Small Problems

by Canadiantardis

Summary:

Humans as a species only discovered the existence of Borrowers a couple years ago. Rather than treat the smaller humanoids with compassion and understanding, humans feel superior and corrupt governments say all Borrowers are classified as pets, much to the Borrowers' fear and despair.
Virgil and Patton are two recently caught Borrowers, sold to a Scientist who says she wants them as pets. But pretty lies hide the truth behind closed doors and high cage walls.

Notes:

I had had this idea since the end of December/start of January, had to wait until sign-ups opened, and wrote a good half of this in the first two months of the Bang. (then Janus' name was revealed and I had to change his name).
This has been such a fun Bang, and I am so, so happy to have been paired with the lovely Willow as my artist, as well as working with Taylor as my beta!
(Seriously, Taylor was a lifesaver because I hadn't noticed even half the mistakes she found for me to fix, thank you so, so much for being an awesome Beta <3)
Here is the link for Willow's Art

Chapter 1: The Doctor

The year that humans discovered borrowers played out like a doomsday prophecy. Humans captured about 85% of the entire borrower population in North America alone, just under 50% of the entire population of the world, and rounded them up in every major city. When the humans eventually decided their status, every borrower knew that they were doomed...they were to be pets.

Virgil held tight to his mate, pushing him to the very corner of their current enclosure in an attempt to hide from any hands that might try to separate them. They were in a cage with a dozen other borrowers, including a small child who looked like she had lost her entire family to the humans. An older couple was surrounding her and whispering something to her to dry her eyes. The sight drove thumbtacks into his heart; he too knew how it felt to lose everything to the greedy humans.

Patton shook behind Virgil; his eyes were dry, but he constantly looked an inch away from breaking down again. It broke Virgil’s heart to see his mate devoid of life and his usual boundless energy and optimism. The two of them had been caught a couple of weeks ago, and neither of them knew how to handle it. 

Well, Virgil had been caught a couple weeks ago; a newly dubbed “Tiny Control” human had found their home with Virgil inside. At first, Virgil was torn between calling out to his mate and risking him also being taken, or staying silent and praying that Patton would be safe. He’d forgotten about Patton’s own autonomy… until he heard his scream and saw him running after the huge feet until he, too, was captured.

It tore him up inside, knowing Patton was now in just as much danger as he was, all because of him.

The pet shop, or more accurately, the tiny shop, as the couple realized after being dropped off there, was currently only open to those with enough money or authority. With the human world uncertain about how trainable the smaller borrowers would be, they weren’t available for the general public to adopt just yet. Most of those who came into the shop were apparently scientists, which sent dread coursing through any and every borrower that happened tomake momentary eye contact with any of them.

The shop door opened, and Virgil turned around, focusing on Patton. He sat them down, cupping his face despite his own shakiness and trying to get Patton to look at him and only him.

Eyes wide and searching, for several minutes Patton could only look at him. They stayed sitting down, pressed against a corner as they tried to appear smaller than they already were. Every time the steps of a human approached their cage they ducked, only sighing in relief if and when the human would walk away. It was tense for the rest of the morning, and when lunch came around, Virgil was sure he was going to have a heart attack from all the stress. They were given apple slices today; humans still weren’t sure what the borrower diet was, so every mealtime was a different food. No one seemed all too eager to explain that borrowers didn’t have preferences or whatever an ‘allergy’ was, and at least it provided variety that most of them have never had before. 

Virgil remembered how when he had been younger, the human home he and his family lived close to had a dog who only ate dog kibble - horrible stuff that made his stomach turn every time he saw those bags - with only dog treats and spilled food for ‘variety.’ His family had been forced to resort to eating the kibble as well, most of the time, since the dog would usually get to scraps before they could, and the last thing he wanted was to repeat that experience now that he was captured.

Virgil and Patton tried to ignore the humans who continued to observe their cage as they all ate. Patton had gone forward to grab a couple slices for the two of them before returning to their spot in the corner, and they ate in relative silence. There was really no point in talking when the humans were around, and even if there was, what was there to talk about?

When Patton finished eating, he sighed and rested his head against Virgil’s shoulder. He looked utterly exhausted, something shared by the entire cage. Only the few children seemed more rested, and that was because their parents or sudden new guardians were trying to give them some semblance of normalcy in this hellscape. The adults had a harder time fooling themselves, even the optimists like Patton who could see the silver lining to any problem.

Virgil was focused on finishing his slice when he realized that something was making his hair stand on end, warning him of danger. Against his better judgement, he cast a look around and saw a human woman’s face peering at the cage, and accidentally caught her eyes. He almost choked on his apple piece and broke the eye-contact to cough, clutching the last small bite of his meal so tightly in his grip that the juice trailed down his arm, staining the sleeve of his patchwork poncho. Patton jolted away to figure out what happened and thumped Virgil’s back so he didn't completely choke again.

The woman said something he couldn’t hear as she straightened up, lazily pointing at the cage, but when the shopkeeper responded her face lit up and she nodded, a smile gracing her face that looked much like a cat about to pounce on a mouse.

Suddenly the cage door was opening, and a working human’s hand reached in, towards Virgil and Patton. The two gasped and pressed against the corner of the cage, the last piece of apple dropping from Virgil’s grip as he instead grasped for Patton’s hand.

The hand surrounded the couple easily and scooped them up. Patton was securely pressed between Virgil and the palm while Virgil himself held in place by the thumb pressing against his chest, not hard enough to make it difficult to breathe, but still firm enough he was certain he would have a bruise.

“These Tinies were caught together,” The worker explained as he took the two out of the cage. “They’re still adjusting, they were found a couple weeks ago by Tiny Control in a newer complex.”

“Are they siblings?” The woman’s voice was sickly smooth, like spoiled honey. “They don’t look very similar.”

“Oh, we believe they might be a couple. Their interactions match how the parent Tinies interact.” The worker exchanged Virgil to his other hand, and lifted him up as he continued speaking. “This one seems to be the protector of the two. Makes our lives difficult when we need to do quick check-ups and stuff like that. But they hate to be separated, so we have to keep them together, just like all couple Tinies.”

That was a load of bullshit, and Virgil had to contain himself from snapping at the human holding him multiple feet off the ground with nothing below to catch him besides the hard floor. Oh, the humans weren’t cruel enough to separate them if they were a couple, yet children were forcibly taken from their parents and sold off separately. How humane.

“Gay Tinies? Fascinating.” The woman extended a hand toward Virgil, and the worker easily released him. “Oh, it’s much lighter than I thought it would be.” She quickly moved her hands up and down and Virgil had to grab a finger to keep from falling off, the apples in his stomach feeling like they wanted to make a reappearance.

“Stop!” Patton cried, surprising both humans and thankfully stopped the woman’s movements. “You’re going to make him sick! How’d you like to be shaken like that?”

Virgil simply slid to sit down, curling up as the world stopped hopping in his vision, groaning.

“Oh, I see.” The woman said above him in a way that made his hair stand on end again. He really didn’t like how she spoke. “How much would they be?”

“What do you plan on using them for, Dr. Fafner? The group these two Tinies are with are only for training and, if the laws go through, families.”

“I know,” the woman laughed lightly, as if the worker had told a funny joke, “I want them as my first pets. I’ve had many dogs back when I lived with my family, so I know how to train pets properly.”

All the blood left Virgil’s face and his breath came up short, making it difficult to breathe. It was one thing to be captured by humans, another to be said he and Patton would be someone’s pets.

“That sounds wonderful.” The worker sounded happy, and extended his free hand for Virgil who was given over rather easily. “Come with me and we’ll get through all the paperwork.”

“How long will this take? I have a meeting in a couple hours that I cannot miss. I want to be able to bring these little darlings home before then.”

They were moved elsewhere, and all Virgil wanted at this moment was Patton, but they were separated by hands, and when he looked across, he saw his mate squirm in the grip, an arm free and reaching for Virgil mutely, tear tracks already making an appearance on his face.

The worker carefully - at least he was kind enough to not drop them - placed them in a temporary cage on the counter, where Virgil and Patton stumbled towards one another and gripped each other tightly. Patton couldn’t seem to be able to stop the sob from coming from him and he ducked his head into the slighter borrower’s chest, clutching his poncho like a lifeline.

“I was so scared she was going to drop you, with all that shaking.” His voice cracked in several places as he tried to whisper the words. “I thought you were going to die.”

Virgil agreed with his mate, but couldn’t say it aloud. Admitting it would mean he had actually, really, been in danger. Lying to himself felt safest, so he pushed the thoughts as far from his mind as he possibly could.

“I’ll be sure to be back to gather the rest of the necessary things after the meeting.”

Virgil zoned back into the conversation between the humans just in time to see the worker reach back in to grab the two of them again.

“Of course. Just remember you should let them settle into their new home before trying to train them. It’s always a pleasure to do business with you, Dr. Fafner.” The worker said as he put the two borrowers in a modified cat-carrier that allowed the borrowers to be transported without risking them harm or allowing them any way to escape.

“Why, of course!” The woman seemed to love being dramatic in her speech; there was so much fakeness in her tone that Virgil shivered and held Patton tighter. “They’ll have a few hours to settle into their situation by themselves, in any case. Thank you very much.”

“Have a good day.”

The sensation of moving toppled the borrowers, the air promptly knocked out of them as they fell. Through the tightly-knitted mesh, Virgil watched as they left the shop behind and through a parking lot towards a car. They were set down on the passenger’s seat, then the engine roared to life and they were driving towards their new fate.

Chapter 2: The Cage

The car ride was uncomfortably silent. Patton and Virgil dared not speak and be overheard by the doctor lady, and she seemed more focused on the road than making conversation with them, and they certainly weren’t going to try and strike up a conversation with her.

The terror and apprehension should have made it impossible for Patton to fall asleep, but he found himself awake one moment and waking up the next when the car engine stopped.

“Let’s get the two of you into your new little home,” the doctor lady said as she took the portable cage, knocking the two borrowers over in the movement again. “You’ll have enough time to get settled before we begin testing.”

This time, Patton stayed laying down while Virgil sat up, and they took each other’s hand. Patton could not see where they were or where they were going, and honestly felt like he was resigning himself to his fate. They could try to escape, but the Tiny Control would simply find them again, or they would be caught by the Doctor or whoever might live with her. They had none of their supplies, besides Virgil’s hook and string that he kept hidden under his poncho. But the string was thinning and would likely snap soon if put under too much stress.

Virgil straightened his back suddenly, glaring out at the mesh.

“I thought we weren’t lab rats,” he called to the human, his voice shaking.

“Oh no, you aren’t just lab rats,” the doctor said as they walked into a building, her shoes clicking softly against the tile floor in a rhythmic step. “I do plan on training you to be pets, but I’d like to see what kind of stimuli will be best.”

Patton shivered at the words. “What… kind of stimuli?”

“We’ll just have to go through each situation and see for ourselves.” The carrier shook again, and the two borrowers cried out, holding each other close to avoid hurting one another.

They were brought through several hallways and down some stairs before they went through a door. All too soon the zipper to the carrier was undone and it was tipped forward. There was no place for the two to grab to avoid slipping down, and they fell without grace onto some slightly soft cloth.

Virgil was the first one to scramble up, glaring around at their new cage before Patton saw how he paled. The cage was very large for the two of them. It looked almost like a gutted doll’s house, but it was clear. Maybe it was a mould? A small - well, small by human standards - blanket acted as a carpet, with two corners sectioned off. The first corner contained a small bowl of water, with bottle caps floating in it. Patton guessed that was where they would be fed. The second corner contained what looked like a facsimile of a human bathroom.

“Now I do have that meeting to get to, so I hope you two settle well here,” the doctor lady said high above them. “And I wouldn’t try to escape. You two aren’t the first that I’ve bought.”

Her words settled in and Patton shuddered at the implication, bringing his knees to his chest, tucking his legs under his pale blue poncho.

“I’ll be back later. Tata~” She wiggled her fingers as a wave before she left.

Patton exhaled the breath he hadn’t really realized he had been holding, falling backwards to starfish on the blanket-carpet. He stared at the open top of their cage. With a quick glance, and adjusting his glasses to see better, he could tell the lady was right. The opening was only through that top, which was at least four Virgils high to even touch the lip, and the walls were too smooth to find purchase. The hook could work, but then they would have to find a way out of the building, and they didn’t know who or what else might be lurking.

Virgil sighed and Patton saw him drop next to him, pulling himself close to Patton and resting his head on his chest. He was shaking a bit, something he really hadn’t stopped doing since they had been captured. Patton wasn’t sure Virgil even realized he was still shaking, but couldn’t fault him. Patton himself had been shaking on and off for the past couple of days as well.

