#itwom

4) Snifftopher high as a kite with 4 humans inside 5) Danny crawling out of Christopher like he’s a corpse. 6) Danny beating the shit out of nora!

It isn’t long before Mimi manages to reach the ‘hub’ of the small town, thankfully not having ran into anyone along the way. Now in search of something to eat, perhaps crumbs of some sort or scraps she could steal, maybe grab a growth serum and antidote pair just in case. She spots what appears to be some sort of eating establishment and emerges from the shadows to enter. Just before she can start to tackle the problem of opening the door, Mimi feels the back of her shirt hitch and pull her up into the air.

“And just where do you think you’re going, doll? Do you have any idea just how much danger you’d be in walking into this pub?” Mimi’s knees instinctively curl up towards her chest seeing as it’s the only way she can really move. She attempts to make herself appear unphased by the fact that she is at least 100 feet up off the ground, let alone her entire life is in the hands of the first giant she meets after her travels. “No, why would a pub be dangerous?” The giant inspects Mimi with a hint of a smirk. “You’re not from around here are you? She gives a sheepish smile. While the absolutely massive face in front of her is just that, they are rather attractive. “Well, I am not from around here if you must know. And you can call me Mimi.” She tries to pull herself more into the hand dangling her. “You have quite a strong smell, Mimi. If you don’t get away from here, Cyrus will certainly put you on the market.” Mimi cocks her head quizzically. “Market... oh that’s right giants use humans like drugs. Well, I guess I could let you swallow me for kicks. Never been inside a giant before.” Mimi shrugs somewhat nonchalantly. The giant dangling her then spins her a little by the neck of her shirt, inspecting her. A hint of surprise slips into their expression, but Mimi opts to not bring it up. “And what if you didn’t want to be swallowed, doll? If I were to drop you from here it’d be over for you. Even if you survived the fall, You wouldn’t be safe inside.” The giant, still holding Mimi up by the collar, walks into a back alley with her and finally sets her in his hands. “Lemme take you to my place. That way I can taste you in peace.”

Mimi allows herself to, after a minute, relax into the giant’s hand closed around her. “Say, um… I never did catch your name… I’m Mimi.” The grip around her tightens a little in response. “Keep it quiet or someone besides me might hear you. The name is Christopher. If you’ve heard of me, you probably already hate me. If you haven’t, lucky.” He opens a door indicated to Mimi by a creak. Christopher sets her down on a coffee table, small to him yet huge to his guest. Mimi seats herself legs crossed on the table. “So. What do you think you’re doing out in the open, let alone casually allowing some strange giant to swallow you?”

“Curiosity. Where I came from there was one giant and everybody was scared of her. All the humans were so anti-giant even bringing them up was taboo.” She shrugs. “I got sick of it, figured I’d take my chances, and see what all I could see. I learned that some humans seek out giants for protection and enjoy the sensation of being swallowed… so I asked the only giant I knew about it and she said this town would be the best place.” Christopher’s eyes widen a significant bit as he puts the pieces together mentally. “No wonder that giant led you here.” Mimi cocks her head slightly in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“Never mind. Now, onto what you said earlier…” Mimi’s eyes widen a tad. “If you’re looking to be swallowed for the first time, you’ve come to the right place.” She leans forward eagerly. “Really? You… you won’t… hurt me… right?” The apprehension apparent in her own voice is more than enough for Mimi to shake her head and clear it. “No, I trust you. You wouldn’t do that. You already were kind enough to keep me out of whatever danger that pub is…” The somewhat surprised look on Christopher’s face morphs into a sneer. "Well, doll, turns out you have come to the right giant." He picks Mimi up by the shirt again, this time bringing her far closer to his face. His warm breath and sudden change of tone startles Mimi a decent bit, but her face says exhilaration more than anything. "Christopher-" she gasps as his tongue teases her neck.

Danny had never felt so helpless before. 

