Ryan, My "Little" Brother (Rewrite) - Part 13 (The end)

[tekuno]

This is a rewrite of BigBearMan94's original concept, done with his permission.

Original Story
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 4.5 | Part 5

This story is now complete. (Thanks for reading!) Each section ends with a link to the next section, but here are links to all the parts of the rewrite for handy navigation

Rewrite
One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight | Nine | Ten | Eleven | Twelve | Thirteen | Epilogue

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This is it, the last part -- except for the epilogue, which will be along shortly. (I wrote them both before posting this.) Trust me -- if you got this far, read all the way to the end. Including the epilogue. But as promised, this part is extra-long.

Stay tuned. I think I'm going to take my own suggestion and, after I finish the short story I have in mind, I'll put up the two stories I've had around for a while, but I'll put them up in parts. One of them is actually finished already, so I'll only be writing one of them as I go.

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Ryan, My "Little" Brother
A Rewrite of BigBearMan94's Original Story (With Permission)
Part 13

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I sent James a text, and then wrote a note saying "wake me up when you get up -- doctor called", and went in to bed. Ryan was lying on his mattress; he hadn't changed at all yet. I took a little comfort in that, and lay down myself.

I think I got 5 hours or so -- it took a while for me to get to sleep, what with all the worry. Ryan woke me up, in another panic.

"Alex! Alex, are you awake?"

"Ummm? Ryan? Yes, I'm awake. What's wrong?"

"Everything's all dark! I can't see to get to the door!"

"Hold on a moment."

I went and turned on the ceiling light.

"Oh, thank you. That's better. Hup! Huh!" Ryan tried to sit up, and after couple of false starts, he put his arm out behind him and pushed himself up. Then he put down his other hand, and struggled to his feet. "Ugh! God! I feel horrible! And weak! And everything is all blurry!"

Under other circumstances, I might have laughed at the word "weak". Ryan was still huge, with muscles which made him the second-largest guy I knew (after myself), but for the first time since he had taken his overdose they had shrunk, leaving his skin loose and wrinkled. His face was lined all over, and would have looked distinguished if the muscles underneath weren't still too large for the bone structure. And from the sound of it, his eyesight was starting to fail, too.

I grabbed him and gave him a long hug. After a few moments, he sighed and said "That bad, huh?".

"Try squinting -- apparently that can help."

"Huh? Oh, okay. Hmmmm. Yes, I can see a bit better now."

I pulled the window blinds, which let even more light into the room. Ryan sighed and carefully picked his way through the room to the hallway, and then headed into the bathroom.

"Alex, I'm old! What should I do?"

"Well, first and foremost, you need to stay calm. There is absolutely nothing good that will happen if you panic about it. I have a little bit of good news. The doctor called last night after you went to sleep."

"Really? What did he say?"

"She, actually. She said she was working on something to stop you from aging any more, and to keep sending her status updates."

"She'd better hurry! I don't think I have much time left!"

"Calm down, Champ. You use the bathroom, and I'll go and make us some breakfast. And no crying!"

"Okay."

My mind was racing as I set the table and laid out breakfast. For a change, I made scrambled eggs and bacon, and set out some of Ryan's cereal for him, too. I was in the middle of botching my way through composing an e-mail to the doctor on my phone -- and swearing at the auto-correct feature, which made my fingers an even less reliable method of entering text -- when Ryan came in. Squinting, he marched to the table, sat down, and started to eat.

"What are you doing?"

"The doctor wanted status updates, so I'm sending her another message about you."

"Oh."

I finished and started to eat as well.

"What should we do today?"

"Well, I think another trip to the park is probably out. Let's stay home today."

"Okay."

"We can sit out in the back yard for a while and talk."

"Okay."

"Oh, and I think it's a bad idea to keep sleeping on the floor. If you had to get up in the night, you might trip over something. I'm going to move your mattress onto my bed, and I'll sleep on the floor on the other side of the room so I can keep an eye on you."

"Okay."

Ryan ate in silence. I noticed with a start that he didn't finish everything I had given him, and wondered whether the loss of appetite was nerves or age. When we both were finished, I cleaned the dishes as quickly as I could and we went out in the back yard. I moved the wooden yard bench under the tree in the corner, and we both sat. I noticed that Ryan now sat like an old man -- slowly, and with care.

