signed for an appointment date that would slaughter his family should any of them still remain after being displaced. Ben had done absolutely nothing for him to earn enough trust to be willingly imprisoned.
Milo squeaked and clambered onto his feet, taking several steps away from the horrible contraption. “N-no, I don’t w-wanna!”
An understandable reaction, but not the one the human wanted to deal with right now. He didn’t have thirty to forty minutes to waste in settling Milo down enough to be put in the trap. “I know, bud, but it’s not that bad. It’s just for a little bit.”
“No!”
“I’ll let you out as soon as I get back, okay? This is only temporary.”
“No, I don’t want to go in!”
“Milo, c’mon, you’re killing me here. This is just to keep you safe while I’m gone. I’ll come back with things to make it cozier for next time.”
“ No! ”
Breaking his promise be damned, Milo was sprinting as fast as his legs could carry him to avoid being stuffed in a cage. The metal was dark, likely cold to the touch, and had weird upper mechanisms that scared the borrower to touch. The only way it could be more horrendous would be if the exterminator returned it to its original storage space under the sink, where it was pitch black and damp, ready to be forgotten after a long day of errands.
It was foolish to think he’d ever be able to outrun a human who could close the distance between them without fully extending his arm. No matter how hard his legs pushed and how deep his chest sucked in stinging breaths to propel him forward, Milo couldn’t shake the hand that swooped in from above. Two fingers curled in front of him, knocking the wind from his lungs when he collided full speed with the solid digits. A gloved thumb closed behind to secure his back, preventing him from being able to slip out of the hold. Before he had even gotten a steady inhale, the borrower was airborne, carried back to his original spot with barely any effort on the human’s part.
Except he wasn’t dropped back onto the counter. Instead, he could only watch with wide eyes as Ben used his other hand to undo the latch on the front of the cage, revealing an opening large enough for Milo to pass through. Though his legs kicked and his arms pushed and a strangled cry squeaked out, the technician could not be swayed to release him until after he had been deposited on the cold, metal floor. He should try to take solace in the fact that he wasn’t dropped from a bruising height into his new prison, but it was hard to find any bright side to his horrid situation.
“It’s not forever, I promise,” Ben repeated, removing his hand and pressing the trigger plate to seal the borrower in with a reverberating click.
Immediately, Milo ran to the bars of the cage, hoping to find a miraculous weak spot that would break free if he shook it hard enough. “No, no! Please! L-let me out!”
“When I come home.” And that was that. Sitting here trying to reason with a child as to why he deemed it necessary to lock him up like a feral rat would only lead to them talking in circles. And because Ben felt increasingly awful by the second seeing the poor, frightened boy trapped in the same manner as a rodent. The comparison seemed gross. Milo was not a rat or a stray or any other animal; he was a… something . Not a human, but more than close enough. A child, for God’s sake. Yet what other option did Ben have on such unexpected notice? He’ll make it up to him later. They were going to be in each other’s company for quite a while.
More pleas and whimpers spilled from Milo in a jumble of stutters, trying to find the right words to appease his captor to rethink the situation. “Please, p-please! I’ll be good! I-I promise! Please let me out, please, please , don’t go!”
If Ben hung around any longer to watch the tragic display, he just might very well lose his resolve and opt to stay home and care for Milo without the burden of the cage. However, that would mean having to call his supervisor and explain why he was backing out of the shift he agreed to, and not being able to pick up any essentials for the kid, and basically being stuck on house arrest because he would be too guilt ridden to leave Milo alone if it meant having him in the humane trap for any period of time. Kids sure knew how to pull on the heartstrings.
With that, the exterminator did what he would do for cases of pest relocation involving active and/or anxious critters. He took the hand towel that hung over the handle of his oven and unfolded it, draping the yellow and blue fabric over the cage to conceal most of the outside view from all sides. It was meant to help whatever critter was inside not feel overstimulated by the unfamiliar sights and people so that they would hopefully self soothe into a calmer state before being moved. Ben wasn’t sure how well it worked on Milo since he only continued to beg and feebly tug at the cloth like he might be able to dislodge it from his view.
Well, at least the human didn’t have to look him in his teary eyes as he left. That was not a face he wanted to regret while he was on a job, lest his emotions get the better of him. This was only temporary. This was for Milo’s own good. If that was what he wanted the borrower to believe, then that’s what he needed to believe, too. Sometimes, it’s necessary to be the bad guy when it comes to the world of parenting. Is that what he was now – a parent? Pretty lousy one, if you asked him. Those types of bonds would form more naturally as time went on and Milo wasn’t left for an hour or so in a rodent cage. Maybe.
Ben gave the top of the cage an awkward pat, the muffled sound of the metal making Milo yelp as the vibrations tingled his hands. “I’ll be back in a little bit. Be good.” He said softly, like it would make any difference.
Boots faded into the distance before cutting off when the front door closed behind the exterminator. It was at this point that Milo was now well and truly alone. There was no reason to keep spouting off pleads when no one was around to hear them. The only thing to keep him occupied was himself and the two tone splashes of color blinding him from the outside world. No way to be able to spot any potential hiding spots once he was out (if Ben was really going to do such a thing), no way to judge the passing of time, no way to look at anything that might be remotely more engaging than a dish towel. He wished he could bring some of the fabric through the criss cross bars of the cage so that he would have something warm to sit on.
Alas, he had nothing. No home, no family. Just a cold, empty cage and the berating voice of his thoughts that listed off all his faults which led him to this moment, oftentimes echoed in the same manner as the relatives who had tied him up. This felt like the perfect time to air his grievances, but there were no more tears to cry and no ache to be screamed. His chest felt empty and numb, as if his heart had been ripped out and discarded. Perhaps that would be a literal possibility in the future should Ben grow tired of his whining. It would do him well to remember who’s mercy he was at now, the one who decided if he would live or die and exactly how painful his demise could be.
Milo dropped to his knees and waited in silence, just like he was told to do. Just like he should have done in the first place when he was warned to never be spotted by a human. If he closed his eyes and thought real hard about it, he could picture his mother running over to lift the fabric away and reveal that she had tracked him down all this way and was here to take him home. Where no one was mad at him and no one was going to die at the hands of the uniformed human and his bag of poisons.
Yes, Momma would be here soon. He just had to be patient a little longer.