She screamed as Christopher was struck with the part of the ceiling that fell, and it did fuck all. All she could do was fucking watch as her friend crumpled to the ground, too injured to get himself out from underneath it. If she was a normal size, she could have lifted it off herself. But she was tiny and useless and trapped on top of this fucking table, and she had never felt a rage or fear like she did now.

“Get these two out. Get Danny out. Please.” 

She knew what was going to happen—she knew it even as the fake plant next to the table stretched up weakly and wrapped one of its vines around her waist, before picking her up and lowering her to the floor. It grabbed Nathan in another one of its stems before carrying them both through the air and towards the gaping hole in the window.

She hardly even got a chance to see Christopher’s face as she was forced out of the mansion. 

“SAM!” She tried to fight against the vine that held her, and though it was clear Sam was weakened, they weren’t so weak that Danny’s efforts were at all effective. “Let me go! Don’t you fucking—I can’t just leave him!” 

There was no response, not until they had both left the window and grown back to their normal size outside the mansion. Danny turned immediately as if to try and rush back into the house, but Nathan held her back, easily trapping her in an embrace. 

“Let me back in,” she cried, struggling against Nathan to no avail. “Please, I can’t…I can’t just…”

“Danny, there’s nothing we can do. I’m sorry.” Nathan’s voice was raw with emotion, but he held her firmly against him, trying to pull her further away from the house. 

“You can’t die.” Sam’s voice came from somewhere in front of Danny, but it was weak, barely audible amongst the roaring of the flames. “Please, just go. Get somewhere safe.” 

“We have to…we have to do something!” She kicked and writhed as Nathan pulled her back and away, staring frantically at the way the fire was quickly engulfing everything in its wake. “I can…” 

She remembered, suddenly, looking at Christopher’s perfectly healed palm only a few days ago—and got a flash of a realization, like a sudden burst of clarity in all of this chaos. 

He healed himself when he ate me. What if it could work again? Could it heal burns? Could it fix his legs? If he ate me…would he be able to survive this?

“Sam,” she cried out, even as Nathan was doing his best to carry her down the steps. “Let me back in. Please. I can…I can help him. I can heal him. You know I can, don’t you?” 

“Danny, no…” Nathan whispered—but he didn’t know. She hadn’t mentioned that part to him earlier. 

There was silence for long enough that she was worried Sam had disappeared for good, but the voice whispered from the nearby railing. “You don’t know that’ll work.” 

“But there’s a chance. Isn’t there?”

There was silence—silence that felt like it stretched for far too long. 

“There is.” 

Nathan was incredulous. “What?” 

She tried to squirm around in his grip to look at him, her eyes pleading. “I can’t let him die like that. Please. Let me help him. I have to try.” 

“Danny…he can’t leave.” He sounded deeply apologetic, but she felt his hold on her loosen ever so slightly. “What could you even do?” 

She didn’t want to say it—she didn’t think Nathan would let her if she did. “Sam, back me up here. You know I’m right. You know I can help him.” 

There was no response. Nothing but the wind and the flames crackling and sputtering as they ate away at the house. 

They were running out of time. 

She was on the verge of tears. “Nate, trust me.” 

Nathan’s face crumpled with worry—torn between what should have been the obviously right answer, and between the pleading look on Danny’s face, an expression of raw feeling that he had never seen on her before. He couldn’t ignore it—and despite how badly he wanted to keep her here with him, where it was safe, he knew Danny would never forgive him if he held her back now. 

He nodded weakly, his arms releasing Danny and falling to his sides. “I trust you, but…please. Please come back safely.” 

Her expression changed instantly—now one of determination, and a deep, sincere gratitude. She nodded. “I will.” 

And then she was off—charging back into the house through the open window, not even stopping as the world grew a hundred times larger around her. 

