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Author's Chapter Notes:

I wanted to try something a little different.

This first chapter is mostly set-up.

Graham hated being carried like this.

At only a few inches tall, it was a challenge for Graham to get anywhere without assistance, and he relied firmly on Liz to provide it. Usually, whenever Liz picked him up and carried somewhere, it was with the utmost care and grace. She would hold out her hand before her, allowing Graham to sit comfortably on her palm. She would take slow and deliberate steps to cause as little disturbance as possible for her tiny passenger. It was still terrifying being held that far up in the air, but over time, his trust in the woman had grown to the point where he could approach something resembling relaxation, and he would just enjoy the ride.

Sometimes, however, Liz would be in a hurry.

That was the case today. Graham had been sitting on the coffee table in front of the sofa, leaning against an empty glass that still had a little bit of juice in it, as he watched some game show from the 80’s on TV. Writing on the surface of the table only a few feet away, Liz had been hurriedly finishing up some homework that she really should have finished days ago, though Graham had decided to stay silent about that.

“Shit,” Liz had suddenly said. Graham looked over to see Liz checking her watch. She had jumped to her feet, snatched Graham up in one hand and her homework in the other, and was now carrying him swiftly into her bedroom.

He really hated being carried like this. The warm embrace of her fist all around him was actually quite tight and uncomfortable. It was a little difficult to breathe. His arms were also pinned to his sides, which was always something that nearly caused him to hyperventilate. He couldn’t help but think about how she could just open her hand and he would fall without having anything to grab onto. Finally, when she held him like this, she didn’t bother holding him upright. She just held him at her side as she moved, causing him to be practically positioned sideways. 

All he could see was the ground far beneath him, advancing so much faster than he would have thought possible. It was making him sick. He shut his eyes tight and just let her carry him, hoping that it would be over soon.

Her fist slowly uncurled around him, and his eyes opened wide in terror, images of him plummeting to the distant carpet flashing through his mind. He scrambled about in her palm, trying to find a solid handhold, before he realized that she was holding her hand above her dresser for him. Graham looked up at her face. She looked down at him with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. Blushing furiously, he pushed himself off her palm and landed on the wooden surface of her dresser, standing in one of the few clean spots that wasn’t full of clutter.

“Are you okay?” Liz asked. She opened one of the drawers beneath Graham. The vibrating rumble beneath him was like standing on thunder, and he dropped to his knees to keep his balance.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he said. From the drawer, Liz pulled out a pair of enormous socks that Graham would have been able to fit inside several times over, and she took a seat on the nearby unmade bed as she pulled them on. 

It was Monday, which meant that Liz had her morning/afternoon history and math classes. This meant that Graham would be by himself, again, bored out of his mind and desperate for something to do. At least on Tuesdays and Thursdays, her classes were at night and he was tired enough to go to sleep. Maybe he could persuade her to leave behind one of her trashy vampire books. 

“You gonna be all right by yourself?” she asked him. It was a question she always asked before she left for class, probably out of habit. Graham wasn’t even sure she listened for a response. It wasn’t like she would stay behind if she said no. At best, she might tell him to suck it up. At worst, she’d decide to take him along, and he’d spend the day stuffed inside her purse or her pocket, both of which were claustrophobic nightmares. 

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” Graham said, speaking loudly enough for her to hear his tiny voice. “Do you think maybe you could—“

“Oh, I almost forgot,” Liz said, not seeming to even notice that she had interrupted him. She started putting on her shoes. “Sharon’s coming by today.” Graham’s stomach lurched at the name. “You know what that meeeeans,” she said in a mock sing-song voice that was devoid of emotion, staring at her shoes as she tied them. He sighed.

“I have to stay in the drawer?” He looked down at his feet, fully aware of the giant hollow space beneath him. He loathed being in her sock drawer. It terrified him. She would sometimes put him in there if she thought he was being bad. Usually, though, it was her go-to hiding spot to keep him out of sight of anyone that came over.

“Yep. Sorry, I know you hate it.” She stood up and started darting around the room, grabbing her bag and various books that were scattered about. “She’ll be in and out, though, she’s just getting a book I borrowed.”

“You don’t have to put me in the drawer,” Graham said, with an obviously hopeful tone in his voice. “She won’t even come into this room, right? She’ll just be in and out. I can just hide when she comes.”

