In the heat of the moment, being the older of the two boys, Nick instinctively stepped into the role of executive decision making, grabbing the younger boy’s arm and relaying in a frantic whisper, “My room! Now!”
Clark only nodded as he was pulled quickly back into Nick’s room, Nick carefully but hastily closing the door behind them so as not to alert Wesley, who was just at this moment entering their apartment.
Nick locked the bedroom door, but Wesley was a cop, and Nick knew that he’d certainly have no trouble breaking into the room should he so desire. Though, more to the point, Wesley had their spare apartment key, thanks to Nick, which could also provide access to both of the bedrooms. Clark, now realizing that Nick had let his arm go and had gone to fetch the regression gun, decided to stay posted at the door, listening for Wesley’s imminent approach. By this point, each boy had lost their stretched-out underwear on the floor of the room, but Nick knew that it would be unneeded soon anyway.
“Clark,” Nick hissed, “Don’t let him in! I’m gonna grow back up! Just guard the door until I’m done, okay?!”
Clark silently affirmed the command, shifting now to put most of the weight of his small body against the door.
“Boys!?” Wesley’s deep voice echoed through the apartment as he searched for the source of the morning disturbance that so unceremoniously disrupted his sleep after a late night on patrol. Being in his mid-40s, Wesley’s body was needing more and more rest by the day it seemed, and a part of him wanted to deliver such a spanking to each of the boys who had decided on 9AM for whatever the hell it was they were doing to make so much noise. His sense of duty, though, propelled him on, if only to make sure that the boys, who were clearly unattended by either of his annoying and immature neighbors, were okay at home alone.
While Wesley searched the living room and kitchen area for the two boys, Nick fiddled meticulously with the settings of the gun, recalibrating it for an impromptu return to his rightful age of 28. It took a minute, but he was ready, and Wesley had finally made his way to their hiding place.
Wesley tried the door to Nick’s bedroom, frustrated to find it locked but understanding quite readily that this must obviously be where the boys had sequestered themselves. “Alright boys, I’m about to unlock this door and come in,” announced their grouchy cop neighbor.
“Nick,” Clark gulped, “I don’t think I’m gonna be able to hold the door at all!”
“Don’t worry, I’m about to fix this!” And with that, as Wesley was manipulating the key into the locked door, Nick pointed the gun, set to 28, right at his chest, and pulled the trigger…
A moment passed... and nothing.
Clark sputtered, “Dude come on! I can’t keep holding the lock in place!”
Nick was panicking. This was not according to plan! If the regression had worked, then so too should the restoration of his previous age, but clearly something had gone wrong, and then turning the gun to view the screen, Nick’s heart sank in his chest. The screen read, ‘ERROR,’ and that was it, Nick not having programmed error codes into the gun, not truly anticipating any specific types of errors.
“Nick! I can’t hold it anymore!” Clark blurted as he hastily stepped away from the door, waiting for it to open.
Before he was fully conscious of his own train of thought, Nick shouted, “Wait!! Don’t come in! We’re naked!!”
Wesley, just as he had turned the key in the lock and was about to enter the room, felt a modicum of pity for the boy whose voice had cracked mid-delivery of that warning.
“Are you boys, okay?” Wesley asked. “Where are Clark and Nick, and why did they leave you two alone… and why are you naked?! I’ll give you 30 seconds to get dressed, but then I’m coming in there.”
Unsure of what else to do after a moment’s hesitation, Clark darted for the package of briefs on the floor, pulling out a pair for Nick and himself, tossing one Nick’s way. The two dressed themselves in this bare minimum of clothing, and Nick lunged toward the bed, grabbing the bag of boy’s shirts and pants and managing to conceal the gun within the bag in the process.
Nick had time to frantically pull on a pair of shorts and grab a shirt from the bag but not enough time to toss Clark the bag before Wesley’s time limit had expired, their burly, disgruntled neighbor finally making an appearance before them.
Wesley opened the door of the bedroom, peering in to see the two tween boys responsible for the morning ruckus, one dressed only in his underwear, and the taller of the two dressed from the waist down and just beginning to pull on a shirt.
“Now,” the gruff man started, “do either of you want to tell me what all that noise was and where Nick and Clark are?”
Nick and Clark exchanged worried glances, unsure of how to respond to Wesley’s request.
“Boys, I’m just a little pissed off that you woke me up so damn early—I work late nights, you know? But I’m just making sure you’re okay,” Wesley reassured them. “Are you Clark’s or Nick’s nephews or something? I can’t believe they were stupid enough to leave you alone, especially when you can’t control how much noise you’re making.”
Despite the boy’s anxious, silent expressions, Wesley’s chastisement did not let up. “I guess I can see *Clark* being that irresponsible, but Nick—,” the man’s mini-tirade was cutoff unexpectedly by the boy dressed only in underwear.
“Oh, fuck off, Wesley!” Clark sneered.
Nick was genuinely shocked at this sudden outburst. He had always known Clark to be even-tempered, but perhaps that only became more the case as they got older, but even then, Clark and Wesley had not ever had an easy relationship. Clark’s infrequent parties thrown in the apartment and more frequent smoking of weed, the smell of which carried right across the hall to Wesley’s apartment, had soured the older man’s opinion of his two neighbors, particularly of Clark. The legality of Clark’s actions was never in question, but Wesley’s more old-fashioned sensibilities denounced such inconsiderate and disruptive behaviors, especially since Wesley’s apartment was supposed to be his one true respite. Work was exhausting, and he lived alone in his studio, but his solitary solace was never long-lived, owing to the noise and smells caused by Clark and the regular bouts between the two, neither ever attempting to compromise.
