"Okay..." Vinny whispered, tenderly and desperately as he'd ever sounded, "...okay, I...I trust you."
"That's really comforting, Vin..." Jon said haltingly, "You're pretty great too."
Vinny might have told him about the weird voice in his head he'd just carried on a conversation with, but shit was weird enough already and he didn't want to freak Jon out more than he already was.
But he still heeded it's advice, forced himself to relax, despite the pain, despite the fear. He focused on Jon who was by now almost entirely free of his sweats, which were crisscrossed up and down by rips and tears, exposing sweaty, thick legs bulging with veins and thick cords of muscle in more proper proportion with every other part of him.
"N-not sure how much more I can take..." Jon grunted, "Shit, in the movies, it just explodes right off..."
"Yeah, this whole instant bodybuilder shit's just so got damn inconvenient right?" Vinny chuckled, beginning to feel hi jersey start to chafe into his neck and shoulders.
"Fuck, here it goes..." he gasped, noticing the skin of his arms beginning to pulse and writhe with an inexplicable, burning energy, the way Jon's had.
It was unbelievable, surreal, scary...and yet Vinny couldn't look away. This was...HIM changing, twisting, growing, right before his eyes.
The tremors ran down his whole body, down through his torso, electrifying every inch of his skin, making the hairs on his neck, on his chest, down beneath the rim of his pants stand on end. He wanted to scream, he wanted to cry, he wanted to laugh and cuss and pass out all at once, but he couldn't do any of that.
"Argh..." Jon panted as yet another stubborn tear opened, now on his right side, "Shit, now I know how you feel when I was grabbing you the way I was..."
"You still ARE grabbing me."
"Well, you stopped complaining about it."
Which was true, Vinny realized. He had. In between everything else that was happening to him, Jon's hands on his arms had, very gradually, stopped hurting him. He doubted it had to do with Jon's grip getting weaker.
He was getting stronger. And that made him feel a little bit safer.
"Listen, Jon..." he found himself saying, "...let me help you."
"What? How?"
With some effort, Vinny moved his hand from Jon's arm (maybe he was imagining the almost electric pop that resounded when he did this, as if they'd actually been fused together),reaching to grab at the right leg of his sweats.
"Y-you're kidding, right?"
"I'm not feeling too funny at the moment..." Vinny told him, promptly ripping the already torn pants clear, feeling a resounding surge of energy go through him as he did so, as well as some other feeling, a wilder, more primal feeling.
He heard himself give a groan of effort, heard Jon cry out at the relief of pressure as the sudden giving way of fabric reduced the remainder of his sweats to tatters, and felt a surge of adrenaline rush through him of the sort he had never even encountered on the field.
'No...no, shit' that voice again, 'Stay with it, Vinny, stay with it. Aw, fuck, what's happening, this is way too hard...'
Well, so much for the all powerful voice of Reason.