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“I am.”
“No you’re not.”
Sam glanced up at Kevin’s face and only got a little hitch in his stomach at its sheer size. He was getting better at this.
“I am,” Sam insisted again. Kevin didn’t reply this time, squinting at the ruler’s increments. Sam pressed his back along the ruler’s edge and stood as straight as he could. It wasn’t like he didn’t recognize the irony. Ever since his high school growth spurt, he’d always spent his time slouching and trying not to loom too much. Now he was back to using his posture to add every inch he could. Well, no. Not inches in this case. Millimeters, maybe.
“You’ve got too much hair,” Kevin complained. He brought up one hand like he was about to flatten it down, then paused. Sam was inordinately grateful for that.
“Well, with the hair poof,” Kevin continued. “You’re about four and a half inches.”
“Only four and a half?” Sam echoed, trying and failing to keep the petulance out of his voice.
“You could have ended up smaller,” Kevin warned. “I read an account of a guy who couldn’t be seen properly unless it was with a magnifying glass.”
“Right,” Sam compulsively ran his hand through his hair.
He jerked his head up when he felt a rumbling through the kitchen table. After only two days of being—he could say with certainty now—four and a half inches tall, he’d found himself trying to identity people through the seismic waves they made when they walked. (The 6’4’’ him would have called them footsteps, but now they were seismic waves.) The longer time between each loud thud made Sam think it was Dean’s loping stride more than Castiel’s quicker pace. Dean walked around in those boots that could make Sam’s teeth vibrate if he stood close enough.
And indeed, a few seconds later, Dean appeared in the kitchen entryway frowning down at his cell phone. He glanced up and squinted at the ruler in Kevin’s hand and Sam still standing at its base.
“What’re you guys doing?” he asked in the tone of a man who knows the answer to his questions but needs to make sure in any case.
“Taking measurements,” Sam answered. “I asked you to do this yesterday and you never did.”
“Right. Sorry.” Dean approached the kitchen table. Sam tilted his head up slightly to keep Dean’s face in sight; it was getting to be his default position. “So what’s the verdict?” Dean peered at the ruler.
“Four and a half inches,” Kevin recited, laying the ruler flat on the table. “We also measured his weight on one of those little scales the Men of Letters used to measure out powders and dried herbs and things, and that came to—“
“What did I say about messing with any more stuff in the archives?” Dean leaned forward suddenly, and his voice jumped a few decibels. It was enough for Sam to wince hard and his hands to shoot up to clap over his ears.
“It wasn’t in the archives,” Kevin said blankly. “It’s not a magical scale, Dean.”
“But you don’t know what kind of residue was left on it,” Dean insisted. “They might have used it for stuff with magical properties. Did you wipe it off before sticking Sam on it?”
“Um,” Kevin said helpfully.
“Listen,” Sam said in what he hoped was a loud enough voice to sound (somewhat) commanding. “It was my idea, okay? And I’m fine.”
Dean gave Sam the same expression he always used when they came back from a hunt and Sam insisted that putting himself in danger had defeated the monster hadn’t it? And Sam was still alive, wasn’t he? Dean never seemed to buy it, and instead grumbled and griped while stitching the worst of the cuts.
Dean sighed, shook his head, and went to attend to the coffee machine dripping quietly in its corner. “Fine,” he called back. “What do I know, right?” He fetched a mug from the cupboard and set it on the counter with enough force to sound like a thunder crack.
“What’s with you?” Sam asked.
Dean ignored him.
“Is it to do with whoever you were texting?” Kevin tried. Sam was impressed; Kevin was catching onto the skill of Dean wrangling.
“No,” Dean said belatedly, and busied himself with pouring coffee into his mug.
“Yes,” Sam shot back.
“Shut up, Thumbelina.”
“Nice one, Dean. Real original.”
Castiel chose that moment to walk into the kitchen, and Kevin greeted him with a “We’ve got another round of Winchester a Winchester,” just as Sam asked him, “What was Dean texting about?”
“How would Cas know?” Dean scowled.
“A hunter has asked for help and Dean feels guilty about leaving,” Castiel said as he crossed the kitchen and opened the fridge. He poked around for a few seconds before adding, “We’re out of yogurt.”
“I still don’t get how you ended up liking freaking yogurt,” Dean said heatedly.
“Who’s asking for help?” Sam asked.
“I’m not going, so drop it.”
“Who?”
Dean took a pointed sip from his mug then sighed.
“Rich,” he said. “Rich McDowell.”
