#slug write

Diluc turned around to check on you, but when he didn’t see you; panic rose in his chest.

Your head was spinning, everything felt wrong, and you felt like you were about to throw up. Why did Diluc sound so loud? Why did it feel like you were suddenly in a dark forest? What-?

The ground shook like it was about to open up and pull you to the abyss. You rolled onto your back and managed to open your eyes, pushing through the pain. Once you did, though, your eyes shot open wide with pure shock.

“Where are you?!” Diluc called, shaking you to your core as you flinched from the volume. He was huge! Or you were so incredibly tiny…regardless, Diluc loomed overhead. You realized you needed to get his attention now before he ran off without you…or worse. You scrambled to your feet, fighting off the rush of dizziness, pulling a deep breath of air into your lungs, and hollering.

“Diluc!! Down here! Look down!”

You watched as the massive man froze where he stood before jumping back, sending another thud through the earth that shook you to your core. You looked up at the red eyes that now looked down at you with intense worry and focus. Your heart raced, and you felt like a tiny prey animal being cornered by something much larger than yourself. In your heart, you knew you weren't in danger; your body, however, didn’t agree.

You didn’t have any more time to think about what the appropriate reaction was to suddenly being doll-sized when Diluc reached down toward you, filling your view with the bright red palm of his glove coming toward you. You froze as he wrapped his hand around your torso. Your arms, calves, and ankles were the only things remaining outside of his gentle but firm grip. The ascent was too fast. Diluc pulling you up from the ground back to his full height made you whimper and hold onto his thumb, your eyes squeezed tightly shut as your stomach dropped. When the movement stopped, you didn’t let go of Diluc’s thumb, too terrified to open your eyes and see how high up you were.

“Are you alright?” Diluc’s voice was worried and still filled with adrenaline. “Hey... talk to me.” 

You nodded, willing yourself to open your eyes, but only looking up at your partner. Archons…your entire view was him, whether you wanted it or not. His usually intense eyes were somehow even more intense like this, and you let out a shaky breath.

“Something is…very wrong but,” you held onto his thumb tighter. “I’m not injured I’m fine.”

You jumped as you felt another gigantic digit gently rub against your face, Diluc doing his best to comfort you, his brows knit in concern.

“This is obviously some sort of abyss curse…but why this?” He shook his head. “We can worry about that later, I want to get you somewhere safe.”

You nodded, dazed and still not quite sure whether you were awake or not. You felt the world shift around you again as Diluc opened up his breast pocket beneath his coat and gently and carefully lowered you in. You settled into the bottom, taking up most of the space. You reached up to pull the lip of the pocket down to peek out to see the fraction of the world visible from where the pocket peeked out of his coat.

“Will my pocket be alright?” He asked, pulling the coat to the side to get a look at you, stopping and then shaking his head at the absurdity of the question.

You nodded again.

“Good.”

With that, the coat was placed over you, sheltering you from the outside world, and you felt as Diluc sighed, the fabric around you tightening as his muscular chest expanded with the breath. You snickered at that a bit. You knew his clothes were form-fitting, but experiencing it like this was something else entirely.

Before you knew it, your world was swaying with Diluc’s footsteps as he set off at a brisk pace back to the winery, you assumed. You closed your eyes.

“Is this real?”

You couldn’t believe an abyss curse could do this. Your mind began to race until a steady, familiar sound started to distract your racing thoughts. Diluc’s heartbeat, strong and steady and comforting as always. You snuggled in closer and pressed your ear to his chest, listening to the sound and letting it ground you until they got back home to the winery.

= = =

Back at the winery, you had truly come to terms with the fact that you weren't hallucinating or dreaming; you were really doll-sized. You heard and felt Diluc speak to those at the winery, taking care of business and answering questions here and there, giving you time to sit with your thoughts. Which, in all honesty, was a terrible thing. You worried about everything you needed to get done and your responsibilities. If you could even use a vision at this scale, was this curse permanent? All these thoughts rattled around in your head with no answers in sight.

So much so that you jumped hard when Diluc reached into the pocket to get your attention when you hadn’t answered him calling for your attention.

“Did I wake you?” Diluc questioned, opening his coat and peering down at you in his pocket.

“No…no you didn’t, I was deep in thought.”

You wiggled around in the pocket, righting yourself to stand up. Diluc offered his hand to help you lift out. Bracing yourself against his hand, you felt him lift and close his hand securely around you before sitting you down on his desk. You looked around at the once familiar surroundings that were now so eerily alien.  You sighed, turning back to Diluc, who was leaning back in his chair, gazing down at you in contemplation.

“You look to be at as big a loss as I do right now,” you tried to laugh.

“Frustratingly so…” Diluc grumbled running his hand through his hair. “All this time I’ve never heard or seen something like this.”

You sighed and crossed your arms. “With the way that one was behaving and muttering to itself I’d wager this was some kind of experiment for it…”

You felt the rumble of the desk beneath you, looking back to see Diluc grabbing ink and paper.

“I’ll look into it see if there’s any other precedent for this,” Diluc sighed and continued to write. “It may be slow though…I’m sorry I don’t have a faster solution.”

You nodded and sat down on the desk, pulling your knee to your chest and resting your chin on it, the feelings of uselessness creeping in on the edges of your mind.

“Maybe Albedo or Mona have an idea of how to fix this…”

Diluc hummed in agreement the scratching of his quill on the paper the only sound keeping them company.