This close to the ground, the smoke was less of a problem, even though everything still smelled like burning wood. There were other humans inside the house, some trying to escape through the hole she’d just come through, and others who’d forced their way in as well, looking for their loved ones. She ignored them all, and in the chaos, they ignored her too. 

She tried not to look at the pile of rubble Christopher was under—tried not to think about any of it as she sprinted at full speed towards his face, only focused on putting one foot in front of the other as quickly as she could, her lungs burning from the exertion and the ash in the air.

Christopher didn’t seem to notice her until she was right in front of his face—his eyes were nearly closed, and they squinted as she stepped in front of them, as though he couldn’t quite see her clearly. And then they opened wide as he realized, his inky black irises full of fear and confusion. 

“Danny…” His voice was weak and hoarse, like every syllable had to scratch its way up his throat. “What are you doing? Get-”

She was fighting to catch her breath, her hands on her knees as she glared down at the floor. “I need…you…to eat me. Okay?” 

She’d effectively stunned him into silence. At first, she was worried he hadn’t heard her—he just stared at her, totally uncomprehending. “What…are you talking about?” 

The heat was making her start to sweat, and she knew she didn’t have much time to convince Christopher to participate in her half-baked plan. She didn’t want to wait for the rest of the roof to collapse on them both. “Listen…you told me when you eat a human, it heals you, right?” 

A flicker of understanding passed through his eyes, and she could see it clear as day—a little bit of hope had been kindled in him, though he still seemed wary of her suggestion. 

“So there’s a chance if you eat me right now, you can survive this.” 

Despite the hope in his eyes, there was fear in his voice—but she didn’t know what it was he could have been scared of. “What…are you…what are you saying?” 

“I’m saying eat me. Okay?” 

It felt almost like time slowed down, like it stretched each second to its fullest as Danny saw the change in Christopher’s expression. For a moment it was like he was at war with himself, his eyebrows furrowing and his lips quivering slightly. She could tell he was thinking something through, running through the plan she’d proposed in his head. She’d expected him to refute her, to argue that her safety was more important or that it wouldn’t work. But he didn’t.

“You’re…giving me…permission to eat you, then?” 

She didn’t understand his rephrasing of her offer, because she didn’t think that fretting over semantics was really warranted in the present moment. She huffed with her hands on her hips, hoping to convey more of a sense of urgency. “Yes, and preferably before the rest of the house caves in on us. Can you do that, bastard?” 

She saw his chest hitch, almost like he was about to cry, and his eyes crinkled at the corners as an unsteady sort of smile wavered on his face. “...yes. Yes I can, doll.” 

Though it seemed to take a fair amount of exertion on his part, he brought one of his hands to rest behind her. His giant fingers were shaky and weak as they grazed her shoulder. “I…can’t believe…you came back for me.” 

Her heart was racing—Christopher’s weakness was just another reminder that they were almost out of time. “Shut the fuck up and get me in your mouth already. You can tell me how grateful you are after you survive this. Okay? Don’t you fucking die on me.” Despite how strong she’d meant to sound, her voice broke on the last sentence. She thought she might have cried, if the heat hadn’t all but dried her eyes out.

He managed a weak nod, just the barest movement of his head—and then his lips parted. She realized the awkwardness of the task in front of her now, as Christopher couldn’t move much more than the hand he had behind her, and only barely at that. There was no monster here to consume her in a blind fit of animal hunger and desperation. Before her was simply a man. 

She didn’t have time to rethink her decision now. She took a step forward, and leaned down to duck inside of his mouth, guided along by his fingers behind her. 

It was nothing like what had happened just a couple of nights ago. There was no trace of the feral animal, and there weren’t claws at her back. Christopher was slow and gentle as his tongue moved beneath her, doing his best to help guide her into his mouth. The chaos of the outside world all but disappeared, leaving Danny to a completely new and horrific environment that was Christopher’s insides. But perhaps it wasn’t as bad as it could be—inside of his mouth, it wasn’t hot and dry and burning, but merely warm, and wet. At least this time she partly knew what to expect—and she wasn’t going to die. Not by Christopher’s doing. 

