Coping Skills and Peppermints pt.2 (G/t)

If Flynn could've been anymore blue in the face from sickness, he was sure he would simply morph into a smurf.


“And here, you'll find the bathroom. All of you boys share, but separated by species, of course. We wouldn't want anyone to be smushed!”

The infamous “I picked you up without your permission because I can” lady, formally known as Mrs. Cassell, informed him, flashing him a slightly yellow smile. He swallowed a cringe.

The past hour he'd been tossed and turned around, the on this way and that, peeing into little foggy drug cups and avoiding long glances from incoming giants, some covered in piercings and tattoos, and others curled up on a sofa, reading quietly or crying. Lovely.

The house seemed to be endless,  boys darting and yelling at every corner. He heard a crash from upstairs, followed by a stream of muffled curses. Flynn assumed they were having a free time, it being 4:00 in the afternoon.

The thing that troubled him the most was that he'd barely seen any humans so far, all the rooms in the house being mostly accommodating for giants. Mrs cASSell Cassel  had informed him that Sunset was built purely on teamwork and recovery. meaning that in order to even get from one room to the next, humans would need “assistance” from our friendly neighborhood giant folk. The only things that were separated were the bathrooms, and beds, because we discourage having our patients sleep in such tight quarters.

He almost laughed.

Still propped up on the plump lady's hand, he glanced into the giants bathroom. The walls were lined with yellow and blue tile, molding at the edges, and large, white tiles spread out on the floor. On one side of the bathroom, 4 showers, blocked by a cheesy bright green curtain, lined the walls. The other side had 3 bathroom stalls coated in a rusty rose color that seemed to be chipping. The closets wall was entirely mad up of mirrors from the middle up, sinks taking up the entire length of the wall. He heard a toilet flush.

“And here is the human bathroom! We have a ladder leading up from the floor so that giant can be more careful not to bump into it!”

She lowered her hand down so Flynn could get a better look.

The human bathroom was caved into the wall, like a flatscreen tv without the actual tv. It kind of reminded him of a dollhouse. The ladder lead a few feet up from the floor, leading to the edge of the bathroom. It was decorated the same way as the other.

She gently drew her hand back away, trailing back up to chest level. The whole upstairs was built like a circle, the bathroom being in the middle, and bedrooms surrounding it. All the doors were propped open.

His stomach flopped as she began to walk towards the third room down the hall, voices spilling out from inside. He looked inside and saw his bed, looking minuscule in comparison to the massive giants dresser.  The room and three giant beds, one on each wall, and in between were 5 small bedside tabled, with small human sized furniture propped up on it. A ladder led up from the floor to the surface.

All of the sudden, an immense crash sounded from outside the bedroom and both Mrs. Cassell and Flynn whipped around to face the noise. Her face had gone pale white, her eyes wide, as if she knew what had caused the terrible sound. She sighed heavily as a muffled scream erupted, followed by more crashes and groans. He heard a staff yelling from outside, along with several panicked footsteps.

“Dean! Dean What did I say- DEAN! Quit running and come back here!! No, no don't knock over that- ugh GUYS?!!!”

Another bang was heard, and more muffled yelling.

‘ Was there a fight going on or something? Oh god.’

He silently snapped his hair tie.


Without much warning, Mrs cASSell plopped Flynn down on the nearest giant bed, clumsily falling over the navy blue sheets that seemed to swallow him.

She stumbled out of the room, dropping his tiny luggage in the hallway outside his door on the floor.

He felt his glasses tumble off is his face into the sea of cushion.

Just as he had been able to sit up, she darted out of the room as fast as her stubby legs would carry her, right down the hallway where the commotion was coming from.

He looked on with wide eyes, crawling towards the end of the huge bed to peer out into the hallway, but it was no use. And to make matters even better, he was stranded on this giant bed without any “assistance” to get down.

‘ Great….’

And to make matters even greater, a large shadow loomed over Flynn, pulling his focus away from the situation down the hall. He flicked a strand of pink hair out of his eyes as he slowly turned around to face the looming 80 foot creature peering down at him. Behind him, were two other giants. And these giants weren't just big. They were BIG.