“Rich McDowell?” Sam couldn’t keep the note of surprise from his voice. “I had no idea he was still kicking.”
“You’re telling me. Last I heard from the guy was when you were still in Stanford.” Dean shrugged, running his finger along the lip of the mug. “He’s up in Iowa hunting a super active spook. It’s killed ten people in the last month.”
Kevin whistled, long and low.
“And he can’t figure out how to get rid of it?” Sam guessed.
“Nothing’s working.” Dean scooted out of Castiel’s way as he emerged from the fridge with what looked like the ingredients for a sandwich. “All his other contacts are too far away to be useful.”
“You’re going to have to go help,” Sam settled himself cross legged on the tabletop so he could support his head with one hand, his arm propped on a knee. His neck was starting to properly ache now.
“You’re—“
“Sam has a decent grasp at this point how to handle himself,” Castiel called out from the opposite counter. “You can afford to leave for a few days.”
Dean gave Castiel an expression that made his thoughts on that point clear.
“Me and Cas would be here,” Kevin added. “It’s not like Sam needs three babysitters at once.”
“Yeah, says the guy who used an unknown scale to—“
“You remember that time Rich saved your and dad’s asses from that ghost in New Orleans?” Sam interrupted. “Or when he helped with that god-forsaken ghoul nest in Nebraska?”
“Listen man, if you were up to snuff I’d go help Rich in a second—“
“I would too,” Sam threw up a hand. “But, y’know, I’m not. So it’s going to have to be you. We’re not abandoning him, Dean.”
“Freaking…” Dean tilted his head back briefly, staring at the ceiling. “Fine,” he dropped his head back down and huffed out the word. “Fine, I’ll go. Only because I know you’re going to be a pain in the ass about it until I say yes.”
“That’s impressive foresight from you,” Sam said. Dean took a long, gruff sip from his coffee and all but stalked from the kitchen. Sam hoped he was heading back to his room to pack, and told Dean’s receding back so. Dean told him where he could go fuck off.
“What does that make the score then?” Kevin asked Castiel.
“Eleven to seven,” Castiel replied, slicing his sandwich in half. He looked over to the table. “Congratulations, Sam. You remain the reigning champion.”
“You guys are a riot,” Sam said.
***
Dean left the bunker an hour later. He told Castiel he was in charge, required calls at least twice a day, and then told Sam to fuck off again when Sam told him to get going.
“God,” Sam huffed when the Impala roared from the garage. He was perched on Kevin’s shoulder, close to the crook of his neck. It was one of the safer places on a person that Sam could sit that wasn’t cupped hands. So long as he kept a firm grip on the person’s shirt collar and no one made any sudden moves, he did well enough.
“He’s just worried,” Kevin said, almost whispering. Sam could still feel him vibrating.
“There’s worrying and then there’s being a pain in the ass,” Sam griped. Kevin started to shrug before remembering himself. He created enough of a jostle to make Sam sway and compulsively tighten his grip on Kevin’s shirt.
“Do you plan on working on the tablet, Kevin?” Castiel asked, turning away from the garage door where they had been seeing Dean off.
“Yeah. Why?” Kevin followed Castiel up the hall while Sam concentrated on keeping his balance.
“Best let you keep Sam for now then,” Castiel waved a hand. “I was thinking of going down to the shooting range.”
“Thought you didn’t like guns,” Sam said.
“I don’t,” Castiel agreed, holding a door open for Kevin. “But it’d be stupid of me not to get at least decent with them. I still need to practice.”
Sam sighed. One side effect of his size, he’d discovered, was that his face was too small for people to really catch onto his expressions unless they paid attention. It could be annoying, of course, but sometimes it was for the better. Right now, for instance, Castiel couldn’t see the mix of guilt and pity Sam could feel splaying across his face. Something in him rankled at the idea of an angel handling firearms. Former angel, Castiel would have reminded him, but Sam saw the difference as a technicality.
As Castiel disappeared down the hall that led to the shooting range, Kevin took them back to the main room where the tablet and his notes had permanent residence on one of the main tables.
“You okay to hang out on the table?” Kevin asked as he held a hand up to his shoulder. Sam didn’t answer immediately, focused on stepping from Kevin’s shoulder to his hand. It was still a disquieting sensation, walking on rounded, fleshy things that were too easy to trip over. Sam was always hyperaware of how far away the floor lay. But Kevin had a steady hand and Sam had done his fair share of leaping around tall things in his life, so in the end Sam made it to the tabletop with only a little vertigo as Kevin lowered his hand to the table.
