Chapter Text
Streetlights illuminated falling flakes of snow which dissolved onto wet pavement. This was always how the streets of North Bridge looked the day before Thanksgiving. It had been years since I had been home, and I felt a wave of nostalgia wash over me.
Pulling into the long, sloping driveway of my childhood home, I felt my heart pound in my chest, and more than just out of a sense of wistfulness. This was also the first year I'd be home for the holidays without Lucas. Seeing my sister's car in the driveway, I steeled myself against the barrage of inquiries about his absence. Though I wasn't sure what would be worse: having to fend off twenty questions or none at all and instead having my family's pitying gazes set on me for the entire trip.
Already on the way there, without Lucas there to talk me down, I'd gotten into several road rage-adjacent confrontations before remembering that if you picked fights in semi-rural Massachusetts, you were as likely to be shot as run off the road.
Everyone had thought that Lucas and I would get married. Including me. Things hadn't gone that way, and it was entirely my fault. Now, I'd have to endure the consequences.
I felt worst for my sister Alexa's two boys, who had seen Lucas as an uncle.
I parked my car and stepped out. The trees outside already had lights on them; no doubt my mom had made my sixty-plus-year-old dad get up onto a ladder to put them up, instead of waiting for me or my brother-in-law to arrive to do it. Even without the meticulous landscaping, the house was grand, though still inviting in a way that only large colonial mansions in the Northeast seemed to be.
I awkwardly heaved my large check-in-sized aluminum suitcase which weighed more than half what I did up the steps. I realized I had rarely had to suffer the consequences of my own overpacking, as in all of my recent past visits, Lucas had been there to handle the heavy lifting.
I reached out to knock on the front door. It opened before my knuckles made contact with the wood.
"Danny!" A voice bellowed my childhood nickname, as I was pulled into a strong hug. It couldn't be anyone other than Michael, my sister's boyfriend from high school turned husband and father of their two children. I was a surprise baby, and Alexa was much older than me, so Michael had been in my life for nearly as long as I could remember.
As he pulled away from me, I was reminded again of why I'd harbored a crush on him for so much of my young life. At nearly 40, he still had that strapping, all-American quality to him, with thick jet-black hair and broad-shouldered build. I'd always thought of him as extremely tall, though he was really *only* 6'2 or so. That was really nothing exceptional. Especially these days.
Still, that was a good bit taller than any of the other men in my family, and I could see easily how it had shaped my tastes.
Maybe if Michael hadn't been such a strong influence on me, I wouldn't be in this mess. I might not have longed for something different from my ex.
I didn't have much time to dwell on this, because a flock of figures swarmed into the foyer. My mom, dad, and sister descended upon me, my mom and Alexa both inundating me with questions and excited chatter that drowned each other out.
"I missed you guys," I said after I was released.
"It's been too long, Daniel. Don't do that to us again," my mom said, as she actually wagged her finger scoldingly, “oh I’m so happy that you’re here. And that you’re coming to Florida with us! Oh, it’ll be so wonderful to get out of this miserable cold.”
My mom, delighted to have the family together for the holidays, had booked us all plane tickets and hotel rooms to go to Miami right after Christmas, and stay there until after New Years.
In Alexa’s eyes, I could see an unasked question. Of whether I was okay, being here without Lucas. Verbalized or not, I wasn't about to open that particular line of questioning.
Fortunately, my nephew, Bryce, came downstairs.
"Hey, Uncle Dan,” Bryce said, and I was reminded that he was no longer a little kid tearing around the house. He was almost done with college now, a man grown at twenty-one years old. I was seven when Bryce was born, which made our relationship more like brothers than anything else, especially with how often my own parents had watched over him for Alexa and Michael.
"Hey, Bryce, how's school?" I said as Bryce clapped me across the back.
"Not bad, though you know I'm no bookworm like you."
"Not a nerd, you mean. I know, I heard it," I said.
My face was at chest level to him. Bryce released me.
"Wow, I forgot how tall you are, kid. You had to have grown since the last time I saw you," he was even taller than his dad, though with a lankier build.
"Nah, not since high school, Uncle Dan," Bryce said, "you should see Jaden, though! He's really sprouting up."
Jaden was Bryce’s nineteen-year-old brother. The nine-year gap between us meant he was as much my little brother as he was Bryce’s.
