#only the best for *looks at smudged hand* the entrees

[delimeful]

taking the fall (3)

warnings: imprisonment, interrogation, injury, mild blood, panic and sensory overload, dehumanizing language, ambiguous motives, morally neutral/antagonistic janus, snakes mention

-

His guest wasn’t eating.

Janus cast an irritated glance over to the terrarium, where the only “life” that could be seen was a clump of thick foliage in one corner.

He’d left the old fake plants in there as a taunt, but as soon as the tiny creature had ascertained that there were no snakes in the grass, they’d immediately bundled every bit of shiny plastic greenery into a makeshift nest and hid within it. He supposed he should have expected it, from one as industrious as these tiny folk all seemed to be.

Regardless of his guest’s reticence, he’d been setting small dishes of food in there whenever he himself took his meals, giving them some time to adjust to the reality of their situation. It had been a couple of days, however, and every miniature entree looked entirely untouched.

His prisoner seemed to be on a hunger strike.

It added more evidence to his theory that he was being misled in regards to his guest’s identity. If they were actually a victim in all this, why bother keeping quiet and refusing to give the answers Janus needed? Why go so far as to not even eat, for people who allegedly wouldn’t care if he lived or died?

No, things made much more sense if this was a gambit on the tiny people’s part, one of them volunteering to stay and play sacrificial lamb, distracting him for as long as the others needed. Their terror, their injury, their tiny bitter laugh, it could all be part of a ploy for pity on his end. Get him too invested in a puzzling prisoner while the others escaped.

The thought made his stomach drop unpleasantly. His opponents were exceedingly small, and he was one of the few who knew they existed. If they got away, he’d never see them again.

He couldn’t afford that.

Pushing his chair back, he approached the terrarium, casting an assessing eye over the food set out in it. Some of it could sit out, and had been there overnight, the best time for his guest to eat without risking even seeing Janus. But no. Not a single crumb out of place to indicate that anything had been eaten.

“Still alive?” he asked dryly, rapping a knuckle on the glass once.

There was a long pause, and then one of the leafy stems sticking out from the nest twitched twice. This daily question and response was the only communication he’d had with his guest since that first afternoon, and even this small, silent answer had originally been prompted by a threat of Janus reaching in there and checking himself.

“I notice that you’ve been refusing any sustenance,” he continued idly, and got nothing for his efforts. “Planning to die before you can give up any secrets?”

No response. Janus sighed as though put upon, and slid the terrarium lid halfway off. There were still no meaningful movements from the nest, though it seemed to be subtly trembling. It was impressive that despite the dark clothing that his guest wore, he still couldn’t make out exactly where they were even this close.

With narrowed eyes, he reached in and grabbed a few of the plastic leaves, tugging to pull the construction apart bit by bit.

He only caught the faintest flicker of movement before there was a sudden sharp pain in his index finger, and he yanked his hand back on reflex.

A weight came up with it, putting even more pressure on his wound, and it dropped as soon as his hand was just above the terrarium lid.

Seeing the dark shape attempting to scramble away, his other hand smacked down on top of it automatically, pressing it into the mesh with a small, muffled cry.

He glanced at his hand. There was a plastic thorn hooked in his thumb, the broad end chewed off and the point of it sharpened. His guest had attacked and used him as a makeshift lift in their escape attempt.

“Oh,” he intoned, voice dark. “Seems like you have plenty of energy after all, hm?”

---

Virgil took in short, gasping breaths, barely able to hear whatever threatening thing the human was muttering as pain radiated through his leg.

It let up just slightly as the pressure of the hand on top of him eased, his face no longer pressed into the cold wire netting of the cage’s top. Before he could try and string two thoughts together, the fingers were curling around him like a hawk’s talons, lifting him up and sending another jolt of mind-numbing pain through him. He might have whimpered.

So much for that escape attempt. He’d known it was a long shot, but his options had been limited after realizing that he literally couldn’t stand on the injured leg any more. They’d dwindled further with every day he couldn’t bring himself to crawl over to any food or water. Living outside, he’d survived on very little before, but it was a gamble every time.

He was flipped to face the light, the human’s head in silhouette above him. He couldn't make out it’s words. Everything felt overwhelming, made incomprehensible by the pain and the dark spots in his vision. His face felt hot. Was he bleeding?

Things went blissfully quiet above him, and then he was being moved. He wondered if the human was about to kill him, and the thought sent a much weaker pulse of panic down his spine than usual. He hoped it killed borrowers before feeding them to it’s snakes.

Something soft and dark dropped over him, and he thrashed for a moment before his leg reminded him how awful an idea that was. So he laid still instead, letting his terror shake through him in waves, until he wasn’t completely lost to it anymore.

Slowly, he lifted a hand, feeling at what was draped over him. Cloth, soft in texture and tightly-knit enough that not much light got through. Below him… a warm, living surface.

“Awake?” the human said, voice both closer and quieter than he’d ever heard it.

Another shudder worked through him, and he reached up to press his hands over his face, wishing none of this was real. His eye pigment had run, drying in tracks down his cheeks.

He wouldn’t be able to reapply it. The locket he stored it in was left behind with the rest of his stuff, tucked away into his oversized pack and left at the opening into the human’s home. It had probably already been torn through and picked apart by Mari and the other insiders.

The thought stung, somehow more personal than the nightmare of the situation he was already in.

“I believe I see now why you haven’t eaten,” the human continued with a surprising lack of snark. It must have seen his leg. He felt a little sick just thinking about it.

What had felt like a low-grade fracture through the adrenaline had ended up growing worse and worse without treatment, until the injury was a solid lump of swollen flesh and ugly bruising that twanged with agony at even the slightest shifts. He wondered if the human was going to use it against him. It would make torture exceedingly easy on its part.