We sat and watched the sky for a while. It was a terrible thing, but there was nothing I could say to my brother. Everything I thought of was just so paltry, and I couldn't come up with a single thing to try and cheer him up. Everything looked pretty bleak; even if the doctor could stop him from aging, he was now old enough that he had very little to look forward to.

"Alex?"

"Yes, Ryan?"

"What if the doctor can't come up with anything? What will I do?"

"I don't know Ryan. I wish I did. Just remember that I'm here for you."

"...Thanks, Alex."

After an hour of sitting in the warm shade, I couldn't take it any more. "Okay, that's enough of that."

"Hmmmm?"

"Ryan, I can't take all this silence. It's just too depressing. Let's go in and find something else to do. If nothing else, maybe we can take our minds off things a bit."

"Okay."

We headed indoors. First we tried to continue our Monopoly game, moving it carefully to the kitchen table. It was only ten minutes before we agreed that the game was doing nothing to take our minds off things. We tried another movie, which helped a bit. Until this week, I had never really appreciated all those old Dinsey fairy tale movies, but now they were something we could watch together without having to think about Ryan's situation.

Then it was time for lunch. I made burgers, and Ryan was in a better mood, thank goodness.

"I wish I had a fairy godmother."

"What, so you could go to the ball and dance with the prince? That's more my department, Champ."

"No, but think how nice it would be to have someone with magic powers who would help you with your problems."

"Dippity Doppity Doo!"

Ryan giggled. "And defeat the wicked witch!"

"Ah, but that's the difference between cartoons and real life, Champ, here in the real world, the witch is on our side."

"Does the doctor really sound like one?"

"Not like one in a cartoon, no. No cackling or shrieking, just a deep, warm voice. But I can't help imagining her in front of a cauldron stirring up a magic potion, can you?"

"Now that you mention it, no. I wonder what she looks like."

"I hope we find out soon. Actually, that gives me an idea for what to do this afternoon."

Through the afternoon, I read children's books to Ryan. It was the perfect activity; we were spending the time together, and it took both of our minds off our troubles. I read some fairy tales, first -- Mom had insisted that Dad buy a bunch of books of them, and although they had been moved to the basement, nobody had had the heart to dispose of them after Mom had passed away.

Then, on an inspiration, I started reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Ryan, fortunately, hadn't seen either of the movie versions, which are both pretty pathetic compared to the book. I was taking a risk, I knew, because the book is nothing but a series of children who are punished for doing bad things, but I remembered a little too well what it was like being Ryan's age -- his real age, that is -- and as I suspected, he was entirely happy to laugh at the bad kids as, one by one, they encounter their horrible fates. (And besides, I reasoned, they all turn out all right in the end.) We got as far as the beginning of Violet Beauregard's scene before it was time for dinner.

We actually had a lot of fun with dinner. I put together odds and ends of everything we had, so that Ryan had a hot dog, a bowl of alphabet soup, carrot and celery sticks, and a small heap of Tater Pops.

After dinner, we finished Violet Beauregard's scene and moved on to the nut room. But before Verruca Salt could push her way inside, Ryan stopped me. "Can we play some more Monopoly now? I'm tired of just sitting."

"Sure, Champ."

We set the board back in the kitchen, and played again. Actually, now that we were both thoroughly distracted, it was fun again. We played for an hour -- Ryan began to pull ahead, but not decisively enough yet for me to give up. Then, to my alarm, Ryan yawned.

"I hate to say it, Alex, but I'm tired again."

"Aw, Ryan, no!"

"Don't worry, Alex. I've got another day left before anything happens, I'm sure."

I went and arranged the mattresses as I had suggested, gave Ryan a glass of water, and tucked him in.

"Pleasant dreams, Ryan. I'm going to go update the doctor and James, and then I'll come in and sleep. When you wake up, just call out and I'll turn on the lights for you."

"Thank you, Alex. I'm sorry for everything, really. Goodnight."

I sent off the customary e-mail to the doctor, and a text to James. And then, because I'm human, I went and jacked off in the bathroom before heading off to bed.

Fortunately, I had lost a lot of sleep lately, or I wouldn't have been tired enough to drop off, distractions or not.

It was 5 AM when Ryan called out. I could tell just from his voice in the dark that he had definitely aged again. When I got the lights on, I was horrified.