“Yeah,” Sam finally answered as he scrambled down onto the tabletop. “The phone’s still here, right? Yeah, it is. We’re good.”
Kevin settled down to his tablet with a long sigh and Sam pressed at the smartphone screen to wake it back up. He’d discovered yesterday that the touch screen still registered his fingers, which meant that he could still read and browse the Internet. Granted, he had to fiddle with the settings to get the text small enough, and someone had to prop it upright so Sam could read it like a projector screen, but it was infinitely better than nothing at all. Sam pulled up the website he’d been perusing and settled back.
He and Kevin had read in companionable silence for over forty-five minutes when Kevin lifted his head suddenly.
“You don’t know anything about early biblical interpretations of the Flood, do you?” he asked dully.
“Um,” Sam twisted around to look at Kevin. “Sorry, not much.”
“Right.” Kevin puttered his lips. “Ok then. I need to make a run to the library.”
“I’ll come with,” Sam offered. He climbed into Kevin’s proffered hand and made the jump to his shoulder again.
The library’s usual scent of musty bindings and old paper hit Sam harder at this size. He wrinkled his nose at the assault as Kevin went up and down shelves, muttering to himself and peering at book spines. Sam focused on keeping his balance and craning his neck to try and see the tops of bookshelves that soared above him like skyscrapers.
“Going to have to go into the manuscripts,” he heard Kevin mutter, which was followed by an abrupt about face as Kevin headed for the small back room that held the library’s nonmagical manuscripts. When Kevin found the file cabinet he was after, he rattled at the handle to find it locked.
“They have keys in one of the main offices,” Sam offered, which led to another long trip through the bunker. When Kevin was back in front of the file cabinet with the appropriate key in hand, Sam was starting to get something like motion sickness.
Kevin unlocked the file cabinet with a neat snick and placed the key near the edge of the top of the cabinet. Sam kept a firm grip on Kevin’s shirt and peered down as Kevin flipped through countless files.
“Not here,” Kevin grunted, slamming the file cabinet close with more zeal than was probably necessary. Sam flinched.
Something small and metal clattered.
Sam could feel Kevin pause in confusion before he peered on top of the file cabinet and found it void of any key.
“Oh,” Kevin said. “Damn.” Another pause. “We need that to open the other file cabinets, don’t we?”
“Uh yeah.”
“Damn.”
“I think it fell behind the cabinet,” Sam offered.
“Maybe I can…” Kevin trailed off and shoved hard at the file cabinet. It didn’t budge. “No, never mind.”
“It looks like there’s enough space between the two cabinets for me to squeeze,” Sam said thoughtfully. “Bet I could get it easy enough.”
Kevin frowned, and his skin bunched and folded. “I don’t know…”
“C’mon, you need the key, right?”
Kevin seemed to consider it for a moment before he exhaled hard and held his hand to his shoulder. “This goes sideways, I’m not taking the flak from Dean.”
“Noted,” Sam crawled into Kevin’s hand and held on tight as he was lowered to the floor. The wood floor didn’t even creak beneath Sam’s weight. He edged toward the small space between the two file cabinets and, after some deliberation, slipped in sideways. It was lucky, he considered, that he wasn’t claustrophobic. Even for him it was a tight squeeze. He kept an eye out, but the key was nowhere in sight. It must have fallen in the back, against the wall.
Sam emerged in the space between the cabinet and the wall and had to take time to let his eyes adjust to the darkness. He started feeling around almost blindly for anything like a key.
“You okay?” Kevin’s voice rattled from somewhere high above.
“Yeah!” Sam called back. “I just—”
He got cut off when the floor beneath him disappeared and Sam pitched forward. For several heart stopping seconds, he imagined falling far enough to break bones and shatter skulls and—
But thankfully Sam fell into something soft. Something that smelled strongly of animal. Sam immediately scrambled backwards, but the soft mass he’d landed on didn’t move on its own accord. Sam kicked at it and was relieved to find what felt like stuffing or thread.
“Sam?” Kevin’s voice filtered down, and Sam looked up to see a smudge of lighter dark amid the pitch-black ceiling.
“Kevin!” he called. “Kevin, you hear me?”
“Barely,” Kevin said. He sounded rattled. “You okay?”
“Um.” Sam looked around at his surroundings, which were coming into better focus as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. “I think I fell into a mouse hole.”
“Mouse?” Kevin asked. “Or rat?”
“That’s an excellent question,” Sam admitted. “I have no idea.”