“Nope. Sorry, not taking the chance. You know her. She’s nosy. Besides, I don’t know when she’ll be over. I might even get back before then. I’m just making sure.”

“But Liz, I can—“

“Graham,” she cut him off and fixed him with an icy stare. He knew right away what she meant. Don’t push it. He remained silent. She walked over before him, looking into the mirror that was affixed to the top of the dresser. There were various makeup products scattered all around Graham, and she quickly and skillfully grabbed them and gussied herself up. “How do I look?” she asked.

He drank in her appearance. The enormous sight of her still tended to intimidate him, even after all this time, but he couldn’t deny that she was gorgeous. She always had been. Her dirty blond hair had that “stylish bedhead” look about it. Her eyeliner gave her an almost exotic look. She was dressed in just a simple T-shirt and khaki shorts. In Graham’s eyes, she was one of those girls who could look good wearing anything. He found himself wishing (not for the first time, not even for the hundredth) that he was normal-sized again. He wanted to do something manly like throw her onto the bed. They’d make wild and passionate love to each other. She’d decide not to go to her classes at all, they’d just stay locked in each other’s embrace all day, and—

“Graham?” Her eyebrow was raised again as she stared. He shook his head to clear it.

“Uh, yeah, you look great. Like a goddess!” She rolled her eyes and pulled her bag over her shoulder. At any rate, she no doubt looked better than he did. He wasn’t actually tall enough to see himself in the mirror behind him, and didn’t really feel like climbing up on the jewelry box to take a look. He was sure he was looking scraggly, with long hair and what little facial hair he could grow out, clad in the cheap shirt and pants that Liz had generously (though not skillfully) made for him. 

Graham walked a few steps and grabbed up her keys and held them up to her. She giggled and snatched them up.

“My hero,” she said dryly. “Okay, it’s that time.” She gave him a sympathetic smile, and pointed at the open drawer before him. He looked up at her like a sullen child, then walked forward and jumped in.

The bunched up socks that covered the bottom of the drawer easily cushioned his fall. It was like falling into a bundle of pillows. He lay spread-eagled on the socks and stared up at her. She smiled down.

“Comfy?” Liz asked. He tried to think of something clever to say, but nothing came to mind. She just kept grinning. “Have fun,” she said. He stuck his tongue out at her. She did the same to him. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

“Okay, good--” His view of the outside world suddenly disappeared and slid away. That rolling thunder from before was now all around him. She had pushed the drawer shut, and he was completely submerged in total darkness. “--bye.” 

There were muffled sounds of movement from beyond the drawer. Footsteps, maybe. They receded as Liz moved out of the room. He could just barely make out the sound of the front door opening and closing. 

And now, he was completely alone.

It was impossible to see in this darkness. The design of the dresser made it so that no light seeped into the drawer. Still lying on her socks, he waved his hand in front of his face. Nothing. He let his arm collapse to the side. God, he was already bored. This was going to be a long day.

“It’d be a lot comfier if you were in here with me,” he said.

“What the hell was that?” Not Liz asked him. Graham glanced over at the space where he imagined the voice to be coming from.

“I finally thought up something clever to say.”

“Yeah, but it took you forever. I already left. Wasn’t even that clever, really.”

“Shut up,” he said, smiling at the ceiling. He tried not to think too much about the darkness around him. He tried to not think at all, really. If he let his imagination run wild (something that tended to happen whether he wanted it to or not), he’d immediately start thinking of ants or mice crawling around in the drawer with him. And he wouldn’t even know they’d be there if they really were. It certainly wasn’t a pleasant thought.

He just had to not think about it. He shut his eyes tight (not that it made any difference), and tried to will himself to fall asleep. Of course, he wasn’t tired in the slightest, but he just kept telling himself that he would go to sleep, and then immediately wake up with the drawer being pulled open again. Preferably by Liz and not by Sharon looking for some weed.

Graham always had trouble making his mind shut up, though. It was like a TV that could never be switched off. He’d just be trying to fall asleep and some commercial that he hadn’t seen in ten years would start playing in his mind, and he’d spend the rest of the night glaring up at the ceiling and wondering why on Earth the wife couldn’t just wait a day for her husband to call about the air conditioning.

“Well, it was hot out,” Not Liz said.