“Continue with the silent treatment, and you won’t get any actual treatment,” it said, now sounding exasperated.

After another stretch of silence, the hand beneath him moved and tilted, sliding him off onto a flat surface. Suddenly desperate to know what was going on, Virgil yanked at the cloth, dragging handfuls of it down until he reached an edge and could pull it clear of his eyes.

The light in this room was dimmer, but it still took him a moment to adjust. He wasn’t in a snake tank, but on top of a low table in what looked like a sitting room, if he remembered the human terms right. The human was seated on the couch nearby, looking down at him.

“There you are.”

---

The tiny person shot him a furious glare, rendered mostly ineffective by the dark tear streaks that were still smudged along their face.

Janus wished his earlier reflexes had been a little gentler. He’d had a quite embarrassing moment of panic where he’d thought the grotesque worsening of their leg injury had been caused by his grasp, rather than simple neglect and lack of treatment.

Despite his patience, they didn’t reply, continuing to just stare at him. He stood, ignoring the way it instantly made them begin trembling again.

“I’ll be back in a moment. Feel free to move around and make your injury worse,” he instructed dryly, before turning and going to grab the first aid kit from the bathroom.

His thumb was still sensitive, the injury messily scabbed over with dried blood. He’d pried the thorn out with his teeth easily enough, but with his other hand occupied by a prone tiny person and their hyperventilation fit, he couldn’t properly treat it.

Upon his return, he saw his guest had abandoned his handkerchief and was halfway to the edge of the table. He rolled his eyes, and set the kit down before grabbing them by the shoulders and sliding them back over to the handkerchief.

“I was being sarcastic, you know,” he told them, and opened the kit to start cleaning his undersized injury. “I’ll be very unhappy if my only source of information dies a completely avoidable death for no reason.”

“Yeah, because I sure wouldn’t want to make you unhappy,” his guest bit out, and then looked as though they were deeply and immediately regretting opening their mouth. Janus didn’t know why; he personally took much better to sass than being stabbed.

“So you do know how sarcasm works. Color me impressed.”

The tiny person actually hissed at him, like the world’s most emo kitten.

“Yes, yes, I feel very threatened,” Janus retaliated by prodding them with the edge of an open tube of arnica gel. “Here. For the bruising.”

After another long glare, his guest spoke. “What do you want for it?”

Janus raised an eyebrow. “Couldn’t it be argued that I owe it to you, for allowing the injury to fester while you’re in my care?”

“Your care--!” his guest cut themself off, taking in a deep breath through gritted teeth. “Terrible hosting etiquette aside, you weren’t the one who gave me the injury. Not your concern. So, what do you want?”

Janus wondered absently how tiny people qualified their hosts’ manners. He had certainly already failed by human standards, immediately imprisoning his guest and all, so perhaps it didn’t really matter either way. He wasn’t above taking advantage of a tiny person’s bartering honor system. “Answer three questions.”

“I get to pass on questions I don’t want to answer,” his guest countered quickly, apparently having expected this.

“You get five passes,” Janus allowed. Seeing what they refused to answer would be informative in itself.

“... Fine.” With another glance at their injury, they grabbed the tube sharply enough that they almost overbalanced. “Ask.”

“Where are the others living?” Janus asked, just to set the stakes high.

“Pass,” his guest answered, not even looking up from their task. Janus rolled his eyes.

“Why are you defending them?” he tried.

“I’m not defending them,” they shot back, vitriol thick in their voice. “I just don’t want you to get what you want. That’s one question.”

“Ouch. I’m hurt, really.” Janus tapped his nails along the table idly. “What’s your name and pronouns?”

This did prompt them to look up, face pinching up in confusion. After a moment, they returned to their baseline expression of scowl and retorted, “That’s two questions.”

“It’s one sentence, it counts as one question,” Janus lied smugly. They still looked close to passing, so he gave them a nudge. “Unless you want me to make something up? I’m very creative, I assure you.”

“I use he,” he finally grit out, “and you can call me V.”

“For Vendetta?” Janus mused, and received an utterly baffled look for his wit. “I suppose your movie repertoire isn’t that expansive.”

“Two questions,” V said flatly. “One left.”

“Yes, I can count.” Janus glanced at V’s gel-covered leg. “You have to rub that in for it to work.”

V’s expression flickered to one of despair, but he bit his lip and started to slowly massage the gel in. Janus wondered at how easily he’d believed him.

“What do you call yourselves?”

“Pass.”

“Where did you live?”

“Pass.”

“How do I bait the others out?”

“Pass.”

“Why do you hate me more than the ones who allegedly put you here?”

V’s hand slipped, and he winced and paused for a moment. “... Pass.”

There was certainly a grudge there. Too bad Janus had no idea what it could be about. Oh well.

He set a hand on the table, leaning over V. “When do the others plan to leave? As specific as you can get, please.”

“Pa--,” V cut himself off, and Janus could see the moment he realized he had used up all his get-out-of-questioning-free cards. He patiently waited out the tiny person’s fit of frustration.

“... I don’t know.” Janus’s smug grin dropped, but V continued after a speculative pause. “I don’t think they’ll leave before the season's turning. The spring thaw has been slow this year, and they’re-- not suited for it.”

Janus felt some of the tension drop from his shoulders. The start of summer. He had time, and the advantage of a weather forecast app. That was good news, even if he’d had to wrangle it out of his guest. He had time.

“How interesting,” he said lightly, and capped the gel to put it back in the box. V’s hands were clutching the edge of his coat tightly, as though guilty or angry. Or perhaps just stressed. “Let’s get some food in actual range of you, then, shall we?”

#sanders sides #ts virgil #ts janus #g/t #taking the fall #ttf #my writing #writing #borrowers #mind the warnings