Whoop, whoop, Laven week. Jk I'm so dead. This is actually just a random plot I had thought up a very long time ago and I didn't write anything for Laven week today (that's a lie, I did, but it wasn't finished in time so bleh. Maybe next year or something) I'm going to try my best to make this a 7 chapter thing...but I'll have to rewatch the movie that encouraged me to write this like a billion times. I could've gotten off easily if Usagi-Twins didn't scream at me *twitch* so yeah. Here's a random plot for you guys to dwell on. And I wouldn't blame you if you punched me for my pun title. Go right ahead. I'm dead inside.

His bottom lip quivered, his eyes watered, his shoulders trembled, his body fidgeted. He thought maybe these kids would be different, maybe they would accept him for who he was, not how he played or how he looked. He was wrong.

At the age of twelve, Allen Walker wasn't a great baseball player despite the fact that his father and uncle were both renown players in the National DGM League. After his father died in a fatal accident in the field once, Neah has been pressuring him more and more into becoming 'who Mana wanted him to be.' It was hard...Allen could barely even throw a ball, better yet catch it. It was just one day that he was walking around that he saw a few kids—eight to be exact—playing around in a field. He would always walk past them, watching them play the game Neah desperately tried to teach him. They were good, actually. Allen admired them a lot, he loved baseball, he just...couldn't play it. It was one day that he walked by that he saw a few other players on the field. They were all arguing about something, but Allen just felt down that they weren't playing today and continued on his own little walk. Just as he was passing the gate to get in, the other players from before nearly ran him over.

"Who do you think you're crossing?" The much larger teen asked bitterly.

"I-I'm sorry, I was just passing th-through..." Allen stuttered. The teen pushed Allen through the gate as he passed by them and Allen, being sensitive at the time, resisted the urge to cry.

"Maggot." Allen heard the teen whisper. He really wanted to go home, run to Neah, and cry his eyes out. He knew that it would be impossible though since his uncle was growing distant from him ever since he found out that Allen wasn't a natural at baseball.

"...sorry..." Allen mumbled as they strode off and picked himself up off the ground, attempting to rid himself of the dirt that had acquainted itself with his pants.

"Oi, brat, get out of our field." A stern voice spoke up and Allen looked up to see a very menacing teenager with long hair and a baseball bat in his hand. Allen immediately stood up and started walking away.

"Hey, wait!" Another one called and Allen stopped.

"Don't stop, fucker, keep going." The teenager from before snapped. Allen started walking again but felt himself being dragged back. "Damn it, you stupid rabbit..." The menacing teen muttered. Allen looked behind him curiously to see a boy with bright red hair that was kept around his face and green eyes that sparkled with excitement. His jacket said 'Rabi' so Allen could only assume that was what his name was...

"Hey, do you like baseball?" He asked cheerfully. Allen titled his head to look at all the other players behind him that were staring at him curiously.

"I like watching it." Allen admitted.

"Really?!" Rabi chirped. Allen frowned at him and looked away.

"I don't see what the big deal is..." He mumbled.

"It's a huge deal! You can be our ninth player!" Rabi announced. Allen frowned at him and shrugged him off.

"I said I liked watching it, not playing." The younger boy mumbled and turned around to leave but this redhead was persistent. He tried dragging him deeper into the field.

"Doesn't matter! You know how the rules go then? I can just teach you!" Rabi said jovially. Allen pulled his arm out of Rabi's grasp.

"No, you can't..." Allen muttered and backed away from him. "My uncle has already tried...I can't do it...I just can't..."

"Your uncle, eh? Maybe he's just not good at teaching people!" Rabi reasoned and headed towards him.

"No, he's good...I just suck." Allen said quietly.

"Gee, where's your self-esteem, kid?" Rabi asked jokingly. "If you don't know how to play, you can at least catch a ball, right?" Rabi questioned. It was rhetorical, but Allen didn't notice.

"...no..." He replied. Rabi frowned at him.

"How old are ya, twelve? Any twelve-year-old can catch a ball!" Rabi reasoned.

"Well I can't." Allen grumbled.

"Oh come on, just try it?" Rabi whined. Allen huffed and shook his head.

"Oi, rabbit! Duck!" The mean teen from before shouted. Rabi, not questioning anything, ducked and Allen cocked his head to the side.

His eyes widened when he noticed a ball coming straight for him.

Honestly, Allen was terrified. He knew that if he just thought about it, he could at least reach his hands up and block it or something. It was a real easy catch. A ten year old could've caught it. But, Allen just stood frozen stiff and nearly collapsed when he felt a rush of pain through his skull. He fell to his knees and clutched the left side of his face. Rabi watched the entire thing blankly. The kid didn't even make an attempt to catch it...he just didn't try. Truthfully, Rabi hated people like that. They would demand that it was impossible for them to do something, yet they never really tried? Yeah, things like that just ticked him off. His eye twitched and he stood up straight to stare down at the kid a bit irritably.