“Yeah, but she didn’t have to be such a bitch about it.”

“How was she a bitch? She just asked him to ‘call now’ instead of the next day.”

“She didn’t ask him, she told him.”

“Well, then I guess you can see who wears the pants in that relationship. Maybe he should have ordered some balls while he was at it.” Graham burst out laughing, and the echo of his lone laughter bouncing off the walls made him feel even more alone. He sighed. Clearly he wasn’t falling asleep any time soon. He managed to push himself up so that he was standing on top of the socks, and walked carefully atop the surface.

It was actually more difficult than he would have imagined. It was like walking on the edge of a trampoline, where your leg might slip through the gap at any moment. Of course, at the end of the day, he was still surrounded by soft cotton, so even when he did inevitably fall between a pair, it didn’t hurt at all. Still, he ended up having to crawl to make any kind of progress moving over the field of socks. 

It suddenly occurred to him that Liz hadn’t let him use the bathroom before putting him in here. She usually did. He didn’t want to think about what she would say if she came home to find that he had relieved himself all over her socks. He would need to set up an empty spot. Just in case.

Well hell, there was his activity. As he crawled, he held out his hand, and eventually touched the back wall of the drawer. At least, he thought it was the back wall. He was able to push himself down in between the wall and the bundles of socks all around him, and he began pushing against them, forcing them backward, clearing as much of a space as he could. No matter where he pushed, the socks always seemed to come tumbling back, but he kept at it.

“You’re going to be crushed by an avalanche of socks,” Not Liz laughed.

“You could…give me a hand,” Graham grunted as he pushed.

“What?”

“Nothing.” His face was burning with embarrassment. He really did feel like at any moment, the socks would just come barreling down on top of him. Liz would come home and find his suffocated corpse buried underneath it all.

“I’d probably cry and throw a mini-funeral,” Not Liz said. “Like a hamster. ‘Woe unto Sparky, we bequeath his remains unto the earth.’ Then I’d put you in a shoebox and bury you. Or I could throw you in the trash, I guess.”

“Shut up,” he growled. He finally gave up. He had only made about a tiny inch of space in the corner, but it was enough. He didn’t need to feel any more insignificant than he was. He sat down in the clear area and pressed his back up against the wall.

Graham hated this so much. Now he found himself thinking about what Liz, the real Liz, was doing out in the world. Probably stuck in traffic and cursing at everyone around her. 

He wished he could get stuck in traffic again. He wished he could go to class with her.

He wished things could go back to the way they were before.

---

It was the first time he had seen her since graduation. He was pretty sure she didn’t even recognize him. They had both been in the campus bookstore together, both participating in the national pastime of getting reamed in the ass by college textbook prices, when he saw her perusing the Education aisle. He stared at her perhaps with a bit more slack in the jaw than was necessary, but she didn’t so much as glance at him.

He knew who she was right away, of course, and his heart might have beat faster with excitement.

Liz Buckley. His high school crush. 

He had been fortunate enough to sit next to her in homeroom every single year of high school. The homerooms had been assigned based on the first letter of a student’s last name. As his crush for the girl blossomed, he found himself thankful (for the first time) that he had been born a Booker. 

Liz was just a beautiful person, inside and out. He had never really been an official friend of hers, but she was just the kind of person who was naturally friendly with everyone. Homeroom ended up becoming one of his favorite times of day because she, well…noticed him. She would talk to him, she would ask how he was doing…things like that. After middle school, when he might as well have been part of the wall, it was a refreshing change of pace. 

And yes, the fact that she was gorgeous and was very casually flirtatious did a lot to move his crush along. More than once, she would just grab his hand and squeeze it. He still didn’t know why she did such a thing. He always wondered if maybe she had expected him to do something back, but he just held on to her hand with all the mighty grip of a fish, enjoying the warmth and comfort of it, before she would let go. 

He knew that any feelings he had for her weren’t reciprocated. She was like that with everyone. She even had a boyfriend. But he still took what enjoyment he could out of the whole situation.