He hugged his mate close, fisting the patched poncho.

“Are you okay?” he asked after a long silence.

“No. You?”

Patton hummed, debating on his answer. “Not too good, honestly. But I have you still, and that’s what matters.” He kissed the top of Virgil’s head, burrowing his face into his dark hair. “That’s all that matters right now.”

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

The two dozed, adrenaline from before slowly leaving them with the doctor lady gone. Patton had a feeling they would need to conserve their energy for whatever the woman wanted from them, and just prayed to whatever higher power that may be out there to be merciful. He didn’t care what happened to him, as long as Virgil wasn’t hurt.

The sounds of footsteps approaching the room broke Patton from his sleep, and he stiffened, tightening his grip around Virgil, who still seemed to be sleeping if his slow, even breaths were anything to go by. It was probably the first time he had been able to fully sleep in a while.

The door opened and Patton had to crane his neck to see the lady walk in. Her bright eyes seemed to burn holes into him and she smiled brightly at the sight before her. Patton simply frowned at her before dropping his head, curling around Virgil protectively. Virgil easily curled into Patton, slotting into him like he was always meant to be there.

“Cute,” the lady commented softly as she walked closer to the cage. “You know, I haven’t seen gay borrowers before.”

Their species name sent a jolt through Patton. Most, if not all humans had simply been calling them Tinies, and he had honestly thought it was because no one cared to ask a borrower what they were called.

She pulled a chair over to the cage, lifting it up to not make a lot of noise. “I know you’re awake, blue shirt.”

Patton sighed, twisting his head around to look where the doctor was, frowning at her.

“What? I simply want to speak to one of you.” She gave a pout he didn’t entirely trust to be genuine. “I’m not going to separate the two of you yet, I just need to talk with you.”

The way she phrased it made Patton’s stomach knot itself, but he slowly maneuvered himself and Virgil until he was sitting up with Virgil’s head in his lap. He carded his fingers through his mate’s hair, smiling down at him when Virgil sighed and curled up around him, his worry lines smoothing over for now.

He looked up at the woman. “What’s your name?” he asked before she could open her mouth.

“Ah, I should probably introduce myself, I suppose.” She looked vaguely surprised, but soon schooled her face into an amused expression, sitting down. “I am Doctor Marissa Fafner, PhD in biology and psychology.”

She leaned forward, her elbows resting on her knees, giving her undivided attention to the two trapped in this nightmare. “And what about you two?”

Patton wrapped his arms around Virgil slightly, and his slighter mate curled closer to him, sighing in his sleep. He bit his lip.

“I will simply call you subjects 04 and 05 if you do not tell me what your names are,” the lady, Marissa, smirked at him.

“P-Patton. I’m Patton.” The words couldn’t come out fast enough, and he was careful not to shout. “My name is. Patton. This is my mate, V-Virgil.”

“Mate?” There was something about her smile that had his hair standing on end, and he had to look down at Virgil, petting through his hair to calm himself down, but his movements were jerky, mechanical. “Cute. I hadn’t thought your kind could have homosexual relations. And I am certain my colleagues would not have thought so either.”

Patton’s breath hitched and he had to stop running his fingers through Virgil’s hair before he accidently hurt him, placing his hand on his shoulder. “What does it matter? We are just smaller versions of you humans. Why does it surprise you that we’re mates?”

“Aw, did I hit a nerve?” Patton’s fear and confusion melted into annoyance at her patronizing tone, and he clenched his jaw. “I still don’t believe we are anything alike, outside of appearances,” Marissa continued. “It would be impossible for us to have any close relatives in our species’ trees. Although, some of my colleagues are already at the dissecting phase of their work to prove how similar or different we may be.”

Dissecting. Dissecting phase. The words bounced in Patton’s head and he felt sick. He desperately hoped those who were- oh gosh he couldn’t even finish the thought.

“What...” He swallowed thickly, his eyes trained on Virgil’s face. “What do you plan on doing to us?”

“I thought I already summarized what’ll happen.” Marissa was having too much fun, and it made him sick. “I will be training you both to be good pets, and I have some ideas on how to properly train you both.”

Oh, Patton hated every vile word she uttered.

“You should sleep soon. Tomorrow we’ll start training.” The chair squeaked as the horrible woman stood up, and Patton didn’t dare look up. He listened to her footfalls as she made her way out of the room. “It might be a long day for you.”

Chapter 3: The Check-Up

Virgil woke up practically enveloped in Patton, which, while not unwelcome, was a bit unusual. Normally it was he who tried to encircle his mate as they slept. It was nice to be encircled for once, and feel the warmth all around him. He sighed, melting into Patton for the moment.

A moment where he could forget they were captured by humans who thought of their kind as inferior, as pets. A moment where he could pretend they were safe, where they weren’t test subjects dolled up as playthings for a creepy scientist.

But, sadly, the moment could not last forever, and Virgil felt reality return in the form of his dry mouth. He hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since they’d left the pet shop, and he was pretty sure it was now morning. When they had been dropped into their new cage, both he and Patton felt as though their stomachs couldn’t handle anything in them until much, much later.

Guess later was now . Virgil tapped his mate on the arm, kissing along his jaw at just the right angle that tickled him. At first Patton tightened his hold on him, but then he took a deep breath and giggled sleepily as Virgil kept kissing him up and down his jaw and neck.

“I’m up, I’m up,” Patton giggled, his words rough with sleep. He pulled away from Virgil to look at him. “Mornin’.”

“G’morn,” Virgil mumbled back, pulling fully away from his mate once he was able to and stretching, his joints popping pleasantly. “Did you sleep well?”

“Not… really.” Patton shook his head as he followed him, stretching with a yawn. “I kept… thinking about what she’s going to do to us.”

“Ah, so that explains the full-body cuddle,” Virgil said, trying to keep his tone light. It felt much too early to let the fears eat away at him, at them both. They could have something to settle their stomachs, and then maybe they could let the fear start to consume them. “Are you hungry?”

“Do we even have food?” Patton looked towards the section where the water bowl was, and the two could see there was no food for them yet.

Virgil sighed, but he stood up anyway. “Well, we can still get some water to drink. Come on.”

He helped his mate up and they went over the sectioned off area, easily making their way to the water bowl. Virgil carefully grabbed both bottle caps and slowly filled each one with water, handing the first one to Patton before sipping from his own. It felt refreshing against his dry throat, and they both were quick to take another capful.

“Did you sleep well, Virge?” Patton asked as he put the bottle cap back, letting it float atop the water.

“Surprisingly, I kind of did,” he shrugged. He at least felt better rested.

“Good. You were really out since the doctor lady left for her work. She came by, yesterday. After whatever that meeting thing was she kept going on about.” 

Virgil snapped his head up to meet his mate’s. Patton did not look up, staring down and playing with the hem of his poncho.

“What did she do?” Virgil demanded.

“Talk, mostly. She… She told me her name, and I told her ours.” Finally, Patton looked up, and it just about broke Virgil’s heart at how pained he looked. “I’m scared what she’s going to do to us, Virge. I don’t… I don’t know what she’ll do but I… I don’t…”

Virgil dropped his bottle cap into the bowl and grabbed both of Patton’s hands, squeezing them between his. “I don’t know what she’ll do, but I promise I will protect you.” He reached one hand up to cup Patton’s cheek. “I’m not going anywhere.”

His mate smiled weakly and reached up, covering Virgil’s hand with his own. The two stayed that way until they heard footsteps coming towards the door. Virgil dropped his hand from Patton’s face, but didn’t let go of his hands, squeezing once in reassurance as the doctor walked into the room.

“Ah, so you two are awake. Lovely.” Her words still sounded like spoiled honey, and her smile dripped poison. “What a perfect time for some training.”

She approached the cage, dragging a chair behind her as she made her way forward, sitting down in front of them.

“So, Patton, Virgil, how did you two sleep?” She asked in a pleasant tone that made every alarm in Virgil’s head blare.

He clenched his jaw, keeping himself silent as he looked to Patton briefly. His mate looked back at him before shrugging as he glanced back at the scientist.

She raised an eyebrow. “I asked a simple question. Answer.” Her words were hard, and Virgil swallowed nervously.

“G-good?” Patton spoke up in a squeak that set off Virgil’s fight instincts. His mate should not sound like that outside of when Virgil managed to fluster him, and definitely not when he was scared of a human scientist.

She smiled warmly, and it was like a wolf baring her teeth down at prey. “Thank you, Patton. Virgil, answer.”

He did not, glaring at her.

Her words went hard again, and she shifted closer to the moulded cage. “Answer the simple question. Do not make me separate the two of you this early into training.”

Patton froze beside him, his grip on Virgil’s hand painful and shaking.

“Why? You don’t actually care about if we slept well or not,” Virgil snapped.

She rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t really matter. When I ask you a question, you are to answer. I will ask one last time: How did you sleep?”

The urge to hiss was rising, and his upper lip curled in a sneer, but Virgil still refused to answer.

The scientist sighed before she stood and reached into the cage faster than either borrower could react. Virgil felt the painful pinch against his chest as fingers curled around him tightly and he was ripped from Patton’s grasp.

“Virgil!” His mate cried, jumping to try to reach as the scientist easily lifted him up and out of the cage, her grip tight and oh god it was hard to breathe. “Please, no!”

Virgil struggled against the hand, the fight for each breath taking up all his attention.

“If you cannot behave, you will be punished.” Her tone was almost amused as she moved him around, her quick movements disorienting him and adding to his discomfort. “You’ll spend the next two hours in isolation, and then we’ll see if you’re still going to be tough to train.”

Virgil was barely aware of what she was saying, but he noticed they had walked out of the room and into another across the hall. If he had to guess, he’d say it looked like a human guest bedroom. They approached a dresser upon entering the room, and atop the dresser he saw a clear, empty vase. The scientist woman finally let him go as she grabbed the vase and dropped him inside. It was a good, thick, foot-tall vase that had a bit of a neck a couple inches before the opening.

His landing wasn’t soft, and he groaned in pain, clutching his chest as he could finally breathe properly. He curled into himself, coughing a bit as he tried to catch his breath. He glanced up to see the scientist grabbing the vase and placing it into one of the drawers of the dresser.

“Let’s see if you learn anything,” she said, before pushing the drawer closed. Virgil stumbled around in the vase, then the drawer shut completely and suddenly he was in the dark.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Patton pounded his fists against the wall of his cage as hard as he could, barely noticing the pain as the fear gripped his chest too tightly. “Virgil! Please, don’t! Please give him back!” He pleaded, trying hard to see where Marissa was taking his mate, but she turned down the hallway and he could barely hear her footsteps or voice.

A faint smudge of red against the wall brought him to his senses and suddenly he noticed the sting in his hands from his newly broken skin. He hissed in pain, bringing his hands to his chest, and just like that, the fight left him. He sunk to the ground, holding his arms close and bent forward, his glasses fogging up with tears.

He heard footfalls returning to the room, and he looked up to see Marissa enter without Virgil and his breath caught in his throat, choking him as panic took hold.

“Please, p-please give him back!” he cried. “Bring him back!”

“Quiet.” Her voice was harder than before and Patton snapped his mouth shut, but he couldn’t hold back a whimper. “I will check to see if he’s learned his lesson in a couple hours. That does not mean I will allow you to be disobedient.”

He shook his head quickly, trembling. This was unlike anything the two had gone through in their entire lives. Even when he and Virgil were living apart from one another, they could easily get to the other if they wanted to. This, however, was forced separation, and he had no way of knowing if Virgil was able to escape wherever he was. And worse, he was the one with Marissa’s undivided attention.

“Are you going to continue to behave, Patton?” she asked, sitting back down and grabbing a notebook and pen from her pockets and scribbling in it.

Patton trembled but managed to make one of the tremors to look like a jittery nod.

“Good boy.” It felt like a slap the way she said those words. “Are you hungry? Have you had anything since I bought you and your…” her lips twisted. “Mate?”

Again, Patton managed to nod through his shaking. He knew he had to calm down, to stop trembling like a leaf in the wind, but being trapped in a clear plastic cage, unable to get to his mate who was who-knew-where while their captor asked him questions that seemed harmless but with the threat of… some kind of punishment if he did not listen immediately? It was all just too much for him.

Marissa sighed, pausing her scribbles to look down at him. “Speak, I am asking you a question.”

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out, the air choking in his throat every time he tried to exhale. He swallowed before trying again with a bit more success.

“I, we had water. After, after waking up,” he stuttered, trying to keep his words as even as possible, but it was difficult.

“Thank you. Now, are you hungry?”

