Scott blinked back into full consciousness as a trickle of lukewarm water poured gently over his body and began to pool around him in the titanic cupped hand of his sister’s friend Libby.  He smacked his lips a few times, dizzy beyond belief and wanting to be alone so badly he would’ve just about traded his soul for some solitude at this moment.

            “Feeling any better?” Libby asked tenderly, her voice hushed lower than was necessary for the inch-tall young man’s ears, though he had a feeling it was more so Maggie wouldn’t hear her and receive further comedic fodder.

            “Y-Yeah,” Scott uttered.

            “Did she hurt you?” the girl followed up.  “Anywhere?”

            “I’m… I’m fine,” he answered mostly truthfully.  His sister had actually been disturbingly adept at playing with him between her cheeks and beneath her tongue without causing bodily harm beyond some sickening vertigo.  That was never the real point of it, and both of them knew it well.

            “You don’t have to lie.  I wouldn’t say anything,” Libby insisted in another whisper.

            “I’m not.”

            The girl grimaced meekly, obviously not fully believing him, but was aware that this was as forward as he was going to be.  As she continued holding him under the water, her face flushed a soft rose, and Scott was reminded that he was sitting nude in the palm of a girl five years his junior who, at most in her romantic pursuits, had received her first kiss.  And given how shy she was, he had to doubt even that somewhat.

            “Sorry about… not having anything… on,” Scott gulped, hoping to break the ice as much as possible.  If nothing else, he didn’t want the girl to feel awkward or discouraged from helping him out like this in the future, because these were just about the only real breaks he got anymore.

            “You don’t have to apologize,” Libby said with a frown.  “I know she takes them away.”

            “Yeah…” Scott mumbled, curling himself into the fetal position to shield as much of himself from view as possible.

            “I… I didn’t even really think about… I m-mean, do you want me to put you d-down?  Since you’re… you know.” Libby stuttered anxiously, slipping easily back into the nervously tittering and sweet little girl that the young man remembered hanging onto the clearly unbalanced friendship she shared with his domineering and significantly more popular sister.

            He almost resented the fact that Libby’s more submissive personality made it difficult for her to split away from such a source of emotional poison and turmoil, but he couldn’t quite, as her presence now was just about all that was keeping him from descending into an even deeper depression.

            “It’s okay.  Don’t worry about it,” Scott said quickly, still eager to keep her from feeling worse than she already was.

            “I’ll get you a tissue in a second.  I… don’t know if she’ll just take it again, but…”

            “Thanks,” Scott said.  “Really.”

            “Don’t worry about it,” she cooed, crouching down to the sink so she could be closer to eye level with the miniscule passenger of her palm.  With her free hand, Libby brushed her frilly strawberry bangs off her lightly freckled forehead.  Scott could sense her speckled green eyes were locked to the object of her crush with great intensity, unable to help themselves from observing, but at this moment, he couldn’t have cared if she was holding him right under her eyeballs for close academic study.

            Idly, though, he couldn’t help but wonder what it was she found so appealing about him, even now.  Given his above-average looks, he could’ve understood where it came from when he stood at full height, fully clothed, and not physically spent from being sucked on between someone’s cheeks, but certainly not here.

            Now, he was like an injured lemming as he curled into himself in the center of her palm, half the height of the girl’s thumb, and fresh from having openly requested that Maggie put him back in her mouth in order to pathetically complete his end of a bargain that the girl might very easily back out of without a second’s hesitation anyway.

            And though Maggie had laid it on thick in her usual way, there was no denying some of the points she’d tried to make to justify her cruelty.  He’d pre-emptively ended the life of an unborn child and nearly crippled a young woman, all thanks to his carelessness and selfishness that he couldn’t even remember because of his drunkenness.  What could this caring and morally conscious girl want with him?  Was she still just blinded by a lovesick schoolgirl crush like she had been for the past three years, or did she truly see something in him?

            He couldn’t imagine the latter even being a possibility.

            He suddenly had to remove these meandering thoughts from his mind as quickly as possible, as the longer he lingered on them, the more it made him start to consider the possibility of a reconciliation with Ella and how the odds of it were probably slimmer than his inch-tall frame at this point.  Those were revelations he didn’t particularly care to have now, not after everything he’d been through just for the simple hope of having a shot at it.

            He’d already been forcibly placed into the mouths of both his mother and sister in a single day like a human gumball, with the almost certain promise of both activities continuing in the future.  Any other developments less positive than that were liable to put him over the edge.

            “C’mon, Libs, open up.  You know I didn’t mean it,” Maggie groaned from the other side of the bathroom door as she rapped lightly on it.

