Sunday

It's getting close to nighttime, and Mike is still driving me crazy.

All weekend, he's been begging one of us to go play basketball with him. Leo keeps telling him no because of his sprained wrist and Don won't come out of his room - probably annoyed with Mike like the rest of us. I thought he should come out and deal with it, too, but found him staring intently at his computer. When he's like that, no one moves him.

"Please?" Mike begs, again.

Leo repeats, "No."

"Please?"

"No."

"But, Leo, please?"

"No," Leo demands. Leo turns to Mike quick, "And before you ask again, the answer is still no. You're not going even if we go with you."

"But then how am I supposed to get better?" Mike whines.

"Your not," Leo crosses his arms, "You're supposed to let your hand heal. And besides, by the time it has, basketball will be over."

"Yeah, but what about next year?" Mike points out, "I'll have to do the segment then, too. And I still won't be good."

"Then practice over the summer," Leo shrugs, "Because you're not doing it today."

"But Leo-"

I get up from the couch, "You know what, Mike? You've been complaining all day. Just go do something else."

"But Don is busy," Mike states.

"So do something without him," Leo shrugs.

Mike stares at us blankly, "Dudes, the whole purpose to my existence is to bug you guys. If you're annoyed and Don is busy, then I have nothing." Okay, so, that's not really what he says, but it might as well have been. It seems like that's all he does, anyway.

I roll my eyes, "Come on," walking for my coat, "If you really want to go do something, then lets go do something."

Mike and Leo both stare at me in shock. Mike stutters out, "Wh-what?"

"Yeah, come on," I shrug, "I'm going out. Coming with me?"

His eyes get bigger and he takes a step behind Leo, "Uh, what are you trying to pull, here?"

"Fine, man," I open the door, hiding my smirk, "You don't want to go. You don't gotta go."

Mike puts his hands up, "Um, no. I think I'm good. You go have fun."

"Suit it yourself," I shrug, heading out. I quickly close the door behind me. That was a close one. Now Leo is stuck with the brat all by himself and I get to leave. And everyone calls Don the genus.

I find myself heading down to the park. Mike got basketball in my head and there always seem to be a few groups of kids who end up playing late on Sundays. I find one group next to the far court and walk over. A guy on the sidelines tells me there looking for an extra player. "Hey," I call out as I get closer, "Need another player?"

One of the guys on the court stops to look at me. When I recognize his face, I feel a pit in my stomach. It gets deeper as he guy starts laughing, "What are the odds? Come to get a beat down a day early?"

I sigh, slowly raising my hands, "Sorry, my mistake," and then I get stupid, "I didn't realize this court was covered in garbage."

Spike growls at me while the game behind him slows to a stop. The more faces I see, the more trouble I realize I'm in. Every single one of them is a purple dragon that I've fought as the Night Watcher. I crack my knuckles. It's not basketball, but it's going to be so much more fun.

Spike wags his finger, seeming to understand that I want to bash his head in, "Now, now, Raphie boy. Just because we're not at school doesn't mean that you can forget about our deal." I freeze. This just took a very bad turn. "Jeez, kid, I knew you were dense, but that's no reason to be stupid. There's one of you and nine of us. Did you really think - even without our deal - that you could take us?"

Internally I smirk at the idea of pounding all of them into dust. Externally, I realize this may have been a bad idea.