Patton was sure he would not be able to hold anything down besides the water. “Uhm, not r-right now.”

Marissa began writing again. “If you say so. Now, I have both of your files with the basics down, but I need to check if they’re correct.” That was all the warning Patton got before she stood up suddenly and reached into the cage for him. On instinct, he ducked away, but that just made her grab his curled up form more tightly, his legs sticking out between her fingers. “Behave, and I’ll check on the other sooner.”

Patton gulped as he was deposited on the table where the cage was located. He looked around, but found the table was fairly new and made of plastic rather than easy to climb wood. It would be hard to find any purchase if either of them wanted to get down, even if they could escape the cage when Marissa wasn’t there.

“Stand up straight, back against the wall of the house.” She ordered, and he forced himself to move, slow and mechanical. “Back straight, head up. I have to make sure they did the measurements correctly.”

A ruler was placed next to him, and he tried hard not to jump away as it was pressed against him, holding his breath to see if that would stop the shaking for even a minute. He vaguely heard the scritch-scratch of the human writing, and then he was grabbed again and dropped on a small weight-measurer. She checked how much he weighed, and then he was again grabbed and held tight. He shrunk back as far as he could as he was brought close to her face.

She sighed and moved to grab something, a magnifying stick of some kind, and shifted her hold on him until he felt a finger against the back of his head. “Keep your eyes open.” She ordered, and put the glass over him, pinning his head between it and the finger. He couldn’t seem to blink, staring wide in fear as everything looked warped and out of focus from his perspective.

Marissa then made an interesting hum and pulled the glass away from him. “You have actual glasses. I thought they were just frames for aesthetic reasons. Why?”

“I, uh, can’t see well far away,” Patton explained. He supposed it was the only nice thing since getting captured: being able to see clearly again. The glasses were made well, and wrapped around his head with a strap. All he had to do was lift them off his head, but he generally left them on; he didn’t know what would happen if he lost them to the huge human world.

“Nearsighted, huh?” She clicked her tongue, before quickly moving Patton in a way that disoriented him. Suddenly, he was out of her grasp and falling a short distance back onto the blanket-carpet of the cage. “That should be enough checking. I will have to check they gave me the correct blood type eventually, but that can wait. I will give you some food for later and check on the unruly one.”

His vision swimming as he righted himself after the fall, but Patton focused on Marissa just as she put the notebook and pen back in her pockets, heading out of the room.

The moment she was out of the room, he collapsed face-down, fisting the soft material tightly in both hands and just trying to breathe. He was sure his chest and back were going to bruise, if they hadn’t already, from how tightly she’d held him to look at his face with the magnification glass.

He really hoped Virgil would come back soon.

Chapter 4: The Check-Up P.2

It wasn’t as dark as inside walls, Virgil found, as he sat in his glass cage. After trying for almost twenty minutes, he’d realized he wouldn’t be able to knock it over, and resigned himself to his fate. By then, the bruises left by the scientist’s rough handling had made themselves known, and it hurt to exert himself. He did not want to lift his poncho up to see just how clear the outline of her hand was around him, at least not without proper light to see, and Patton beside him to keep him grounded.

Thinking of Patton was the only thing currently keeping him from spiralling. He was sure Patton was already freaking out, so he had to stay strong until they were back together, and until the scientist wasn’t around. If they both spiralled at the same time, then who knows what she would do to them in the name of human Science.

So, he focused on breathing. The good thing about being trapped meant there were only so many things to do to pass the time, so he could focus everything on staying calm. Still, it was difficult to keep a steady rhythm when his mind would supply worst-case-scenario after worst-case-scenario about what the human could be doing to his mate.

He lost track of the time, but eventually his ears picked up the sound of the horrible human footfalls, and he got ready to glare at her the moment he was taken out of the drawer.

The drawer was opened with careless force, and Virgil fell forward, catching himself by his hands before he bashed his head against the glass and squinting at the sudden rush of bright light.

“Do you plan on listening to me now?” The human’s voice echoed and bounced painfully around the narrow walls of the vase painfully and Virgil grimaced, ducking his head against the onslaught. “Your mate seemed very distressed to find himself alone, the poor thing.”

Through the pain, Virgil’s head snapped up to glare daggers at her. He could tell she was baiting him, but damn it, this was about Patton. She did something to him, he just knew it, but he had no idea what.

“I told him if he behaved, I’d check on you,” she continued, smirking as she lifted the vase to her eye-level, the glass distorting her face just a bit. “I did not say I’d bring you back to him, however. That’s all riding on if you behave. Listen to my instructions and you’ll be back in the other room with your mate in no time.”

Virgil narrowed his eyes at her before giving a single curt nod. The sooner he could get back to Patton, the sooner he could keep him safe, though he was now having doubts on exactly what he could do to protect his mate. The threat was a towering human scientist who had no conscience. She had easily separated the two without any difficulty, how was he supposed to counter that?

The human smiled with too many teeth bared before she flipped the vase around and Virgil’s heart jumped to his throat as he was weightless for a second. He was quickly dropped onto the top of the dresser, and ouch , there was another huge bruise on the way. The impact against the solid wooden surface knocked the air from his lungs. He gasped and curled up instinctively, but felt hands pinching him by the sides.

“None of that. Stand up straight while I check the records they took of you.” Her words boomed in his head, even without having the confined environment. He only growled as he followed her orders until his back was pressed up against some wall. It felt like a book, and then he felt a ruler push against his side as she measured his height.

The human gave a noise of intrigue. “You’re possibly the tallest borrower I’ve ever seen. All the other tall creatures barely reach an even six inches, yet you’re halfway to seven,” she commented as she eyed him up and down. “Interesting.”

Virgil hated this. Humans looking at him, measuring his full height. It was why he slouched, or one of the reasons, anyway. He hated it when the humans did it the first time, soon after getting captured, but at least then he could see Patton the entire time and could be with him immediately once everything was over with.

The human brought out a notebook and pen and began to scribble something into it before moving him to weigh him on some weird machine.

Again, at the results, she made a curious sound. “Much lighter than Patton. You share more of your food with him, hm?”

Virgil just glared at her. She would not get any answer out of him when it came to personal stuff like that. He’d rather die than tell a human anything about their relationship.

She looked down at him and rolled her eyes the longer he was silent. “Fine, don’t tell me. I’ll get my answers later, I suppose.” The way she said it twisted his stomach in knots.

She hummed, then Virgil was picked up again and his body was trapped in her fist, his arms down by his sides. He squirmed and wiggled as much as he could, and found he could barely bend his head close enough to bite at her. He bit down as hard as he could, and she gasped in pain before flicking a finger at his head and the room swam painfully.

“Do that again and I do much worse than lightly flick you,” she said coldly.

Lightly?! Lightly my ass! He thought as he growled at her. “Yeah? Like what?”

The human narrowed her eyes at him before smiling wickedly. “Well, for one, you and your mate will not share the same cage for a long while, maybe not even the same room if you keep it up.” She hummed in thought, looking at Virgil like a predator at prey. “You are also protective of him, are you not?”

Virgil froze, his eyes wide as he stared at her, trying to figure out where she was going with this.

“If you continue, I don’t think he’ll be very happy with your punishments.”

Before he could respond to the threat, a magnifier was placed over his entire face and he couldn’t twist to the side. He squirmed more, trying to dislodge his hands from her grasp but her strong grip kept him unable to move them.

After a couple moments, the magnifier was pulled away from his face and he was placed back into the vase without much warning. He quickly got his bearings and scrambled to his hands and knees when he felt the vase move.

Instead of the drawer again, Virgil was brought out of the room and back towards the room with the large cage. He quickly was able to pinpoint Patton, since he was the only bright-coloured thing in the cage, with his poncho.

“Because you have been a good borrower,” the human said as she entered the room, shaking the vase and causing Virgil to fall on his side, unable to get up due to all the shaking throwing him around the glass, “I decided to bring your mate into this room, Patton. However, he hasn’t been as good, so I sadly won’t be letting him out of his new little cage.”

Patton’s head snapped up and Virgil wished he was closer. He could barely see his mate’s face properly with the distortion of the vase.

“Wha-no! Please, give him back!” Patton cried, running to the edge of his cage.

“Maybe if you both behave tomorrow,” the human said as she placed the vase down beside the cage.

“Tomorrow?” Virgil shouted, wincing at his own echo, but refusing to let it stop him. “Let me out now! It’s barely midday!”

“If you manage to behave for the rest of the day, maybe I won’t have to keep you two separated for long.” She sounded amused as she responded, heading back towards the door. “I will get something for you two to eat. Don’t do anything stupid.”

She seemed to have directed the order to Virgil, but he only glared at her in return, waiting until she left the room completely before dropping his head.

“Virgil!” Patton cried, banging on the plastic wall on his side, Virgil leaning against the glass on his. “Are you okay? What happened? What did she do to you?”

He shook his head at first, putting up a finger to tell his mate to slow down, before he answered, speaking up through the vase. “I’m fine, mostly just bruised. Are you okay?”

“I’m okay. I was so scared. What happened, Virgil?”

“Oh, you know…” He gestured at the vase. He wished he still had his hand made hammer from back home, then he’d be able to make quick work of the glass. “Just been lounging in a fucking flowerpot for a couple hours. Then she decided to check me over.”

“She did that to me too.” Patton’s voice sounded weirdly distorted and far away, and Virgil could barely still hear him through the multiple layers between them.

“She didn’t hurt you, did she?” he asked.

“I don’t think so, at least, I don’t think I have anything worse than a couple bruises.”

Virgil frowned, looking at his mate as closely as he could, before he growled to himself, trying to see what he could do to get out of the vase. He still had his thinning hook and string, and the vase wasn’t too much taller than him. If he hurried, he could make it up and over without wearing on the string too much.

With a quick glance to the entrance of the room, Virgil quickly fiddled with the hook he’d been hiding since being captured and checked over the fraying string. It didn’t look too bad, at least he hoped it would still hold him.

“Virgil? What are you do- wait!” Patton called, but Virgil ignored his mate for now. He was not going to wait until the next day for the chance to hold his mate.

He swung his hook a couple times before throwing it up and over the top of the vase, and bit his lip as he pulled back slowly until it caught on the lip. Since it was glass, it didn’t catch as sturdy as wood or plastic, but…

Virgill stopped thinking and jumped as high as he could before grabbing the highest point of the string and holding on tight. He slid a bit and his hands burned for a second before he managed to stop halfway up. He pulled his legs up and stretched them as wide as he could to rest around the narrower part of the vase and jumped to reach the lip, tipping the vase over as he did.

As the vase fell to the side, Virgil worked quickly and tumbled out and away, stopping with the plastic wall of the larger cage against his back. Both borrowers winced at the sound of Virgil’s former cage thudded against the table, rolling in a loose circle away from him and the plastic cage, before Virgil quickly moved into action. The sound would have alerted the scientist, but maybe they had enough time.

He grabbed his hook and hurriedly spun it, and then letting it go as hard as he could to reach the top of the cage Patton was still trapped in. It took all the string to reach the top and the end reached only to Virgil’s sternum. With a quick and sharp tug to ensure the hook was caught properly at the lip of the cage, he jumped and began to climb as fast as he could.

Chapter 5: The Training

Patton watched with his heart in his throat as Virgil climbed the outside of the cage, eyes flitting from his mate to the top of the cage to the entrance of the room, unsure of what would happen first. Either Virgil would reach the top first, or the string would snap, or Marissa would appear, and Patton was afraid of which would happen. Even if Virgil got to the top, would he try to help Patton up and out? Would the string snap while Patton was trying to climb? How long would it take for the human to come to the room from wherever her supposed kitchen was? What was going to -

Snick!

The string, knotted at the top where the hook was attached, broke just as the two borrowers would hear human footfalls and if his heart wasn’t already stuck in his throat, it certainly would have leapt up before dropping to his feet, eyes on his mate who had been a little over halfway up when the string snapped. His arms pinwheeled as he tried to grab onto anything before he fell, but caught nothing.

“Virgil!” The name felt squeezed out of Patton’s lungs, but he was unable to do anything but watch. It didn’t stop him from pushing as hard as he could against the wall, like if he tried hard enough, he could phase through in time to catch his mate.

He heard Marissa’s footsteps arrive at the entrance just as Virgil landed on the table with a small thud and Patton winced. Virgil only groaned in pain, curling up and Patton hated how close he was, but the damned plastic kept them separated.

“Oh, a little Houdini, are you?” Marissa’s voice barely made sense before Patton saw his mate become enclosed by a hand, a plate of small borrower-sized sandwiches placed on the table with the human’s other hand. “I expected something like this, but I must admit, I am surprised by the hook.”