"Oh yeah?" I said, "he's a senior this year, right?"
"Yeah, he's waiting to hear back from colleges now," Michael said, “obviously, we’d prefer him to stay in state for the tuition, but he’s pretty determined to go to Temple or Drexel.”
“To be close to his Uncle Dan, isn’t that nice?” my mom said, to me, “He really looks up to you.”
Michael and Bryce looked at each other with amused expressions.
There was a creak at the top of the stairs.
"That's him now!" Michael said.
The impact of feet on the stairs was substantial. The old house seemed almost to shake with every step.
Jaden's legs and feet came into view first. He had to turn his socked feet sideways just to fit on the steps. The rest of him just kept coming. At every point where I thought that we'd see Jaden's face, there was just more and more of his legs and then of his torso.
His shoulders finally became visible below the first-floor ceiling. He was already at the lowest step that he could be.
Jaden actually had to duck to continue descending.
“Is that Uncle Dan?” came an extremely deep, and at first unfamiliar voice.
His curly jet black hair brushed against the ceiling as he came down the last few stairs.
At least when he reached the bottom of the stairs, he could stand unimpeded. Still, from my perspective, it didn't look like there was all that much room between his head and the ceiling.
"Uncle Dan!" he said in that deep voice, and this time I recognized my nephew’s voice, though modulated and amplified as if through a bass-heavy speaker system.
My feet left the floor. In an instant, I was wrapped in his extremely long arms, and lifted up into the air, crushed against this giant man’s torso.
When Jaden did finally set me down, I felt off balance.
"J-Jaden?" I said, in disbelief. With him standing in front of me now, his size was even more overwhelming.
He was broad-shouldered like his dad, but placed on a much longer, larger frame. His freckled face was beaming down at me, the only suggestion that this behemoth was my formerly skinny kid nephew.
"Puberty, right?" Michael said, apparently entertained by my reaction.
“Puberty?” I said, looking to my sister. She shrugged her slim shoulders, barely five feet tall herself. We weren’t that dissimilar in height. I was only 5’5”, shorter even than our dad.
“Must be Michael’s genetics,” she said.
The rest of my family were merely smiling blandly at my reaction. No one seemed to be unnerved by Jaden’s exceptional size. Still, I calmed my nerves, attempting to play it cool.
“Ha ha, Uncle Dan, you’re even smaller than I remember!” Jaden said. With one gigantic hand, he pat me on the head.
“Who are you, and what have you done with my nephew?” I said, pushing his arm off, amazed at even the thickness of his wrist. I couldn’t even wrap my own hand around it.
This elicited a laugh from Jaden and the rest of my family.
“Look, even your hand is super tiny!” Jaden said. He’d allowed me to push his hand away, but then grasped it in his own and then lay his palm flat against mine.
My fingertips didn’t even reach the edges of his palm.
I pulled my hand away.
“Wow, Jaden, last time I saw you, you were just a few inches taller than me,” I said, trying to regain my composure, “what have these guys been feeding you?”
“Everything. Anything. He eats everything in the house,” his lankier, 6’4” older brother said, his head barely at Jaden’s shoulder, “he’d eat the coffee table if you salted it a little.”
When I looked back up at Jaden, he was smiling as well, but his eye seemed to hold a knowing twinkle.
“We’re just about to eat. Dan go take your things upstairs, I have you in your old room,” my mom said.
I reached down and picked up my suitcase again, grimacing at its weight and the thought of dragging it up the stairs. Then the weight was relieved, the suitcase lifted out of my hands.
“I got it,” Jaden said.
His hand didn’t even fit through the handle, just three fingers. He picked it up like it was filled with foam and feathers as he started up the stairs.
Shouldering my messenger bag, I followed as the rest of the family dispersed to set the table.
Jaden again had to duck, and I felt myself irrationally irritated.
The upstairs hallway looked narrow with Jaden’s broad form blocking my view, my eye level somewhere in his mid-back.
When we got to my old bedroom, Jaden had to duck to avoid hitting his head on the doorframe.
“Jeez, Uncle Dan, you never were a light packer were you?” Jaden said, as he set my luggage down on the hardwood floor, where it made a substantial thunking noise despite the ease with which he'd carried it upstairs, “your clothes are so cute and small, I feel like you wouldn’t need such a big suitcase.”