Wesley, too, was more than marginally surprised to hear such language and spite directed toward him from a boy that couldn’t be any older than 10. “Kid,” Wesley took a large stride toward the diminished Clark, Nick observing in silent panic. “What did you just say to me?” Wesley demanded.
Upon closer inspection, Wesley noticed a small scar on the boy’s left eyebrow, one that happened to be in the same, precise area as the scar that his pest of a neighbor, Clark, bore on his face. The man stepped in closer to the boy, kneeling down to meet him at eye level. He contemplated the possibility, scrutinizing the boy’s features up close, attempting to dissuade himself of the outrageous claim he was about to make before eventually muttering, “Clark?”
Nick jolted in place, terrified that Wesley had surmised their identities as quickly as he had. He hoped desperately that Clark would deflect and conceal their regressions, but Clark’s particularly combative relationship with Wesley foreshadowed a different outcome.
Clark took advantage of his proximity to Wesley, reaching up to flick the man in the forehead before he could truly react. “Can I help you, Wes?” Clark mocked disdainfully.
Wesley recovered quickly from Clark’s little sneak attack, grabbing the boy by the arms. “You brat! Damn, I didn’t really think it was you, but with that lip you were giving me… How the hell did you end up like this?!” The man shook Clark’s little body with ease, reinforcing Clark’s stature as a mere boy in the presence of a menacing, big man.
“None of your business, man. Now get the hell out of my apartment,” the boy demanded.
Clark’s confidence was beyond comprehension. Normally, Wesley was all bark, but that was when he and Clark were on equal footing. At 29, Clark was a formidable opponent for Wesley, who himself was also quite muscular, owing to his training on the force, so the two found it difficult to assert dominance over the other, but now…
Wesley, still holding Clark, shifted his grip and picked the boy up by his armpits, holding his face right to his. “Ya know, Clark. I actually don’t care how or why you’re a kid again, but boy am I grateful because this has been a long. Time. Coming.” Deftly, the man took Clark’s body while sitting down on the bed, positioning the boy such that he was bent over the man’s lap.
Clark’s eyes met Nick’s, Nick now perceiving the fear and regret in the boy’s pathetic gaze, realizing the mistake he’d made in provoking Wesley and the consequence about to befall him.
The thin fabric of the boy’s briefs did little to shield Clark’s butt from the pain of the older man’s weathered hands crashing down on him… again… and again…
Nick couldn’t stand the sight, Clark doing his best to maintain his masculine composure, refusing to cry at the hands of his rival neighbor. The older boy, having managed to escape Wesley’s attention, sprung to action, knowing that there was only one thing to be done.
“Sorry, Clark,” Wesley blurted sarcastically, still delivering what he felt to be well-earned spanking, “but there’s no way I could just pass up this opportunity. You’ve been such a pain in my ass for too long, bud.”
Clark could no longer suppress his tears, but he stifled any audible crying, not wanting to dignify him with a vocal response. Curiously, though, the pain that Clark was enduring was suddenly lessening with each consecutive hit, and then he knew what had happened—what Nick had done. He stayed in place, waiting for Wesley, himself, to realize it.
Wesley, however, was so caught up in the euphoria of punishing and humiliating his long-time nuisance of a neighbor that he only noticed the effects of his regression once the previously form-fitting sleeves of his plain white tee started billowing with each hit of Clark’s butt.
Finally, the dwindling cop let up on Clark, pushing him off his lap to the floor, now focusing on his own precarious situation. Being clean-shaven, feeling his face did little to confirm what he suspected was happening to him, but the collapse of his jeans to the floor, brought on by the weight of his belt, did little to assuage his worries.
Understanding now the fate that was befalling him, Wesley prayed only that it would stop soon, that his descent into boyhood would be only that, nothing further. The shrinking 14-year-old grabbed hold of his underwear, a pair of plain, white briefs, of the same brand as the boy he had just been spanking, but sized for a big, tough man, not the miserable twerp he was rapidly becoming.
As it happened with Clark before him, Wesley’s shirt eventually dwarfed his shrunken frame and covered easily what his man-sized tighty whities used to. Now, though, it had felt to Wesley like he wasn’t getting any smaller, much to his relief, but his diminished size was nothing to celebrate. As had been the case for many months before, he was again on equal standing with Clark, who looked to be about 10 or so, and Wesley presumed the same was true of his own age, since his height matched Clark’s almost perfectly. The newly-transformed boy was too engrossed in his post-regression state to say anything, having lost more than 30 years of maturity and masculinity; he simply patted pathetically at where his biceps and pectoral muscles had once been, and he reached a hand under his shirt to confirm the loss of what had been his pride in the precinct locker room.
Wesley looked up from his self-inspection to see Clark, a smug, overtly satisfied look on his face, holding something out to him.
“Looks like you’re gonna be needing these, buddy,” Clark sassed.
Wesley pitifully took the handout, feeling remarkably uncomfortable in such ill-fitting clothes. He dropped his once form-flattering briefs and removed his dress of a shirt. He stepped into the boy-sized briefs, feeling a pang of embarrassment that he looked no different now from the regressed Clark. He reveled that he was at least not made any younger than the boy before him, fearing a warranted retaliation for the vengeful spanking.
“Alright Wes,” Clark stepped toward the boy, Nick making his way to Clark’s side, “What are we gonna do with you, now?”