“Let… Go!” Virgil wheezed, and it hurt to hear him in so much pain. “Let go of me, you witch!”

“Witch? Why thank you for the compliment.” She laughed, picking up Virgil. “However, you still need to be punished. I don’t think an open little cage is good enough for you now.” Her voice dropped as she seemed to speak to herself. “I hope I kept that bottle around here somewhere.”

She looked him over, poking and prodding and pulling up his poncho to possibly check for how bad the fall was, and all the while Patton struggled to speak. His mouth was open, and he wanted to speak so bad, but he couldn’t figure out what to say.

“Aw, look how distressed you made the poor boy, Virgil,” Marissa cooed. “You must not be a very good mate, always making him worry so much.”

“Shut up!” Patton could hear Virgil’s growl from where he was, and it was only then that he noticed how Marissa was taking him away again.

“W-wait, no! Don’t take him away! Please!” He smacked his open palms against the wall. “Don’t take him again, please!”

“I’ll be right back, I need to find a better cage for this flight-risk,” was all Marissa said before she took his mate away from him again, leaving the room.

“No!” Patton shouted as he slapped and punched and pounded the wall until he couldn’t feel his hands anymore, but just as they were growing numb, the human and Virgil returned to the room.

Virgil was now in what looked like a clean, empty ketchup bottle, laying on his side as if the fight had been drained out of him. The lid was twisted on, but the part of the cap that flipped open was cut off, leaving only a tiny hole for air. Patton couldn’t tell if Virgil could breathe, but he saw the rise and fall and just had to hope.

“I learned this neat little trick with my official experiments. No borrower is strong enough to untwist the cap from the inside, even with adrenaline aiding them,” Marissa told the two as she placed Virgil’s new cage beside Patton’s. “Now you should really try to be good, Virgil. I’d hate to have to punish Patton for your misbehaviour.”

Patton’s breath caught in his throat, his heart thudding painfully in his chest. Virgil’s head snapped up to face her before glancing over to Patton, the spark of fear bright in his eyes.

“Don’t you dare,” he growled, but his voice shook and sounded weak even from where Patton was.

Marissa laughed. “I won’t, if you behave for once. Evidently, if you are punished for misbehaving, you don’t seem to learn your lesson. Your actions have consequences, and I will be obeyed.”

She put the food in Patton’s cage without another word, and with a cold, sharp smile, she left.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

Training started after lunch, though Patton couldn’t bring himself to eat, and Virgil couldn’t eat even if he wanted to. He had tried to untwist the top of the bottle, but it was difficult to find enough purchase when he tipped the bottle over, and the little amount of weight he had to leverage the cap was nowhere near enough, and it wasn’t long  until he simply gave up. He could still breathe fresh-ish air through the hole in the top, but the hole was barely big enough to push his entire hand through.

The Witch came back, eyeing Virgil’s cage with amusement before walking forward and reaching into the large cage for Patton. He could only watch as his mate was taken out of the cage and let go onto the table before him. The instant his feet were under him, Patton ran to Virgil’s tipped-over bottle, and for the first time in hours they could grab each other, even if it was nothing more than a hand. Patton’s hand shook, but all Virgil could do was hold him as best he could.

“I will keep this simple,” the Witch said, sitting beside the table. “Patton, if you do as you are told, and obey my words, Virgil may be able to sleep in your home for the night.”

Virgil had a difficult time seeing Patton’s face, since the cap of the bottle was opaque, so he simply gave his mate’s hand a single squeeze.

“O-okay,” Patton said, and squeezed his hand back.

“Good. Now, come here.” She tapped on the table with her finger twice.

Virgil didn’t want to let go, but Patton gave him one more tight, quick squeeze, then let go to stand and walk over to the Witch slowly. Virgil watched his mate with baited breath, never taking his eyes off of him and his blue poncho.

“Good boy.” Virgil saw how Patton winced, his body tensing as he stood before the Witch. She pointed towards the large cage. “Go towards your home.”

Patton followed the orders while Virgil watched with a growing sick feeling in his stomach. It was humiliating to hear the human’s mocking tone as she ordered his mate to walk where she told him to, and Patton followed with only a bit of hesitation, frequently looking over to check on Virgil. That only made his stomach feel worse; he was the reason Patton was doing this. Patton wanted Virgil with him as much as Virgil wanted to hold more than his hand, and each knew they would do anything for the other’s protection. Knowing they were helpless felt like a shot through the heart - and to Virgil’s small pride, because he always thought of himself as the protector to Patton - and he hated it. Every single moment.

She worked with Patton for a good hour, telling him to walk from one end of the table to the other, walk towards her hand, to the cage, to Virgil’s cage, to sit, to stand, to kneel, to jump, to bow, before she decided they were done.

“Good boy,” she said as she picked Patton up and put him back into the cage. “I think that’s enough for today. At dinner tonight I’ll reward you with your mate.”

Virgil felt utterly ill, being a reward for Patton demeaning himself to nothing more than a pet or plaything for the cruel human’s amusement. He saw how Patton opened his mouth as he was dropped into the cage, but it was like his voice wouldn’t work anymore.

Even if the Witch had seen Patton open his mouth, she didn’t care, and she left the two of them in the room. Patton still stayed completely silent as she left. He simply got up on shaky legs and made his way to the wall closest to Virgil’s prison, leaning against the hard plastic with his hand flat against it. He looked like he was in shock, his expression terrifyingly blank and his eyes wide and unseeing. It scared Virgil to see his mate like this, and if this was how he acted on day one of being with this human, how long were they going to survive this? Would they keep their sanity? How broken was she going to make them? The thoughts overwhelmed him until he couldn’t think coherently, each fear digging up three more like a metaphorical hydra.

He shifted and sat up, hunching his head, unable to stand or sit up straight because the bottle was on it’s side. He leaned against the side that was closest to the large cage, trying to find a comfortable place to rest his back against the plastic but it was formed in a really awkward way that he gave up and laid down on his side, facing Patton.

It was several long hours before the sun set and the Witch returned with baby carrots and lettuce. She didn’t say a word as she put the food into the cage before picking up the bottle and unscrewing the cap.

Rather than taking him out, the Witch moved the bottle into the cage and tipped him over faster than he could prepare, and he whacked his head on the entrance of the bottle as he fell into the larger cage. Virgil crumpled to the floor, and he was so happy to have something soft to break his fall. It still hurt, but the impact was so much softer than every other time he’d fallen within the past 48 hours.

He tried to right himself, but had barely started before he fell on his back again as Patton slammed into him, arms and legs wrapping around him. He did hear the human’s amused chuckle and her footfalls away from the cage, but paid no mind as he focused on the feeling of his mate holding him like he would disappear in a second. He wrapped his arms around him in return and squeezed as tightly as he could, the burn of tears behind his eyes the only warning he had before he broke down in Patton’s arms. The stress of holding back a full-blown panic attack all day, of watching his mate be demeaned and humiliated without being able to take his place, of everything that had happened since they were taken out of the cage in the shop, it was all too much. All that on top of the fact that he hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before and his crash of adrenaline?  He was surprised he hadn’t passed out already from the strain.

Patton held him tightly, and Virgil could do nothing but clutch him like a lifeline.

Chapter 6: The Adjustment

THREE MONTHS LATER

“Ohmigod, you have tinies?” The high, shrill voice of Marissa’s visiting friend felt like a spike through Virgil’s head as a hand swooped over him and Patton to grab at them. Knowing Patton’s leg was still recovering from injury, Virgil quickly stood in front of his mate to be taken. He braced himself for a tight squeeze and new bruises, but what else was new?

The shrill voice grew to a painful squeal as the hand wrapped around Virgil’s torso and he was none too gently picked up. “Oh, he is so cute! Mar, I am so jealous you have tinies already!”

“I’m lucky I got them just before those prices skyrocketed,” Marissa laughed, handing her friend a glass of dark liquid that smelled somewhat fruity. “Scientist benefits.”

“Luck- y! You are so lucky to have them.” The friend put down her glass by the cage and opened her hand so Virgil could breathe and sit on her palm while she poked and prodded him. She was trying to be gentle, he could give her that, and she was much more gentle than their owner, but since Virgil was basically a walking bruise already, every prod hurt tenfold. And he couldn’t even flinch unless he wanted Patton to get hurt again. “I mean, not just one, you have two!”

“Couples are sold together.”

“They’re a couple? Ohmygod!” Her squeal was too much for him and he winced, putting his hands up to his ears. “That is too cute, Mar. How long have you had them?”

“Maybe a month or so before they were publicly for sale.” Her smile directed at Virgil was much like a snake preparing to strike. “I’ve been helping when I can with how to train their kind. They are so intelligent, you know?”

“Oh, I always thought so. They always reminded me of bipedal mice, and mice can be very smart, you know?” The friend had taken to messing up Virgil’s hair with her index finger and he could feel the headache that he was going to have for hours after this torment was over. “What can they do?”

“Why don’t I let them tell you?”

The friend’s eyes were alight as she brought her hand up to eye-level and Virgil had to fight his instinct to cower. He clenched his hands so tight they shook and looked back at her with an attempt of a neutral expression. The room was quiet for a minute as the two stared at each other until Marissa cleared her throat.

“Virgil, speak.”

As if she spoke magic, Virgil’s mouth was open before he could think of what to say. “Hello.”

The friend gasped, and she had a bright smile that somewhat reminded him of Patton when they had still been free, before the discovery. It made him ill.

“Oh, hello! Virgil? Oh that’s such a cute name.” She looked to their owner. “Did you come up with it?”

“No, my parents did,” Virgil answered when Marissa opened her mouth to speak, clamping his mouth shut as soon as her eyes snapped to him.

“Aw, that’s so cute!” her friend said in a squeaky coo.

“You should put him back down, Nat. I think that’s enough excitement for the two. I still have to show you the latest results I got,” Marissa suggested, and Virgil couldn’t decide if he was relieved or worried. He was used to her mannerisms, but she was also different around friends. Had he stepped out of line by answering himself? Was it the wince? Covering his ears? Was he going to be okay? Was Patton going to be okay? Who was she going to take it out on when the friend left?

He was very gently dropped - really, he was rolled off her hand - onto the carpet-blanket and Patton was limping his way over to him immediately, shaking as he dropped into Virgil’s lap and held him close. The two ignored Marissa’s friend as she cooed again at their actions, then her voice grew quieter as the humans left the room.

Virgil shook and swallowed thickly, his mind racing still with all the possibilities of what he’d done wrong, if he even had done anything Marissa considered wrong, until he felt shaky hands cup his cheek. He blinked, and focused on the warm brown eyes magnified by the glasses that filled his vision. He saw how Patton’s lips were moving and he heard his voice, but couldn’t make out the words. Patton tapped his cheek in a familiar pattern, a calming tp tp tp that Virgil began to follow with his breath. It took a bit of time, but slowly Virgil understood the words.

“You’re okay. I’m here, I’m okay. Just keep breathing. That’s it.” Patton smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. His smiles never reached his eyes anymore, a layer of sadness always sat right beneath the surface. Virgil couldn’t blame him one bit if he was sad all the time, he himself was scared all the time now, but he still tried not to show it. “Can you hear me? Virgil?”

He nodded in response, blinking rapidly as he came back to himself. He pushed his head forward, pressing their foreheads together as he steadied his breath. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” Patton whispered, pressing his head forward in return. “It’s the least I can do.”

Virgil laughed breathlessly and leaned forward to chastely kiss his mate before pulling away. “I’d be dead without you, you know?”

“Oh, don’t say that,” Patton frowned, rubbing his thumb over Virgil’s eyebags, which Virgil didn’t need to see in a reflective surface to know they were deep and dark. “Please don’t start this up again.”

Virgil winced and surged forward for another, longer, kiss. “Sorry,” he mumbled against Patton’s lips, shutting his eyes tightly.

They’d had this conversation several times over since they had been first caught almost four months ago, whenever Virgil’s guilt ate him up so much that he had to say it outloud. On the one hand, Virgil would be dead without Patton to help keep him going when he wanted to give up, but on the other, it was entirely Virgil’s fault Patton was with him in the first place. If he hadn’t been caught, Patton wouldn’t have exposed himself, and the two of them wouldn’t have been brought to a pet store or bought by a scientist who found pleasure in watching helplessness. 

If it weren’t for Virgil, Patton wouldn’t have his injured leg. The sound of Patton’s leg snapping when Virgil had refused to follow Marissa’s orders still haunted his nightmares to this day, and Patton’s limp served as a constant reminder that this was all Virgil’s fault. 