There was a bit of awkward fumbling around as he tried to maneuver her into a position that would be easy to swallow, his tongue moving and sliding around under her body. Though it was dark and cramped and she was still partly on her side, she knew it was his throat directly in front of her—a spike of fear, despite everything, pierced through her chest. No matter how much she knew of the giant’s nature, no matter her trust in him, there was still a part of her that was simply an animal fighting for survival, rightfully afraid of something that generally led to a mortal demise. But in this moment, she pushed it aside. 

The sound of Christopher’s swallow rung loud in her ears, and her body lurched forward as the muscles of his throat pulled her deeper into him, constricting her torso until she was restrained all the way down to her waist. 

She gasped aloud, but tried not to squirm and make it harder for what she imagined couldn’t be an easy task for Christopher. Before, everything had been a blur, going too fast for her to process what was happening to her. She had been more focused on the fact that she could die. But now it was an almost entirely different experience. In a way, perhaps it was more horrific for it to go in what felt like slow motion. But on the other hand, she could feel how gentle he was trying to be with her, despite the fact that he was quite literally eating her alive.

Another swallow sent the rest of her into his throat, and she slipped along quickly, dissolving into the blackness inside of him until the whole world became nothing but the slippery muscles all around her. It was odd, for him to be on his side like this—she could sort of vaguely sense it wasn’t so much of a downward movement as before—but she was quickly losing her sense of direction and orientation. She closed her eyes—it made little difference in the dark—and before long she spilled out into a more open space, cradled now by Christopher’s strange stomach. 

She hadn’t realized how much sound there had been before. The shouting and the crackling of flame were muffled so much that the noise almost disappeared completely. All that remained was the slow thump of Christopher’s heartbeat, and the shaky sounds of his shallow breathing, whooshing all around her. The new sounds, while before they had been foreign, were now almost a source of comfort—because they meant that he was alive. 

The scent of burning wood was gone, too—it was like she was in a completely different world, removed entirely from the chaos and wreckage she knew lay just on the other side of the skin in front of her. 

How long will it take to work? 

Now that the hardest part of it was over for her, she was left only with the aftermath of worry. Would it be painful, for Christopher? How quickly would he heal, if the fire got to him? What about his legs? 

She hated to know that her friend would be in pain, and alone through whatever happened next. 

She reached out a hand, not knowing in what direction she faced, and splayed it against the flesh in front of her. 

Like a lantern being lit in the night, something broke through the darkness inside of Christopher, illuminating first her fingers, then the rest of her. At first she panicked, thinking that the only thing that could provide such light was fire, but there was no heat that came with the light. It took a moment for her to realize that the stomach itself was what was glowing beneath her touch. For just a moment, she saw what before she had only felt—the strange, smooth ribbons of flesh that made up Christopher’s stomach. 

And then the light became so blinding that she was forced to close her eyes—and even behind her eyelids, the world was white as a field of snow reflecting the sun. 

She wanted to call out, worried that something had happened, but her voice didn’t come to her. She was weightless, no longer feeling flesh beneath her, no longer hearing a heartbeat or the working of lungs. She could not open her eyes, even if she wanted to—it didn’t feel as though she had control over anything at all, like she was an insect trapped in amber. She was suspended in a blinding white nothingness.

Perhaps this was what death felt like. There was a part of her, some part she couldn’t reach right now, that reminded her that she couldn’t die, that there was something very important she needed to remember, to come back to. But there was hardly space for thought wherever she was now. 

She had little choice but to submit herself to the light, unaware of what would lay on the other side. 

* * * * * * * * * * 

Danny woke in the bleary haze that one often does when they hadn’t realized they were sleeping, as reality began to drip back into place like a slowly leaking faucet. She couldn’t remember where she had been, or where she was now. Something itched at the back of her mind still, something important. Hadn’t she been doing something? She had no sense of time or place at the moment.