Defined muscles bulged from their tight tees, their fists clenched tightly so that thick veins traced up their arms. Shiny white smiles gleamed from their lips. He shuddered.

Flynn’s heart began drumming against his chest, his stomach filled with butterflies that fluttered around his sides.

Now he wasn't necessarily scared of giants, but anyone would be intimidated by the sudden appearance of not one, but three massive creatures practically on top of you.

He opened his mouth as to say something, but his tongue might as well have been swollen against his throat. The closest one, who seemed to be personal space- challenged, was still gazing down at him with a smirk. His shaggy black hair and bright green eyes made him seem devilish.

“Well lookie what we have here…..” He purred with a smile, shooting a sideways glance at the two giants behind him, who mirrored his grin.

Flynn’s heart throbbed anxiously, beads of sweat forming at his hairline. He slowly stood up with shaky legs, ready to make a break for it.

“…The first human on team Big Dawgs!”

The dark haired giant howled and high fived the other two, all three of them hooting and hollering. All he could do was stare up at them blankly.

“Wha-… what?”

The giants continued to grin down at him, which soon became rather unnerving. One of them chuckled.

“Team Big Dawgs, it's what we call ourselves, because we are the only room that has never had a human in it, but ayyyyyy now we've got you!”

Flynn nodded and fake laughed nervously, slowly sitting back down and patting around the cushion for his glasses to no avail. How ironic.

‘How long am I gonna have to live with these weirdos?’

Flynn sighed, knowing deep down that it would be longer than he wanted…

They continued to high five each other and laugh, until another loud BANG came from right outside the door.

The giants immediately stopped their steroid induced cheering and glanced at the door, where another “Agh SHIT!” was heard.

The dark haired one sighed and ran his fingered through his hair, and the others went to go sit down.

“Ugh, it's just Dean again.”

Flynn blinked up at him, still hovering above the bed.

“Dean?”

He scoffed. “Yeah, Dean. He's a guy here, got some serious anger management issues. Blue hair. Has a thing with peppermints . These fights usually happen a couple times a week.”

Another crash sounded.

“Ahh…”

“Yeah, and rumor has it he's a huge homo.”

Flynn coughed, caught off guard, and blinked up at him, his face heating up a bit.

“Oh, uh okay. That's nice.”

At least he wasn't the only one….

He spoke up again, flinching Flynn out of his paranoia.

“But I mean, we don't know for sure if he is gay. I mean, this chick comes by every now and then, and at first we all thought they were dating and shit, but she hasn't come by lately. Plus he got caught blowing some dude in the kitchen last month. “

The giant looked away, thoughtful for a second, then without warning he knelt down by the bed and brought his face right up close to Flynn, his hand gripping the wooden frames.

Flynn yelped and steered away, staring mortified into the enormous green eyes staring at him, completely distorting his vision. He could hear blood pumping in his ears as his heart rate flew, getting lost in all the shades of green. He could see his reflection in the glassiness of one eye.

The giant spoke to him in a gruff voice, practically a whisper.

“You're not…gay are you?” He breathed.

His seriousness about such a silly question was almost laughable.

Flynn swallowed and shook his head quickly, trying desperately not to seem as flustered as he was. He said it like it was some kind of a sin.

'Shit…I just lied to a giant….’

Grinning, he stood back up away from Flynn, whose head was spinning.

“Well, that's good news! Hey guys, he aint gay!” He called over to the others. They sighed in relief.

“Uh, what's the big deal about being gay anyway?” Flynn asked nervously.

The giant turned to look at him, a kind expression on his features.

“Oh don't get me wrong, we're not like homophobic or anything. The thing is, if you've been here as long as us, then you know that some people here get desperate. And when I say desperate, I mean sex, which is like, forbidden here at Sunset.”

“The staff are alwaysssssss watching, the blonde giant chimed in.

The other spoke again.

“You see? The more sex that happens here, the more group therapy we get to have about it, and the longer we gotta stay stuck in this hell hole. You follow?”

