Weiss Kreuz Fan Fiction ❯ Play With Me? ❯ Sometimes You're The Louisville Slugger ( Chapter 6 )

 

 

Yohji opened his eyes slowly, blinking the sleep from them and stared at the person lying next to him. This wasn't the same Aya he'd gone to sleep flopped against the night before. The other boy's face had thinned, losing much of the baby fat from the previous day, starting to show some of the face it would become in adulthood. Aya's hair had also darkened slightly and grown a good three inches. He sighed a little. He guessed they were growing up and he wasn't at all sure he wanted that to happen just yet. He'd been having fun with Aya, Schu and even Brad, when he wasn't being a bossy jerk.

 

He half sat up to look at the rest of his companions. True to his guess, Schuldig also looked to be roughly eight or nine at that point. What gave him the biggest shock was looking at Brad. He looked to be around eleven. Judging by the arm thrown over Schuldig, Yohji would have guessed he'd grown about a foot overnight. Even relaxed in sleep, the lines of the other boy's face were more pronounced, sharper and harder, much more angular than curved, becoming the face of a young adult instead of a child. He pondered why Brad would look so much older for a moment before he remembered that he actually was at least five years older than the rest of them.

 

Yohji sighed heavily. They were aging, that was a fact he couldn't deny or change. All too soon they would be back to the men they'd been before all of this happened. Schuldig would be the twisted cynic, Brad the vicious manipulator, and Aya . . . Aya would go back to being the wounded caretaker behind walls of ice. He himself would again take on the mask of carefree seducer with a heart of glass.

 

His eyes cut back to Brad to find the other boy awake and watching him closely. Brad nodded and inclined his head toward the outside world of their makeshift tent. Yohji understood and carefully crawled out without disturbing Aya while Brad disengaged himself from Schuldig. They made their way outside to the deck, Brad noting ruefully that his PJs were a far cry from fitting properly at that point. They wrapped themselves more firmly in the blankets they'd brought with them and watched the sun creep up over the mountains.

 

Neither of them spoke for a while and oddly enough it was Brad who broke the silence, voicing what Yohji had been wondering since waking up that morning.

 

“Do we have to go back to being what we were?”

 

“Dunno. Do we?”

 

“What happens in life is what makes us who we are, right?”

 

“Yeah,” Yohji said, suddenly thinking he had caught what Brad was trying to say. “So, we can be something different if we want. Cause this happened, we can change, can't we?”

 

“Guess so. If we want to. I don't think I wanna be your enemy anymore,” Brad said thoughtfully.

 

“Me neither. Can't we just be . . . I dunno, competition for jobs and stuff?”

 

“Yeah, I think we can do that. That'll wait `til we're grown up. One thing we gotta do today for sure though.”

 

“Get new pants.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

They both glanced into the house when they heard noise coming from the kitchen. When they walked in Farf stood blinking and staring for a moment before grinning.

 

“Well, looks like our boys are growing up.”

 

“Bite me, Farf,” Brad grumbled, trying to get his much longer legs to coordinate properly considering his center of gravity was much different from yesterday. He brushed back the much longer length of hair with one hand and began rummaging around in the cabinets, looking for cooking utensils and breakfast items.

 

“What do you think you're doing?” Farf asked, sounding amused.

 

“I can cook, you know. French toast isn't that damn hard to make.”

 

***

 

Two hours and several “what the fuck” moments later, the whole bunch had gone back out into town. Brad was wearing a pair of Nagi's pants and Omi's shirt because they were the only things that even came close to fitting him. Fortunately, Schuldig's abilities had also gone up a notch, enabling him to make certain shop owners “forget” they had ever seen them a day or so ago. They had gotten an assortment of clothes in various sizes, reasoning since they weren't exactly sure when the “children” would grow again it was better to be safe than sorry.

 

They eventually made their way back to the park just as school had let out for the day across the street. It took a few minutes but soon Yohji, Aya and Schuldig had playmates other than one another and Brad had been invited to play baseball at the vacant lot next to the park.

 

Half an hour into the game one of the other players nudged Brad.

 

“Ne, Braddo, looks like someone's picking on your brothers,” the other boy said, jerking his head toward the swings where Aya and Schuldig had been playing with some of the other kids.

 

Sure enough, when he looked, Schuldig, Aya and the other kids were surrounded by a group of much bigger boys who were pushing them around.

 

“Those fuckers have to be at least thirteen,” he said, stalking toward the group with a determined stride.

 

Soon he was close enough to see that one of them had Schuldig by the hair and was holding him about a foot off the ground. He shoved his way into the circle and without preamble slugged the kid holding Schuldig so hard there was an audible “crack” as his nose broke and blood sprayed everywhere. Aya more or less caught Schuldig as he fell when the bigger boy staggered back, holding his nose and swearing while the others stood around too shocked to move for a moment.

 

“Aya, get him out of here. Schuldig, focus!” Brad snapped. “Get Nagi. Now! I'll handle these losers.”

 

“What are you waiting for?” the one with the broken nose said. “Get that bastard!”

 

Schuldig started into the fray as every one of the bigger boys jumped Brad at once but Aya held him back.

 

“He'll be okay. He always beats me in a fight. These guys don't have a chance. We gotta get Nagi and the rest like he said,” Aya said, sprinting off and dragging Schuldig with him.

 

 

Getting Nagi and the rest of Schwarz and Weiss had proved unnecessary. Brad had pretty much destroyed all comers by the time they got there and other than a whopping good shiner was none the worse for wear.

 

Yohji stood shaking his little head and looking at the scattered bodies on the ground. He was sure that if Brad would have been older these guys would have been dead instead of just really hurting. He remembered the talk he and Brad had that morning and started laughing.

 

“What's so funny?” Omi wanted to know.

 

“I guess some things never change.”

 

Brad shrugged. “Yeah, well, sometimes you're the Louisville Slugger and sometimes you're the ball. Today, they got to be the ball.”