Her eyes fluttered open as color and shape reformed in the world, no longer a blinding sea of white light. There was something in front of her, she thought, and she squinted as she tried to make out the details. 

“Need a hand, dollface?” 

* * * * * * * * * * 

Hopefully you all can forgive me for the cliffhanger this time - I told you I'd be back to finish it!

All that remains now is the epilogue, but I wanted to leave a potentially sweeter taste in your mouth than the previous chapter. Consider this a valentine's gift to you all - and as always, thank you so much for reading and supporting me all this way. I know this story has been slow going, but it's something that's still quite dear to my heart, even if it is just a silly little AU.

None of them were quite aware of the fact that Christopher didn’t seem intent on pursuing any of them—his focus was solely on the large, burly human still trying to restrain Danny while he moved along with the maddened crowd. 

“Get the fuck off of me,” Danny snarled, hoping to use the chaos as an opportunity to shake herself loose. She yanked her arms violently, but the man held fast.

She saw it before the man holding her did—a giant hand coming toward them, and picking them both up at the same time. She barely had time to breathe a sigh of relief before the man was unceremoniously torn away from her, with the same seeming amount of effort as someone picking a speck of dust off of one’s clothes.

While all the other humans were still running and yelling beneath them, Christopher stood still as he looked over Danny with concern, as though she were the only one here. The man who’d been restraining her was held in his other hand like an afterthought. “Danny…are you okay? Did he hurt you?” 

She shook her head. “God, I’m fine, but where’s…where’s Nathan?” She tried to push herself past Christopher’s grip to turn around and look for him, but her stomach nearly flipped itself out of her mouth as she saw how suddenly far above the ground she was. 

“Outside,” came a voice from a mirror on the entryway table. “He’s fine. But we gotta…HEY!” Danny saw that a little further down the hall, a broom fell straight onto the floor, its handle falling just short of a couple of humans who had been trying to run down one of the hallways. “There’s too fucking many of ‘em, I can’t—PUT THAT DOWN!” 

Sam’s voice kept jumping around further and further down the hall, clearly having their attention split in far too many directions at once. Each word of their sentence seemed to come from a different piece of furniture all over the room.

Christopher sighed, and lowered his hand to let Danny down on top of the table in the entryway. “I have to deal with this.”

“Let me down onto the floor, Christopher—I can help!” She wasn’t ecstatic about being stuck up here while everyone wreaked havoc below.

The giant simply shook his head, and glared at the human he held in his other fist—who had become incredibly compliant and frozen with fear since being grabbed. “I can erase everyone’s memory and send them away, but…I have to…do them one at a time. I—Sam!” he called out, turning to leave Danny alone and walking briskly towards another room, picking up the errant and unlucky human on the way. “Gather them all in one place! Don’t let them get out!” 

“HEY,” Danny shouted, but it was no use—Christopher didn’t even turn around before he’d left the room. 

“Fucking bastard.” She stepped cautiously to the edge of the table and glanced down to the floor to see if any humans had lagged behind. She saw some movement in the corner of her vision, and saw that Max—the sneaky son of a bitch—had hidden himself behind one of the large vases next to the door, peeking cautiously around the edge of it to see if Christopher had left. 

She was feeling a little vindictive. 

“HEY, SAM, THERE’S ONE OVER HERE BY THE DOOR,” she yelled, loud enough that Max whipped his head around to face her with a horribly betrayed and terrified look on his face. 

She just gave him an ugly smirk in return. Who’s the bitch now? 

“I’ll get him in a sec,” came a voice from what appeared to be one of the giant peacock statues at the base of the stairs further down the hall. “There’s something I gotta—”

Sam’s voice cut off abruptly. She didn’t have a good vantage point of the house from her position in the entryway, and she couldn’t even tell where Christopher had run off to. 