Ryan had shrunk. Not only were his muscles smaller again, but he was actually distinctly shorter than he had been the night before. His cheeks were definitely sunken, and there were bags under his eyes.

He squinted up at me. His voice was a croak. "Well? How is it?"

I swallowed. "It's pretty bad. Why don't you head for the bathroom and take a look in the mirror. No, wait, let me raise the blinds and turn on some lights for you. Oh, and take a sip of water."

Ryan obeyed. From the bathroom, after some coughing, I was relieved to hear some dry laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"I just realized -- I could get away with anything now. You know, 'I can do what I want, I'm old.'"

"Heh."

"Okay, maybe not that funny." His voice sounded a little better after the water and the cough.

"Ready for breakfast, Champ?"

"Waffles! I want waffles!"

Inwardly, I groaned. My family never went in for those crappy little toaster waffles; we always made them from scratch. And there's a reason those crappy little toaster waffles exist: real waffles are a horrible nuisance to make. But under the circumstances, there was no way I could refuse Ryan whatever he wanted for breakfast.

"Okay, it'll be a while, though. I need to send off updates."

"Sure. Thank you, Alex."

I made the waffles -- they weren't as good as my Dad used to make, but they weren't bad, either. Ryan, who usually had as many as could be spared, ate one and a quarter, and declared himself full.

I did a little quick washing up -- I didn't bother with the waffle iron; those things are a pain to clean, and one way or another in a couple of days I'd have plenty of time to clean up -- and then we settled in the living room and I continued to read.

We finished the book off, just in time for lunch. Ryan was especially amused by Mike Teevee's end. He brought up one of his arms in a flex. "Ha! I was about that height, and even now I've got more beef than that!"

We had another miscellaneous feast for lunch; Ryan had some macaroni and cheese, some cherry tomatoes and cucumber slices, and half a ham sandwich. Then we went back to our Monopoly game. After another hour of play, Ryan was so far ahead that there was no chance I could possibly recover, so I conceded.

"You sure you aren't just giving in to be nice?"

"Ryan, you own every single property on two sides of the board, plus all four railroads and more than half of the rest. There isn't a single unowned property on the whole board, and I can't even afford rent if I land on your cheapest property. In a few more turns, I'd be out anyway."

"Ha. Okay, I beat you for once. One life accomplishment down. What do we do now?"

"Hmmm. I know it's still early for dinner, but I'm actually hungry. Would you mind if we ordered pizza for delivery for dinner now? You don't have to eat yet if you don't want to."

Ryan smiled. "Could I stop you even if I wanted to? Go ahead."

I ordered the pizzas -- a small plain cheese one for Ryan, since I suspected his stomach might not be able to handle anything too fancy -- and then went down to look at our children's books again.

"Ah, Ryan, I have another book to read to you. It's from the same guy who wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory."

"Is it the sequel?"

"No, I couldn't find that one." I hoped I was lying in a good cause -- I almost brought up Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, but then I remembered the scenes with Vita-Wonk and Wonka-Vite, and the poem about the little girl who takes the laxatives, and decided Ryan might not be able to laugh that part off.

Instead, I had brought up one of the strange collections of short stories, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More. Ryan was held spellbound by Henry Sugar, which was long enough that the pizzas arrived just about at the beginning of the second part of the story.

I went to the door to accept the pizza delivery, and was reminded almost with a shock that I, too, had been changed by the pills. The delivery guy took one look at me and stepped back a couple of paces. Then I realized once again that I was a gigantic muscular behemoth, wearing only a pair of workout shorts which were so strained as to leave nothing to the imagination. Furthermore, I hadn't shaved in two days and, what with all the testosterone in my body, my body hair was growing back in. I paid the guy in a hurry, but before I started eating, I excused myself and headed off to the bathroom, where I jacked off again to my reflection. I just couldn't help myself.

I continued reading the story to Ryan, and after I had gulped down a whole pizza, we went out and sat in the backyard, and I finished all the stories in that book which I thought he would like -- I skipped the one about the bullied boy, the one about the turtle, and the one told by the mad pilot.

Ryan started to yawn at this point, but I made him eat a few slices of pizza before putting him to bed. He was already having enough trouble without getting hungry in bed.

