It was a few days after the incident, Benny and the others saw this kid everywhere, smalls guessed the mid was following them because they wanted someone to hangout with. "But then why not just talk to us" Tommy asked, "maybe they're shy." Benny said shrugging. "My question is: is that person a girl or a boy?" Yeah-yeah said with a questioning voice.
"Does it matter?" Benny tilted his head, and ham slightly nodded. "Girls can't play baseball." Ham said, as they approached the sandlot, Benny sighed. He almost bumped into Kenny "dude why'd you stop?" He asked and looked where his friend was looking.
The person from the few days before was there in the dugout, they were drawing and seemingly listening to music. The group approached the person. They didn't seem to notice so Benny made a waving motion to the kid, they still didn't notice. "Hey." Kenny said, getting the kids attention finally.
"Hm?" The kid looked up, "oh... Hi..." The kid said softly. Ham noticed the kid seemed more female. "We're playing baseball here and you'll be in the way." Ham said, the boys, excluding Smalls and Benny, nodded din agreement. The kid nodded understandingly, "sorry." They said and got up.
The kid started walking away when
-Benny's POV-
"Hey... You don't have to leave if you don't want to." I said, we'd see the kid everywhere, and they seemed to enjoy watching us play. They weren't in the way so why make them leave?
The kid had turned around to look at me, my conclusion is that they were a girl but just wanted to be more neutral looking. "But.. he said for me to leave. I'd be in the way." The girl said to me.
"It's not like you were in the middle of the field." I said and shrugged. The kid made a nervous smile, they seemed timid. "And you can even join us if you want." I said, flashing a smile.
-Halo's POV-
"And you can even join us if you want." The boy flashed a, very charming, smile at me. He was cute, and seemed very sweet, I kinda felt welcomed when he said I could stay, the other boys didn't seem so happy, aside from one other.
"Are you sure? I don't wanna bother y'all." I said, it was true. I didn't wanna annoy them. "I'm sure." Benny nodded, one of the boys spoke up. "Come on Benny, she's a girl she can't play." It was a fat kid with freckles. "I.. I can to!" I said, I hated when people make those comments. "Just because I'm a 'girl' doesn't mean I can't play!" I said, slightly glaring. The fat kid rolled his eyes. "See. I told you I wasn't welcomed here, but thanks for trying at least." I said and made a small, barely visible, smile and started to turn around.
"Alright.. Well just know that you're welcome here and welcome to play with us any time." The boy said, I nodded. I started walking away when I heard him say "Look what you all did! Just because she's a girl doesn't mean she can't play. You gotta give people a chance." I blushed, he was sticking up for me.
-No one's POV-
"Come on Benny! You know she's a girl! Girls don't play baseball! They do make up and their nails!" Bertrum said, "wow that's funny, because I didn't see any make up or nail polish on her at all! Infact her nails looked chewed up!" Benny said to Bertrum, he'd had experience with other girls, having had 3 girlfriends.
-next day cuz yay-
Smalls had remembered where the girl moved to, right beside Benny's house. Smalls went and got Benny to come with him, his friend agreed and they went to the girls house, knocking on the girl's door.
To their luck, she answered. "what?" The kid asked, smalls opened his mouth "We wanted to know if you wanted to play some ball with us." He said with a smile, Benny nodded with a soft smile. She shrugged "Sure, I guess. Hold on lemme ask my mom." She said and turns around, yelling into the house "MOM!!!"
"Yes?" A voice answered back "CAN I GO PLAY SOME BASEBALL WITH THE BOYS NEXTDOOR?!" She yelled into the house and the voice answered with an "Alright! Be back by 5!" The girl turned around and said, as if they couldn't hear her yelling, "she said I can go but to be back by 5." The girl said and Benny nodded "but I don't have a mit... So I don't think I can-" Benny cut her off. "Don't worry, I have an extra." He had a charming smile.
The girl blushed lightly "oh.. alright." She got up and walked down to the drug store with Smalls and Benny. "Alright guys watch this." Ham said, putting a hotdog in his mouth pretending it was a cigar, "mhmm mhm mhmhm." Ham said, "what?" The boys asked, Ham repeated himself. "What???" The boy couldn't understand him, that's when the girl cut in.
