Best posts made by littlest-lily

@Giganto82 Thank you so much!!

@miss-lillipants Yay indeed! And I’m with you, sign me up for kaiju wrestling

@blehb Good point

@Olo That’s because couch cuddles are the BEST. Regardless of size (though of course size difference is preferred)

And yeah, Aiden’s a wee bit sheltered heh. Granted, his “surely he wouldn’t do that!” protest was more of a desperately wishing it wasn’t true, rather than actually believing the police force is all great.

@blehb Don’t knock it till you try it!

@Olo If we’re talking about his public relationship status, it is very complicated hahaha

@blehb I agree!! And I love taking interest in someone else’s hobby too - hearing someone else talking about something that passions them makes me so happy~

@Olo YUP, that was a very deliberate choice on my end to make him say it like that lol. It actually gets brought up in a couple of chapters, but I’m getting ahead of myself~

Oh nooo! What a bummer, I hope she doing okay

Chapter 58
Aiden

I scroll through my long line of text messages on my phone, hoping I haven’t said anything that might have screwed something up. Camila has grown more reasonable since a few days ago, thankfully. But I still feel like I’m walking on eggshells. We have one last quick exchange right now.

C : Sry, roommate’s bro keeping me busy. He’s leaving tonight, maybe we can do something this weekend?

A : Ok that works for me. I’m busy tomorrow but Saturday or Sunday should work. Group thing?

C : Sure

I sigh inwardly. There are a few reasons that I haven’t been close with Camila over the years, I don’t particularly want to hang out this weekend. But it feels like a precarious position now that she knows of Evie’s existence, like I have no choice but to include her in my life now. It’s not that I think she’s a horrible person or anything, but she’s nowhere near the top of the list of people I would have normally introduced my shrunken girlfriend to. She can be a little immature, a little self centered. I only hope she’s able to keep a secret. In any case, I’m feeling the need to keep an eye on her.

I think about the dinner party. The disaster of an introduction. The conversation that I had with Camila afterwards that was fraught with tension. I rethink about every detail and fret about every word.

We’d sat down at the dinner table once the girls had gone upstairs, and even Diego backed off and left the room to let us talk. The others had already told her the very basics, but I went ahead and recounted the shorthand version of all that happened to Evie, from the deception at the lab to the way she’s been living at my apartment ever since. Camila was generally quiet, her hands clenched in her lap, her frown never leaving her face. She occasionally asked a clarifying question, which I took as a good sign - gradually she was coming to terms with the impossible reality.

“No wonder you were so busy this semester,” she muttered, “So much happened…”

“Yes. It’s not that I particularly wanted to deceive you or anyone else. It’s been a weird situation.”

“I… I didn’t know you were seeing someone,” she said, her gaze falling to the floor.

“Oh. Yeah, it’s a recent thing,” I explained.

“Recent?” Camila looked back up at me, frown deepening with confusion. “You mean… Were you two not dating before she…?”

I shook my head. “No, I hardly knew her before she got shrunk.”

I didn’t really like the detour this conversation was taking and carefully tried to redirect it. I summoned every last scrap of empathy that I could and poured it into making my tone as gentle as possible.

“I know this is a lot. I hope you understand how important it is to keep quiet about this? The guy who did this to her had really bad intentions. If people find out–”

Camila tsk’d her tongue and sat back in her chair. “No, no, I get that. You guys can stop harping on it, I’m not going to tell anyone. As if anyone would believe me… I don’t want people to think I’m crazy for no good reason.”

“Thank you.” I reached my hand out to touch her shoulder, making eye contact as if to seal the deal. “That means a lot. Thank you so much.”

I retracted my arm and wished I felt better about the look on her face. She still seemed very preoccupied and finally mumbled, “It’s just… it’s weird, isn’t it? I mean, it’s like… she looks just like us but–”

“She is just like us,” I interrupted, a bit more firm than I meant to be. I couldn’t help it.

For the first time Camila looked sheepish, surprised at my tone. “No, I know, but I mean… The two of you…”

She trailed off and after a moment I shrugged. “Maybe it’s because I saw the before and after,” I said, “but I’ve never been that weirded out by it. We get by just fine.”

She let out a frustrated huff. “I just don’t understand how it would even work. Don’t you have to do everything for her? How can anything even get romantic? I don’t get how you two can physically do anything that counts as–”

“Camila, that’s… honestly none of your business,” I cut in with a frown. I felt shocked that she was so hung up on this. I can understand the confusion and curiosity around a multi-sized couple, but it’s moments like this that remind me of the age gap between me and her. That hint of immaturity in asking such inappropriate questions at a time like this.