The two stayed wrapped in each other’s embrace, focusing on the fact they were still together, still alive, and still, mostly, in one piece. Patton began carding his fingers through Virgil’s hair - which was getting much too long, down to his shoulders - and all his fears ebbed away for the moment. It was just the two of them, in a rare reprieve from their owner’s cruelty, which might possibly last longer than normal, since she was currently with a friend who at least seemed kind, if a little overzealous.

When Marissa eventually returned, a little later their usual lunchtime schedule, she was alone. Virgil and Patton had moved up against one of the walls, and Virgil had his back pressed against his mate’s chest. He held one of Patton’s hands, making nonsense designs with a finger over the palm while his mate brushed his hair back over and over again in a familiar, comforting motion. Neither reacted to their owner walking into the room anymore, although Virgil had looked over without moving his head to watch her.

“Nat gave me a wonderful idea,” she said as she walked over to the cage. “My experiments have been less than ideal at the lab, and she told me I should see if I could motivate them.”

“Them?” Patton asked, stopping his brushing to wrap his arm around Virgil’s middle and pull him flush against him, putting his chin lightly on the top of his head.

“Yes, the other borrower subjects,” Marissa explained, and Virgil felt them both tense as they barely concealed a shudder. “I’ve tried most of the same tactics as with you two, but they don’t have mates or anything else motivating them besides themselves.” She sighed, turning away from the cage to grab the borrower-carrier from nearby. “They’re so stubborn. Nat thinks if I give you two some time with them, they’ll be more…” she paused, searching for the word. “Willing, I guess, to comply with me.”

She placed the carrier beside the cage before she reached into the cage and picked the two up none too gently with one hand. Virgil gritted his teeth, but it was a quick transfer to the carrier and the two breathed deeply the moment they were let go.

They hadn’t been in the portable cage since they had gone to the official “Tiny Doctor” (which was just a fancy word for vet) a month ago. They had to be officially registered as pets and get all the medical shit done for a third time. Virgil was sure he got his worst bruises from that human, because they’d clearly had no idea how to hold anything as small as a borrower gently. He was honestly surprised neither of them had been snapped in half in the doctor’s grip.

“Does this mean we’re… going to your lab?” Patton asked as the carrier was zipped shut and Marissa picked it up.

“Yes, but don’t worry, I’m not going to do anything to you two there. You will only be trying to encourage the others to continue with the testing.”

“What… are they like? Do they have names?” Patton asked, picking his words carefully. He wasn’t punished when he spoke to Marissa, so the two had decided weeks ago that Virgil would only ever speak when spoken to if a human was in the room. The last time he’d spoken out of turn before today had gone...poorly, and had led to them making the decision in the first place.

“They are both very quiet, they’ve hardly said a word in all the months I’ve had them.” Both borrowers flinched, wondering exactly how long the poor borrowers had been experiment subjects for her. “Funnily enough, unlike you two, they haven’t told me their names, so I simply call them subjects 01 and 03.”

Marissa brought them out of the house, and Virgil looked through the mesh to the outside world. For humans, absolutely nothing had changed, but Virgil caught a glimpse of a bus driving by one of the busier streets, the side emblazoned with an ad promoting “Tinies for sale.” Borrowers, or “tinies” had become the latest craze, and Virgil’s stomach turned at the reminder of how doomed his kind had become.

Marissa got into her car and quickly placed the cage in the passenger’s seat before she started the engine and began driving.

As they pulled out of the driveway, Virgil saw how Patton wrung his hands. He took them in his own, rubbing soothing circles onto the back of his hands.

“M-Marissa, did… was there ever a… a ‘subject 02?’” Patton asked softly.

She hummed in response. “Could you repeat that, Patton? You know it’s difficult to hear your voice in the car.”

“Was there ever a ‘subject 02?’” he asked again, lifting his head to speak loudly. “You almost called us 04 and 05, so you’re going… in order.”

“Ah, sadly she didn’t make it.” The words sent a chill down Virgil’s spine. “Poor thing must have had a weak heart. One of my interns found her in a corner of the cage she shared with 01 at the time. It was one of the only times he spoke, besides shouting the types of things Virgil used to shout before.” She laughed, and Virgil contained a growl, tightening his grip on Patton’s hands. “He told us that she simply dropped one day, and he couldn’t do anything to help her, besides give her company I suppose.”

“Were they… related or anything?”

“Nope, I bought all three separately. It was a real shame about 02, though. She was the only one who would actually speak at all during our experiments. 01 barely speaks at all, and 03 gives very little information when he’s alone.”

Virgil bit his lip, and couldn't help but hope they were okay - hope, ha, look at him, thinking there’s hope to be had in this place - or at the very least, determined to survive.

Chapter 7: The Other Borrowers

The rest of the car ride was quiet. Marissa was too focused on driving to the lab to speak to them, and Virgil and Patton weren’t exactly willing to go out of their way to make conversation with each other while she was around.

Finally, Patton felt the car park, and his heart settled into his shoes. They were really going to see the unlucky ones. The ones who had no happiness, or choice. He swallowed thickly as the carrier was picked up, and he looked out through the mesh to try and see what they were about to walk into. He kept a tight grip on Virgil’s hand, needing to feel his physical presence, and the two watched as Marissa brought them into a very plain looking but modern building. Just by the way the facade looked, Patton could tell there would be no holes in the walls unless a human made some on purpose.

They were brought into the building, and the sound of quiet chatter and the clip of pointed heels against tiled flooring filled their ears. It reminded Patton of the buildings he’d seen in the movies he and his siblings used to sneak out of the walls to watch when they had been kids, like a hospital.

“What’s that you got there, Dr. Fafner?” A man asked as he approached Marissa, walking with her easily.

“My pets, I’ve told you about them.” She raised the carrier just a bit. “A friend gave me the idea of encouraging subjects 01 and 03, and I think these two can help.”

“Really? Interesting theory, you’ll have to tell me if it works out or not.” the man replied. “I’ve a meeting to get to in a bit. Let me know what happens.”

“Will do, Dr. Eld,” Marissa said pleasantly and the other human went off in a different direction.

Virgil squeezed Patton’s hand, and he looked over at his mate. Virgil’s eyes were wide, jumping from one thing to another through the mesh like he was unable to focus on any one thing. Patton wished he could do something to comfort him, but also knew he wouldn’t calm down until they were back home and away from Marissa and all the other humans she associated with, so he just pulled him close.

They were brought into a quiet room with clean walls and floor, and Patton’s eyes widened at the huge cage embedded into one of the walls. It was about five times as wide and twice as high as their cage at home, though not quite as deep. It looked like it was only about a foot or so from the front to the back of the cage. It was separated into a few ‘rooms,’ and had sectioned off areas with stairs and little platforms that would aid in getting up to one of the higher levels. It looked both nice and horrible in Patton’s opinion, as it was large, but it was too clinical, too prison-like. There were no colours or anything soft to sit or lay on, nothing to distract the poor borrowers, unless walking counted.

He caught a glimpse of movement, but before he could focus through the mesh, Marissa was lifting the carrier to a table off to the side of the huge cage, jostling the two inside without much warning. The door was unzipped and opened, to Patton’s surprise, and he took a step forward.

“Wait in there while I get the other two.” Marissa’s order seized Patton and he froze in place.

She turned around, and the two borrowers watched as much as they could from their spot. Virgil attempted to walk towards the opening of the carrier but Patton squeaked and gripped his poncho tightly, pulling him back before he was too far away.

“One, Three, come to the top door, now.” Marissa’s tone was harsh, the same as when they had been recently bought and Virgil would refuse to listen to her threats or orders, and it seemed Virgil remembered those times as horribly as Patton did by the way he shuddered.

Two small figures began moving from within the cage until they were where apparently the ‘top door’ was, where Marissa opened it to grab the two with little trouble.

“I brought my pets with me to see you two. They are here to help me understand why your results have been dropping lately.”

“If you asked us like sentient creatures, you’d probably get an actual answer,” one of the borrowers said in a low pitched monotone. His detached air spooked Patton, then two voices gasped in pain and he jumped.

“What have I said about talking back like that, Three.” The harsh clipped words of their owner caused Patton to shake, remembering when that very tone was a precursor to Virgil’s punishment.

Marissa dropped the two new borrowers just inside the carrier before closing it again behind the two and Patton heard her footsteps recede. She was leaving them alone, and he couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a terrible thing.

He looked at the two quickly, flitting from one feature to the next. It had been a long time since either of them had seen another borrower, which hadn’t been unusual before they’d been discovered by humans, but it felt like an extra big deal now, interacting with someone their own heights for once. However, he was more concerned about their status as ‘lab rats’ than he was about much anything else.

The first one his eyes settled on was the taller of the two. He was almost Virgil’s height, if just a tad shorter. He wore glasses fashioned in a similar way to Patton’s, wrapping around his head, the back of which were partially hidden by dark blond hair. He wore a dark shirt with a bright piece of fabric attached to the front, like one of those… ties! Like a tie from those human shows of business people. He looked tired, and thin like Virgil, and the urge to hug the stranger suddenly almost overwhelmed Patton.

The other was about his height, and he kept his head down, his mess of dark brown hair shadowing his face. He wore a dark poncho, but unlike Patton or Virgil’s, his didn’t have a hood. Patton spotted frayed stitching around the neck when the second borrower turned his head to look at the first, and concluded it might have had one once, before he’d come to be in this place.

The four borrowers stood inches apart, looking each other up and down before Virgil finally spoke first.

“How long has she had you?” he asked, nudging Patton to sit down with him when he seemed to notice how he kept shifting his weight.

“What month is it?” the taller one asked, and Patton realized he had been the one to speak before. He sat, nudging at the smaller one as well until they were all four sitting, still keeping their distance from each other within the portable cage.

“April, I think,” Patton answered, shaking his head. “She doesn’t keep a calendar in our room. We have a clock, but that’s about it.”

“Right… I’ve been here for about nine months then. J-” The taller one was interrupted by the smaller borrower.

“I’ve been here a year exactly.” His voice was raspy, as if it wasn’t used often, and he cleared his throat a couple times.

“Oh, right! Uhm, we should, probably introduce ourselves?” Patton straightened up and gestured to himself. “My name’s Patton. This is my mate, Virgil.” He slipped his hand into Virgil’s. “Mar… She only told us that she calls you two…”

“One and Three, yes,” the taller one answered with a sigh that sounded generations old and weary. “She had never asked for our names, even if she swears up and down that someone had when we were bought.”

“No one fucking did.” The hiss from the shorter borrower made Patton snap his attention to him, and only then did he notice the faint scar running down the left side of his face. “They never asked for our names, they didn’t care.”

“She… asked us.” Patton squeezed Virgil’s hand once for reassurance, receiving the comforting squeeze back. “I’m sorry. That you’re here. It must be awful here.”

“We are fed and given time to rest, but… Yes, I agree, it is… awful,” the taller one said uncertainly, his eyes glancing around their current cage. “Though it might be subjective between who has it the worst off.”

“Yeah, we’re all in hell, nothing new,” Virgil spoke up. His old snark coloured his words, and it soothed Patton’s soul to hear the familiar tone once again. “Now, before we continue griping, I’d rather know your names instead of thinking of you the way the humans have been.”

“Ah. Right. Uh, apologies.” The taller borrower brushed his hair out of his face. “I’m Logan, and this is…” he gestured to his companion to introduce himself.

The shorter borrower licked his lips, his mis-matching eyes glancing from Logan to the other two as if gauging them somehow. “Janus.” He shook his head like he had said the wrong thing. “Jay. I’m Jay.”

“Jay and Logan. Got it.” Patton nodded to himself, unsure if he was putting their names to memory for if they ever saw each other again, or to make sure someone remembered the ones who had been sold as experiments.

“What do the humans make you do?” Virgil asked, dragging one of his legs to his chest to rest his head on his knee. “The Witch told us she uses the same tactics as with us.”

“If by ‘same tactics,’ you mean isolation and threats, then I suppose yes,” Logan answered with a detached air, and something about his tone twisted Patton’s gut.

“Only isolation and threats? No…” Patton glanced at his twisted ankle. “No physical harm?”

“Mostly bruising, and in the beginning there were a lot of broken arms,” Jay said weakly. “Humans don’t know how to pick up smaller beings without choking them, it fucking seems.”

Virgil snorted wryly. “Yeah, they don’t.”

Patton winced, remembering all the bruises he and Virgil had gotten from the humans manhandling them like they were Barbie dolls. At one point Virgil had practically been a living bruise, his face the only non-bruised area on him.