Max realized that his time was running out. A sense of urgency seemed to overcome him as he took one of the clubs someone had dropped near the front door. 

There was a very tall, stained glass window right next to the door, going almost all the way to the floor and hidden behind a set of curtains. This was Max’s destination—he made a beeline for the glass, and started to smash his club into it. His efforts were laughably lacking, but all the same, tiny shards of multicolored glass started to fall to the stone floor as he whacked a human-size hole into the window.

“Sam, he’s getting out!” she cried, a little more urgently herself. God, if Christopher had just let her onto the floor, she could be beating this weasel’s ass already. 

Sam didn’t respond, but she could hear the echoing of the manservant’s voice shouting indistinctly from further in the house. 

What could have been distracting enough to keep Sam’s attention away for that long?

* * * * * * * * * * 

It might be hard to imagine what it would be like to be a house. Most houses didn’t have to deal with figuring it out, either, which was just as well, because splitting one’s attention into potentially millions of places wasn’t something most anyone would be prepared for. Sam Wilson fit the role a little more naturally than most, if only due to the fact that their mind already felt like it was limited only by the speed of their body. When given a chance to move at the speed of their mind, they became nigh unstoppable, unhampered by things like limbs or energy or physics that so often held them back before. 

Without the ability to feel tired, or exert energy at all, it almost felt like things simply happened as they thought about them. If the sheets needed to be made upon the bed, all it took was a thought, and Sam was the sheets themselves, and the sheets were simply made, and that was that. If a door needed to be opened, or a window closed, all it took was the thought to make it so—no ability to forget, or put it off until later, or complete a different set of tasks first. 

All in all, Sam was usually able to run a tight, highly efficient ship in the mansion. There had never been a reason for their attention to be split in so many different directions at once. 

This whole mess felt like it had when they’d first lost their body—like a million tiny rocks pelting them from all sides, demanding attention, demanding Sam’s presence, pulling them this way and that. It was like the feeling of a swarm of tiny ants running up and down their legs and arms and under their clothes and into their mouth and there were too many to simply just swat them off and be done with it.

They felt every scurrying human that ran across their floors, that tried to hide behind a corner or a vase or a table leg. Nothing could really hide from Sam, but the humans currently held the advantage of sheer numbers, and hid in the chaos that resulted. 

Sam couldn’t help but move faster trying to keep up with everyone, but they needed to slow down and focus. Focus. That was something they hadn’t had to worry about in nearly ten years. Focus. Go slow. One at a time. 

It was like trying to pull the brakes on a train barreling down the tracks to get Sam’s mind to move slower, but they managed to squeal to something of a stop, trying to pick out a single human that seemed to be the furthest from where Christopher was. 

There—running down the hall, towards the guest bedroom where Danny had been. Easy. They cut through the house like a lightning bolt jumping from the sky to the ground, looking down at the human high up on the corridor’s walls before swooping down to the rug. 

“Gotcha!” 

The edge of the rug folded over and trapped the human beneath it, who shouted in surprise. “What the devil-!”

Sam’s focus was waning—there were a million more tiny sparks that demanded their attention. Someone was in the kitchen broom closet. Another was trying to squeeze themselves into a hole in the baseboards. One of them was taking some sort of blunt object and trying to, for whatever reason, smash their way into an absolutely gorgeous and priceless vase in the drawing room. 

“HEY! THAT’S AN ANTIQUE!” Their possession of the vase itself had at least temporarily put the offending human in such a state of shock that it gave Sam enough time to unravel a bit of the rug— just enough to grab the human’s pitchfork (not the most optimal smashing instrument, thankfully), and then turn the huge vase upside down on top of the human. Takes care of them for now. Okay. Next. 

