Chapter 17: Our Turn
The silence stretched, thick as the humid air in the frat bedroom. Ethan stared at Dale, at the impossible outline straining against grey cotton, at the sweat slicking his newly powerful shoulders, the raw confusion warring with primal need in his eyes. Brick’s phantom chuckle echoed again, a low rumble vibrating in Ethan’s own bones. Look at him. Solid. The thought wasn’t just observation anymore; it was a deep, resonant agreement from somewhere inside him.
Our turn…
The whisper slithered through his mind, smooth as oil, yet carrying an undeniable weight. It didn’t feel like Brick. It felt… like his own voice, but deeper. Resonant. Certain. Before the analytical part of Ethan could latch onto the implications, the heat hit.
It started low, a sudden, fierce burning deep in his groin. Not pain, but a demanding pulse, an insistent throb that radiated outwards. It mirrored the ache he’d felt watching Dale, but multiplied. Intensified beyond reason. He gasped, a sharp intake of breath that made Dale’s eyes snap fully to him.
"Ein?" Dale’s voice was rough, concerned, but also laden with his own barely contained tension.
Ethan couldn’t answer. His hands flew to the waistband of his own shorts. The fabric felt like sandpaper against his suddenly hypersensitive skin. The urge was instantaneous, overwhelming: Get them off. Now. It wasn’t a thought; it was a biological imperative. But his shorts, loose on his old frame, were suddenly, absurdly tight. They dug into the hard swell of his quadriceps, muscles that had ballooned under relentless drills, trapping him.
"Something's…" Ethan choked out, fumbling with the button. His fingers felt thick, clumsy. The cheap denim resisted. He grunted, yanking harder. Rip 'em. Free yourself. The voice was louder now, blending seamlessly with his own rising panic. It was his own, yet saturated with that alien confidence. Show Data what you’re becoming.
He finally wrenched the button open and shoved the shorts down his hips with frantic urgency. They caught on his thighs, thick with corded muscle that hadn’t existed a week ago. He kicked violently, sending the shorts flying into the debris near the desk. He stood in his briefs, breathing hard, face flushed. The burning pressure hadn’t lessened; it had concentrated.
And it was… changing. Growing.
He looked down, a horrified fascination locking his gaze. The cotton of his boxer briefs strained, the fabric stretching taut over a swelling mass. He felt it – a heavy heat, a relentless engorgement pushing outwards. Beneath it, the familiar weight of his balls seemed to increase, a dense ache settling low. A pricking, tingling sensation ran down his thighs. Glancing, he saw the fine hair on his calves seemed thicker, coarser, catching the dim lamplight differently. Darker.
"Oh, god," he breathed, the words barely audible. He understood now. Completely. The impossible stiffness Dale was enduring, the feeling of being possessed by his own body, the sheer, terrifying volume of it. It wasn’t just arousal. It was transformation. Amplification. The pendant against his own sternum felt like a brand, radiating heat.
Dale watched him, transfixed. His own predicament momentarily forgotten in the face of Ethan’s mirroring struggle. "It's… happening to you too?" His voice was a mixture of dread and a strange, dark kinship.
The ache in Ethan’s groin intensified, a pulsing demand that echoed the deep thrumming in his head. The voice wasn't just loud; it was pervasive, saturating his thoughts, twisting his own internal monologue. Good equipment. Let it show. Let him see. It felt less like an intrusion and more like a fundamental part of him waking up, a primal layer surfacing. His own analytical mind scrambled, trying to quantify, to understand cellular mutation, hormonal surges, the physics of impossible growth – but it was drowned out by the visceral roar of sensation and the insistent, commanding voice that sounded so much like… him.
He looked back at Dale, their eyes locking in the flickering gloom. Both half-naked, bodies reshaped by unseen forces, straining against thin cotton confines. Sweat glistened on newly defined chests. The air crackled with shared confusion, shared terror, and an undeniable, electrifying tension. Ethan’s hand twitched again, not towards his own trapped heat this time, but with a terrifying impulse to reach out. To touch the source of the other impossible change standing breathless before him. The voice purred its approval. Yeah. Connect. Dale mirrored the slight movement, his own confusion deepening into something else – a raw, answering magnetism. The room held its breath, thick with the scent of exertion, cheap cologne, and the unmistakeable, heavy promise of bodies pushed beyond their limits. The flickering lamp cast their distorted shadows onto the rugby posters, monstrous parodies of athletic glory dancing on the wall. Neither spoke. The only sounds were their ragged breathing and the insistent, internal chorus demanding more.