The Change of the Seasons: The Long Sweat

Chapter 11
Only a Babysitter, Theoretically

Chapter Description: Nothing cements a regression of an adult so thoroughly like being babysat by a careless teenager.

[size=2]Bros before hoes used to mean something.

That’s what James thought as he watched his brother groom himself in the bathroom mirror for his date with Samantha. Of course, that statement wasn’t exactly relevant to his situation. Jonathan was his actual brother and Samantha was far removed any of the “hoes” that he and his friends attempted to court in college. The preteen boy still had his reservations about the situation of course; James had long held a soft spot for the teenage girl that would be picking up his brother soon. She was an honest-to-god female friend, one that he had known since she was barely out of diapers. Sammy had always played the kid sister in their friendship, but to him she was more.

If only I wasn’t such a coward in high school, he lamented.

James kept his thoughts to himself, partly because his brother’s routine was very alluring to the prepubescent boy. He wasn’t really sure why he was so focused on watching the scene but he found it was relaxing to see Jon carefully shave away each and every part of his facial hair. James’ soul, the last true remnant of his adult persona, found watching the process to be very cathartic in a vicarious way. Here it was, divorced from his adulthood by an immature body and a mind that was more and more complacent in thinking childish thoughts by the day, and there stood his brother on the opposite end of adolescence.

Jon was sexually mature in a way that James could never have conceived of when he was still the big brother in their relationship. Now Jon was the older brother, and from judging his memories of himself shaving at 20, he knew that it would take over a decade for him to even consider competing with Jon. James didn’t even want to think about comparing their chest hair. Nonetheless, despite James’ mixed emotions, there was a small part of him that was deeply proud of watching his brother.

“What movie do you think I should take Samantha to see?” Jonathan asked him.

“I….don’t know, let her pick I guess.” James finally said.

“Look James,” his brother must have sensed his feeling, “I should have talked with you before I asked her out on a date. I was pretty excited and I just thought that since you were kid again you wouldn’t care.”

James knew his brother was right in a way; the boyhood gently tucked in his boxer-briefs was not the hotrod it once was. Small and hairless, his buddy down there only served the purpose of allowing him to aim his pee. For the moment at least; one benefit of having to grow up again meant that James was keenly aware of his own sexual development. He knew that it would only be a year or so before he would be back to his favorite pastime. Still, he had feelings for Sammy even if he wasn’t physically capable of lusting over her.

“But you know I like her, even after it all crashed and burned.” he replied.

Jon sighed, “Yeah, I know you do and I guess I did it to show off to you. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings though.” he placed the shaver on the side of the sink, “Try and see this from perspective here, you know that I really like Sarah right?”

“Right”

“And you know that I can’t really date Sarah because I’m 20 now and she’s still 15 right?”

“Right”

“So I kind of have to date Samantha. You get what I mean right?”

“…Right”

Jonathan bent down and kissed his little brother on the forehead, “I’m glad you aren’t making a big fuss out of this, bros before hoes right?”

James wiped the bits of shaving cream from his forehead, “Right,” he said and began to head downstairs.

His brother shouted down after him, “Don’t worry. I’m not going to do her James; I just want to act my age for once.”

James didn’t have to wait long for the Longview girls to show up, for as soon as his brother finished shaving, Samantha’s car had pulled into their driveway. Donned in her typical goth grab, Sarah got out of the car and entered the house holding a small cooler. James immediately picked up on it, though the boy had no idea why she would need it.

“She’s waiting for you in the car hotshot.” Sarah said as his brother came downstairs.

“Cool. So basic babysitter job, my mom left you money for pizza so you just have to keep an eye on him until she gets back.”

Sarah, “Oh I will Jonny, no worries.”

“Great to hear,” Jonathan went over and gave James a bear hug that raised him a couple feet off the ground, “We’ll finish the game this weekend James if you’re good for her,” he said as he placed him back on the floor.

Sarah and James eyed the car as it backed out the driveway and sped off. Sarah was a very different girl from who she knew her as when he was in high school. He had barely seen her outside social media so he felt fairly awkward standing before the girl that was to be his babysitter.

“Age his made him arrogant it seems.” she said.

“He was just trying to show off how cool he is to you,” he said.

“I guess that hasn’t changed at least,” she concluded, “How about I order us an extra cheesy pizza and we can get right down to business?”

“Business?” he asked.

Sarah smiled warmly, “Of course, you’re the man of the night after all,”

More like the boy of the night, he told himself.

In the time they waited for the pizza to be delivered, Sarah casually probed him about his day to day life as a preteen boy. He told her how he felt about being a kid again. How he felt about the inevitability of having to go through most of school all over again, not to mention the entirely of puberty. How his relationship with his mother and brother changed since his transformation. The latter portion of that question sent the boy off on a rant that continued for the entirety of their dinner. James was surprised by how easy it was to reconnect with Sarah after spending two years away from New Springs. While the five year age difference between the two remained the same it felt all the more relevant to him now.