            “In a minute,” Libby called, turning her head in the direction of the foreboding lie before returning her gaze to Scott and sighing liltingly.  “I’m… sorry.”

            “It’s fine.  She was going to do that again even if you’d grabbed me then,” Scott said earnestly, far too spent to get hung up now on what might’ve been.

            “No, no, I mean… about all of this.  How you… live here,” she said in an incredibly hushed voice such that only the young man sprawled in her palm could make it out clearly.

            “What do you mean?”

            “What your mom and your sister do… and I know her other friends do it, too.  Play with you, I mean, when they come over.  I’ve heard some of them talk about it at school.  I… I just…”

            “Don’t worry about it.”

            “But I do worry,” Libby said, her voice cracking slightly.  “I… think about you a lot, Scott.”

            “Well, it’s not worth it.  I did something wrong, and now I’m here paying for it,” he said.  His words were genuine, despite his loathing of his general existence for the past month (and probably longer than that when he really thought about it).  It seemed unfair to make someone else get bent out of shape over it when he was the one who would have to face it.

            “I know you did.  But… but you’re not paying for it.  Not like this.  This is…”

            “What?”

            “…wrong.”

            “Don’t make me blow down the door, Libs. I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll go find the bathroom key that Mom keeps in the dresser drawer!” Maggie threatened jokingly, though her tone softened as she spoke, indicating she was probably walking away to fetch it.

            “Maybe it is,” Scott said with another authentic shrug of indifference.  “It’s out of my hands right now.”

            “But… but maybe I can…”

            “It’s out of yours, too.”

            “You’re still… in mine, though,” Libby commented quietly, her fingers curling in a little further for added protection.  She finally shut the gentle trickle of sink water off and allowed the last remnants of the warm, refreshing liquid to pool in puddles around her temporary charge.

            “Thank you for what you did there, Libby,” Scott said gratefully.  “I… I really do appreciate it.”

            “You’re welcome.  I know it must get so… so…”

            “Hey, is everybody cooled down now?  I told you it was just a joke,” Maggie sang as she managed to unlock the door and stick her head in the opening.  Her eyes fell on Scott floating in a pool of warm water in Libby’s cupped palm and she had to clasp a hand over her mouth to keep from snorting in laughter.  “Having fun in here, you two?”

            “I just wanted to clean him off,” Libby insisted as she plucked a tissue from the box situated in the center of the sink.  “Give him a break for a second.”

            “Mm-hmmm, right, a break.  So are we heading out, or what?”

            “Can… can we take Scott?  I want to make sure he gets a little longer,” Libby pleaded as she lowered the fabric of the tissue down onto Scott, who bunched up what he could into his tiny fists and began toweling off.

            “Aww, I’d love to, but we can’t.  He only gets to leave once a week, and Mom kinda reserved him for her party thing Wednesday,” Maggie sighed with arms crossed, obviously irritated at this decree.  “We could’ve given him a ride in those sandals you got a month ago.”

            “A ride in… no!” Libby began, a hint of floating dreaminess in her voice, before scowling.  Looking down, she delicately removed the tissue once Scott was adequately dried.  “You know I won’t do that.  You know that.”

            “Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m just teasin’ you Libs cuz you make me laugh,” Maggie babbled with a smirk on her lips.  “Now c’mon, the place is gonna close if we don’t get going soon.”

            “What about…”

            “Just leave him there.  I’ll make sure he gets all tucked away when we get back,” the bratty blonde said.

            “Can we make him a little bigger first?  I don’t want to leave him like this.”

            “Like what?  He’s like that all the time.  He knows how to handle himself.  Don’t you, Scotty?”

            “Please, Mags?  He’s been punished enough for today.  Just make him a little bigger.”

            “Oh, fine, I’ll be right back with the thing.  But then we have to get a move-on,” Maggie said with a roll of her eyes as she sauntered toward the stairs to descend and retrieve the PMRD.

            With his sister out of sight, Scott’s muscles were able to relax again as he savored the few remaining moments he had in the invitingly cushy palm of his sixteen-year-old gargantuan redheaded savior.

            “You… you know I wouldn’t, right Scott?” Libby queried as she brought him up to the level of her chin, still speaking in a whispered tone as her eyes darted toward the upstairs landing suspiciously.

            “Wouldn’t what?”

            “Put you down there.  Under my f-f… you know.  Ever,” she swore with a determined furrow of her brow.

            “Oh.  Yeah, I know.  Of course,” Scott said with a trusting nod.  From her emphasis on the words, it was clear it wasn’t just him she was fully convincing.  Despite the tone in her voice he’d picked up on, he was in no position to fault her.