"He said he's The Great Bambino." The boys jaws dropped. "How'd you know?!" Ham asked "Um... I can speak Mouth Full." She said, and shrugged. "How do you know who The Great Bambino is?" Denunez asked "everyone knows! If you don't you're just stupid. Then again I'm a good one to talk, I freaking can't remember if Michael Jordan and LeBron James are Basketball players or Football players." (A/N: quick note, that's actually true for me. Ok resume.) The kids started laughing. "If you know who The Great Bambino is, who is he often referred to as?" Squints asked, arms crossed. "Babe Ruth. Or The Babe." She said.
The boys were very shocked that a girl knew who the babe was, "umm... It's simple?? I know..??" The kid sounded kind of confused. "But girls don't like sports!" Squints said, "that's a lie. I'll be honest, I'm not the most athletic in the world but you go against me on a bike and I'll destroy you. I know a lot of girls who play Softball, tennis, basketball, and soccer." She said "some girls like playing football. Some guys hate playing sports." The kid added, "not all girls wear make up either." Benny smiled softly. "I had a friend who was a girl, she didn't like make up to much, and loved baseball. She was one of the best players aside from me." He said "I played with her before I met the others. We'd practice all the time." He added, reminiscing those memories, he wished he could go back.
"Benny, why'd you bring her?" Ham asked and Benny side "because we'll have an extra player to bat." He said "we don't need an extra player Benny!" Squints said, the kid stayed silent, they wanted to see how far this could go. "But they're a girl! Girls. Can't. Play!" Ham said and Benny sighed in annoyance "Let's just go. We're wasting time." He stated and started walking to the sandlot with the kid following close behind.
Once they had gotten to the sandlot, the kids took their positions, the kid sitting on the bench watching, "do you wanna bat first?" Benny asked and they nodded "Sure. I can try." They got up and grabbed the bat, remembering the stance from at their old school, they watched Kenny, the pitcher.
"I'm just gonna go easy on you." Kenny said but was cut off "Oh don't go easy on me. I'm not afraid to lose what little dignity and pride I have left. Gimme all you got." They said in a challenging voice and Ham smirked "Here batter batter batter!" He yelled, and the kid smirked, the ballw as thrown but they didn't swing "Stri-" ham was cut off "Didn't swing, therefore it wasn't a strike." The kid had a bitter sweet smile and ham gulped, this kid knew what they were doing.
Ham threw the ball back to Kenny, ham trying to distract the kid, Kenny threw the ball, it was fast. The kid swung, focusing on the ball as blocking all the noise out. The sound of the ball coming in contact with the bat sounded, it all went in slow motion, the moment the ball hit the bat, the kid took off, focusing on each base, and who was on it, yeah yeah was on 1st, the ball was thrown to him but they were faster, immediately launching off of 1st and dashed to second, Benny watched, hope filling his eyes.
They just barely got to 2nd base, luckily making it, a dark grin was plastered on their face, running to third the ball beat them, they turned and ran the other way, once they knew the ball was out of the hands of Bertrum, the one at third base, they turned back around. The kid had used Benny's tactic, the group was astonished and the kid hit 3rd base and ran towards home, now they were focused entirely, Kenny threw the ball to ham just as the kid had gotten to home, ham had gotten them out. Everything went back to motion, no longer slow when realization hit. The kid slowed down and sighed, but they lost no pride and it was obvious.
Benny jogged over "That was amazing! Sure you didn't make the entire home run but you were pretty damn good!" He said with a grin, "She used Benny's tactic." Yeah-yeah said, a bit surprised. "I had studied how he played, I figured he was good at this so I remembered the tricks he used." The kid explained with a shrug. "We never did get your name." Benny said.
The kid was silent for a moment then a soft smile went to their face. "Halo."
1639 words if you exclude this part. I'm amazed.
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The Sandlot: Halo's Non-Binary Chaos (Benny Rodriguez × Halo fanfic)
Romanceso yes I know there aren't many x readers but like... I already write two pages of this on notebook paper during school, though this won't be as close to the original chapter 1 (and 2) I wrote at school, it'll be somewhere close to there. This'll al...