“It sounds like you guys are still trying to find get comfortable with your new ages.” she said

“So this whole dating debacle is him trying to get more comfortable with his new age?” James asked.

“On a basic level yes, though it’s more complicated. Jonathan is thinking more and more like an adult everyday but he’s still acting like a child. He’s approaching this age swap between you two like he has to somehow take over your old role exactly as you left it.” she said.

“Doesn’t he just want that? He thinks that I stole all his friends away from him, so he’s just trying to get to me.” he said after finishing the last slice of his pizza.

“I mean come on, Jonny dating my dork of a sister? It’s not going to work out for them.” she said.

“Cool!” James said. Maybe if she’s still single by the time I’m a grownup again I can still get with her!.

Sarah laughed, “Unfortunately, the relationship will last. My big sister is trying to prove a point to me by dating your big brother.” she suddenly placed the small cooler on the couch next to her, “I’m hoping this will help both of us here.” She opened the cooler to reveal a handful of water bottles arranged sporadically among ice.

James felt entirely different when he looked at the water bottles. There was sense of uncertainty spreading throughout his body. It was driven by a subconscious familiarity with the seemingly simple liquid contained in the plastic bottles. James felt afraid and excited all at the same time and he wasn’t sure which feeling he should trust.

Sarah finally broke the silence, “This water is from the day of the summer solstice, from the first day of summer.”

She explained everything she had been doing for the two years he had been away at college, since she had been barely more than a skinny little girl in middle school. She explained how she came across the original documents written by the founders of New Springs and how it led her to discover that the water flowing through the valley was somehow affected by the appearance of solstices and equinoxes each year.

“So you froze the water to trap its energy?” he asked her finally.

“I believe so, that’s where you come in.” she said.

Oh no. he grimaced.

“Since you already have been transformed I want to see what will happen if you drink the water again.” she elaborated.

“Why don’t you drink it?”

“I did and nothing happened. It didn’t feel the need to change me in anyway as far as I can tell. I’ve needed someone to test it on, who better than someone it has already worked for?”

“I’m your guinea pig?!!” he shouted.

“Of sorts if you have to put it that way.” she said.

“How do you know that drinking the water won’t turn me into an actual guinea pig?” he demanded.

“Well I can’t really prove it to you in any real way.” she replied, “That said, everything I’ve read suggests that the water changes people into what they’re meant to be, whether they like it or not,” she paused for a moment before continuing, “Let me put it this way, how would you describe yourself as a college student?”

This took James by surprised, judging the grownup he used to be. It didn’t seem right to young boy. The adult James was a completely different person from the James that on the cusp of adolescence. Still the water turned him into a boy for a reason, that much was clear.

He gave it his best shot, “I was lazy I guess. I was carefree and I didn’t really have any idea what I wanted to do with my life after I graduated. So I just drank and played videogames all day.”

“So perhaps now that you are aware of your faults, you may be able to be a grownup again. Maybe all of this was just to teach you a hard lesson?” she theorized, “If you drink the water, you can find out right now if you will be able to go back to college again in the fall.”

She was right and James desperately wanted to know that answer. He reached for the water bottle and found it incredibly cold. Twisting the top off, he put the bottle to his lips and drank. The water was still icy and went down his throat as more slush than an actual liquid. James drank and drank the water as he concentrated with all his heart and soul on imagining himself as a grownup with all the college memories he had. The sensation he had felt on the fateful day of his regression returned and intensified in his mind.

Of all the college memories that came to him it just had to be the last one, the night of the Wilson St. Struggle. He tried to imagine the more positive ones: the good grades, the proud professors, living on his own. Those did not come, only the debauchery and slothfulness. His mess of a dorm room before the big night, the peer pressure to always be drinking around everyone, and of course the goddess in the red dress. Rachel, the woman he thought he had struck gold with in the midst of hell. James found himself alone with Rachel in the middle of the frat party but now she was looking down on him in his childish Star Wars shirt, and every time he felt himself growing up to meet her in adulthood, she would push him back down with just her eyes. James tried and tried again to grow up and every time he was pushed back down into a second boyhood.

For everything that he put into his concentration, his imagination was just that. James grew no older; he did not change physically at all. But something was different; he felt the all too familiar sensation pulsate rapidly through his head, as if it was reading his very thoughts. Steadily, it seemed to thoroughly extract the bits and pieces of his college education that remained in his head. With every pulse, James felt less and less like a regressed adult and more and more like a kid with a 4th grade education. The memories of his adolescence and college years remained but he lost the greater context behind them. He understood that he was kissing Rachel at the college party, but was ignorant of what else he was doing with her, nor did he have the insight of why he was truly attracted to her in the first place. As the pulsing faded from his mind he looked across at Sarah, who was taking notes during the process.

“It seems like you were meant to grow up again the usual way.” she said like an emotionally detached scientist proving her hypothesis.

