As his parents approached the field, Corey took more and more notice of just how...busy, it was. How occupied. There were, truthfully, more people attending the game than he had expected. Taken on it's own, he was glad for that. His sister's team had worked hard to get here. They deserved the attention, the support, and it was certainly there as a chatty crowd filtered into the stands.

            Yet seeing just how many people were here only served to reaffirm the decision he had made when they had parked, when he had gotten a small peak at the number of attendees while his mother had cradled his then foot-tall self onto her arm yet again. It was something he never would have thought he would ask, but the sight had prompted the incarcerated young man to make the request that had put him   in his current position: That his mother use her warden's tool to reduce him to a stature much less...visible. And while she had been a bit put off by the request at first, she had understood after taking in what they could see of the crowd.

            So now he sat once more in his mother's palm, her fingers caging around him to insure his absolute safety. They had passed several other people so far, but as of yet none had paid him in any mind. He was thankful for that, and for the concession his parents were making for him in reducing him down to a much less conspicuous height of an inch. But as thankful as he was, he also couldn't shake a measure of shame from himself at his abject selfishness in attempting to and succeeding in running away from the repercussions of his failures.  As they passed another pair of attendees, he almost found himself wishing that someone-

            "Hi Mrs. Abby, Mr. Howard!"

            Corey shuddered as that familiar, cheery voice interjected itself amid his thoughts. Already his mother was turning to return the greeting, and for Corey's part he merely braced himself, that familiar trepidation washing over his body. He was done going unnoticed, he knew that much. She would definitely see him, likely immediately.

            "Well hello, Jenna," his mother exclaimed, her voice light and friendly, and a similar greeting sounded from his father. There was a considerable amount of warmth in both their greetings - as there should have been, given the closeness of their two families. "Here to cheer Claire on?" Abby inquired, now facing the strawberry-blond girl.

            "You know it," Jenna confirmed, while Corey looked upward between his mother's caging fingers at his sister's grinning friend as she approached, her wavy hair bouncing with every perky step. And as he had guessed, her icy blue eyes immediately shifted down toward Abby's hand to take in the sight of his fragile little form. "Hey, Corey," she appended, baring her teeth in a delighted smile.

            "Hi, Jenna," he peeped upward, causing that smile to widen even as he adjusted to having to look up to a girl that no one would ever mistake for tall at 5'2". Yet with the PMRD's science at work, even a girl his sister dwarfed by eight inches was now a tower of several hundred feet.

            "I'm glad Mom was able to get you home," Jenna stated happily, eyes still locked upon him. Corey didn't doubt the veracity of that declaration, though he could feel his throat drying in consideration of it. Looking up at her cool eyes and sparkling teeth, he was reminded that this was far from the first time that he had been the size of a bug before her. More than that, though, was her playful visage's troubling reminder to him that she shared his sister's fascination with holding a reduced human in the palm of her hand, and the numerous times she had delighted in handling his smaller form. And it wasn't that she had ever given him any reason to fear for his safety - Jenna was a bit more playful compared to Claire's grabbier nature, but she had always shown great care in her interactions with him.

          It was the fact that her fascination came from a much different place than his sister’s. And he’d have to be stupid to have not noticed that.

         “Thank you,” Corey replied to his younger friend, doing his best to shake off his nerves. “I’m very grateful for her help. I know she took on a…a lot of extra work for me. I hope it wasn’t-”

         “Nah, she was happy to do it,” Jenna informed through an upbeat interruption, wide smile still beaming down toward him. “And a lot of us are grateful she could help. We really are.”

         “Oh yeah, speaking of us,” the girl suddenly said, suddenly and sharply leaning forward until her billboard-like face hovered level with his mother’s palm, “I’m here with Angela and Alexis, you wanna come sit with us? They’d love to hang out with you for a bit, I bet.”

        But not as much as you would, I bet, Corey thought morosely, his mind slowly beginning to whir in an effort to come up with a polite excuse. Again, not that he necessarily doubted the girl’s claim – Angela and Alexis were yet more members of the rather large and yet tight-knit community of close friends his parents had cultivated and passed from their own generation to his own. But that truth didn’t abolish its sayer’s intentions – especially not as she brought said intentions to the foreground.

