Despite his unwillingness, Daniel took a moment to consider Greg's offer. Greg was still grinning at him, his eyes crinkling at the corners, his gut clearly visible beneath the fabric of his shirt. That, more than anything, solidified Daniel's resolve. He couldn't leave his friend as a middle-aged man with self-esteem issues. He had to fix this.
"Sure, dude, I'm just working on something for my thesis," Daniel said, thinking fast. "Give me a few minutes, okay?"
Greg nodded, his smile dimming slightly, but Daniel was already turning away to his desk. He frowned at the book open on the dark wood of his table. He wasn't particularly inclined to try to mess with it too much, especially if it involved Greg. He could try rubbing the previous change out, or maybe drawing a line through it, but… he'd have to test it on something else first, and there wasn't enough time for that.
Daniel racked his brain, trying to think of something that would change Greg back without taking too many risks.
Suddenly, he had a bright idea. 'Greg is 20 years old,' he wrote, changing the 20 to 21 at the last second, putting Greg over the legal age. 'He's the manager at his place of work, a college student, and of a slightly heftier than average build.' Dropping his pen, Daniel quickly dropped the pen, tiptoeing back to peer at Greg through the crack between the wood of the door and the door frame.
Abigail was puttering around the kitchen, making more tea, and Greg was slumped back on the couch, rubbing at his face. As Daniel watched, he thought that the hairs covering Greg's forearms were slowly receding, darkening back to their original color as they went. He couldn't be sure, but the little he saw of Greg's face seemed to slowly becoming younger, the skin smoothening, becoming less leathery. When Abigail handed him his mug of tea, Daniel finally caught a glimpse of Greg's face. It was still rounded, with a second chin drooping slightly below Greg's jaw, but he looked as young as he did before the changes… maybe even a little younger.
Daniel frowned. He'd also specified that Greg's body would change, but it didn't seem as though the flabby gut Greg was sporting was getting any smaller. It was still straining slightly at the fabric of his buttoned shirt, soft, smooth skin visible through the gaps between the buttons.
Suddenly, a low gurgle came from Daniel's own flat stomach. When he looked down, Daniel found himself confronted with a small belly curving out his shirt that definitely wasn't there earlier, a complete contrast to his usual lanky frame. "Oh, shit," he whispered, as his midsection slowly swelled. He raced back to his desk, feeling an unfamiliar weight slowly accumulate all over his body. His belly had begun rounding into a fully fledged gut, the hem of his shirt riding up and exposing pale, flabby mass, and Daniel found himself puffing slightly just from that simple movement.
His panicked eyes landed on the changes he'd specified for Greg. 'Of a slightly heftier than average build,' Daniel read, and realized, with mounting horror, that he'd forgotten to mention what the average weight was supposed to be. Instead of changing Greg, he'd managed to change the world so that Greg's portly body was only a little fatter than average.
"Fuck," Daniel murmured, cupping the soft paunch now pooching slightly over his waistband. His changes seemed to be slowing down - which made sense, since he was below the average weight - but his round belly seemed determined to make its way from "chubby" to "portly". Daniel soon found that his entire body jiggled as be moved, a distinctly unfamiliar sensation. He had to stop the changes now, before he gained any more weight.
But wait…if he was affected so significantly by the change, what about people who were already heavier than average?
"Fuck!" Daniel swore, trying to think of a way to fix it. He hadn't been prepared for the Scribe's implement to have such far reaching consequences, and he found himself confronted with the horrifying possibility that everything he knew and took for granted about the world could've been changed previously in this exact manner, with no one the wiser.
In a fit of desperation, Daniel crossed out the last line of the changes he'd specified for Greg with a jagged, messy stroke, and, to his relief, felt the unfamiliar fullness of his belly slowly recede away.
A quick glimpse outside showed that Greg had remained unaffected, still boasting a rotund gut that drooped into his lap, but Daniel himself was slowly getting thinner again, returning to his original form.
"Daniel!" Greg called out, and Daniel startled, nearly falling over backwards. For one terrifying moment he thought he'd been seen, but Greg wasn't even looking his way. "We're gonna go to the park - hurry up if you want to come with!"
"Okay!" Daniel called back, "I will!"
Even though he still felt a little guilty for not being able to change Greg fully, Daniel really didn't want to try anything like that previous change again. He should take some time to experiment, hone his skills a little, before trying to reverse Greg's weight gain.
He turned back to his desk, surveying the innocuous looking book resting on it. He couldn't leave the implement here. It was too powerful to be left unsupervised - who knows what other changes it could make? Mind made up, Daniel quickly dropped it into a small backpack, strapping it onto his back. It wouldn't look too suspicious to bring a backpack to the park, right?
Even though he'd managed to reverse the change, Daniel still found himself feeling a little different. It was like his stomach was softer than it was before, curving out a little further, like his waist was a little thicker around. But he quickly dismissed the thought, patting his middle. Everyone packed on the freshman fifteen in college, so his small, soft belly wasn't out of place at all. He quickly headed out to the living room.