She flinched in response to my scolding, catching herself. “I… I’m sorry, I’m just… worried about you, that’s all. It sounds like a lot for… the both of you to deal with.”

“I appreciate that,” I said, forcing a smile. “And I get that this must be overwhelming to find out about all at once. It’ll feel less weird over time, I promise.”

Now that I can think about this conversation in retrospect I’m seeing things a bit more clearly. I’m not a complete idiot - Camila was being incredibly obvious with her flirty looks in those first ten minutes that she had been with us. It was honestly rather frustrating to deal with. I thought I’d made my feelings clear years ago. This might make things a bit more complicated.

I drop my phone onto my stomach and lean my head back onto the couch’s armrest with a subdued groan. I just want to keep my beloved little girlfriend safe. Is that too much to ask?

“You okay?” Evie’s voice calls from behind me, on the desk. “You’ve been sighing a lot.”

I don’t want to worry her with more talks about Camila. I’ve already been drowning in guilt for how bad I fucked up the other night by letting this whole things happen in the first place. But I’d also rather not lie outright. “I keep reliving moments from the dinner party drama,” I lament, “I need to snap out of it.”

“Oh… Glad I’m not the only one who was kinda traumatized by all that…” she says sympathetically. “Actually no, I’m not glad. I’m sorry, babe.”

I let my eyes close, lulled into a more relaxed state by her voice alone. “All good, love. I wouldn’t call it trauma. Not compared to what you went through.”

“At least it all turned out sort of alright in the end, thanks to you.” After a pause she eagerly adds, “Need a distraction? I could actually use your help, if you’re free!”

I immediately feel energized by the request - I still get excited every time she openly asks me for aid like this. “Sure! What do you nee–”

As soon as I’ve turned and tilted my head in Evie’s direction, I trail off and then bolt upright. I wasn’t sure what exactly she was working on since this morning, making some sort of vertical structure out of balsa wood with her staple-nails and clay at the base for stability. But apparently since I’ve been laying on the couch for a couple of hours, reading a book and texting Camila, the structure has doubled in height and looks more like miniature scaffolding now. And of course, Evie’s perched right at the very top.

I get to my feet and try not to startle her as I quickly step to the desk, even though she seems preoccupied with whatever she’s working on. She’s a good ten inches up, straddling a strip of wood as if she were sitting on a two or three story tall jungle gym.

“Y-you need help down?” I assume, my hand already outstretched.

“No, I was just hoping you could grab the package that should be outside the door, according to my notifications.” She points her foot towards her phone down on the desk, without looking up at me since she’s currently hammering a nail into wood.

“Oh. Um…” It feels agonizing to pull my fingers away from her tiny form sitting in such a precarious spot. I find myself unable to move my legs as I stare anxiously. My nerves are already shot from the text messages and I ultimately decide to say what’s on my mind. “It just makes me so nervous when you get up high like that…”

Evie looks up from her work then, big brown doe eyes searching my face. She seems hesitant to respond, but musters the courage to say what’s on her mind too. “You realize I’m way higher off the ground when you’re walking around with me on your shoulder, right? We do that all the time.”

I frown. “True, but I always have a hand at the ready to catch you if you fall.”

Her reassuring smile is quickly becoming a smug smirk. “So you trust yourself to catch me more than you trust me not to fall?”

I blink and stutter, “That’s… I… Well…”

Evie laughs. “I’m just giving you a hard time, Aiden. I appreciate you worrying about me. Look.”

She holds up a piece of string that’s fastened to the beam that she’s sitting on, tugging it taught. I notice that the other side of it is tied snugly around her waist. Like a rock climber, she’s knotted the rope off at multiple places throughout her ascent, only once she was confident in the stability of the next part of the structure. My shoulders droop slightly with relief at the realization that she’s being perfectly mindful of her own safety. I really do need to be better about trusting her more. We’ve been through enough scary situations now that I’ve gotten so paranoid, but the only time she’s ever truly gotten hurt was a freak accident that I don’t think we could have avoided.

“If it makes you feel better,” she adds, “I actually have fallen before, when I was dusting off the mini fridge. I slipped when I was climbing down.”

My eyes widen. I glance over at the fridge in question, seven or eight inches tall, over twice her height. “Really?! When did that happen?”

“A while ago, back when you were studying for finals. I didn’t say anything because it ended up not being a big deal, I just had a couple of bruises is all. I think it makes a difference that I’m a lot lighter now that I’m small, I think I’m less susceptible to injury from falling. I don’t exactly want to test the theory, I’m sure I’d really feel it if I fell off the desk or something. But I just wanted to reassure you.”

