Brandon Twice
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Classic Story Re-Post "Gametime Adjustements"
🕑 Added 2021-12-18 20:20:33 +0000 UTCNigel showed up at the football stadium after halftime, finding a seat about halfway up at the fifty yard line. The UNH Wildcats–the home team–were on a winning streak so the stadium was packed with football fans, which would make what was about to happen all the more satisfying for Nigel.
UNH was up 21 to 10, starting to give their Towson opponents a real spanking. Nigel watched UNH’s offensive players take the field–specifically number 13, the quarterback: Tim Watters. Nigel knew that this game was important, that people were watching Tim to see if he was ready for the next level, the NFL.
Nigel had known Tim since they were 6. No one knew, but Tim was Nigel’s first kiss when they were only 12 years old, the first man he was ever naked with when he was 15. In fact, Nigel applied to UNH when he heard Tim was getting a scholarship there. Since their first day on campus, Tim had demanded Nigel sneak into his room late at night and pretend he didn’t know him in public. Nigel obeyed every order. But two weeks before, Tim had told him that they had to stop. He had the NFL looking at him; he couldn’t be sneaking around with some gay guy. Plus, Tim said, he had a girlfriend. Their nonsense had gone on for too long and Tim was done, for good.
“Nonsense.” Nigel went through the next few days too numb to ache for what he’d lost, but still, that word stuck with him. He very coldly decided that he would take an extreme measure. He could show Tim some real nonsense.
Nigel had missed the first half–the whole day, since sunrise, actually–because he’d been kneeling in the center of a sigil he’d painted on his floor, chanting over a little doll he’d made from a bit of Tim’s hair and a jock he’d secretly stolen from Tim’s room. The little doll wore a helmet and a blue and white uniform, just like the Wildcat players taking the field. He’d wrapped the little doll tightly in silk while he uttered arcane words, focusing and projecting his energies into the doll.
Now, so exhausted he could barely sit up straight, he waited for those energies, amplified by the elements, to coalesce and do his bidding.
On the field, the center–number 70, Kent Hochle, Nigel knew, since he’d had to study the entire roster in order to perform the ritual–prepared to hike the ball, only vaguely aware of a mild, pleasant tingling throughout his body as he took his stance. Kent was an ox: 6 feet tall, 305 pounds of football beef; that is, until a moment after he snapped the ball to Tim through his tree-trunk thighs, when there was an audible “pop” noise, like a soap bubble bursting, and Kent found himself standing in the looming shadow of the player he was about to block, who now towered over him.
From the stands, Nigel watched as Kent deflated like a balloon. Kent was big as a buffalo one minute, then suddenly half his size the next. His body was still proportionate, his uniform still fit the same, but now Kent was three feet tall, staring up at a player who was now literally twice his size.
Kent seemed bewildered, and some of the people in the stands seemed a little confused for a moment, but Nigel felt his powerful spell doing its work, maintaining the feeling of normality even as the laws of physics were bent and skewed. Some present might get a vague feeling that something was off, and of course Kent would take a moment to adjust to the new surroundings, but most everyone would soon accept the new reality as the way things should be. Only Nigel was aware of the change, and he relished every moment.
Kent panicked, unaware of what to do–his athletic instincts kicked in, but he suddenly realized he’d never tried to block a player who was so much bigger than him before. He actually felt terrified for a moment, a feeling almost as foreign to him as the feeling of being airborne when the Towson player launched him with one hand and little effort.
With the ball in hand, Tim looked for a receiver, but after a loud POP, his tight end, big Chris Jannis, disappeared from view behind the opposing team. Another POP, and his wide receiver, Ty Aldis, was now a tiny three foot player, quickly and easily squashed by a Towson linebacker.
With no other choice, Tim decided to run the ball. One after another, those POP noises kept up–and he heard the helium-high squeals of the now midget-sized guards and tackles getting tossed like children by the Towson players.
Nigel’s heart pounded as his spell spread through Tim’s teammates, one by one cutting their sizes in half. The spell gained momentum, washing over the rest of the team on the sidelines. As each one popped down in size, he looked nervously up at the hulking players on either side of him, intimidated to be around men who were so big–until they, too, popped into tiny men. Soon, all of the Wildcats had been miniaturized. None of the coaching staff acknowledged the change, even though their biggest player was now a whole foot smaller than the shortest cheerleader.
The change caught up to Tim last. He’d actually made it to the 20 yard line when he heard the POP himself, suddenly finding his little legs making far less progress. The Towson player who caught up to him just reached over and grabbed the ball. Tim didn’t let go. He was lifted off the ground, his little legs kicking, as the Towson player walked the ball and the tiny quarterback attached back toward their goal. Finally Tim’s little arms gave way and he collapsed to the ground. The big Towson player strutted down the field, casually knocking away the UNH players that threw themselves at the–to them–giant man. A couple of them grabbed on like children, but it didn’t slow him down. He just dragged the tiny tackles along with him as he walked the ball into the end-zone.
“Don’t ever come to a game,” Tim had warned Nigel earlier that year. “I can’t have the distraction.” Tim looked plenty distracted now as he gathered himself up and walked slowly off the field, nervously avoiding the big Towson players.
Nigel’s whole body tingled, his exhaustion pushed aside for a moment by the rush of his spell reaching critical mass. Any sense that something abnormal was going on had been entirely wiped away. The UNH Wildcats were an entire team of pygmy football players around three feet tall. The Towson Tigers had taken it easy on them for the first half, letting them score a couple of touchdowns to give the miniature athletes a little thrill, but now they were done playing around and it was time to win the game.
When Kent squatted down with the ball again, it looked ridiculously huge in his little hands. At the snap, Tim toppled over, unprepared for its weight–“Hadn’t the ball always been this size?” he wondered for just a moment before a gigantic Towson player blotted out the sky and came down upon him.
In the stands, Nigel’s heart pounded as he sensed his spell raging over the stadium. Overwhelmed by vertigo, he put both hands to his temples as the world seemed to spin out of control. He thought he might vomit. Out in the ether, he sensed his spell finally crashing like a wave against a shore. He’d planned for it to subside at the end of the game, the team returning to their original sizes, aware that they’d lost but unsure of exactly how, but now it was beyond his control. Reality seemed to bend and stretch around him–and then it was done. The spell was permanent. Nigel’s heart beat in his temples as new, slightly different memories settled into his mind.
He could still remember 6'1" football star Tim, the love of his life, but now he also remembered his youth with Tim, as he grew taller but his best buddy and lover matured but stayed the same little size. He remembered the novelty of Tim’s scholarship to UNH, a team that only signed little guys like him. He remembered exploring Tim’s ripped, athletic body–but curled up in his arms, small as a puppy. Nigel knew it was different but he knew it was real. Then he remembered staring down at his lover as he heard the shrill, squeaky voice declare, “I have a girlfriend now. Whatever nonsense we used to do is over now.”
The fans around Nigel had gone quiet, their cheers now infrequent and lackluster, many of them filtering away as the Tigers battered the little Wildcats players around with ease. Gathering his energy to stand, Nigel headed toward the exit, glancing back to snicker at the timid, dejected little football team shifting uncomfortably on the sidelines. Once again, Tim sailed a good ten yards after a hearty shove. Maybe Nigel would wait in Tim’s room to see if he needed a little tenderness after the beating of the game. And maybe there wasn’t much a sexy little three-foot tall quarterback could do to get rid of him now.