You listened as Diluc finished writing his notes and set things aside to dry. The sound of him adjusting in his chair had you looking up at him again. He was closer this time, leaning forward on the desk, his hand reaching out for you again. You braced against the instinctive adrenaline that made your heart race. But relaxed when his knuckle and the soft, worn leather of his glove began to rub the side of your head soothingly.

“What can I do for you?” Diluc mumbled quietly. Swapping out of work mode from Master Diluc to just your Diluc.

You let out a shuddering sigh, wrapping your arms around his fingers.

“I don’t know…all I want is to take a warm bath, go to bed, and wake up in your arms tomorrow morning to find this was all a bad dream.”

Diluc hummed a soft noise of sympathy.

“I’m…tired.” You admitted, though the tiredness you alluded to wouldn’t be remedied by sleep; it was a deeper exhaustion, one that had dug down to your core. But regardless you sat up and held out your hand, it was engulfed completely by their larger one as they helped you up, blanket cocoon and all.

A deep noise of concern was the response you got back as you felt them sweeping you up in their arms, feeling somewhat like a cat being scooped up. Warm soft hands took your weight like you weighed nothing at all, the pressure on your legs and back already a heavy comfort around you. Your giant adjusted around you on the couch lounging back length wise across it. Their shifting was a little haphazard with you in hand, being shifted back and forth as softly as possible but still a lot due to their scale, the impromptu roller coaster made you smile for the first time that day before your giant got settled and tucked you in close to their chest. Soft chest behind you, warm hands cradling you gently giving you a soft squeeze as they tucked their chin down to leave a lingering kiss on your head, giving you time and space to adjust and get comfortable in their hold.

Your pondering was interrupted by the scratching of a pencil on paper. The same curiosity that got you into this mess in the first place spurred you on to peek out from behind the books. You looked up to see the alchemist back to sketching away, seemingly indifferent to your presence. A shred of courage welled up in your heart alongside the curiosity, and you began to scale the books to get a better view.

From your perch, you could see the landscape sketch that Albedo had started on and was now refining. Glancing up from the drawing to him once more to gauge his behavior before cautiously sitting down. His eyes glanced up at you quickly, a gentle smile flashing across his face, but as soon as you two had made eye contact, he had returned to his drawing.

You simply sat down and watched him work, the two of you settling into a comfortable silence.

Time passed quicker than you imagined, and before long, the drawing had unfolded into a vast landscape of the nearby region, one filled with ice and snow.

"Well then," Albedo's voice called gently as he set his pencil down and stretched out his back. His attention had turned back to you, and his blue eyes curiously searched over you, making you feel vulnerable but not quite uncomfortable. Slowly, he held out his hand to you, making no sudden or drastic movements. "I'm Albedo. It's a pleasure to finally meet you."

The hand was gently placed in front of you in greeting, an offer for a handshake. You slowly placed your hand on one of his digits before replying.

"It's nice to meet you too..."

♦ Kaveh ♦

"Come out...come onnnn," Kaveh grumbled, trying to shove his arm farther beneath the couch. You were backed between a rock and a hard place, infuriatingly literally. Your back pressed up against the wall and your only path out was forward and currently blocked by a grasping hand that kept brushing against the front of your shirt.

You weren't given any more time to agonize over your situation as you heard a curse from the human on the other side of the couch, who shoved their side out and lunged forward, his fingers wrapping nearly too tightly around your waist and pulling you out from your hiding spot.

With a yelp, you were pulled forward with aggressive speed while the human let out a triumphant noise, seemingly joyful at your capture.

And as fast as the world moved around you it stopped, you didn't dare open your eyes hoping against hope this would end well.

"Oh wow..." Kaveh breathed in awe. "Look at you..."

You dared to open an eye. Two soft red eyes glittering with wonder and excitement looked down at you in his hand. The awe was mutual. You'd never been this close to a human before, and aside from your rough discovery, he held you in such a soft grasp that you couldn't help but feel safe in his hands, as baffling as that felt to you in the moment.

"H-hi..." You managed to get out.

"Amazing..." Kaveh breathed, rubbing your cheek with his thumb softly. His dazzling eyes couldn't tear themselves away from you, and you realized you may be in for a whirlwind of questions.

♦ Alhaitham ♦ "Care to explain why you've been stealing from my office over the past few months?" The scribe leaned back in his chair, arms folded, his piercing gaze locking you in place where you sat, mortified under the glass he had trapped you under. "You haven't taken anything of high value, but consistently take from me and me alone."

Spite welled up in your chest at the questioning, and you folded your arms over your chest and turned your back to the human, you'd already been caught in an incredibly undignifying manner, being trapped between his hand and then gracelessly trapped beneath a glass like it wasn't a challenge at all. Then he had the nerve to start questioning you. Valid questions, but you weren't in the mood for it.

You heard a sigh from behind you before the shadow of a hand loomed overhead, moving quickly enough that you once again couldn't react in time.

From the glass to the palm of Alhaitham's hand, you went undignified, cursing, leaving your mouth as the hand passed you from one to another before arriving in front of his face. The hand around you wasn't rough, but tight enough around you that your chances of escape were abysmal at best.

"Oh? So you can talk," Alhaitham mused. "You're simply choosing to ignore my questions then."

You muttered the answer to his question begrudgingly.

"What was that?"

"...survival." You muttered again, looking up at the scribe you were at the mercy of at the moment. Something in his face softened nearly imperceptibly as he continued to analyze you. The moments felt agonizing, wishing you could hide or escape the unrelenting gaze, when suddenly you felt yourself moving back toward the desk.

"Alright," Alhaitham sighed, placing you softly on the desk. "Let's...try this again. More amicably this time."