"Wow...you do suck."

That was all it took for Allen to start crying.

The only ones that really cared that Allen was crying was a few of the other members of the baseball team, Miranda and Lenalee. Rabi mumbled 'crybaby' before walking away, throwing the bat over his shoulder. The girls exchanged confused glances as Rabi walked past them. "Come on guys, let's keep practicing."

That was the last time Allen ever tried to connect with players of another team.

He avoided playing on a team for three years, practicing all on his own, or having Neah throw baseballs at him. In fact, he actually had a machine made for him (because of how famous his uncle was, he could get it made) so that he could just set it up whenever he liked, pushing in the settings of how fast he wanted the balls to shoot out, the distance, everything. He used his mind to quickly calculate the movements of what was going to happen next. Everything for him was hard as he progressed through his younger years, leading up to his teenage ones now...he survived through so much, and even gained a scar whenever the machine he used malfunctioned and blew up, burning a few pieces of hot metal to his face. His hair had slowly turned white through the years of dealing with so much stress on his shoulders. Allen didn't play baseball for fun, even though he wanted to. In order to have fun, he'd have to join a team, and he'd never do that.

'Rabi' on the other hand, whose actual name was 'Lavi', kept on playing in that same field, trying his best to get better and better at what he did. The team he had grew together as a family, but he knew one day he'd have to have another player join the team since you needed nine players in an actual team. Just one more player and they could actually join the minor summer league. If they played hard enough and impressed the judges, then they could get a chance to be hired for the National DGM League. Lenalee had tried telling him that they would never get close to anyone enough as all of them were together, but he had to try, right?

What really bugged him the most was the kid he met three years ago. He couldn't get it off his mind even now as he made his way home from the field. He knew that he screwed up by giving up on the kid when he saw that he couldn't catch a ball. Even if he couldn't, he still could've made friends with the kid and just had him in the center field and not have him do anything. He'd still learn as he grew, but no, Lavi had to be a douche-bag and call the small kid a crybaby. It was one of the biggest regrets of his life even though his parents told him to live life with no regrets. Then again, Lavi didn't listen to anyone most of the time so it really wasn't that surprising, was it?

Crack.

The sound of a bat colliding with a baseball was music to Lavi's ears. He paused in his walking when he realized that there shouldn't be any practice going on...he just left practice...then again...maybe he found the Noahs' base? He really wanted to know where they trained...could it really be them though? He'd walked down this street so many times before...

Crack.

There it went again...Lavi stopped walking and waited for another sound.

Crack.

Being the curious rabbit he was, he started walking in the direction that he heard the sound in.

Crack.

Lavi slowed to a stop and found himself outside a very small house with a huge field in the back yard.

Crack.

He walked around the house and peeked around to see a teenager in front of some kind of machine holding a bat. He couldn't really make out the boy very well since he was pretty far away. Just as Lavi was about to look away, the machine shot out a ball in a very fast motion and the boy hit it flawlessly.

Crack.

Lavi felt his mouth drop as the balls kept coming at the boy. He looked obviously tired by the way he was slouching, but he just didn't seem to want to give up...Lavi ducked behind a bush when a man came out of the house.

"Allen! Don't you think-" He started.

Crack.

"You've finished practicing? You never stay out this-" Once again, he was interrupted by the machine.

Crack.

"Late!" He finally finished. 'Allen' sluggishly dropped his back and yawned. The machine shot out a ball and he stared at it, stunned. He then made an undignified noise and ducked. The man that came out before screamed and also ducked so that the baseball flew into the house and broke something. His eye twitched and he stared at Allen sternly.

"Oops, I miscounted." He replied sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck.

"You could've caught it!" The man said incredulously. Allen paused and tapped his chin.

"I suck at catching." He replied simply and stood up to dust his knees off. "You know that." Allen gave him a lopsided smile and bent his spine backwards to crack his back.

"Just come inside already." The man grumbled. Allen smiled and jogged towards the back door. He frowned and stopped before looking over directly where Lavi used to be. The redhead had previously ran off. "What's wrong?" Neah asked.

"...nothing...just thought I saw something..." Allen said slowly before walking inside. He took a drink out of his water bottle and collapsed on the couch. His shoulders felt really sore...then again, that's what he gets for staying outside all day. He probably would've gotten burned on more than just his face if he didn't wear long sleeves. Allen groaned and nearly tore his shirt off, rolling his shoulder. Neah walked in and sat down next to his nephew.

