Archive of Our Own ^beta

Louis was wet and cold and tired. Luckily he found an abandoned pale green ceramic teapot on the sidewalk by a park. He’s been walking and trying to avoid getting stepped on for two hours now, so this was Heaven. At least for now.

He grips onto the lip of the spout and pulls himself up, using all his strength. He fell face first into the dark, cold teapot. But he didn’t care because at least it was dry. Curling up into a ball, he shut his eyes and managed to get some sleep with his exhaustion helping aid him.

When he awakens, he notices he’s some place much warmer, seeing as the ceramic wasn’t ice cold to the touch. Curious, Louis peaks his head out the spout and notices a curly haired man washing something in a sink. He starts to turn around and Louis quickly pulls his head back inside as not to be notices. He’s still watching though. From his height of three inches, Louis can tell he’s tall and has green eyes.

But he doesn’t want to be found. At least not yet. So he sits with his legs spread out in front of him and thinks ‘His hair looks like a better place to sleep than this.’ Without intending on it, he falls asleep again.

The second time Louis wakes up, he peers through the same spot and finds the kitchen dark. Taking that as his cue, he crawls out and face plants on the light oak table. He discovers that getting in and out of his little “home” will always result in that happening.

Turning his head to check out his surroundings, he discovers that the table he’s now standing on is a couple feet away from the countertop which has a bowl of fruit on it. He’s hungry and trying to think of a way to get there when he notices the cabinet under the sink is open.

So taking a deep breath, Louis jumps off the table and manages to land safely without getting hurt. It was only about three feet off the ground, but that’s high up when you’re cursed with being three inches tall. He walks over to the cabinet and pulls himself into the drain which has a crack in it small enough for him to wriggle through.

There’s little notches inside the drain, so he climbs those like he would a ladder. Heaving a sigh, he jumps from his tippy toes to get out of the sink and walks over to the fruit bowl. There’s a pot holder sitting on the counter. Louis wipes his hands off on that and pulls and scratches at an apple until he manages to dislodge a few small pieces from it.

When he’s done, he decides it’s too difficult to go back to the tea pot. It’s one thing to get down but a whole other to get back up. So he hides behind a utensil holder and shrinks himself as small as possible and falls into an exhausted sleep. That was a difficult journey.

The next morning Louis sees handsome curly haired guy go to the fruit bowl and stare intently at the apple that had little holes in it from where Louis ripped pieces of it out. Shrugging, he throws it away and goes for an orange instead. Things continue like this for about two weeks. And Louis falling in love with the big stranger over time. But that can’t happen because he’s too small and stranger’s too big.

Next time, Louis uses all his energy to pull a fork from the place Harry keeps them, stabs a banana until he breaks the skin and eats the fruit happily.

Louis couldn’t go this long without getting clean; so at night when the kitchen is dark, he walks across the countertop and stands under the dripping faucet with a literal drop of soap until him and his clothes are clean again.

But one day, Louis is sleeping in his usual spot behind the utensil holder that he’s never seen Harry use when he finds himself being lifted in the air. Frightened, he opens his eyes and is met by a pair of green ones belonging to handsome curly haired guy.

His shirt is hiked up from where it’s pinched between the normal sized man’s fingers. He kicks and thrashes his legs around angrily. “Put me down!” He shouts, although to the person holding him, it sounds like a high pitched squeak.

Instead of being put down, he’s taken through the flat and still in the stranger’s hand as he looks for something. He shouts “Aha!” which hurts Louis’ tiny eardrums. It’s a microphone that he plugs into his laptop, and sets Louis next to it. The man sits across from Louis.

“Thank you for putting me down. That didn’t feel very good you know.” Louis huffs into the mic.

He grins. “Sorry. I was looking for something and found a tiny person hiding behind my stuff. I’m Harry.” He holds out a finger which Louis grasps and tugs at in his way of a handshake.

“Louis. And not so loud. You talk loud.”

“Sorry.” Harry whisper with a smile still on his lips.

“Were you born that way?” Harry questions.

“No. Obviously people this small aren’t like born or something.” Louis lies flat on his stomach with his face near the microphone.

“So how’d you get like that? Were you cursed or summthin?” Harry is looking at him with bright eyes that make Louis almost get the feeling of happiness. But that wouldn’t be right of him to feel that for someone he just met, right?

“Yeah.”

“Woah! Like with a witch and everything?”

Louis nods. “That’s so sick!” Harry’s lying on his stomach now too.

“Shhh. And it definitely isn’t ‘sick.’ You try being three inches tall and living in a house made for a giant.”

“Right sorry. And to be fair, it’s a normal sized house and I’m only five eleven. So how did you get into my flat anyways?”