The suitcase looked like a child’s version next to him.
I hadn’t slept in my childhood room since before college. Most of my stuff had been moved or stored, but the single bed and framed Hogwarts House posters remained. Ever since I had been dating Lucas and been bringing him home for the holidays, we’d been put up in Alexa’s old room, which had a double bed, and was connected to this one by the bathroom.
“They were going to put me in here, but Grandma and Grandpa saw me, they figured there was no way I’d fit in that bed,” Jaden said, “you’ll fit just fine though.”
“All right, I got it, height jokes are very funny, Paul Bunyan,” I said, “your dad said that you applied to some schools in Philly?”
“Yeah! I’d way rather live there than anywhere in Virginia. I had so much fun when I visited you and Uncle Lucas!”
I tried to keep my expression neutral at Lucas’s name. Jaden wasn’t wrong to call him his uncle also, because that’s what he’d been to him, but it just made my guilt about what had happened between us that much more salient. My selfishness affecting my own life I could handle; causing Jaden to essentially lose a family member was another beast entirely.
I must have winced, because Jaden immediately said, “Sorry, Uncle Dan.”
“No, it’s fine,” I said, shaking my head, “I remember that. I’m glad you had a good time.”
That had been back when Jaden was a teenager. His parents had taken Bryce to go and look at colleges, and Jaden had no interest in being dragged along, so they’d dropped him off with me and Lucas. We were still very much in our gay party phase, and had no idea what to do with a high schooler or how to adjust our plans. So, for the most part, we hadn’t. We took him to a drag brunch and brought him to a friend’s Rocky Horror-themed party. Jaden had initially seemed understandably shocked by all of it, but his reactions seemed more awestruck than out of discomfort.
I remembered laughing with Lucas after Jaden had left. Jaden had actually exhibited some jealousy towards him. Jaden wanting to be the one to sit next to me instead of him. Jaden wanting to plan excursions for just me and him, without Lucas.
I felt the tension in my neck relax a little.
“I remembered wanting your mom and dad to include me and to treat me more like an adult when I was that age, so, I’m glad it was a nice memory for you,” I said, “I wasn’t sure at the time if that was the right thing. Before that, I had sort of thought of you as this shy little kid.”
Jaden nodded. He fixed his gaze on me. His gray-green eyes sharp with a determination I’d never seen before.
“Well, Uncle Dan” he said, taking a step towards me. The room felt even smaller as he approached.
I wanted to take a step back, but found my feet planted in place.
“Maybe you’ve noticed…” he said, drawing closer, blocking out the overhead light as he loomed further and further over me.
It became increasingly apparent that he was probably three times as wide as me. He was always more built than his brother, now he was actually bulky, his chest muscles jutting out and straining his shirt.
I felt my hand tremble and willed myself to make it stop.
“But I’m not a kid anymore,” he said.
When Jaden was standing within a foot of me, he lowered himself down. Bending at the waist, further and further, until our eyes were level.
It was the closest our faces had been since my arrival. The stubble on his face was well-developed, and made me self-conscious of my own smooth face.
He spoke the next words softly, but the deep tenor of his voice meant every word was crystal clear.
“And I. Am. Not… Little.”
I shuddered involuntarily.
Distantly, I heard my mom calling everyone to dinner. I wondered how long she had been calling for before I had noticed.
Jaden stood back up to his full height, a smile returning to his face.
“Dinner! Perfect, I’m starving,” he said jovially, as if nothing had happened, “you coming?”
“I need to change,” I said, quickly.
“All right, see you down there,” he said, exiting the bedroom, before turning back to me, his form filling the doorframe.
“If you need anything, I’m staying in there,” Jaden said, pointing at the bathroom that connected my room and Alexa’s old room, “you know, like if you needed something off of a high shelf. Really, you should probably ask if it’s on even a medium-high shelf.”
He grinned widely before leaving.
Dinner passed uneventfully, and I felt that I could forget Jaden’s behavior. Though it was hard to forget his size given how he ate as much as everyone else and then some.
The drive had left me exhausted—again it was one of the tasks that Lucas had handled for me in the past—so I retired to bed shortly after.
I emerged downstairs on Thanksgiving Day. Turkey was already baking in the oven, a cacophony of activity in the kitchen as my mom and Michael made preparations.