I wasn't actually very sleepy, since it was only 4, so I ate the other pizza I had ordered for myself while sending the doctor another update, and then called James. Since Ryan would presumably sleep 8 hours again, there was no reason for James not to come over again.

He did, and we had a long, hushed conversation as he finished off the rest of Ryan's cheese pizza. And then we went into the basement and looked through the rest of the books to see if we could find anything else Ryan might like to listen to. In the end, I found a couple of books by James Thurber, a weird one called The Thirteen Clocks and a book of tiny little fairy tale parodies. I set them aside, and then James and I had sex again. In a way, I was ashamed to do that, but on the other hand there was absolutely nothing I could do for Ryan, and two days of ignoring my elevated hormone levels had already pushed me into having to masturbate just from a 30-second interaction with the pizza guy. For that matter, James insisted that my beard, though it looked ragged and kind of stupid, was also intensely sexy and distracting. And then James took off again. I told him to watch for texts from me -- without saying it, we both knew that one way or another, the end of Ryan's aging was near.

I showered, though I didn't have the heart to shave, and then went up and lay down on my mattress in my room and stared at the ceiling. Eventually I dozed off.

It was the middle of the night when Ryan woke me. His voice was a croak. At first I didn't even recognize it as a voice. When I got the lights on, and found that it was just a little past midnight, I took a good look at him.

It had been well over a week since anyone would have had any reason whatsoever to suspect that Ryan was actually an 11-year-old. But now, it was even impossible to recognize the hugely muscular man he had been for most of that time. His body was shriveled. His face now looked distinguished, if elderly -- the muscles had finally atrophied enough that his features looked somewhat normal. His frame had fallen in, and he was a wreck of the man he had been. Well-preserved, perhaps, and fairly strong-looking for his age, and even still very tall, but no longer so obviously a giant.

"How are you feeling, Ryan?"

Ryan coughed, and then grimaced. "I've felt better. I need to use the bathroom."

Very slowly, and wobbling at every point along the way, he slid his legs over the side of the bed and pushed himself to his feet. I couldn't remember any of our relatives being this frail, although I admit that I was quite young when most of them died.

I sat on the bed as Ryan hobbled to the bathroom, and wrote an e-mail to the doctor again. Just as I finished, I heard Ryan flush, and then disaster struck. There was a thump, and Ryan let out a wailing scream. I ran to the door to find that he had fallen down, and was lying still, though still conscious.

"I think I broke my arm" he croaked.

I ran back and picked up my phone and dialed 911 as I ran back to the bathroom. I had just enough presence of mind to tell them that they had to send an ambulance for my great-uncle Ryan, instead of blurting out "brother". I hung up and turned to Ryan. "Sorry, Champ, they said not to move you while the ambulance was on the way. Let me try to find something to wear so I can go with you."

I managed to find a sweatshirt which managed to cover my torso if I tore the arms off and break the hem of the neck and tear down the back a bit. Then I put on a pair of flip-flops, opened the front door, and went and held Ryan's hand while we waited.

The ambulance took Ryan away, but there was no way I could have been taken along. Even if they had had space for a passenger, it would have been a normal passenger, not a multi-hundred-pound giant with a chest more than a hundred inches around. And I couldn't drive, either. So I called James, and he agreed to come and give me a ride over. While James was on the way, I sent the doctor one more e-mail: "James fell. Called 911. He is going to Southwest Hospital. Will follow ASAP."

When we arrived at the hospital, they directed me to a room in the emergency ward. Ryan was still conscious, although there was a tube running up to his face and plugged into his nostrils, and a doctor was checking him over with various equipment. James waited in the hall as I went in.

"Ah, from what he says, you MUST be Alex. Well, there's good news and bad news."

"There always is."

"The good news is that Mr. Wrightman here didn't actually break any bones. He's in astonishingly good shape for a guy his age. He's just bruised and a bit in shock."

"That's great!"

"The bad news is that he has an EXTREMELY abnormal EKG. I think he's on the verge of a heart attack."

"Oh, shit!"

"And I think he has some kind of lung trouble as well. He says he hasn't felt anything bad, but there must have been signs. Can you tell me the name of his doctor so we can get his records?"

"I don't think he has one," I lied. His doctor was good old Doctor DeMenici, the pediatrician in the big joint practice on Main Street, but I could hardly say that.