James thought that New Spring’s judgement should have stung him. His eyes teared up a bit and he sniffled, but yet the child did not cry. I’m not the same James as he was, the young boy told himself, I have his memories, I have his ideals, and I have his passion for being a smart-aleck. But I don’t have his mistakes. The big kid that had once been a young adult finally understood himself, for the first time since his regression into a schoolboy bound for the 5th grade, James thought of his situation as a blessing and even something of an advantage. While James lacked the knowledge of what he had already learned in the last ten years of his life, he did possess the memories and experience of being a grownup. It was like having an outline of his future physical and mental development that kids his age lacked.

“I think I like being a kid again.” he admitted to her.

James went on to describe to her the battle that had just taken place in his mind. As he was wrapping up his explanation to her, something caught his attention. In the corner of his eye he saw the glimpse of the family portrait that hung in the center of the house. He jumped out of the couch and raced towards it. The family portrait had drastically changed before his eyes. In the photo, where James once stood as a 12 year old kid was now replaced by Jon at the same age. And where Jon used to be, he saw himself as a 2 year old baby on his mom’s lap with even brighter blonde hair and the noticeable signs of a diaper under his dress pants. As alien as the image was to James, especially seeing his brother as a middle schooler, it also seemed completely natural to him. While he still had all the memories of his first childhood in the time before Jonathan was born, it became extremely easy for James to imagine memories of what his first ten years of life had been like with Jon as his big brother.

James wandered the house and saw that all the photos now reflected this new reality. A photo that had once showed Jonathan as a toddler fast asleep with a thumb in his mouth now showed James as the toddler, yet the context of the photo seemed different; James was wide awake in the photo and had a pacifier in his mouth instead. Photos of James and Jon’s first day of school were switched but with slight differences to make them unique from the original photos they replaced. It was an eye opening experience for him.

“James! What’s going on?” Sarah asked as she rushed to his side.

“You don’t see it?” he told her incredulously, “I’m the little brother in all photos now.”

“Impossible!” she claimed and quickly glanced at all the family photos, “You’re still older in all the photos I see.”

“What?”

Sarah once again took out her notes and began writing furiously. James was unsure how to take it, “Are you saying that I’ve gone crazy?”

“No,” she said as put the notes away, “I believe that the power of New Springs has altered the way you see reality.”

“That’s crazy.” he said.

Sarah grabbed a water bottle and opened it, “I need to test this on myself. If this erases my memories of your family I hope that these notes will convince me of the truth.”

“Wait!” James shouted but it was already too late.

Sarah down the bottle and seemed to go very still for a moment. As if she was undergoing some trance. When the teenager finally came to, she acted like she had woken up from a long sleep. Sarah slowly looked at all the photos arranged around the Medlock home, “You were a really cute baby.” she said finally.

“Do you still remember me as the older brother?” he worried.

“I guess I do,” Sarah tried to assure him, but there was a very strong sense of doubt to her voice, “but it seems like a complete fantasy to me, it’s much easier for me to imagine you as have always being Jonny’s baby brother. I must say this is absolutely fascinating,” the teenage girl read over the notes she had just written a minute ago. “James, I believe we have just been indoctrinated by New Springs.”

“Indoctrinated?” James asked. The word sounded strangely familiar to the elementary school aged boy and yet he was ignorant of its meaning.

Sarah took moment to herself to rephrase what she was about to say, “We were just brainwashed by the water. You and I now see the world as having been one where you have always been Jonathan’s little brother, but in reality nothing has actually changed on any sort of physical level. The photos all still show you as Jonathan’s older brother, we have just been reprogrammed to see them otherwise.”

This was all getting way too weird for James. He never would have agreed to this if knew it was going to mentally change him further. James remembered a word uttered by the man who called himself Seth, "Facilitation," the boy slowly said aloud, unsure if he was even saying the word right.

"What did you just say?" she asked him.

"It’s what a business man that visited us called this I think."

Sarah seemed very spooked at his words. She looked like she was about to barrage him with questions when James’ mom walked into the house.

"Hey guys! Did you have fun together?" she asked them.

Sarah dropped her thoughts and accepted the generous amount of cash his mom gave her. Before he could have another moment alone with Sarah, her parents had shown up to pick her her up.

James’ felt slightly shell-shocked for the rest of the night. It felt like he lived in a completely different world from the rest of his family. Was this brainwashing really Facilitation? He wanted to talk to his mom about this, but he knew that he would likely get his babysitter in trouble and he didn’t want that.

Once his bedtime came and his mom kissed him goodnight, James laid motionless in his bed. It didn’t feel right for all of this to happen so quickly. Still, he couldn’t help but feel much more comfortable with this perceived reality. There was no sense contradiction to his life now and the fears and worries from his past life seemed like a daydream to the boy. As the last of his grownup knowledge dissipated from his brain, it was replaced by a renewed sense of childhood wonder and discovery. James found himself excited at the thought of relearning his lost knowledge and feel asleep wondering if anymore memories of being Jon’s little brother would come to him.

The Long Sweat will continue in: Storm in a Teacup.[/size]