“What has the human done with you two? You’re supposed to be pets.” Logan’s disdain coloured his last word, his nose wrinkling like he had smelled something awful.

“She’s used my mate against me every time I step out of line.” Virgil’s words were dark, and Patton leant against his side, shrinking into himself. “She learned pretty fucking quickly my weakness is him, so I have to be a good pet or else she takes it out on him. But I could follow the orders to the letter and she’d still find some reason to hurt him, or separate us to punish Pat.”

“What a bitch.” Jay’s mismatched eyes gazed at Patton with an intensity that looked like he was trying to figure something out. “What does she do?”

“She tried isolation, at first,” Patton answered, keeping his attention on Jay for a couple more seconds before looking down and away. “But that only worked to make me follow her rules. To get to Virgil, she started hurting me, squeezing me until I could hardly breathe, or shaking me until I felt sick.” He pressed harder against Virgil’s side as he spoke. “Now, I don’t know, I think she takes pleasure in getting a reaction out of Virgil without warning us if we’ve done something wrong. I’ve broken my leg a couple times now, or twisted my ankle because of her.” He winced as he moved his injured leg a bit.

“We seemed to have been taken by a real demon,” Logan sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. Everyone else simply nodded, and the carrier lapsed into silence for a bit.

Patton looked at the others sadly, wondering if this was really their lot in life: to be pets or lab rats to horrible humans until they were dead. Was this what they were going to be for the rest of their lives?

Prior to being taken, Patton had always had a simple view of what his life would be: Find love, maybe have kids if he and his partner wanted them, and find a nice, roomy home where the walls were perfect for navigating with few to no rats or big spiders or other borrower enemies that could kill them. He’d try as many new foods as he could, without ever being found by the humans and live a happy, peaceful existence for as long as he could. And for a while, it had been going great. He had met Virgil while he was passing through the house he’d been living in, and instantly fell head over heels. They stayed together, and moved to a larger house nearby with a good spacing in the walls and flooring for quick roaming and with no pests. The human living there was a fantastic cook, and had never bought pre-made meals, not even mixes. Patton still remembered the time he’d been able to taste the homemade frosting off a freshly baked cake when the human had left the kitchen. It was the sweetest thing Patton ever had.

Patton and Virgil had never really talked about kids, knowing it was impossible for them unless they happened upon an orphan, but he was still as content as could be, living next to the warm kitchen and falling asleep in Virgil's arms every night in their cozy nest. Then humans found out about their kind, and everything Patton thought his life would be was shattered. Now, he could only hope that he and Virgil would be able to stay together, for however long they managed to last under the human’s thumb. 

The future had never looked so depressing.

Chapter 8: The Man

Marissa was annoyed when Virgil and Patton reported back to her about Jay and Logan – though they were careful not to give her their names – because it had not been what she wanted to hear.

And an annoyed Marissa was a dangerous Marissa.

Patton was held in her grip, his face screwed up in pain as he struggled as hard as he could, gasping shallow breaths.

“Why will they not cooperate?” she demanded, and Patton couldn’t help the whimper that came out of him.

“We’ve told you! Everything! Who would want to cooperate with humans like you? They know they’re going to die here, what’s the use!” Virgil cried, and when Patton cracked an eye open he saw his mate visibly shake. “Let go of him!”

“They have known since subject 02 died that they would be there for the rest of their lives,” Marissa snarled and Patton saw white dotting his vision. “Why are they not cooperating now?”

“I don’t know! Have you tried actually asking them? They can answer for themselves!” There was a catch in Virgil’s tone, and Patton knew it was because of him. “He’s going to pass out if you don’t stop!”

The hand tightened for a moment and all Patton could do was whimper in pain breathlessly, the dots growing before the pressure was mostly removed. He coughed and gasped in as much air as he could, feeling weak and limp in the human’s grip.

Marissa exhaled like a dragon puffing smoke through their noses, and took Patton away from the home cage that Virgil was still in, walking towards the empty ketchup cage. Neither borrower made a noise of complaint, knowing the separation would be longer if they did, but he couldn’t stop himself from yelping in pain when he was dropped into the smaller cage and landed on his injured foot with more weight than he meant to. He crumpled to the bottom of the bottle, the flare of pain whiting his vision for a moment.

He heard the cap screw shut above him before she brought him back to sit beside the cage.

“You will stay separated for the rest of the day, and then maybe I’ll let you have Patton back for the night.” 

Patton looked over to the cage to see Virgil’s entire body shaking, his hands in fists by his sides, and knew his mate felt just as useless as he did in that moment. He caught his gaze, and gave a weak smile to try to reassure him. Neither looked up as Marissa huffed and strode out of the room, the door shutting behind with a click.

Patton looked around the inside of the bottle. It was the first time he had been dropped into it; most of the time it had been Virgil’s punishment to be separated from him. It felt too enclosed and gave him an uneasy feeling in his gut. Rather than continuing to look around, he sat up, stretching out his injured leg while pulling his good leg towards his chest, resting his chin against his knee, and sighed. The two had learned it wasn’t worth the energy to move the bottle, or to try and get out, or to yell a conversation to one another. Patton still remembered the time Virgil had been hoarse for days after being separated and moved across the room so far from Patton that they had to scream to be heard. They would just have to wait until Patton was returned to the cage to speak again.

Looking over to their cage, he saw Virgil sitting cross-legged, facing him with his forehead pressed against the plastic. Without a word, Patton brought a hand up and laid it against his own plastic cage. He hated how, no matter how close they were, they were still so far away.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

The two saw Logan and Jay on and off for a couple months before Marissa stopped bringing them to her work. Virgil was relieved that they no longer had to go to the labs, which only made him feel more guilty every time he thought of how the experiments took their toll on the other two.

“Do you think they’re dead?” The question shocked Virgil back to the conversation at hand, and he snapped his attention to Patton. His expression was neutral, a dead look in his eyes, and like every time he saw it, Virgil stifled a shudder. It was becoming rarer and rarer to see the light return to his mate’s eyes, to get him to really smile or laugh genuinely.

“I… I don’t know,” he answered honestly. The two hadn’t looked any worse than normal the last time they saw them. They were thin and looked tired, sure, with eyebags that were on-par with his own, but it didn’t look like they were about to drop. “I don’t want to think about that.”

“Do you think that lab will just replace them? Without a second thought to who they had been?” Patton’s words lacked any emotion and it broke Virgil’s heart.

He shook his head, and took Patton’s hands in his own. “Let’s not think like that,” he said again, catching his mate’s eyes and hoping, praying to see the man he fell for all those years ago still fighting to live. He feared the day Patton would become completely broken down, nothing more than a shadow of his former self, and by the way he spoke and looked, that day seemed to be moving closer and closer.

They heard the doorbell ring at that moment, but the two ignored it at first. The doorbell ringing didn’t always mean that someone was going to see them. It could be a salesperson, or delivery, or whatever else Marissa needed someone to notify her that they were outside her house. What did catch their attention, however, was the surprise in Marissa’s voice when she opened the door.

“Thomas! What are you doing here?”

He heard another voice say something, but couldn’t figure out what this ‘Thomas’ person wanted or how their owner knew them.

“Sure, come in. Are you planning on staying for long?” Virgil heard the door close and footsteps coming towards their room.

Both borrowers looked towards the entryway as Marissa and a man walked by, heading towards the bedroom that Virgil had been well acquainted with the first couple months of living in the house. The man was shorter than her, with short, dark hair. Virgil couldn’t tell much else in the brief pass the two humans made past their doorway.

“I don’t plan on staying too long. My mom just thought it’d be good to visit the rest of the family before diving back into work. I’m going to visit Damian next.”

“Ah, so this was Auntie’s doing. Well, I was just getting ready to head out with friends, would you like to join me?”

“Where are you going?” Thomas asked, his voice a bit easier to hear now that he was only across the hall.

“Oh, a club. It’s been a while for me, my work has been very stressful, you know how it is.”

“Yeah, I guess. What do you do again? I know it’s something with biology…”

“I study animals, Thomas. And it’s biology and psychology.” Marissa said. Virgil frowned. “So, wanna come? It’s been a long time since we even spoke a little.”

“Ah, maybe not. Clubs aren’t my scene. You have fun though, yeah? I don’t want to intrude on you relaxing or anything.”

Marissa hummed. “Okay, if you’re sure. Then could you feed my pets? I don’t think I’ll be home in time.”

“Oh, you have pets?” Thomas sounded surprised, and the borrowers heard footsteps again. “What are they?”

“I’ll show you,” she answered, and the two of them walked into the borrower’s area.

The new human’s eyes went wide in surprise as they landed on the cage with the two of them sitting off to one side. Virgil stared at the man hard.

“Oh, you have… oh.”

“Virgil, Patton, meet my cousin. Thomas, these are my little cuties.” Both winced at her words, but Virgil caught the strange look on her cousin’s face. “Say hello to him.”

Patton took one of his hands out from Virgil’s to wave mechanically. Virgil simply nodded.

Thomas looked at them for the longest time before turning to look at Marissa, but he didn’t speak.

“Be good, listen to Thomas, I’ll be back later,” Marissa said before she turned to her cousin. “Their food should be in the fridge. Just heat it up for a minute and serve it. Make sure they eat the entire thing, specifically Virgil. He might just wither away if he doesn’t eat his portions.” A pointed glare at Virgil made him flinch away, ducking his head.

“Uh, yeah, sure.” Thomas had the smallest frown on his face, barely there.

“Sorry for leaving just as you got here, you really have terrible timing.” Marissa waved a hand idly before she left the room. “You know where the bathroom and kitchen are, correct? This isn’t your first time here, right?”

“I’ll find my way around, Mar. Have fun, relax a bit. We can catch up and stuff in the morning.”

The room was quiet as they listened to Marissa walk towards the entrance, and soon after, they heard the front door open and shut. Patton let out a quiet breath, but Virgil kept an eye on the relative of Marissa’s, who was simply watching them with an unknown expression. It was a mix of curiosity and a couple other emotions Virgil couldn’t quite place.

Thomas walked further into the room, looking around. Virgil stiffened and watched the human with narrowed eyes, holding Patton’s hand tightly. His mate only looked at him, then at the human, before he shrunk back, shifting until Virgil was able to wrap his arms around him easily. The human barely noticed, taking a chair and sitting down where it was, several long feet away from the cage.

“I didn’t…” he started speaking, suddenly, trailing off with his brow furrowed. “Can’t believe she has borrowers.” He seemed to be more speaking to himself than to the two in the cage. “She’s terrible with kids and with pets, how’d she think she was ready for something like…” He turned his attention to the two. “Uh, so, your names are Virgil and Patton? She didn’t name you, did she?”

“No.” Virgil spat the word out like poison. “Our parents named us.”

Thomas nodded slowly. “Yeah, she’s not that creative anyway. How long has she had the two of you? Did she get you together or separate?”

“Together,” Patton answered, his tone measured and careful, like if he said the wrong thing the two would be punished – it wouldn’t be the first time. “Almost… it’s been over five months now.”

“Huh.” The human said nothing else, his gaze distant before he shook his head. “Ah, I’ll, uh, leave you two be. I’ll be back for dinner, okay?”

The two nodded in response, watching Thomas get up and make his way out of the room. Patton leaned into Virgil’s chest, and watched as Thomas looked back at them for a moment before leaving.

Chapter 9: The Conversation

The relative of Marissa was strange, Patton noticed. Instead of just giving them their food – some kind of soup with a few pieces of vegetables and long, thin noodles – and leaving them, Thomas brought his own dinner into the room with theirs and sat down a bit of a distance away.

Virgil looked suspicious, but it had been a long time since he had been anything else.

“What are you doing?” he asked, not going near their food as it was very, very carefully placed down in the cage.

“Uh… eating?” Thomas looked confused by the question.

“Why are you eating here?” Virgil rephrased. Patton watched, a little curious about the answer as well. They had never eaten with a human before, not even when they had been in the shop.

“I…” The confusion on the human’s face grew and he looked at the two in the cage. “I thought we could all use the new company. I’m not really a fan of eating by myself, anyway. But, if you don’t want me here, I could eat elsewhere.”

He moved to pack up his dinner and Patton felt a spark of fear suddenly course through him. What if he told Marissa what happened and she hurt them for not listening to her relative! The two had been being pretty good recently at not incurring her various punishments, even if his slight limp had yet to go away, and he wasn’t eager to invite another round of suffering.

“Uh, no! You, you can stay!” he cried out, wincing as he heard the fear in his voice. “Do, do what you want.”

He felt Virgil’s eyes on him, and Thomas looked at him, uncertain.