      “I’ve even got a seat all ready for you,” Jenna proudly informed him as she rose, just enough to place him face-to-face with the breast pocket of her crimson t-shirt. A pale finger snaked into the pocket from above, hooking behind its lip and pulling the fabric prison both wide open and taut, holding it so for only a moment before the hooking finger allowed it to slip free and snap shut. Above, a wide smile welcomed the young man to jump into the offered prison, while a pair of bright eyes seemed to demand it.

      Corey counted himself a little bit thankful as the decision was made for him.

      “Sorry, sweetie, but he’s going to have to decline,” his mother kindly responded, and to say that Jenna’s face went immediately sour would be an understatement. Not that anyone but Corey noticed, of course. “He’s not quite here to go off and socialize. Just to support Claire.”

      To Jenna’s credit, she didn’t miss a beat as that sour flash morphed back into good humor.

     “That’s fair,” she conceded with a wry smile as she returned to a straighter posture, eyes cast down upon him all the while before suddenly peeling away. “Oh, right, Mom wanted me to ask if Monday would be fine for that dinner you promised her.”

     “Well, I certainly don’t remember promising a dinner,” Abby replied with some apparent amusement, “but I suppose I can see how it got turned into that. But yes, Monday should be fine. Howard?”

     “I’ll be on-call, but aside from that, sounds perfect.”

     “Great!” Jenna exclaimed with a perky clap of her hands that caused the young man to nearly jump from his seat, though the return of the girl’s eyes upon him did a decent enough job of affixing him to his seat. “And Corey is gonna be there to socialize, right?” The resulting laughter of his mother at the comment served as a stark contrast to his own stony face as the humor sent his platform a-tremble.

     “Of course,” Abby replied mid-chuckle, rocking Corey slightly on his palm platform.

     “Then I guess I’ll see you all again then,” Jenna remarked, focused eyes and wry smile easily convincing Corey that the use of such a collective term wasn’t at all an accurate one- particularly as a playful fingertip suddenly tapped lightly against his scalp before withdrawing as quickly as it had appeared. “I need to go find Allie and Angie. It was good to see you!”

     “Good to see you, too, Jenna,” Howard remarked, with Abby confirming as the peppy girl trotted off ahead of them and into the stands, thankfully bringing this little exchange to a close.

      His parents soon followed her, albeit at a much more deliberate pace. His mother’s fingers lifted higher and closer as they more fully entered the crowd, caging him more effectively from the surrounding titans – and from their eyes most of all. Eventually they would enter the stands, and an inaudible whisper from wife to husband apparently set their destination.  Corey couldn’t exactly count himself as displeased as they approached the top end of the stands, which were much more sparsely populated, eventually settling down nearly alone along the next-to-last row. Good seats, he noted, as the back of his living platform settled onto his mother’s jean-clad knee. They afforded them a great and mostly unobstructed view of the field below, even accounting for his vantage point level with his mom’s waist, and his back was bathed in the warmth of the sun as it peeked over her shoulder.

     It was with some anxiety that he silently observed the steady filtering in of the remaining attendees, the stands gradually filling out while thankfully remaining a few rows shy of his family’s position. Still, more than a few people caught a glance of him nestled in his parent’s palm, their reactions ranging from curious looks to amused snickers that reddened his cheeks. The latter would usually be met with a reassuring rub to his back from his mother’s thumb, which helped with his nerves but not necessarily with the matter of his embarrassment.

     Eventually, though, the filtering in of attendees came to an end, and instead it became time for the players themselves to take the field. Claire’s team came first to a round of applause and encouraging cheers, the loudest coming from a familiar set of voices down in front. Finding his sister among the group of athletes was an easy enough task, all he had to do was search for his sibling’s canary-yellow headband – her favorite among the several she owned. Once again his anxiety rose as he found her, noticing that she was going through the same procedure herself in scanning the stands for her family. It took but a moment for her to glance upward toward their position, and for a moment Corey thought that they…that he…might be blessed with the proud smile and wave that had always come their way at these games.

     No such thing would be the case. Instead, her face remained much the same as it had at breakfast. Cold. Impassive. E at this distance, Corey couldn’t quite shake the feeling that her eyes were boring straight through him and to the bone. And as that coldness began to overtake him, so, too, did an immense and looming shadow. One that blocked the warm light of the sun behind him, even as it heralded the arrival of warmth of a different kind.