The doctor sighed. "This would be much easier if we knew anything about his medical history. Admittedly, he seems to be in remarkably good condition in a lot of ways -- I don't think I've ever seen someone that old with that few scars, for example -- but there's no knowing what may be lurking in there. We didn't even know his blood type when he showed up, and he didn't even have a driver's license."

"He never learned to drive."

"Really? You shock me. If you'll excuse me, I think he's stable for now, the monitors will alert the nurses' station if anything major happens, and I have other things to do. It's okay to talk to him, just don't spring any surprises on him for now." The doctor left.

"Ryan? How are you doing, Champ?"

Ryan looked at me. "I'm sorry, Alex, I screwed up again."

I leaned over and gave him a partial hug. "Don't worry about it, Champ. Just concentrate on getting well."

Ryan started to cry. "I don't think I'm going to be well again, Alex. I think this may be it." He gave a little hysterical giggle. "Do you think the Make-A-Wish Foundation will make an exception for me?"

"Don't say that, Ryan! You'll be fine again, Doctor Franskasten will fix you right up. Just be patient."

"If she was going to do that, she would have done it already. I can feel it, I think I'm going to--"

Ryan's eyes bulged, and the monitors started to scream. An intercom read out "code blue in room 102, code blue in room 102". Doctors and nurses came rushing in, and shooed me out into the hall.

James looked at me blearily. "How is he?"

"Bad. He might even be dying right now. You know what 'code blue' means? That was him."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Alex."

"It's not your fault. Not your fault at all."

We sat on the bench in the hallway, James leaning against me as I leaned against the wall. Even now, I can remember how much it helped to have someone there to hold my hand.

After what seemed like an eternity, the beeping stopped, and the doctors came filing back out. One of them came over to me. "We fixed him up, but I don't think he has long. He was asking for you; I think you'd better go in."

I came back in. Ryan had been shifted into a new position; there was an IV stuck in his arm and electrodes (or things which looked like electrodes) were all over his arms and chest.

"Sorry, Alex, it looks like I don't have much time."

"No, Ryan! Don't say that!"

Ryan grunted and managed to give a disgusted look. "Alex, do you think I can't hear? The doctors think I have a couple of hours left, tops. I'm not a kid any more, don't lie to me."

"I'm sorry, Ryan."

"Don't be. This isn't your fault." He gave a weak cough. "Is James out there?"

"Yes."

"Bring him in, will you?"

I went out and got James.

"James, I'm sorry I was such a brat."

"It's okay, Ryan."

"Do me a favor, and stay with Alex. He's going to need you now."

"I'll do that, Ryan."

Ryan gave another grunt. "Alex, will you give me the thing I wanted?"

I grabbed Ryan's free hand, and held it. "I'll give you anything, Ryan, but what was that?"

"Back before all this started, I wanted you to go to college. When I'm gone, will you sell the house and do that? Please?"

"Oh, Ryan." I could barely see Ryan through the tears. He squeezed my hand, feebly, and gave a cackle.

"Do what I say, because I'm old. Will you promise?"

"Yes, Ryan, I promise. I'll go to college."

"Thanks. I feel a lot better about this."

The three of us stayed in our positions for a long time; I held Ryan's hand and felt his pulse as he struggled through breath after breath.

Finally he yawned. "I think this is it, Alex. I can't say enough how sorry I am for everything I did. Don't forget I love you."

"I love you too, Ryan. Don't leave me alone. Please!"

"I don't think I have much choice. I'm just so... tired." Ryan closed his eyes, and his breath got even slower.

James put his arms around me and hugged tight as I sobbed, clutching Ryan's hand in mine. The numbers on the machine readouts seemed to be dropping.

Suddenly the curtain which served as a door to the room was thrown aside, and a squat figure stumped into the room, dragging an enormous wheeled suitcase.

"Alex Wrightman you are? Good. This your brother is? Please to stepping aside be! Time there is nert!"

The doctor -- even if I hadn't recognized the voice it could hardly be anyone else -- practically ripped the zippers off the suitcase in her haste to get it open. She pulled out an enormous white bottle, the kind bleach comes in, but unlabeled, and stepped up to the side of the bed. She gave it a few shakes, unscrewed the top, and began to pour the contents out all over Ryan. It smelled like burnt salmon dissolved in acetone, and was a translucent, slightly metallic orange.

