And Lilliputian!Chase is back! Couldn’t just leave him pinned forever. He needs a proper first encounter in this crack AU.
Keep up on Chase In Lilliput here
It felt like an age before anything changed. Chase wriggled underneath the giant’s hand every few minutes, trying to pry himself free. It never worked. Once or twice the hand would twitch and Chase would worry he’d be subjected to another unconscious scratch against the giant’s stomach. At least he had some luck there.
Eventually, though, his accidental captivity was joined by a new sound. Chase’s eyes widened in the sweltering dark as the stomach beneath him suddenly let out a loud, pining gurgle. Any thought of how he’d get himself out of this mess came to an abrupt halt as that sound really sank in.
Don’t suppose you brought yourself a snack, didja, he thought nervously. There weren’t many stories of giants actually eating anyone in Lilliput before, and yet the part of Chase that knew how little he was by comparison couldn’t leave the notion alone. He was trapped with a giant. A hungry one.
“First chance I get, I’m running my ass off, breathing or not,” he mumbled. To punctuate his assertion, he pushed against the thumb in front of him. It didn’t budge.
“You had to show up the day I went walking, didn’t ya?” he griped, squirming again to no effect.
An instant later, the steady rhythm of the giant’s breathing hitched. The surface under Chase tensed and he tried to curl up in surprise. The hand shifted at last, lifting slightly and curling the fingers. A much larger and quicker breath sucked into huge lungs beneath him, and Chase rose with it while he tried to drag himself forward under the hand.
He pulled himself over the giant’s thumb, emerging into the light again at last, and finally realized that he was still rising with the surface beneath him. The giant was sitting up.
He grabbed the fabric in front of him to hurry out of the way before something worse happened like the giant finding him.
The hand twitched again and moved. Before Chase could drag himself over the thumb, it lifted just enough to pinch Chase’s waist against the hand and startle a yelp of fear out of him.
He was only pinched for a split second. An instant later, the grip around him released and Chase dropped back to the giant’s abdomen, winded and surprised. The shadow of the hand retreated away from him, but the world still tilted around him. Chase had to cling to the shirt as it became less of a floor and more of a wall.
A thunderous voice groaned. Chase looked up and glimpsed the tired grimace on the giant’s face before he had to focus again on his grip on the shirt. He was sliding, no matter how much he tried to secure his grasp on the thick fibers.
By the time the giant pushed itself up to a seat, Chase had fallen in a heap into a fold of the shirt, bunched against its abdomen. He paused to take in the ridiculousness of his situation, stuck in the fold of giant fabric while the giant woke up around him. The hand that had pinned him for who knew how long rubbed at the giant’s neck while the face above yawned and grimaced again, showing off just how big its mouth was.
Chase felt a nervous fluttering in his stomach at the sight. He squirmed in the fold of cloth, hoping to make his bid for freedom before the giant noticed him there.
Just as he pushed the fabric away and rolled on his side to see how far he’d need to leap to the giant’s lap, a loud voice rumbled overhead and a shadow flickered over him again. Chase flinched, panic suddenly awakening in his veins as he almost felt the hand getting closer.
A broad platform appeared out of nowhere under him while the wall of a torso leaned further forward. Chase had no choice but to tumble inelegantly onto the giant’s waiting palm with a quiet Oof!
That didn’t mean he had to quit trying.
“No way, no way!” he babbled, scrambling across the giant’s hand. He could still make a jump off the other side if he made it.
Right as he made progress, the hand jerked upwards and the fingers curled closed. Chase’s legs were locked in an unrelenting grip and his body bowed with gravity from the sudden ascent.
Another massive hand appeared as he rose up, though Chase writhed as much as he could. His breathing quickened and he recognized that terrifying sensation of each gasp not quite satisfying his need for air. The giant’s other hand curled around his middle and turned him over, all while Chase tried to take one good breath.
He finally stopped moving, his bottom half immobile in a giant fist and the rest of him crowded by the giant’s other hand. It was like he was a candle being shielded from the wind, but all Chase saw was how huge the hand was and how easily it could close around him and completely hide him from view. He could count the ridges in the giant’s fingerprints.
“What the hell,” the giant rumbled, in a voice that was probably quiet for him. It vibrated through Chase’s body, along with the pulse in the hand wrapped around him. He braced one of his own hands against the hand hovering near, and tried to take a deep breath. He coughed instead.
“Hey, little guy,” the giant tried again. Chase lifted up higher, until he was right in front of a pair of huge brown eyes. They almost crossed to focus on him, and he saw his own terrified reflection, balking away from the giant while a huge fingertip settled against his back. “I’m not gonna hurt ya, you’re okay.”
Right, yeah, I’d call stuck in a hand ‘okay,’ Chase might have said. Instead, he tried to suck in another breath, and it had even less effect than the last one. He was stuck. Trapped, with no way to push himself free. He couldn’t breathe.
Writerly Things 