Wait. Hallway guy. They were back in the hallway where the human they’d previously caught was pushing their way out from under the rug—the rug that suddenly came to life again and wrapped itself around the human’s tiny body with a new vengeance. Okay, where can I put—

There was a narrow hall table against the wall just a little further down—Sam shot forward with the rug and dropped the human off on top of the table, next to the oil lamp so that the flame cast an eerie shadow on the human. It’ll be fine. They can’t get down. Okay. Next. 

Danny was shouting—Christopher was yelling something at Sam, too, but they were in such a flurry of action that neither sentence really registered, all the words getting lost in the sea of endless pings for attention.

One human was trying to escape in the foyer—Sam could feel the window being beaten against, like the human was taking a tiny little club to their ankles. Hole—there was a hole now. Cold air on the tile. Glass shards. Goddamn it! Okay! Priority!

“WHO SAID YOU COULD BREAK MY WINDOWS, YOU LITTLE SHIT?”

The human wielding their tiny little club wheeled around as Sam filled the vase behind them, their face stricken white with fear. “W-who said that?” 

The hole they’d made, while it had absolutely ruined the design, wasn’t yet big enough for a human to squeeze through yet, but it was certainly going to be a problem if left unaddressed. Fuck, how do I—

One of the silk flowers in the vase flew up and out, twisting itself in midair in preparation to at least bind the human together to prevent him from leaving. The flowers could also block the hole—

Footsteps. Running. Jumping. Hall. Table. Human jumping off table.

They didn’t even have time to think—it was a miracle that it had cut through the fog of things at all. Suddenly Sam was the table in the hall, silk flower forgotten and fallen to the floor without wrapping itself around anything. Sam was the drawer in the table in the hall, moving with the reflexes of someone who’d had far too much time to get acquainted with all the ways they could move in the invisible space between atoms. The table itself ended up lurching forward as the drawer flew open to catch the stupidly panicked human who’d tried to jump off, and instead fell into the table’s drawer, which promptly snapped shut with them inside. 

It had caught Sam so much by surprise that for a moment, they truly did stop, astounded by what had nearly happened. 

“What. Were. You. THINKING?” 

“I-I don’t want to get killed by that giant-”

“Oh, Jesus, we’re not gonna kill you guys, you don’t have to fuckin-”

Ow. Ow ow ow. 

Pain?

Sam didn’t feel pain. They couldn’t even remember what pain felt like. They’d possessed flame itself, but they couldn’t remember what it felt like to burn. But they got a flash of it now—bare feet on hot tiles, finger held to a candle’s flame, spark licking skin. 

The lamp—the lamp that had been on the table. It wasn’t on the table. It was on the ground. The rug. The glass was shattered. The flame was spreading. Spreading. 

“Shit shit SHIT!”

They stood the lamp upright, but it did very little to stop what had already begun. They folded the rug in on itself to try and smother the flame, but it had caught on curtains and carpet and the wood paneling, eating away at whatever it could touch faster than Sam could take care of it. 

“CHRISTOPHER! There’s a—we have to put out the fire! Forget about the humans!”

The human in the foyer and the hole in the window completely forgotten about now, Sam rushed off to get water, before the fire truly got out of control. Because it couldn’t. They couldn’t let that happen.

* * * * * * * * * * 

Fire—now that was an idea. 

Cyrus had managed, somehow, to keep a low profile while everyone else scattered about like cockroaches. He wasn’t stupid enough to scurry out into the middle of the floor where the giant could just snatch him up. He also wasn’t stupid enough to do anything to anger the house’s spirit, like that idiot Max trying to break a hole in the window. Cyrus crept along the baseboards, just trying to keep quiet and out of sight. The ones who ran the fastest and screamed the loudest were the ones who got snatched first, and he wasn’t about to draw more attention to himself. 

The smell of something burning caught his nose, before he heard the strange spirit yell something about putting out a fire. 

Oh—how had he not thought of that before? 

This giant couldn’t leave. 

And now it was distracted. 

He wasted no time—he bolted towards the hole that Max had been trying to make earlier, sprinting straight across the open floor. He didn’t care—the giant wasn’t very well going to bother with him while the place burned down, was he? 