“He rises from the dead!” my dad said from the living room, “come watch the parade with us, Dan.”
My dad, Alexa, Bryce, and Jaden were sitting on the couch. The television was showing footage of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. The attendees looked cold in the apparently blustery weather in New York. Here in Massachusetts too, judging by the thin layer of coarse snow that now layered the deck outside.
I went to sit at the empty spot on the couch next to Jaden.
He sat with his legs wide apart, arms draped across the top of the sofa on either side of him, taking up even more room than necessary. He was wearing sweatpants that came most of the way up his ankles and a t-shirt that was tight against his torso. I wedged myself against the arm of the sofa.
The usual procession of slow-moving inflatables and lip-synced performances followed, and I watched impassively. A cup of coffee was pushed into my hand by Alexa, which I sipped gratefully.
I froze mid-sip.
On the screen, behind the newscasters, was a huge, decidedly un-balloon-like leg and shoe.
“… And it looks like Nike brought out a special guest for its float this year,” the newscaster was saying.
The footage cut to a wide view of the parade.
As tall as any of the balloons, was a man walking slowly along, waving at the crowd down below. His shoe alone was nearly the size of a truck. He was wearing prominently Nike branded sweats and tank top, apparently unbothered by the snow.
The coffee cup was still planted against my lips. I don’t even think I was breathing.
“It’s Titan football player Anthony Karty, one of the first to be sponsored by Nike,” the female newscaster said.
“This is the first year that any sponsor has had a Titan in the parade, isn’t that right?” the man said.
“Yes I believe so,” she said, “since the Titan sports league wasn’t even started until this past fall, so these professional sponsorships have taken a while to get off the ground.”
Titans. Men with a particular gene which, at or around puberty, grew them upwards of fifteen feet tall, and even allowed them to change their size at will. It was incredibly rare; something on the order of less-than half a percent of men in the world. Despite the rarity, or maybe because of it, I was fascinated by them. It had only been a couple of years since the first few cases had sprouted up, literally.
The very knowledge that there were men that physically impressive, consumed me. I’d tried to suppress it, but Lucas had known me better than anyone, better maybe than myself. He’d realized how I felt. That I wouldn’t be satisfied with anything else.
So he’d left.
“Oop, it looks like the winds are getting the better of Spongebob Squarepants,” the newscaster said. The camera shakily tracked the yellow balloon as it swayed dangerously towards the buildings.
The crowds attempted to part, but the sidewalks were packed.
The handlers were struggling to get the balloon back on course.
Another gust of wind violently tugged the balloon upwards.
Multiple of the handlers lost their grip. Except one man, who’s hand appeared to be caught in the rope. He was pulled upwards into the air, screaming.
Anthony Karty, a handsome black youth, nimbly broke step with the rest of the Nike float, and approached the wayward inflatable.
He wasn’t nearly as tall as the float. I knew for a fact that most Titans were around twenty to twenty-five feet at their maximum heights.
With one hand, he grabbed a handful of the leads and got the balloon under control.
With the other, he grabbed the man who’d gotten caught up in the leads. By that point, he’d risen almost to the level of Anthony’s navel. Anthony's long fingers encircled the man's waist.
He lowered him gently to the ground, pulling the balloon along with him.
The male balloon handler stumbled to his feet, looking up at Anthony in awe.
The camera switched to an angle down on the ground, amidst a crowd that had stopped trying to flee, and instead whose attention was now on the giant man.
Anthony looked down at the camera.
“Looks like my friend Spongebob here had a little too much to drink last night,” he said, flashing a smile, and clapping the balloon across the back as if it were another giant, like him.
This elicited cheers and laughs from the crowd.
“Well, there you have it folks. Disaster averted thanks to Titan athlete Anthony Carty. Now let’s turn our attention to the next performance…”
As the camera cut away, I slowly lowered my mug down.
Bryce, my dad, and my sister didn’t seem to have any reaction to the footage that was shown. Part of me was glad, because it at least meant that no one knew the exact nature of why Lucas and I didn’t work out.
The other part of me was confused. Didn’t they have the least bit of suspicion, an inkling even that there might be a Titan in that very room with them?
I dared to look up at Jaden.
I was shaken to see that he was already looking down at me, a knowing look in his eyes.