“Can you get out?”
Sam craned his neck then leapt to try and even touch the ragged hole above him. His hand swiped at empty air.
“I’m not thinking so?” Sam replied.
“Fuck,” he heard. “Fuck, Sam. Dean’s going to tear me a new one.”
“If I get out before he comes back, he won’t,” Sam pointed out. He squinted around him. “This looks like it goes somewhere. I can follow it; it probably opens up somewhere else in the bunker.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“We’ll figure something else out,” Sam said distractedly. “Listen, Kevin, just go back to working on the tablet, ok? I’ll find you eventually.”
“Last time you wandered the bunker by yourself—“
“I was disoriented and had no idea how to do things at this size,” Sam reminded him. “I’ll be okay. I’ve survived in more dangerous situations than this.”
“God,” he heard Kevin gripe. “Winchesters.”
“Talk to you in a bit,” Sam decided to ignore that last bit and started down the dimly lit hall. Within a few steps, his boots hit something large and metal. He bent down and grinned when he felt the outline of a key as large as his torso. Things were getting off to a good start.
***
Sam had read The Borrowers as a kid, so he might possibly have kept an eye out for evidence of more tiny people as he wandered through the small spaces that the bunker had to offer. After discovering that they had the Wicked Witch of the West and Dorothy hiding in the bunker, he wouldn’t have been all that surprised, to be honest. But nothing more thrilling than mouse pellets and dust bunnies presented themselves.
Still, Sam found himself enjoying the trek if only because things felt proportional to his size again. It was a relief to have to duck his head for low hanging ceilings, odd as that sounded.
Sam walked for what felt like ten minutes, one hand trailing the wall because it was just dim enough for him to lose his footing if he wasn’t careful. More than once, he heard things skittering in the distance, in places above and below, to his left and right. Sam had to assume he was hearing mice. A place this big and old; of course they had mice. They might also have had other animals that had slunk their way into the crawlspaces and were small enough to go unnoticed. Rats and raccoons and possums, most likely.
It was the thought of these animals—the ones with sharper teeth and more bravado than mice—that made Sam grip the key whenever he heard things scuttling across the woodwork. That was the trouble of being so small, he reflected as he jumped from a small ledge. The number of dangers increased exponentially.
Sam straightened from his jump and looked around again. Nothing that resembled an exit from the labyrinth presented itself. He wasn’t worried. That wasn’t—
BLANG
“Jesus,” Sam gasped and dropped the key to slam his hands to his ears.
BLANG
Sam backed up as fast as he could, more than convinced that his eardrums were bleeding now because—
BLANG
BLANG
BLANG
Sam came to the realization that he was crouched against a wall with his hands still glued to his ears. When silence reigned for enough seconds, he carefully pulled them away. The dim corridor stood before him, the key lying where he’d dropped it. Sam stood, scrambled over to the key, and snatched it up. He then speed walked back the way he’d come, and it only occurred to him then that he was somewhere near the shooting range. That made him walk faster. No matter how unlikely it was that a ricocheting bullet could find him; he didn’t want to take the risk.
It wasn’t as if Sam had had a clear idea of where he was going before, but he’d made an effort to remember the path he’d taken. Now, Sam all but stumbled down hallways and around corners, his head swimming with the reverberations of Castiel’s gunshots.
When he finally slowed down, he well and truly had no idea where he was, and the dimness had descended into proper blackness. Sam had to shuffle along to avoid a face plant, his free hand brandishing the key before him like a sword.
Something ahead of him shifted.
Sam froze and strained to penetrate the darkness. It might as well have been a wall.
Then a second burst of scuffling that grew louder and louder, giving Sam time to lift the key before something raked at him with dagger-like claws that sent Sam stumbling back. (He had enough sense to consider that they were probably needle-like for a proper sized human. But no, for him, they were daggers.)
Whether the animal had truly wounded him was immaterial. Sam’s instincts kicked in and the pain shut off for a moment as he let out a tremendous yell, jabbing at the thing with his key. He met something soft, then stabbed at it again. The something squealed and chittered, and seemed to decide that retreating would be a better option than continuing battle. Sam heard the takka takka of the animal retreating and stood stock still, key still brandished in case it came back.
An angry splash of pain emerged on his chest. Sam released a whoosh of air and leaned against a wall. He felt at the area cautiously, hissing when his fingers found the edges of three slashes. Kevin—and Castiel for that matter—were going to have his head.