“Max, you useless oaf, quit standing around and SMASH THE FUCKING WINDOW!” 

This seemed to snap Max out of whatever trance the man had been in—staring at the giant silk flower on the floor like it was going to come to life and smother him. The cowardly man got back to his original task, spurred on by Cyrus’s insistence, as he smashed up the stained glass into a big enough hole to escape through. 

“Hey! Don’t you guys fucking dare!” Danny was yelling at them from up on a table, but Cyrus couldn’t have cared less. 

He grew impatient with Max’s weak swings. “Give me that.” He yanked the club from the man’s hands and sent a hearty swing into the existing hole, breaking another huge shard of glass away. It was big enough to get through now—he shoved Max out of the way and pushed through to the outside himself. 

He had to catch himself as he fell out onto the porch outside—seeming to shift from the size of a bug to the size of a man faster than he could blink, as his foot hit solid ground outside the mansion. Fucking devil’s work, whatever witchcraft is holding this place together. 

The remainder of the crowd of people that had been locked out of the mansion were staring at him incredulously, and compared to the chaos inside, every one of them was dead silent. There was no anger or vitriol anymore—just open-mouthed, silent shock.

He cast a furious, crazed look around at the half of a mob he had left. “Well? What are you all standing around for?” His eyes landed on a man holding a torch—he stomped over to him and took the torch right from his hands. 

“H-hey!” 

“I told you all this giant can’t leave this place. There’s only one way to stop this monster for good.” 

My secrets die with him. 

“What about the others?” someone yelled out behind him. “My husband’s in there!” 

“It’s too late for them,” Cyrus snapped, barely listening as a gasp and sobs broke out behind him. “That monster already got to them.” He didn’t have time for pity. That giant had already basically rounded all the others up—what was he supposed to do to save them, anyways? What did they matter? Was he supposed to let the giant live for the sake of a bunch of peasants who were basically as good as dead?

He held the torch to the wood, letting the flames slowly lick against the wall before they caught and began to spread. 

“Giant or not, everybody burns.” 

He had worried for so long about this Christopher Penn that he was sure it had taken years off of his life now. It wasn’t even relief he felt as he watched the house become consumed in the bright orange of the flame—it was too great a feeling for that. A frenzied flurry of emotion filled him up to the brim, like a pot of water that was simply boiling over now without a lid to stop it. He’d done it—he’d taken care of the mystery that had nearly driven him to madness. He’d eliminated the only thing in the way of him living the life he deserved. It was too much—far too much. He smiled as the flames danced in his eyes, he smiled so much it hurt. Free. At last, he was free. 

It was a blinding euphoria so all-encompassing that he nearly didn’t feel it as someone tackled him to the ground. 

“You bastard!” That stupid farm boy, Danny’s friend—Cyrus hadn’t bothered to learn the boy’s name—had his arms grappled around Cyrus’s shoulders, fury in his face. “Why would you do that? You know everyone is still in there!”

Cyrus hadn’t even the wherewithal to bother fighting back. Someone else was trying to pull the man off of him, but it was taking the efforts of at least three of them now to do so. Cyrus could only lie there, as if he wasn’t even in his own body at the moment, lost to the dizzying sensation of exhilarating freedom.

He simply couldn’t stop smiling. 

I’m free.

* * * * * * * * * *

Next chapter ->

There was a single commenter on A03 that basically said "gee I'm glad they're too stupid to burn the house down" and I had to hold my tongue for a year about that lol. Sorry random commenter. To those who've been waiting a year since the last update - I prostrate myself before you with apologies and my sincere promise that there are only two more chapters and an epilogue, and at least one of those chapters is coming out next week.

Thank you so much for reading - all the comments and asks wondering if I was going to continue this one really helped motivate me to finish it. And I WILL finish it. I'm at the finish line now, baby.