“That green teapot. I was sleeping and I guess you carried it home.”

“Oh right! I was sending that to my little sister. She eats that stuff up.”

“I swear to god. If you don’t stop yelling I will hit you.” Louis glares at him with his hands covering his ears to get his point across.

“Sorry. So that’s the reason why all my fruit keeps getting little holes in it?” Harry questions.

“Yeah. Can’t get much else with this height.” Louis tells him.

“That is so cool!” Harry gushes.

Louis gets up, climbs up his shoulder, and punches him in the neck with his hands in tiny fists which only feels like little pinches to Harry. Harry picks him up by the waist between his thumb and forefinger and puts him back in front of the microphone.

“Stop manhandling me.” Louis whines into the mic. Harry laughs and the air escaping his mouth almost blows Louis off the bed.

He notices when Louis’ clutching at the comforter as if his life depended on it. Which it kinda did since his comforter was satin and Harry has a loud laugh.

“Geez. I seem to be bothering you more than helping. I’ll leave you alone for now. Do you need anything?” Harry is radiating concern and Louis smiles.

“Food and a bed.” Harry nods with a smile and leaves the room.

He comes back with a shred of chicken that he had from his leftover dinner and a small piece of cheese. “I figured you were tired of fruit.”

“Thank god. Or well thank you.” Louis says and munches happily on the food.

Harry sets a large match box with the top torn off on the nightstand beside his bed. It was lined with a shred of an old blanket Harry keeps stored in his hall closet whenever it’s cold. And two cotton balls as pillows. Louis happily makes the distance over to the makeshift bed on his own. Harry’s looking down at him and since he can’t hear him from far away, Louis shoots a thumbs up from under the blanket.

Harry shuts the door behind him and Louis drifts off to the best sleep he’s had in these two weeks as a tiny person.

A week later, they’re watching a movie when Harry turns his head to where Louis was sitting in the popcorn bowl chewing on a kernel.

“Don’t you want to get bigger?” Harry asks him. He’s been thinking about this pretty much since he discovered Louis.

Louis nods his head.

“Well how come you haven’t tried?”

Louis climbs out of the bowl and pokes Harry’s arm so that he lowers his hand.

Louis spells out “Don’t know how” on Harry’s palm.

“You don’t know how to get bigger?” Harry interprets to which Louis nods.

“The witch lady didn’t tell you?”

Louis shakes his head no.

“But aren’t they supposed to do that? Tell you what needs to happen for you to go back to normal?”

This time Louis talks but it comes out as little squeaks to Harry, so he tells him “Hold on” and comes back with the USB microphone and his laptop.

“Yeah but she didn’t want to because I pulled a prank on her and didn’t apologize. So I was cursed like this. I know there’s a way out but don’t know what it is.” Louis sighs.

“But what if it’s like the fairytales? Where you get a kiss from your true love and bam! You’re back to normal.” Harry offers.

“That’s bullshit Harry. Fairytales aren’t real. Let’s face it. I’m stuck like this forever.” Louis says cynically.

“Just hear me out on this, okay?” Louis looks at him a bit oddly but shrugs.

 Harry lifts his hand up (which Louis was in) and puts him in front of his face.

“Pucker your lips.” Harry orders.

Louis starts asking questions mixed with protests and although Harry can’t hear him, he knows that’s what he’s doing.

“Just do it.”

Louis does it a bit reluctantly and Harry says “Now kiss me.”

He hears a squeak from Louis, so he puts him next to his ear. “How am I supposed to do that? Your mouth is like a fucking ocean to me or something.”

He takes him away from his ear and back into the position he was in before.

“Like this.” Harry lifts him up by his shirt, tells him to purse his lips, and puts them to the line right where his meet.

He sets him down on the couch and after a few minutes, nothing happens.

“Told you.” Louis says disappointedly.

Neither of them feel like watching the rest of the movie now, so they head off to bed. The next morning, Harry wakes up and doesn’t find Louis in his bed like where he was when they fell asleep. He looks around the room for him and has no luck finding him.

He goes into his kitchen thinking somehow Louis possibly ended up there. And he was. Except he was fully grown and not three inches tall.

“Louis?” Harry asks curiously because it looked like tiny Louis. He was wearing the same jeans, same t-shirt, same shoes, and looked the same.

“It worked.” He’s smiling a wide smile full of pearly whites.

Harry goes over and tightly hugs his full sized frame. Louis is the one to pull away first and the first thing he does is kiss Harry’s lips.

“I have to say I like doing this when my mouth actually fits yours.” Louis says when they pull apart.

“We can do this plenty more times now that you’re not so small.” Harry responds before pressing his mouth to Louis’ once again.