"...why don't you join a team? It'd be a waste if you didn't..." Neah mumbled.

"Because that would mean trusting people that think you're worthless." Allen replied and stood up. He didn't want to talk to Neah about this. He knew that if he did then Neah would bring up Mana and Allen hated it when he brought up Mana. Once he walked into his room, his golden golem, Timcanpy, flew to his side. Allen was only temporarily taking care of him for Cross...or so his master said. He had a feeling that Cross just didn't want to feed him anymore. Despite the fact that Timcanpy was a golem, he could eat a lot...even if he was a machine. "What's up, Tim?" Allen asked. The golden golem flew off of his shoulder and hit itself against the window and then stared at Allen disapprovingly...even though it didn't really have a face...Allen could just tell... "You want to go outside?"

Timcanpy nodded his head.

Sighing, Allen looked out to the sun setting over the horizon. "I'll take you on a walk tomorrow, how does that sound? It's probably been awhile since you had a good view of the town, huh?" Allen asked and Timcanpy fluttered around excitedly. Honestly, he didn't like walking around town. He would walk around only to go shopping. If he did anything else, he had a chance of seeing Cross or that blasted team he met three years ago. If Allen ever saw them again, he'd probably throw a baseball at their eyes. Yeah, then they'd get to see how it felt.

Allen had more than enough black eyes for a few lifetimes.

The next morning, Allen was woken up by Timcanpy, who was slamming himself into everything so that his master would wake up. Timcanpy chose to not have anymore mercy and flew down and bit Allen's ear. Allen yelped and sat straight up in his bed. "Ugh, Tim...what the hell...what time is it?" Allen muttered and looked over at his alarm clock. It was ten. "Tiiiiim." Allen whined. Timcanpy showed it's teeth to him and Allen sighed, getting up to dress.

After dressing comfortably, Allen whined a bit of how hot it was until fixing him and Timcanpy a bowl of cereal. Allen amusingly watched Timcanpy devour his bowl quickly. After breakfast, Timcanpy landed on his shoulder and Allen opened the door to leave the house. He called back to Neah that he was leaving and then walked down their driveway and on the sidewalk. It was actually kind of nice to be out like this, just walking to relax. Usually he would jog around his house a few times to build up leg strength, but now he was relaxing. His shoulders felt like hell, but he didn't worry much about that. His shoulders always felt like hell. Neah tried giving him a massage once and...well, let's just say that Allen was ready to murder him. Timcanpy flew around his head excitedly as they entered deeper into the neighborhood. Allen had passed by many strangers that were jogging and they would greet him softly or just nod their head in his direction. At least these people were nice...

I wonder if they're still in that sandlot...

His curiosity got the better of him and Allen found himself walking in that direction. He was proven correct whenever he heard the clashing of bat against ball, shoes against dirt, cheering against booing. What he heard the most was people having fun. Something he'd never been able to do. Timcanpy seemed to want to go as close to the gate as he possibly could, but Allen paid no mind to him. He wasn't going near that gate, not after what happened last time. Instead, Allen carelessly put his hands behind his head and kept walking. Just as he passed by the gate, a loud shout was heard.

"Watch out!"

Oh how familiar that voice was.

Allen looked over to see a ball coming for him and panicked. It was then that he realized that Timcanpy had flown in front of the ball and opened his mouth to catch it. Said golem caught it in his mouth and flew over to his master worriedly. Allen held out his gloved hand and Timcanpy dropped it in his palm. Yeah, it was definitely a baseball. Quite worn too. Lavi, or as Allen knew him as 'Rabi', came running over. "Sorry 'bout that, that's ours." Allen looked at the ball and then looked at Lavi and then back at the ball.

"Oh, did you want me to return it to you even though you almost took my eye out with it?"Allen asked, the British accent of his showing it's face again. "No offense, that is." Allen sniffed, observing Lavi's eye-patch. Lavi laughed and waved him off.

"None taken." He replied and neared him.

"I wouldn't get too close." Allen said bitterly. Lavi blinked and stopped walking before giving Allen an odd look as he tossed the ball in his hand. "How else will you be able to dodge it?"

"Dodge what?"

Allen pulled his arm back and threw the ball as hard as he could at Lavi. Lavi let out a scream and dropped to the ground. He could feel the ball whiz past him as it had barely touched a few pieces of his hair. Allen frowned when he realized it didn't hit him. "Bummer, it didn't hit. Maybe I'm a bit too sore, don't you think, Tim?" Allen asked. Timcanpy grinned and nodded his head. Allen smiled and pet Timcanpy's head lovingly. He didn't notice the redhead storming towards him until he managed to tackle him to the ground. "AH!"

