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Young's arms were starting to go numb. For the past five or ten minutes, he'd been clinging for dear life to a loose wire that swung ominously over a dark ventilation shaft. Both his arms and legs were wrapped around the wire, but he was tiring quickly, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold on. Above him, light filtered through the slats in the metal grate that he'd fallen through in his disorientation. He needed to get back up there somehow. He needed to go for help, because something bizarre and inexplicable had happened to him and he needed to get it fixed immediately. But he was still a bit woozy, and what little strength he had was fading.
He might die like this, he realized. And given that he was now just a few inches tall, it seemed unlikely that his body would ever be found. No one would know what had become of him. He would just… disappear.
Fuck. He didn't want to disappear. He wanted to figure out why he had suddenly lost consciousness earlier, and why, upon awakening, he'd found himself smothered under layers of heavy fabric that turned out to be his now-hilariously-oversized uniform. He wanted to know how he had become so small. But more importantly, he wanted to know that this wasn't how it all ended.
He felt cold, but fear and exertion were making him sweat. As his skin grew damp, his grip on the wire was starting to slip.
In the distance, he heard a familiar voice shouting. As it drew nearer, he realized that it was Rush, and he was shouting his name.
"Young? Young!"
"Rush!" Young cried out weakly, his vocal chords already sore from his initial, useless cries for help. Even to his own ears, his voice sounded tiny and pathetic.
Rush's boots sounded on the deck plating nearby, and then Young heard him swearing under his breath. He'd obviously just found Young's pile of clothes.
"Young?" There was a rustling sound. Rush must be searching for him through the discarded uniform. And then there was a pause.
"Rush! Help!" Young tried again.
"I hear you," Rush said, "but where…? Oh. Oh no." A shadow fell across the grate, and Young could dimly make out Rush's face peering through the slats. "Hold on. I'll get you out."
Young didn't have the strength to reply. He could only close his eyes and concentrate on not letting go.
Above him, he could hear Rush tugging at the grate and muttering, "Don't have any tools…" which made his heart sink. He couldn't hang on long enough for Rush to fetch tools to remove the grate. He'd be long gone by then. But then he felt a tremor run through the wire he was clinging to. Opening his eyes, he saw that Rush had wedged his hand as far as it would go through one of the slats, and his fingers now gripped the wire. Slowly, Rush began to pull the wire up toward the grate, lifting Young right along with it. The jostling nearly caused Young to lose his grip, but somehow he managed to hold on long enough to be pulled up through the slat along with the wire.
He was immediately enveloped in a warm hand. "I got you," Rush said softly.
It was a good thing, too, because Young's arms and legs felt like jelly. He let go of the wire and lay sprawled out on Rush's palm, panting and blinking up at his giant shipmate. He was too exhausted to even care that he was naked. For his part, Rush was looking him over with keen scientific interest, but that was no more than Young expected. At least the scientist didn't give any indication that he was enjoying Young's humiliation. If anything, he just looked concerned.
"Mr. Brody found Dr. Voker miniaturized and unconscious about fifteen minutes ago," Rush told him, speaking in a hushed voice that Young greatly appreciated, given how overwhelming Rush was in every other respect by virtue of their size difference. "If the radio chatter is to be believed, Lieutenant James, Airman Dunning, and Dr. Inman are all in a similar state as well."
"That's the away team from this morning," Young gasped, still working to catch his breath.
"Mm-hm," Rush murmured. "Clearly this is the result of something you were exposed to on that planet. If you're lucky, it's temporary."
Young laughed breathlessly. When were they ever that lucky?
"Are you all right?" Rush asked, frowning down at him. His face looked so massive from this perspective, and Young could see details that he'd never noticed before. His eyes, for instance, were not so much brown as a dark, mesmerizing shade of amber, and the lines and creases around them added to their expressiveness in a way Young had never really appreciated before now. And Rush's mouth often seemed obscured by his beard, but it was rather pretty, now that Young thought about it. And then of course, there's was that long grizzled hair...
Rush's frown deepened. "Young?"
"I think I'm delirious," Young groaned.
"I should take you to Lieutenant Johansen."
"No, wait," Young called out, trying to sit up and then flopping back down when he realized that his body wasn't going to cooperate. "I need something to wear."
"Why? She'll likely just have you take it off again so she can examine you."
"Just… come on, Rush. Grant me a little dignity here."
Rush seemed to find this request slightly unreasonable, but after a moment he dutifully presented Young with a gray piece of cloth large enough to serve him as a blanket. Young nodded eagerly, and Rush delicately draped it over him. It was warm and surprisingly soft, and Young realized that it must be a microfiber cloth designed for cleaning glasses. Considering that he'd never seen Rush clean his glasses with anything but his t-shirt, the existence of such a cloth struck him as funny.
"What are you smiling about?" Rush asked suspiciously.
"Nothing," Young said. "I'm just grateful not to be falling to my death at the moment."
Rush glanced down at the grate, and then back at Young with a troubled expression in his eyes. "Yes, that would have been… unfortunate."
Wow. All it took for Rush to show concern for Young's wellbeing was for Young to shrink and almost die. Who knew?
"Thanks for rescue," Young said.
Rush finally cracked a small, heartbreakingly genuine smile. And damn it, his mouth really was pretty. "Don't mention it."