After graduation, however, he thought for sure that he would never see her again. And yet, there she stood, her head cocked sideways as she read the titles of the books before her. He thought of all the casually cool things he could do to get her attention. He could just sidle up next to her, lean on the shelf, nod his head, and say “hey” in as deep and sexy a voice as he could muster. He could grab her hand and squeeze it in the same manner as she had done to him. Hell, even tapping her on the shoulder and saying, “H-hi Miss Buckley” in the nasally voice that he sometimes imagined he had might have been better than what he ended up doing: nothing. He just collected his books, paid for them, and left.

As he left the store, he looked back one last time. She still didn’t notice him.

Graham had spent the next few weeks trying to pretend like the whole incident hadn’t happened and just allowed himself to get absorbed in his studies, as he had throughout his entire school career. Fortunately, it wasn’t much longer before they ended up bumping into each other in the halls.

“Ow! God dammit!” Liz grumbled after Graham bumped into her. The book and folders she had been carrying went flying.

“Oh! Um, I’m sorry, let…let me get that,” Graham said, immediately collecting her stuff. “Are you okay? I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

“Yeah, I’m…wait, Graham?” Her eyes grew wide with recognition. “What are you doing here!?” she squealed in girlish glee and pulled him close for a hug.

“Oof! I, um…I go to school here,” he mumbled. He returned the hug as best he could. He felt a smile break out on his face.

“Why didn’t you say anything!?” she asked, smacking him gently on the arm. She took her things from him and just smiled at him with all the warmth he had come to expect from her. 

“Well I…I didn’t know you were here,” he lied. “It’s…good to see you,” he offered. She grinned.

“God, I didn’t think I’d know anybody here,” Liz said. “I’ve been so lonely. How have you been?”

“Good!” Graham said. It was actually true. He loved college, so far. Even though he still had a social shell he was struggling to break out of, the entire experience had been very liberating. “Yeah, I’ve…been good. It’s really different from high school.” 

“It really is,” she smiled. “Oh! Shit, right,” she said, glancing at her watch. “I’m really sorry, I’ve got to get to class, but…we should catch up sometime!” She placed a warm hand on his shoulder. “It’s good to have a friend in a new place,” she said. “I’ll see you around?” He nodded at her, and she walked away, as bouncy and full of life in her steps as always. 

It wasn’t until Graham had gotten to class that he realized that he had never gotten her number. How was he supposed to get in touch with her?

Fortunately, the universe came through on that one. It started raining a bit after class started. By the time it ended, it was coming down in torrents. And of course, Graham had forgotten an umbrella. He cursed repeatedly to himself as he strolled outside, walking quickly to try and get back to his dorm, trying to ignore just how completely drenched he was getting. He was nearly there when a car pulled up alongside him.

“GRAHAM!” Liz shouted. “Can I give you a ride?” He stood in place, staring at her, looking a bit like a pathetic drowned rat. 

“Well, I live just in there,” he said, pointing to the dormitory a block or so away.

“Oh,” she replied. “Well…you want to come over to my place?” 

“What? Why?”

“I’m bored and lonely! And I need a friend!” She gave him one of those really big cheesy grins that showed off every one of her pearly white teeth. Graham looked down the path that would lead to his dorm, and then looked back at Liz. Inside, a voice was screaming at him, “By God, man, just do it, how many chances do you need?” Graham chuckled to himself, and nodded.

“Okay,” he said. “Sure. Yeah, let’s go to your place.” Liz practically bounced up and down on her seat in delight.

“Great! Get in!”

---

Graham woke up. With a happy little smile, he realized that he actually had managed to fall asleep. Perfect. There was nothing quite so wonderful at killing time as a nap.

He opened his eyes, fully expecting to see Liz smiling with all of her gentleness down at him, or maybe lying on a pillow on her bed with her lying next to him…but he was still in the drawer. Darkness was still everywhere. 

Graham slowly got to his feet, using the wall next to him as support. He bit his lip. Well, it had to have been a few hours by this point already. Sharon had no doubt come and gone. Liz would be home any minute. He crawled through the dense field of folded up socks toward the area that he was pretty sure was the front of the drawer. He sat down on one of the bunched up pairs and stared straight ahead.

Liz would open up the drawer any minute now. He smiled at the thought of what she would do. Probably lift him out of the drawer and plant a kiss on his body before taking him into the tiny kitchen to get a bite to eat. He couldn’t wait; he was starting to get pretty hungry. He just had to wait for her to get home and open the drawer.

He waited.

And he waited.

Chapter End Notes:

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