"What was that for! You could've taken my other eye out, man! That's not cool!" Lavi growled, staring down at the appalled teen. Allen opened his mouth to reply but he just couldn't help but notice that Lavi was sitting on him. He was touching him. Someone was touching him.

"G-get off!" Allen shouted and tried pushing Lavi off. Lavi growled again and pinned his wrists beside his head.

"Seriously, dude, what did I ever do to you?"

"What did you do to me? Oh so I guess you don't remember then? You don't remember how you destroyed my hopes when I didn't even know any better? Let's not forget that you insulted me for simply crying! I couldn't help that I was sensitive back then!" Allen shouted. Lavi cocked an eyebrow at him.

"Um, have we met before?"

"Oh for the love of—Tim! Sic em!" Allen snapped. Timcanpy rushed forward and bit Lavi's nose as hard as he could. Lavi cried out and fell backwards so that Allen was on top of him instead. "Don't you ever talk to me again." He hissed.

"Allen! There you are! What's this? You've made friends?!" Allen paled at the sound of his uncle calling out.

"N-no! I was just...um..." Allen muttered, dusting himself off. "He fell and I came to help him." Allen lied, pointing at Lavi.

"Then how were you on the ground as well?" Neah asked. Allen panicked and Lavi spoke up.

"I accidentally dragged him down with me." Lavi lied, going along with Allen's plan. The kid was already mad at him for god knows what reason he didn't want Allen to hate him even more...if that was possible...

"Oh...wait were you guys playing baseball?" Neah asked excitedly. Allen looked mortified as Neah helped Lavi to his feet. "Funny thing, really, you see, Allen is an amazing—" Neah started but Allen covered his mouth. He then spun Neah around and started pushing him away.

"Come on, Tim, we're leaving!" Allen announced and his golem that had started flying around before, followed him.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Neah chanted and planted his feet. Allen nearly fell over and Neah grabbed his wrist and started storming over towards Lavi. Lavi stared at the two confusingly. "This is a perfect chance, Allen!"

"No, no, no, no this is not!" Allen chanted back and tried to pull his wrist from Neah's grasp. "It's not happening!"

"You see Allen is actually looking for a team to join—"

"I AM NOT!" Allen shouted, still trying to remove his wrist from Neah's grasp. "You just made that up!"

"—and you seem to be lacking a player."

"LET GO!" Allen demanded. Neah tightened his grip and Allen whined. He would've sicced Timcanpy on him, but Timcanpy would never disobey his uncle. Lavi smirked and raised an eyebrow at Neah.

"What could you be implying there, Mr...?" Lavi trailed off invitingly.

"Walker." Neah answered with a smirk. "Neah Walker." Lavi's jaw dropped.

"Ugh let go!" Allen complained. He pursed his lips and kicked behind Neah's knees. The adult faltered, but didn't release his iron grip on him.

"Cut it out!" Neah argued and looked back at Lavi with a smile. "Would it be alright if Allen joined your team?" Neah asked.

"NO! It would not be alright!" Allen tried answering.

"I think that'd be awesome." Lavi agreed. Allen gave him a mortified expression. "By the way, my name's Lavi." Lavi said with an exaggerated blink...or maybe that was a wink...

"Y-you can't just do that! I don't like him!" Allen said reasonably.

"Now, now, Allen, that's not nice. Tell him you're sorry." Neah instructed.

"No!" Allen growled and Neah spun him so that he'd face Lavi and pushed him towards the redhead, who simply grinned at the white haired boy. "I am not five!" Allen tried planting his feet in the ground like Neah did earlier, but it just wasn't working. Neah pushed him to the point that their chests were touching. Allen blushed brightly and looked away.

"Give him a hug and say you're sorry."

"No!"

"Don't make me lower your rations, Allen." Allen paled and quickly gave Lavi a hug.

"I hate you." Allen whispered and Lavi grinned.

"Awe, Allen, I love you too!" Lavi said brightly. Neah squealed.

"You idiot! Why did you say that!?" Allen growled threateningly.

"I didn't know you had a boyfriend, Allen!" He cheered. Both Allen and Lavi paled.

"Look what you did!" Allen whispered.

"I didn't know he'd take that seriously!" Lavi whispered back.

"You are his boyfriend, right?" Neah asked, giving Lavi a stare that said he better say yes or he'd have his head chopped off.

"Um...yeah...about that..." Lavi started but was interrupted by another one of Neah's squeals.

"So cute!" He chirped. "I'm sorry, Allen can be such a distant person at times, but I'm glad he found someone he loves~" Neah said, relieved.

"I hate you so much." Allen whispered bitterly into Lavi's ear.

It was going to be a long summer for the both of them.