“I don’t want to make either of you uncomfortable,” he said, and Patton heard Virgil scoff under his breath.

“It’s, uh, it’s okay. Really.” He tried for his best smile at the human. “We just weren’t expecting it.”

“What does Marissa normally do, then? Give you food and then leave?”

“Uh huh,” Patton nodded. “We don’t mind so much, it means she won’t be doing someth-”

Virgil clapped a hand over Patton’s mouth and suddenly dragged him over to the soup. “What are you doing, don’t tell him anything that he might tell her,” he hissed into Patton’s ear, dropping his hand and grabbing a soggy, warm veggie, handing it to him.

Thomas watched the exchange quietly before he went about eating his own meal, some kind of sandwich, Patton noticed. The three ate in silence.

When they were finished, they were silent for longer, watching each other through the clear cage walls.

“Do you two know what creatures Marissa works with?” Thomas asked suddenly, and the two borrowers snapped to attention.

“Why do you want to know?” Virgil asked.

“I’ve… Well, I’ve been hearing rumours her lab is one of the ‘tiny’ labs that have been popping up around the country. Experimenting on borrowers inhumanely. I’ve gotten a few whistleblower emails about her workplace. I thought I’d check out if she was really doing something like that or not.” He spoke matter-of-factly, and Patton was almost certain he was being honest.

“What do you do?” Patton asked.

“I, well–” Thomas laughed, rubbing the back of his head and looked around the room. “Up until a couple months ago, I didn’t really do anything. I was getting a degree in Communications, but, well…” he shook his head. “I’m now a sort of non-profit shelter founder. Along with a couple friends, I guess.”

“A shelter? For what?” Virgil asked.

“Borrowers in bad places,” Thomas replied. “The amount of emails the shelter got about my cousin’s work was concerning, and now after seeing you two… I don’t like it. I was really, really hoping to be wrong.”

Something akin to hope fluttered in Patton’s chest, and he glanced at his mate, eyes wide. He turned back towards the human, playing with the edges of his poncho. “What would you do if she did work with borrowers?”

“Well, if we got enough evidence, my team could rescue them and bring them to the shelter where they wouldn’t be treated inhumanely again.”

“Why?” Virgil crossed his arms over his chest, staring up at the human with narrowed eyes. Patton nudged him lightly but was ignored.

“It’s wrong.” Thomas spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Your kind is intelligent and sentient and just like my kind. The only difference is we’re massive compared to you. The decision our government made regarding your treatment was horrible, and my friends and I wanted to find a way to save as many as we could. We’ve learned first-hand that not all humans are very kind.”

“Understatement,” Virgil scoffed.

“There are!” Patton blurted. “She… She does experiments on other borrowers. She does almost the same to us, too.” Patton’s eyes went wide, clapping both of his hands over his mouth in surprise, and the room went quiet.

Thomas watched the borrowers, who stared at him back, both sides seeming to try to gauge the other’s reaction to what Patton just came forward with. Virgil moved until he was in front of his mate, and Patton couldn’t see his expression.

“What does she do to you?” Thomas asked.

“What are you going to do if we tell you?” Virgil shot back. Patton kept quiet, the fluttering hope in his chest making him more eager to talk than he probably should be.

“Well, like with her work, if I get enough evidence of abuse, I can get a warrant and take you both away from here and put in the shelter. I can’t do anything right now, unfortunately.” He looked genuinely sad about that, and Patton felt a twinge of sympathy for the human. “If I just tried to take you now, she’d be able to sue me for theft, and we don’t have enough support or money to handle that. But, if we get a warrant and licence to take any borrowers she’s been in contact with, we’d be in the clear with no validity for a suit.”

Patton… barely understood whatever Thomas was speaking of.

“If… you get your evidence, how long would it take to get us and the other borrowers out?” Virgil’s tone was hard, but Patton heard a flicker of hope beneath his words. 

Thomas sighed, glancing towards the door quickly. “Anywhere from days to weeks to months, to get all the paperwork in order. Because of the stupid law, the hoops my team and I have to go through take longer than they need to.”

Virgil turned to look at Patton, his mismatched eyes searching his face. Patton only smiled, pleading with his mate as he dropped his hands to grab Virgil’s arm. If they could save Jay and Logan if they were still alive, or anyone who Marissa had under her control, Patton wanted them to be saved.

He seemed to understand what Patton was trying to impress upon him, but before he could open his mouth to say anything, they all heard the front door open. None of them had realized the time and jumped to action.

“Thomas, I’m back,” Marissa called, and soon they heard her walking down the hall.

“In here, Mar.” Thomas cleared his throat and grabbed his empty plate and glass, heading out of the room. “You’re back earlier than I thought.”

“I have work in the morning,” she chuckled. “I wanted to relax, not have regrets in the morning.”

“Oh, right, hah.” Thomas sounded so awkward. “Did you have fun?”

“Yes, yes. And you?”

“Oh, had a quiet dinner. Decided to eat with, uh, your, ah, bo– tinies you have,” he said, and the two humans walked away from the room. Patton couldn’t hear them as they left, but it didn’t matter anyway. 

He turned Virgil around and shook him slightly, energy flowing through him like he was a child again. “Do you think he can do it?”

“Woah, Pat.” Virgil grabbed him and looked cautiously back at the door of their room. “Maybe. But you heard what he said, it could take a long time to actually happen.”

“We just have to wait until then. We’ve been doing good so far, haven’t we?”

Virgil’s expression softened and he cupped Patton’s face. “You have no idea how fucking relieved I am to hear that.” He surprised Patton by chastely kissing him, but Patton didn’t mind much. He wrapped his arms around his slight mate and kissed him back.

They pulled away and rested their foreheads together. “We just have to give that human whatever evidence he needs, and then wait for him to save us and the others,” Virgil whispered, and Patton nodded.

For the first time, the fluttering of hope inside him grew stronger.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

They had one day to speak to Thomas before he was going off to see his other relatives, according to what he had told Marissa. Luckily the woman had work, and that would give them several hours without interruption.

Virgil did most of the talking, explaining all that Marissa had done to them, as well as what they knew she and her scientists did to the borrowers in her work.

Once he finished talking – Thomas had recorded the entire conversation on his phone to send to his team – they again asked how long it would take to get results.

“I don’t know. We have you two as witnesses, your spoken testimony, and the other whistleblower emails.” Thomas sighed, brushing his hair out of his face. “We should have enough to get a warrant quickly, but it still could take days at the fastest.”

“But you can get us all out?” Patton asked quietly, his eyes large and wide behind the frames of his glasses.

“With luck on our side, yes.”

Once that was done, the human simply waited for Marissa to return, spent the rest of his evening with her, and left the house after dinner, saying he had to meet with their relative Damian.

Marissa entered their room with their dinner – some kind of sandwich it looked like – and soon left without another word. After the excitement that Thomas had brought, along with the newfound hope, Patton was a little surprised by the return of the silence.

After dinner, she came back.

“My little cousin told me you both spoke to him,” she said casually, grabbing the plate she had put down in their cage, and Patton felt Virgil tense up beside him. “What did you talk about?”

“Uh, he was mostly talking to us,” Patton said after a brief hesitation, grabbing Virgil’s arm quickly. “But he asked us how long we’ve been with you and stuff like that.”

“Really?” She raised an eyebrow and he tried not to flinch. “Sounds like little Tommy. He always loved to talk to anything that would listen.”

She rolled her eyes before turning towards the door. Patton held his breath.

“Goodnight, you two.”

“Night,” The borrowers echoed automatically, and let out their held breaths the moment she stepped around the corner and left.

The waiting game began, and Patton hoped they’d be able to survive however long it would take to get saved. The hope he felt grew, and he found himself becoming more animated, something he was certain by the way his mate would look at him with a soft expression Virgil noticed.

.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.

It happened around two weeks later while Marissa was at work. Virgil heard the front door make a strange noise, and he was on alert immediately, grabbing Patton before he could think and pushing him towards a corner. They were deathly silent as they listened to what was happening outside their room.

The door was opened, though not in the usual way, and they heard voices speak quickly and quietly from the front entrance. Virgil strained his ears, but couldn’t tell what they were saying, and resigned himself to waiting to see what would happen.

Footfalls approached them, and the two borrowers watched as unfamiliar humans carefully peered into the room. They wore matching shirts with a curious logo on the front– two letters, TS, inside an outline of a house with vines and leaves wrapping around the outline.

“I think I found them. Just like Thomas said,” said one of the humans in a low voice.

Another, smaller human actually entered the room, and smiled at the borrowers gently. “Hey, hey, it’s gonna be okay,” they said in a slightly higher pitched voice than the other person. “We work with Thomas. He told us to tell you that.”

“Are you here to get us out of here?” Patton asked over Virgil’s shoulder.

The smaller person smiled and nodded. “Yeah. Do you want help out of there? We have some safe bags to keep you in until we reach the shelter.”

“Anything to get us the hell out of here,” Virgil responded, keeping a tight grip on his mate.

“Okay, uh, Joan, you have longer arms than me,” the smaller human said to the first. 

They were helped out, the human called Jaon somewhat tilting the cage so the two borrowers could walk into the bag without being grabbed. It was very, very plush on all sides in case the bag was jostled around, and the humans picked it up and left as quickly as they could, carrying Virgil and Patton out of the house that had been their forced home for months. From inside the bag, they heard the humans walking, a car door opening and shutting soon after, and the quietest of sighs from one of the humans.

Patton crumpled in relief, and Virgil couldn’t help but feel the same. He didn’t want to jinx anything, so he kept his mouth shut and thought about anything else, holding his breath until the car started and they began to drive far, far away from that awful building.

It was quiet for a moment, until Virgil heard his mate give a weak, breathless laugh, turning in the near-pitch black of the inside of the bag to face Virgil. It was contagious, his laugh, and Virgil found himself unable to stop from joining in, a touch of hysteria and relief mixed into his laughter for good measure.

They were really free.

Chapter 10: The Shelter

Patton fell asleep at some point while they were in the bag, curled up contentedly around Virgil. It felt like he had been running for hours and now he could finally stop, yet his heart was still hammering. By the time he woke up again, the sound of the car engine finally stopped, and he could just barely hear his mate’s soft, dearly missed snores. He hadn’t slept deeply since they had been caught.

“Okay,” Joan’s voice came from almost above them, and Patton felt the bag shift a bit. “We’re here.”

“Seems we got back before the other team,” the higher voice – Patton wasn’t sure what they’re name was, no one said it – said with a chuckle. “Looks like you owe me ten bucks.”

“Yeah yeah, I’ll give it once we let these two out,” Joan said. The bag was picked up and Patton felt it swing just a bit. “Tell the twins to be ready.”

“On it!” Already, the other human’s voice was much farther away.

Patton felt them walk a short distance – well, short for a human – before entering a building of some kind. It sounded like it had wooden flooring, and he held tightly to Virgil, who was still asleep.

They were placed down and the bag was opened, and Joan’s face leaned in a little too close for comfort, though they backed away quickly with a smile. “You both okay?”

Patton nodded, and gently shook Virgil awake. He woke with a start, and Patton rubbed his back reassuringly.  “Woah, Virgil, it’s okay, we’re safe.”

“Wh… Right.” Virgil shook his head and sat up, rubbing his face and looking around.

“C’mon out, guys, we have some friends who’ll be able to help you adjust to the shelter,” Joan said with a smile, and after a bit of hesitation, the two left the plush bag to step onto a shiny, wooden desk in a room that looked like a human study.

Patton looked around at everything he could see. There was a lot of wood in the room, including on the floor and walls, and the furniture was a mix of wood and whatever comfortable material humans used and plastic. It looked rather nice.

“So, a couple things first. Thomas does live here, because he needs to be here at all times to make sure that Tiny Control doesn’t try to get in. He also makes food for everyone here. I’ll leave the rest of the house-warming to some folk that are more your size, but don’t be afraid to talk to anyone in the building. There’s just one condition.”

“What’s the condition?” Patton asked.

“You can’t leave the building,” Joan shrugged, looking apologetic. “You can move around the house freely, but leaving it isn’t an option until Thomas and the rest of our team can ensure your safety.”

“That’s fine,” Patton reassured. He wasn’t sure he’d want to leave the building at all, but was relieved to hear they wouldn’t be trapped in one room, or worse, another cage.

“I hear new voices!” a young man’s voice boomed, and both Patton and Virgil jumped as they turned towards the sound. A hook wedged into the wood, and the top of a head appeared over the lip of the desk, wavy looking red hair bouncing with their movements.