"Quickly, yerng man, hand me another bottle!"

I pulled it out and handed it to her; she gave it a shake and continued pouring. With the second bottle, she finished covering every inch of Ryan -- and the hospital bed.

"There. In time I think I have made it. Your e-merl at the erport I was receiving, and a taxi I have taken here."

"Will that stop Ryan aging?"

"A full treatment I believe it will be. I suggest that watch we do not. Process unaesthetic is. The herlway I suggest we visit."

We followed the doctor into the hallway; James and I probably could have been ordered to do anything at that point and would have done it without question, the whole situation was so mind-boggling.

In the hall, I got a good look at the doctor. She was a wide, short person -- even before the pills, I would have towered over her. She looked to be in her 50s, and had black hair which was graying, arranged in a bun. She was wearing a white blouse under a light coat which, like her skirt, was either a very very dark purple or an evenly-faded black.

"Forgiving me I hope you will be. This whole study unnecessary would be, if not for circumsternces beyond my control. Sadly, the formula for which I have searched nearly complete was, but in the war my research destroyed was."

"The war? When was Sweden at war?"

She gave a laugh. "Yerng man, cherming to flatter a woman abert her age it is. The war with the Germans naturally I meant."

"You've been working since the Nazis?"

Her laugh become even deeper. "The Nazis? By that time well out of Europe I was. The war a century ago I was meaning."

At this point, she could have told me she had three heads, and I probably would have just nodded. It wasn't until later that it even occurred to me to be skeptical.

"Your brother fine should be. Under the age of 12 I understand you to say he was, before the pills?"

I nodded.

"Then problerms there should nert be. Those bottles all effects of the pills should undo." Even through my stupor, I picked out that piece of good news. "You, ern the other hand, a tougher problem will be." Uh-oh.

James jumped in. "But Alex has hardly aged at all!"

The doctor frowned at him. "True this is, but Mr. Alex ern erdult was before the pills he took. Those pills for children designed were. To erdult male hormernes the chemicals will bind. The changes undone can be, but side effects there cannot being avoided."

I swallowed. "What kind of side effects?"

"Without the jargon, to describe easy it is nert. Exercising you herve been, while the pills working were. Huge muscles and height resulting err, yes?"

"Yes."

"Metaphor simplest is being: vastly to oversimplify, your body this size remembering will be. Slightest excuse to your body you give, and like a balloon you will inflate."

James was grinning from ear to ear. "So in short: he'll shrink back down when you treat him, but if he lifts weight, he'll eventually get as big as he is now."

The doctor nodded solemnly. "Perhaps evern bigger he will become. Sorry I am, but the pills administered against my directions were."

James laughed out loud. "Don't worry, Doctor. I don't think it will be a problem."

Suddenly, there was a call from the room. "Alex? Are you there?"

I ran into the room. Lying on the bed, in the middle of a truly disgusting puddle, was Alex -- 11-year-old Alex, just as I remembered him. The hospital gown was drenched, and far too large for him, and most of the attachments had fallen right off. I picked him up off the bed and gave him a long, long hug. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and I think I did both.

After a while, he coughed. "You didn't happen to bring my Pokemon stuff with you, did you?"

At the doctor's suggestion, James and I left the building first, calmly passing the security desk. A few minutes later, the doctor wheeled her enormous bag out of the hospital, nodding to the guards. We drove up to the curb and I got out and put her bag next to me in the back seat. She got in the front passenger seat and we drove away. A few minutes later, I unzipped the bag, and Ryan poked his head out. He was nestled between more bottles, which were strapped to the inside of the bag.

"That was fun! The doctors were going crazy looking for me! They didn't even ask to look in the bag because they were looking for a big old man."

"I wonder how long it will be before they think to call my cell phone?"

The doctor gave a grunt of laughter. "Happening soon that will nert be. When unhooked from the monitors your brother was, code blue declared was, and the nurses' station unmanned became. Medical computer systems familiar with I am, all contact information I changed. Ambulance driver remembering the house will be, so at some point your location they will have, but by that time treatment I will be performing, and recognizing you they will nert be."