Sam ended up tearing off his shirt and wrapping it around his chest. A shame; it was the only properly fitting shirt he owned and now it was all ripped and bloodied. But on the upside, the gashes felt relatively shallow. They didn’t even put him in much pain as he gamely started down the corridor again.
He didn’t notice the lightness at first. It was only that he started to realize that he could actually see his hands and boots again, and that made him lift his head and peer around him expectantly. And yes, there. A thin river of lightness.
Sam picked up his pace, had to turn a few corners, then squeezed through a crack in a wall of concrete. He stumbled a little when the world blew open around him, the relative safety of the close walls and low ceilings exploding into that massiveness that rooms now gave him.
It was also dark in this room, Sam recognized. Perhaps one of the back archives or a closet. It didn’t matter; he could work with it.
“Well,” a voice slipped through the darkness. “This is interesting.”
Sam froze. The gentle clink of chains echoed across the room.
“No point in trying to hide, Moose,” Crowley added after another few seconds. “I don’t need light to see.”
Sam straightened slowly and admonished himself for freaking out. He and Dean had heaped enough traps and walls around Crowley to make even getting up from his chair outside the realm of possibility.
“How did it happen then?” Crowley continued, sounding genuinely curious. “Witches?”
“In a sideways way, yes,” Sam answered. He felt at the wall and, keeping one hand there, began to walk. He’d come across the door eventually.
“You need to speak up,” Crowley said.
Sam laughed, a short bark.
“You can hear me fine,” he said, and Crowley failing to argue that point told Sam he was right. “And don’t waste breath telling me about how you can help,” Sam added. “We’ve already taken care of it.”
“Oh?” Crowley’s voice took on a tone that made Sam think of used car salesmen. “Let me guess. The one with the nixie spittle and squid ink? That spell’s rubbish.”
Used car salesmen, Sam reminded himself. Crowley had probably heard Kevin shouting about it or something. Sam picked up his pace, hopefully not enough for Crowley to notice. He hoped the door arrived soon.
“And let me guess,” Sam said. “You have a real cure and all it’ll cost is releasing one King of Hell.” Sam snorted. “We’re not that stupid.”
“Fair enough.” Another rattle of chains echoed through the room. “While you’re making your daring escape from here,” Crowley continued. “Maybe you can update me on what’s been going on out in the world. How’s the Biebs doing?”
Sam frowned into the darkness.
“Justin Bieber?” he finally asked.
“Naturally. He’s starting to enter the latter half of his deal with us. Hope he’s making use of his time left.”
Sam did a moment of mental math.
“You made a deal with him when he was 15?” he asked.
“He was the one who summoned us.”
“I feel like there should be a policy for dealing with minors though.”
“Yes, I’ll consult the damned souls of Hell to see what they think of that,” Crowley said in a dry voice. “It’ll be something to consider while they peel the skin off their victims.”
Sam rolled his eyes and wondered whether Crowley could see it. “Bieber got arrested,” he said, trying to pull up vague glimpses of the news he’d seen on Yahoo. “That’s all I know.”
“Syria still coming along?”
“Coming—you know what? I don’t need to tell you anything.”
“A man needs some entertainment when being locked in a dungeon.”
“You’re not a man.”
“Technicalities.”
Sam picked up his pace yet again.
“Going back to this small problem of yours. My method wouldn’t involve anything like spells,” Crowley said. “Just a snap—“
“Nope.”
“You—“
“Shut up, Crowley.”
“Let me know a month from now when you’re still small enough to step on, then,” Crowley finally said.
“Right, I’ll keep that in mind.”
Crowley released a sigh and sounded like he’d slumped back into his seat.
There. Sam spotted the door just ahead of him. Crowley be damned, he broke into a jog. He didn’t need to listen to any more inane comments.
“Careful of feet!” Crowley called out as Sam slipped beneath the door.
***
After that, it wasn’t all too hard to find the stairs that led to the upper floors. Sam, however, opted against trying to climb them again. He recognized he could be a masochist sometimes, but there were limits. Instead he settled himself at the bottom of the steps, laid the key across his lap, and waited.
It didn’t take more than half an hour for Castiel to emerge from the shooting range at the far end of the hall—Sam could hear the door open and shut—and make his way toward the steps. Sam stood, prepared to shout and jump up and down and do all kinds of dumb things to get himself noticed. But he’d forgotten that Castiel used to be an angel, and thus wasn’t quite, wasn’t really, human. His eyes flickered down to Sam as soon as he drew near enough.