Well, her reassurances are working. Huh. I guess that actually makes sense from a physics perspective, since gravity accelerates at the same rate for everything, regardless of its mass. I had long abandoned trying to figure out exactly how physics applies to her shrunken state, but this at least works in her favor.

“Thanks, that does make me feel better,” I say with a nod, “Okay, I’ll go grab that package.”

I turn and walk to the apartment entrance, and sure enough, there’s a small box right outside my door. With a foot in the hallway, I suddenly hear the buzz of an incoming text message and check my phone. It’s from Diego. Seeing what it’s about, I frown and linger in the doorway to have this quick written conversation in private.

D : I think you know but Camila wants to hang out Sunday. Were you going to bring Evie?

A : I wasn’t planning on it.

D : Maybe you should

A : You really think that’s a good idea?

D : They’ve gotta talk at some point right? Camila sounded open to it, I think she’s coming around

D : It’s up to you guys though. Check with the lil shrimp and see what she thinks?

A : Ok I’ll ask. I’ll probably wait until tomorrow though. She’s planning an outing for us, I don’t want to stress her out beforehand.

D : Np! What are yall up to??

A: No idea, she wanted to surprise me

D : OOO SOMEONE HAS A CRUSH

A: …Yeah no shit

D : YOU KIDS HAVE FUN Y’HEAR

An amused exhale escapes my nostrils and I just send a thumbs up emoji before I click my phone off. Regardless of what happens when I talk to Evie about this, Sunday should be interesting… But I don’t want to think about it right now. I finally bend down to pick up the package and head back inside.

“So what are you making right now, exactly?” I ask as I come sit at the desk and carefully set the cardboard box down on its surface. In the time I’ve been gone, my little partner has already set up another cross beam.

“This is that packing station upgrade I’ve been talking about!” she says brightly, “I’ve always just used ramps and stuff to slide the minis around, but with this I’ll be able to lift them up vertically. It’ll make it easier to put things in boxes and bags in the right order.”

She starts making her way back down the scaffolding, down some tiny ladder rungs built into the side. She’s gradually unknotting her safety rope at a couple of key places on the way and I watch from a respectful distance. Until the words she just said sinks in.

“Lift them up?…” I mutter, and my eyes wander back over the length of the structure. There’s a lot of wood and string, with globs of stabilizing silicone clay at the bottom, but then at the top I now notice several tiny wheels of some kind. I lean in, eyes widening. “Holy crap, are those pulleys?”

“Yep! I ordered them along with the last batch of unpainted minis. They’re supposed to be wheels for model trains, but they’ve been working great for these pulley systems.”

Evie’s still climbing her way down, but she pauses to look up the way she came with a swell of pride. She points one hand up towards one of the pulleys I’m examining.

“See how there are divots where they’re supposed to be sitting on the railroad tracks? Perfect for threading string along.”

I continue to marvel, tracing the ups and downs of the system of ropes her little engineering brain came up with. It’s truly surreal, all at once resembling a miniature version of a factory under construction, while also clearly made of little everyday items instead of lumber and steel.

“And you put all this together in a day? Amazing,” I marvel.

“Don’t say that yet, I still need to test it,” Evie giggles as she finally reaches the desk surface. “I’ve been planning and making the pieces for a while, today was just putting it together. Alright, here goes nothing.”

She reaches a dangling bit of string and grabs it with both hands, wiggling it slightly as she looks up to gauge the way it catches on the pulleys. I try to figure out where the other end of the rope is, and it’s attached to a playing card-sized platform that’s resting on the desk, in the middle of the scaffolding. The tiny woman yanks down on the rope and sure enough, the platform rises up by half an inch. Evie continues pulling, hand over hand, and the target rises up and up and up and my jaw drops at how smoothly everything’s working.

“Yayayayyy!” she squeals, letting the rope zip through her fingers so that the platform gently descends back to where it started. “It actually works! I’ve never made anything quite like this. I’m so happy!”

“Congrats!” I exclaim, beaming as I celebrate alongside her. “That’s so cool, Eve. Seriously, that is so badass!”

She drops the rope to stretch her arms out, clearly sore after so much manual labor, and she sighs. “What a relief. Things will be a whole lot easier this way. And I made sure to put in enough pulleys to lift a decent amount of weight - I plan on painting some larger monsters next. The bigger I can go, the more I can charge per figure. Some of the dragons can go for hundreds of dollars on the current market.”

I glance over at the box I’d gone to fetch and point at it curiously. “So what’s in here then?”