As it happened, the doctor was absolutely right. When we reached home, she gave me a sedative and had me lie down on a plastic sheet in the garage. When I woke up, I was soaked and lying in a pool of horrible-smelling (and -looking) goop, which I washed away with the garden hose, but like Ryan I was my former size. When the police showed up with the ambulance driver, we had Ryan's room re-papered with Pokemon posters, and although the hospital was deeply suspicious, they could find no evidence that either the giant or the old man had actually lived at our address. Ryan and I stuck to our story that we had gone out for midnight waffles at IHOW as a special treat, leaving the back door unlocked, and had no idea who either of the people who called were.

I later heard from a friend who interned there that the hospital received an envelope stuffed with cash and a note claiming to have exploited our address to sneak an old drug addict in for treatment. Since they were fully compensated, and no long-term harm seemed to have been done beyond having to throw away all the soaked linens on Ryan's bed, they ceased inquiries. I certainly know that the whole incident was not entered in our records at the police station, because I asked about it later when Ryan got his driver's license.

The doctor had not stayed to talk after treating me. She left a note on my dresser:

"Mr. Wrightman:

"Great trouble I have caused. Resolved now it is. Further issues there will not be, I am guaranteeing. Nevertheless, guilty I feel. Hoping I am that this will amends make. Best of luck to you I am wishing.

"Dr. Vera Franskasten
"Svensk F?ryngring Stiftelse"

Under the note were three wads of $100 bills, each a couple of inches thick.

I found out later that she had carefully grilled Ryan about the pills, and had managed to get him to hand over the third bottle voluntarily, which she stuffed in her bag. We never saw it again. Good riddance!

When we talked about it, settling the story we were going to tell everyone to cover up the whole thing, Ryan gave me his view. "She was really nice. I hope she's okay." Then he frowned, and astonished me: "She must have been pretty when she was young."

I sent the doctor an e-mail of thanks, but it bounced. It was a week later when I finally got curious enough to look for news of the doctor online, and had a surprise.

Within 24 hours of when the doctor left our house -- the exact time is a little difficult to pinpoint, because the news reports were written in America and did not specify which timezone applied where -- the Swedish police had raided the address of the "Svensk F?ryngring Stiftelse", which turned out to be an empty set of apartments in an abandoned building at the edge of a small town. Nobody in the town had ever met her, recognized her description, or had even heard of the "Svensk F?ryngring Stiftelse". As it happened, as far as any records could show, the doctor had no medical degree from any medical school or authority, anywhere.

Furthermore, there had been no symposium; during the previous week, the doctor had made visits around Sweden to various families whose children had been given her pills. Every one of them had been restored to their former size and condition, and although doctors were monitoring them all using every means available, not a single one showed any signs of health problems, or even any evidence of having done anything at all unusual -- one of them had actually reached the age of 40, but by the time she was examined by the medical establishment, was physically indistinguishable from any other healthy 10-year-old. After reading a few of the comments made by the parents, I suspected that they, too, had been given "amends" for their inconvenience. Otherwise their calm was utterly incomprehensible.

No further news was forthcoming -- either the Swedish police never found her, or her capture was not considered newsworthy. By the end of the summer, it was as though she had never existed at all.

We spent a lot of the next few weeks lying to various people. Ryan got a new cell phone to avoid getting calls from his various former conquests -- it took nearly two months to convince all the women who kept showing up that my uncle Ryan had left with no forwarding address. I think I sprained a finger keeping them crossed in the hopes that none of them would report an STD or a pregnancy, and fortunately none of them did. Ryan was hugely disappointed by the evaporation of his sex life at first; he could remember all the sensations of sex, but his body just wasn't capable of it yet, and for a week he practically went crazy with frustration because he couldn't even masturbate. Fortunately, a new Pokemon game came out, and a day later you couldn't get him to talk about anything else.

Ryan was, of course, grounded for the rest of the summer. Well, okay, we went on a little vacation on a long weekend, with James along, and a few small trips to amusement parks, but the rest of the time he stayed in the house, and was not allowed to even talk to his friends (although we pretended that the e-mail he sent to them was something I didn't know about, so that he was able to stay in touch). We taught him how to do every single chore we could think of -- starting with cleaning the damn waffle iron -- and how to cook, and I also supervised his workouts. By the time he headed off for school again in the fall, he wasn't quite as big as he had been the last time his friends had seen him, but he was muscular enough -- and puberty had actually begun, so he was also tall enough -- for them to accept that the difference was a result of spending the summer sitting around doing nothing.