Sam realized only then that he probably presented an alarming sight with his shirt bound around his chest, covered in dust and spider webs and clutching the key like a sword. Castiel paused and tilted his head.
“Is everything…alright?” he finally asked.
“Sure,” Sam nodded. “Peachy.”
Castiel bent down, and his face hung over Sam. He took in the bloodied shirt.
“How hurt are you?”
“Not very.”
“Do you need help getting up the steps?”
“If you can manage it.”
His expression still inscrutable, Castiel extended a hand to Sam. The little shock of adrenaline in Sam’s system as the hand rushed up to him let Sam know that no, he still wasn’t used to the largeness of things. He probably wouldn’t ever get used to it, not for the week or so he had left.
(Let me know a month from now when—)
Sam stepped into the soft fleshiness of Castiel’s palm. He settled into a sit as Castiel straightened and brought his other hand up to cradle Sam. Sam relaxed a little; sitting in cupped hands always felt less dangerous that someone’s swaying shoulder.
Castiel didn’t say anything as he slowly climbed the steps, holding his hands to his midriff. Sam tilted his head up to try and see some emotion on Castiel’s face; something like worry or annoyance. But he only saw the underside of his chin and the guess of a nose. Nothing to be gained from this angle. Sam sighed and ended up watching the great wall of torso swaying in front of him.
When Castiel entered the main room where Kevin was working, he finally cleared his throat. Kevin whipped his head up, and Sam saw an expression that spoke mostly of relief and also of “oh shit.”
Castiel crossed the room and gently deposited Sam on the tabletop. Kevin’s eyes widened when he took in Sam’s state, and Sam tried for some levity by waving the key.
“I got it,” he said unnecessarily. Kevin’s expression soured.
“Cas,” he started. “I can—“
“I’m going to go take a shower,” Castiel interrupted in a mild voice. “You’re going to make sure Sam gets properly bandaged up. And as far as Dean is concerned, Sam, you were on this tabletop the whole time.”
Sam and Kevin both blinked up at Castiel.
“Yeah,” Kevin finally said. “That sounds good.”
“Thanks,” Sam added.
“For what?” Castiel asked. He was finally smiling as he turned away and headed for the living quarters.
“You know,” Sam said as Castiel disappeared down the hall. “I think Cas is getting more human in his thinking.”
“And you’re getting stupider,” Kevin groused. He leaned forward and his fingers ghosted across where the edges of the gouges were visible on Sam’s chest. “Was it a rat? I bet it was a rat.”
“I have no idea,” Sam confessed. “It was pitch black.”
Kevin rolled his eyes and stood to fetch the first aid kit.
***
Several hours later, after dinner had been scrounged for, Kevin was sprawled on one of the couches with a book propped on his belly, frowning intently. Sam frowned with him from his position on Kevin’s shoulder, his legs sprawled across his collarbone, leaning against Kevin’s neck. He could feel Kevin’s pulse; it thudded through his whole body in a way that while not familiar, was not necessarily unpleasant.
Together, they scanned the pages of the musty old book it for any mention of Biblical floods. Kevin was still not entirely clear on what exactly he needed to know about the Flood, but Sam suspected that Kevin wouldn’t have been able to explain it anyhow. He’d come to realize that prophets just knew things that other people weren’t meant to even understand.
“See anything?” Kevin asked.
“Nope.”
Kevin flipped the page and Sam leaned back at the small paper-and-glue-smelling wind it produced. He then proceeded to scan the right hand page—the one closest to him—for anything promising.
When the page seemed to prove useless, Sam let his mind wander while Kevin finished reading his page.
“Hey Kevin?” he finally said.
Kevin, his hand about to turn the page again, paused. “Hm?”
“Can we…” Sam pressed his lips together and rubbed at the back of his neck. “When we have time, can you pull out the manuscript with the spell that’s supposed to get me back to my size?”
He could see Kevin’s eyes narrow in confusion.
“Sure,” he said. The ‘why?’ remained unvoiced, but not necessarily unsaid.
“I wanted to take another look at it,” Sam explained. Kevin shifted, enough to make Sam sway and grip at Kevin’s shirt.
He didn’t like that. He didn’t like any of it, this lack of control over his mobility and his own safety. The thought of living with this longer than a week made something curdle inside him.
“Something wrong?” Kevin asked.
Obviously. Kevin was hardly blind.
“I just want to take a look at it,” Sam repeated. Kevin side-eyed him, but then made a slight noise.
“Sure,” he said. “If you want.”
They returned to scanning the book, but the knot inside Sam never quite unwound.