            “I could try again to get Maggie to let me take you with us to the store.  I promise, I won’t let her touch you while we hang out, I’ll just keep you with me, in my pocket.  But nothing will happen to you; I’ll keep my hand over you the whole time,” Libby suggested hopefully.  With her other hand, she stroked the tip of her pinky finger along Scott’s back in an effort to soothe him with enough tenderness that it barely moved the thumbprint-sized young man.

            As desperately appealing as such a prospect was to the twenty-one-year-old at this moment, if his mother had indeed reserved him for her party, and if Maggie was talked into stealing that privilege away so early, Judy would have some choice words with the middle Stevens child, and then undoubtedly the blame of such a conversation would be inherited by Scott, either directly or indirectly.  It was out of the question.

            “No, I’ll be all right.  Really.  I just need to rest.”

            “Are… are you sure?  I think I could maybe get her to do it.”

            “Trust me.  It’s for the best if I stay here,” Scott promised as comfortingly as he could, sensing the difficulty the girl was having.

            “If you’re sure,” Libby said with a disappointed sigh, her eyes shooting furtively to the stairs one last time before she leaned her face in even closer to her upturned palm.  “I’ll be back to see you as soon as I can.  Don’t worry.”

            “T-Thank you,” Scott said, warmed by this promise.

            “It’s the least I can do,” she cooed as the rumble of Maggie’s feet aggressively leaping up the stairs two at a time echoed in the hall.

            “All set.  Put him down, Libs.  I’ll make him a little bigger and then we can head out,” Scott’s sister declared, the PMRD already drawn and pointed like the weapon it was.

            “Okay,” Libby croaked, obviously pained by the parting of ways, as she made eye contact with Scott, who gave her an encouraging nod.  Placing him down on the bathroom sink with more tenderness than Scott had been shown by his sister or even his mother at this size in a very long time, the girl took a few steps back to give Maggie some room.

            The emerald green flash of the device brought Scott the familiar chill under his skin, though in this case, the sight of the thing was a source of great comfort; after all, technologically, there was nowhere to go but up.  He blinked as the world around him doubled in size, still leaving him at a fairly diminutive stature.

            “Maggie, is that all?” Libby moaned with audible annoyance.  “What, you made him two instead of one?”

            “Yeah.  What?  You asked me to make him bigger, and I did.”

            “That’s still like nothing…”

            “Ugh.  Fine, what do you want him to be?  Three?”

            “Can you make him twelve?” the redhead asked innocently.

            “How about we compromise and make him four?  That’s my final offer, Libs, I just… don’t really feel like seeing him like this where I can actually make stuff out, you know?”

            “Just do it already, okay?” Libby huffed, crossing her arms and leaning against the doorframe, and flashing Scott an apologetic simper.

            “Okay.  One four-inch little boy, coming right up,” Maggie agreed with a chuckle as she made the adjustment on the touch screen and pulled the trigger again.

            Scott breathed a sigh of relief as he rose up to the promised height, some tension in his shoulders finally released.  It still wasn’t much, but compared to the magnitude of the world around him and his own fragility at his minimum height moments before, he felt just a little more courageous.

            “There.  Happy?” Maggie asked her friend, holding a hand out dramatically in Scott’s direction.

            “Um.  I guess,” Libby answered, looking the young man over a final time now that the sight of his naked form had become a little more visible, clearly unable to help herself.  With embarrassment, Scott scooped up the damp tissue again, now strong enough to handle it on his own, and bundled it around his more sensitive areas.  She seemed to notice this immediately and urgently averted her eyes toward the floor, eliciting another snicker from Maggie.

            “Cool.  Thanks for the fun, Scotty.  I’ll be back later, and… we’ll make sure you get to use the phone like a big boy,” Maggie said, whispering the final phrase, despite Judy still being absent from the house.  “Okay?”

            “Okay,” he answered dryly, though he had to keep from trembling with excitement, even as part of him remained firmly under the assumption that it was just a rug she planned to pull out from under him at the last possible second.

            “Let’s get going, Libs,” she said with a wave of her hand as she deposited the PMRD into her purse, which was slung around her shoulder, and made her way back down the hallway.

            “Shouldn’t we move him to a… a…”

            “Nah, he’ll be fine.  C’mon,” Maggie butted in, snatching her reluctant friend’s hand and pulling her out of the bathroom.  Her hand ducked back in to the room one last time to switch off the light, plunging her brother into partial darkness.

            At last left with some isolation, Scott laid on his back in the rolled tissue and waited to hear the sound of the garage door opening and closing a level below, before clenching his eyes shut and unleashing a roar of pent-up frustration, terror, and rage rolled into one cataclysmic emotion.