Flynn nodded again, looking back out the door where World War 3 was currently taking place.

He was so focused on all the commotion and his own thoughts that he didn't realize when his roommates had left him alone there in the room.

Which might have been a helpful thing to realize, come the following situation that was about to unravel.

Flynn was picking at his blue hairtie, lightly tugging at the ends and stuck in a blur of his thoughts, the war outside the room fading into background noise. He was stuck on that god damn bed anyway, being that he'd forgotten to ask someone to let him down.

It was when he heard the voices yelling right outside the room that he whipped his head up to the door.

A punch flew threw the air right outside the room, this time so that Flynn could see the victim, but only a glance at this Dean character.

He grit his teeth and winced as the fist collided with one of the staffs cheekbones, the splitting of skin slicing the air, and in a flash the counselor was crumpled on the ground.

Flynn's eyes widened, gripping his palm over his mouth to stifle a scream at the stiffen body right outside his room.

The floorboards creaked and rumbled with incoming footsteps.

“Dean!! Guys, someone help! Dean, you need to breathe. Get some control-“

Another punch interrupted that staffs sentence, another body hitting the ground. Flynn stared agape at the incident, fear gripping his entire body. Whoever the hell this Dean was, Flynn knew he was dangerous.

The rest of the staff yelled and ran downstairs for more help, numerous boys following suit.

Leaving Dean alone, temporarily.

In the hallway.

Right outside his room.

Flynn heard footsteps, causing trembles to run through the ground and shake Flynn to the core. He heard light chucking, which could have only belonged to this Dean character.

It didn't take long for a large figure to appear in front of the door, though he could barely make out the features, and not seeming to even notice Flynn's presence.

`Maybe he wouldn't see me. Maybe-‘

But he couldn't be so lucky. He saw Dean's boots hit something small and blue on the floor, causing it to slide across the floor and thump against the wall in the hallway.

`My luggage.'

Shit.

His stomach plummeted as he noticed Dean stop in his tracks, his jeans folding over as he knelt down on the ground, plucking up the mini suitcase in between his finger and a thumb.

He brought it up to his face, examining it for a second, before a sly smile crept onto his face, bracing a large tree trunk arm against his thigh to stand back up again.

He stood up right outside Flynn’s doorframe. He froze on the bed, fear exhausting his muscles.

Dean licked his lips and his dark eyes traveled the room, before landing right on Flynn.

He grinned.

Flynn didn't know how to react in this kind of situation. Every nerve in his body was screaming at him to run away from this giant who just knocked out 2 giants with no problem, but he couldn't. He breath was already caught up in his lungs, his legs unmoving.

The trembles in the ground grew more intense as Dean plodded onto the room, never taking his eyes off of the pink haired human. His tight, dark tee shirt stretched around his broad shoulders and stomach.

He stood above Flynn, who cowered back into the sheets, not seeming to be able to unglue his eyes from the figure whose shadow was swallowing him whole.

“Hey there.” He teased in a gruff voice, flashing Flynn a crooked smile.

Flynn just stared up at him with wide, terrified eyes, shrinking back further into the sheets. Dean chuckled.

“Aww, why so scared? C’mere, I'll show you I'm not so bad…”

A yelp caught in Flynn’s throat as Dean reached a hand down above his figure, easily scooping him up before he could try to run.

He pinched the squirming human between a finger and a thumb, just as he had did with the luggage, and smiled down at him, shifting something in his mouth with his tongue.

Flynn was panicking internally. He struggled and squirmed with all his might, his muscles finally moving again, but it was no use. Dean had him securely trapped between his fingers.

Dean open his lips slightly, exhaling so that warm, peppermint breath washed over Flynn. He remembered that dark haired giant talking about Deans thing with peppermints.

His body shook as he looked up into Deans dark eyes, his short blue hair falling sloppily on top of his hair. He was still smiling, white teeth gleaming, and Flynn felt like he had melted right there in Deans grasp.

You've got to be shitting me right now. This day has just been one thing after the other…

Suddenly that Mrs. Cassell lady didn’t seem all that bad.