Meanwhile, James and I continued to see each other. I worried that he would be disappointed now that I was small again, but his response was typical of him: "this is great! When you grow this time, I can record it!"

Oh, and I won my bodybuilding competition that summer. I registered for the contest just in time.

Epilogue

[nnnrg]

With that accent, she's got to be an alien.

[Otaru_grower]

I am so curious about Dr. Vera now. Why did she REALLY send Ryan those pills? I think she knew exactly what would happen and was collecting data for her own immortality somehow.

Loved all of this...great writing.

[chocomus]

nnnrg's comment might seem like a joke, but I think she could well have been an alien testing a new species she had found in her space travels: humans.

Also, I'm quite relieved everything ended well. I was going to say that i look forward to the epilogue, but since it's already posted, i don't have to wait or anything heheeee

[nnnrg]

Originally Posted by chocomus

nnnrg's comment might seem like a joke, but I think she could well have been an alien testing a new species she had found in her space travels: humans.

It was a joke, but it was also something I thought was entirely too likely.
Having seen the epilogue, I now believe that she's actually an alchemist - the precursors of chemistry, after all - who actually stumbled across one of the great goals of alchemy, the Elixir Vitae, and who then used the advancing studies of chemistry to analyze and identify the non-mystical compositions of her discovery until she found out what it really did.

I wonder if she's planning to share it with the others, and if so, will she give James some of the pills so he can upscale to the size that Alex achieved.

[The Pecman]

Terrific job, Tekuno! I particularly liked that there were penalties and complications for the muscle growth, which I think added a dose of reality. Every time I had a logical question (like what about the older brother's job?), you managed to answer it as the story went on. (The Yoda-speak got a little annoying in sections, but I get you were going for a very unusual accent.)

One question: why did the older brother have to lose his chemically-obtained muscles? If those weren't killing him or causing him any medical complications, I'm not sure why this would be an issue (except for making the younger brother horribly jealous).

[tekuno]

Originally Posted by The Pecman

Terrific job, Tekuno! I particularly liked that there were penalties and complications for the muscle growth, which I think added a dose of reality. Every time I had a logical question (like what about the older brother's job?), you managed to answer it as the story went on. (The Yoda-speak got a little annoying in sections, but I get you were going for a very unusual accent.)

The accent was "generic scandinavian ? la Tom Holt". He writes it better than I do, by far. (I had a hard time writing it, unlike Ralph-speak, which is so easy I have a hard time stopping!)

One question: why did the older brother have to lose his chemically-obtained muscles? If those weren't killing him or causing him any medical complications, I'm not sure why this would be an issue (except for making the younger brother horribly jealous).

Well:

(A) You haven't read the epilogue yet, have you? (Or, at least, you hadn't as of when you wrote that comment.)

(B) From the perspective of holes in the plot, Alex had to shrink back down. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to pretend he wasn't the guy seen by the pizza delivery man and the ambulance/hospital personnel, and the plan Alex and Ryan followed was to deny everything. ("Hmmm? Oh, no, my family is absolutely full of five-hundred-plus-pound, eight-foot-tall musclebound guys who look exactly like me except with a couple of days' worth of beard growth. And it certainly wasn't me who visited an old guy who ran up tens of thousands of medical bills in the emergency room and then vanished.")

(C) When I write a happy ending, nobody innocent is allowed to be permanently harmed. That meant Alex couldn't lose his bodybuilding career. And if he's going to be a contestant, he'd better not either have any detectable mystery substance in his system or have suddenly gained a couple of feet in height and several hundred pounds in a few days, making him impossible to beat ever again. (If nothing else, someone would probably notice the changes since the last contest, dig around and find out that he had been normal-sized when school let out in June or even when he left work for the last time, and make a connection. There would certainly be enough motivation to do that bit of detective work if he had tried.)

[The Pecman]

Ah, now read the Epilogue and I get it. I still say one or two lines from the mysterious doctor might have cautioned Alex, "there will be terrible side-effects unless we undo your growth" (or "terrible side-effects there will be unless growth we undo").

I'm also a sucker for happy endings, but I like that at least you put some real conflict and drama in there. Needs more sex!