A borrower scrambled up with an excited grin on his face, bounding towards them with enough energy to fit a large dog. He laughed happily and swept Virgil first into a swinging hug, catching Patton’s mate by surprise, before he deposited him down and did the same to Patton, who, while surprised, let out an unexpected laugh as well.

“It’s so good to see you’re both unharmed!” he enthused, looking back to where Joan was, who had taken the bag off the desk and was heading off. “Thank you for your hard work!”

“Don’t mention it, Roman. Give your spiel, and I’ll let you know when Thomas gets back with the other team.”

“Right, right. We should maybe wait for my brother, he gets pissed whenever I start without him,” the borrower – Roman, Patton filed the name away – walked towards the lip of the desk where the hook was still lodged and looked down, his hands on his hips. “Hurry up, lazybones!”

“Oh shut it, I’ll take my damn time if I want to!” a voice, similar in cadence but higher in pitch, called from below.

“But you’re missing meeting the new rescues!” Roman called down, waving wildly behind him at Patton and Virgil.

“Fine, fine, fine,” the other voice grunted and Roman moved away from the lip to allow the other borrower to get up without hindrance.

Patton blinked several times when the second head popped up, glancing from Roman to the one just getting up on the desk. They looked identical, the same hair, the same green eyes, and the same face shape. It was only when the second was in full view that Patton could tell who was who. They wore vastly different clothes, Roman a white, red, and gold ensemble, and the other black and green.

The darker clothed borrower noticed Patton’s stare and cackled. “Ain’t never seen twins before, huh?” he asked, grabbing Roman around the neck and pulling him into a headlock as he walked over towards Patton and Virgil, who pushed Patton behind him.

“Remus, you ass, let go!” Roman struggled against his twin’s hold before he slipped out, almost falling backwards but catching himself. “Ugh, apologies, my brother is aggravating at best.”

“That’s, uh, that’s fine.” Patton said, looking over his mate’s shoulder.

“Anyway, let’s start with introductions!” Roman said, sweeping his arms wide, and from beside him, his twin – Remus? – did the same. Patton couldn’t tell if he was mocking him or not. “My name is Roman, at your service, and this pain in the ass is my twin brother.”

“Remus. So which duo are you two? The pets or the labrats?”

Roman looked affronted and whirled around to whack his brother in the stomach. “What the hell, man?!”

“What? I wanna know if they were fucked up by bad pet owners or by scientists!” Remus danced around the next attack his brother threw with a laugh, dashing the rest of the way to reach the two who couldn’t seem to move. “So? Which ones are you?”

“Remus we don’t just ask that!” Roman yanked his brother away, wrestling him to the floor and sitting on his, struggling to keep upright as he looked apologetically at Virgil and Patton. “I must apologize, he likes to speak without thinking.”

“Oh, that’s what you think! I think very hard before I speak,” Remus called from below his brother. “But fine, what’s your names, newbies? I don’t wanna just continue thinking of you as… Emo and the Squirt.”

Patton and Virgil glanced at one another, then at the twins, before Patton was the one to answer. “My name’s Patton, and this is my mate, Virgil.”

“Lovely to meet you both!” Roman seemed to try to sound welcoming, but with his brother wiggling under him, his voice was wobbly at best. He rolled off of Remus and stood up, surprisingly graceful. “Now that we know each other, let us both formally introduce you to the Tiny Shelter.”

Remus got up, and the two of them extended their arms in a sweeping, grand gesture, and it looked well-practiced.

“Founded by Thomas and ourselves, this is a place where borrowers are safe from the human’s laws over us,” Roman began. “Thomas and his human friends figure out the legality and all that, and my brother and I provide any help they may need on how to actually listen to us, and any requirements the rescues may need.”

“No cages, no strict clothing regulations, no human supervision,” Remus continued. “The entire house, and the walls, are open, nowhere is off-limits–”

“–unless it’s been deemed too dangerous by both us and Thomas.”

“–yeah, unless something stupid happens. The humans make food and leave it in areas we can reach, but there’s no obligation to eat with them.”

“It’s like what life was like before our species got found, but with the added benefits of knowing we won’t have to borrow for crumbs, and anything we need, we just need to ask to be given the proper materials so we can make everything ourselves.” Roman smiled brightly, and Patton felt his lips twitch upwards. “Honestly, it’s a lot easier this way. Plus, no human’s allowed to pick you up if you don’t want to be touched, and you can decide if you want to be seen by the humans around or not. Only thing is, you can’t leave the house because while the laws don’t apply here, they still apply out there.”

“It sucks shit, but I’d rather be in here than out there again,” Remus commented, casting a glare towards where Patton could only assume was where the nearest part of outside was. “But you can always find me or my obnoxious brother if you need to, and don’t want to talk to a human. Some of the other rescues do that, given what hell they went through under the humans that took them.”

“You’ll probably meet everyone in the coming weeks. A lot are still very shy,” Roman explained, just as  a door opened in the distance. “Ah, that must be the other team!”

Quick footsteps approached the room, and the four borrowers watched as Thomas and another human stepped into the room. The two humans took notice of who was in the room already, and both smiled in relief.

“Joan and Talyn were successful. That’s good to see. Are you both okay?” Thomas asked, nodding to the other human who had a bag similar to the one Patton and Virgil had been in.

“Okay,” Virgil answered. He sounded distracted, as the bag was put on the desk, and the human opened it for whoever was inside.

“You’re safe now,” the human said, his voice very soft and deep. “You can come out, there’s some others you’d probably like to see.”

Patton separated from Virgil towards the bag and waved inside, squinting to look into the dark to see a couple figures moving.

“Oh thank the gods,” a vaguely familiar voice said, before Patton saw the details better and smiled widely as Logan and Jay walked out of the bag, Jay supporting the taller borrower.

“You’re alive!” he cried, hurrying over to the duo and wrapping his arms around them as best he could. They huffed in surprise, but allowed him to embrace them both.

“Surprising, I’m sure,” Logan replied as they separated, leaning against Jay. Patton was about to ask if he was okay, but just then the other borrowers made themselves known.

“Welcome to the Tiny Shelter, you two!” Roman announced loudly, gaining all those in the room’s attention. The humans left a moment later, and Patton heard Thomas mutter something about ‘papers’ before he turned his attention back to the brothers as they went over the house rules to Logan and Jay. Honestly, the ‘rules’ were barely registering in Patton’s mind as he clutched Virgil’s hand tightly. They finally had their life back.

Chapter 11: The Epilogue

One Year Later

Virgil waited in a line at the little opening in the wall adjacent to the countertop in the kitchen. The group of borrowers watched as Thomas put down a plate of freshly microwaved pizza pockets, along with a sign cautioning them that it would be hot if they tried to eat immediately, then turned to leave the room so they could get their lunch. One of the waiting borrowers was brave and left the hole before Thomas even turned away. The human caretaker simply smiled warmly and raised a hand in a three-finger wave, then slipped quietly away.

The second he was out of the room, Virgil and the others who had been waiting hurried over to the plate and examined the three pizza pockets. They all got to work splitting the food up, careful of the steam when they broke through the top layer.

Virgil pulled out a piece of cling wrap from the bag under his poncho and got enough lunch for him and his mate, who said he wanted to try to finish fixing up his own poncho, following in Virgil’s patching idea. Last Virgil saw, Patton was using a soft gray patch for the large hole that had worn itself over the arm, and he’d been about halfway through the stitching.

Once he was sure he had enough for them both, while not taking too much, he sent a two-fingered salute to the others who decided to eat out there on the countertop and headed back into the walls.

When they had first gotten to the shelter, they’d been so weak it had been nearly impossible for either to climb anywhere on their own, and they had been given a space on the ground floor to live in and make their room. It had taken several weeks for the two to get their upper-arm strength up enough to climb a string and hold their own weight, and luckily they’d had lots of time to practice, and both Roman and Remus were enthusiastically encouraging about anything any of the rescues did that was improving their autonomy.

Virgil smirked to himself and shook his head as he made his way through the inside of the wall to his and Patton’s room, which he managed in under half an hour. He heard talking as he approached, and soon he was close enough to recognize Logan’s voice.

Both Logan and Jay visited them often, just as often as he or Patton would visit them in their rooms. Logan’s room was in the walls between the hall and the Main Office, a fair distance from anyone else, while Jay lived just a wall away from them but still out of the way of the others.

“Thank you,” Logan said just as Virgil reached the entrance, seeing his mate holding out a large piece of fabric to the other.

“You’re very welcome, Lo!” Patton said with an easy smile. Virgil cherished every bright expression now more than ever, especially when a smile truly reached his eyes, causing them to practically shine in the dim light.

“Hey.” Virgil got their attention quickly and Patton’s shining smile beamed directly at him. It didn’t matter how many times he’d seen it, the sight still nearly overwhelmed him, and he smiled back. Patton leaped up and hurried over to give him a chaste peck on the lips, taking his bag without a word between them.

Logan cleared his throat and stepped towards the door, a faint smile in greeting on his face as he slipped by the two. “Thank you again for your help, Patton. I’ll talk to you again later.”

“Of course. Drop by anytime! It’s always nice to talk to you too!”

“See ya, Logan. You got food in your place, right?” Virgil asked as their friend was about to walk off.

“Yeah, I’m good. Goodbye, Virgil,” Logan said, then disappeared into the darkness further into the wall.

Logan and Jay were still adjusting to their returned freedom, and Virgil couldn’t blame them. From what he knew, they had been monitored 24/7 in the lab. Their food and water needs were used against them to force cooperation, and they had been usually held by humans with no restraint whatsoever. The experiements they had been forced to undergo were horrors that both were eager to take to their grave, and the scientists hardly even cared if they almost died, because they saw them as expendable subjects, and they could easily get new ones to torture. Virgil very much hoped that when Thomas and the humans had freed them that they were able to stop that lab from taking any more innocent borrowers. Both Patton and Virgil wondered if other humans knew what atrocities had been done to them and so many others.

“Oooh! Virgil, you got back quick, these are still warm!” Patton’s voice broke through Virgil’s thoughts. Patton was sitting down on the floor, carefully opening the cling wrap. “What are these again? Pizza somethings?”

“Pizza Pockets, according to what Roman’s told me last time. Seems like the humans can buy them in bulk.” Virgil shrugged and sat across from him, and they began eating, careful not to make too much of a mess of the melted cheese and the sauce. If they made a mess, it would take ages to clean, and getting new stuff would be a hassle, even with the help of the humans.

They ate in comfortable silence. There wasn’t much to talk about at the moment, and it had been a while since they had simply sat together and done absolutely nothing. Ignoring the different shades of the fabrics and bedding covering the floor of their room, it was almost like their original home, back in that first apartment, before borrowers were discovered. Before they’d known the full capacity of humanity’s cruelty. Before they’d made friends with their fellow former-captives.

It was difficult for Virgil to decide if he were that he and Patton had been found by humans. On the one hand, they now knew that not every human was completely evil. They had new friends now, friendships with people they never would have met before they were caught. Patton made friends with just about any living creature it seemed, something Virgil had not known about his mate until they had been rescued from Marissa’s horrible house, and he never would have learned this fact if they hadn’t been brought to the shelter.

But on the other hand, if they had never been caught, Virgil and Patton would not have spent months in a cage, being punished for stupid things and ‘trained’ like brainless animals. Virgil would not have had to see Patton get hurt because of him over and over, every time he resisted or hesitated even for a moment.

Virgil shook his head, forcing himself to leave that train of thought far, far behind him. He would do better to focus on the present, or the future. He and his mate were safe, they had close friends in Logan and Jay, and – though Virgil would never verbally admit to this – they found Roman and Remus to be great people to be around. Hell, Thomas was probably the best sort of human Virgil had ever known could exist, even though he never spent much time in the same room as the human, and the others were at least good in his mind.

He was startled when arms snaked around his waist, a body soon pressing up against his back. He quickly relaxed easily into the embrace, leaning his head back to rest against Patton’s shoulder, and let out a soft hum.

Both knew they would stay like this for hours, even if their arms or legs fell asleep. They would soak up each other’s presence as they lay hidden in the walls, but knowing explicitly how safe they were – something they were still getting used to even a year after being rescued – just because they could. For the first time in about two years – and in fact, his entire life – Virgil no longer felt worried for whatever came next.

Notes:

For the past, like, half a year/full year, I've been using this part to encourage people to comment using the LLF Comment Project, but I'm not entirely sure if to put the full message up, so I'll put most of it up. Anyway, I still highly encourage yall to communicate with me about my story! I really love and get giddy when I get that notification of a comment on a story, and it can be any of the following!
Feedback

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• “<3” as extra kudos
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Series this work belongs to:

• Part 1 of Borrower AU