Evie glances over and suddenly she looks a little nervous. “Um, most of that is just more plain figures but… I also got some tokens in there. Just very small pieces of plastic, really.”

“Oh? What for?” My question is tentative as I try to get a read on why she’s acting a bit dodgy.

“So… This might not work at all, I’m not going to push it…” She fidgets and gives me a rather pitiful look. “Plus I finally finished those work gloves, I’ll be careful…”

“Careful with what?” I’m frowning now.

“I just… I really want a saw. I use sandpaper for everything, even for trimming or ‘cutting’ these bits of wood. It takes forever, this whole station was weeks in the making. And the result is never quite right.”

Oh. I can see why she’s so hesitant now. That conversation we had about the full-sized scissors she used once feels like such a long time ago. And yet the idea of her wielding any kind of blade, especially after her leg injury, does set me on edge.

“Okay…” I say slowly, “So what do tiny bits of plastic have to do with that?”

“Well, I completely understand why sharp metal is a bad idea at this point. Trust me, I especially realize that now, I don’t want to cut myself again. But then I thought… what if I had a saw made of plastic? I was going to try using the tokens and see if I can heat them up with the hotplate for my bath, just enough to thin out the edge and make little dents. It shouldn’t be all that sharp, but I think it would still be more helpful than just the sandpaper.”

I ponder this for a moment before asking, “And what’s wrong with you just asking me to cut pieces of wood for you? I can get a saw. Hell, some of these pieces of balsa I could probably snap with some scissors.”

Evie’s staring down at her feet and goes very still. I bite my lip. The sight is making me worry that she’s starting to shut down the way she has in the past. I open my mouth to say something else, but then she raises her chin to meet my gaze.

“Sure, I can be better about asking you, for some of the bigger pieces. But… I’d rather not have to turn to you every time I want to trim a toothpick. If that’s okay.”

I mentally take a step back. If we were having this conversation a month or two ago things would be going very differently. I don’t want to take the progress she’s made for granted - I’m thankful she’s telling me her thoughts instead of pushing her desires aside. And we’ve come so, so far since that day with the scissors.

“I hear you,” I finally say, “You can do what you want, I won’t stop you. Just do me a favor and maybe save the sharp stuff for when you’re not home alone? And careful with the hot plate. I’d rather you not get burned either.”

My little partner breaks into a relieved grin. “I won’t. Honestly it’ll probably either not melt at all or I’ll have just made a lumpy mess by the end. But I promise I’ll be careful.”

This is hard for me. Again… I just want my beloved to be safe. And yet, I was so determined to empower her, and I know that I can’t - shouldn’t - control her every action. It’s not easy for me to just trust things will be okay. But I have to do my best to let go, just a little.

Having said that, I’ll allow myself a bit of affectionate clinginess in exchange. I reach my hand up and pinch my forefinger and thumb around Evie’s ribs. Her eyes widen a little as she reflexively takes a step back and I don’t let her, holding her in place. She tilts her head to the side in confusion.

“You better untie that string,” I demand with a budding smile, using my pinkie to flick at the safety rope that’s still tied around her waist.

Her shoulders immediately relax at my tone. “I need to clean all this up!” she laughs,
motioning to the bits of clay and wood shavings scattered all over the desk.

“Not now you don’t,” I say, my grin solidifying. “You spent all day working hard and building something awesome. And now you’re coming with me to the couch, and I’m going to destroy you with snuggles. Whether you like it or not. Hop to it.”

She stands firm, looking at me with an almost defiant smirk. But while maintaining her stare, her hand finds the end of the safety rope, and she gives it one firm tug. It smoothly unravels and falls to her feet in a heap.

Damn. Something about that was incredibly sexy. I waste no time in whisking her away.

@Olo While it might not be impossible, I would be shocked if that were the case. There was no nudity or noncon or anything sexual in her stuff as far as I remember. The lovey dovey stuff seems as safe as possible from DA’s policies. And like Lurk was saying, she’s shared some of her darker thoughts before, and I think I remember that including potentially leaving the site at some point… Still, I hope she’s just putting things on pause while she figures things out, for her own sake.

@Olo I didn’t want that to be a mystery for too long. I’m generally not a fan of love triangles so I don’t want anyone to wonder if Aiden might get swayed

@foreverlurk I love the idea of a mechanical keyboard, though I feel like it wouldn’t take long for the sound to wear on me haha. But still, so cool!

@foreverlurk Poutine is sooooo good! It’s so bad for you but so delicious heh

@Olo Oh my god that made my day

@Olo Good point. But no thank you