After some time browsing deep into the fringes of the Internet, and employing a string of innovative key words, Tim finally snagged a page with an extremely low-resolution image that somewhat matched the relic shaped like a golden butterfly. He made an exasperated sound as he tried to zoom on the photo, which dematerialized into unhelpful pixilated territory.
"It's related to the Egyptian scarabs," he said as he read the sparse text. "Makes sense. The jungle inhabitants who made the relic probably never encountered desert beetles, but they would have been familiar with all sorts of butterflies."
"Interesting theory," Garok, increasingly comfortable in the slender, youthful form the relic had bestowed upon him, praised Tim's meager results.
Tim bookmarked the page and then turned to Garok. "You don't seem upset at all," he remarked, without raising his tone to an accusatory level.
"I'm doing what I believe our people have always done," Garok said with a hint of a smirk. "Keeping a stiff upper lip and rolling with whatever comes my way, ol' chap."
"Do you know about this curse?" Tim asked.
"In what way?" Garok redirected.
"A week ago, I would have told you that magic was nonsense," Tim said. "Something better left to the imagination of J.K. Rowling."
Garok raised an eyebrow in almost a perfect imitation of one of Richard's behaviorisms that Tim found so endearing. The gesture softened his attitude until he reminded himself that Garok looked like his friend, but he wasn't Richard.
Garok put a hand on the back of Tim's chair and swiveled the seat and Tim to face him. "As a man of science, I suppose you are feeling ill equipped to give this dilemma a tidy resolution?" Garok punctuated his query by lowering a hand onto Tim's right thigh and giving it a light squeeze.
A surprised... nay shocked... Tim stared into Garok's green eyes, which looked like mirrors into the soul of his best friend. He fought to remind himself that it wasn't truly Richard staring back at him.
"What are you doing?" Tim asked.
"Something entirely welcome, I believe," the former jungle man declared and ducked his head and gave the slightly smaller man a passionate kiss.
"Don't," Tim tried to protest as he felt a strong tongue force its way deeper into his mouth.
Pulling back slightly, Garok asked, "Why not?"
Tim's mind blanked in an untimely fashion. Garok kissed him again and combined the action with a blatant grope, detecting a burgeoning hard-on beneath the crotch of Tim's pants. He smiled, his theory confirmed.
He broke the kiss only to bring his lips to one of Tim's ears, where he could whisper more intimately while he gently kneaded Tim's erection to full life. "The two of you are not lovers, though?"
Tim moaned from a well-placed squeeze. "It's complicated," he rasped. "With him and me."
"He overlooks you," Garok jumped to his point. "He takes you for granted."
As much as Tim wanted to take exception to those statements, he found he couldn't do so.
"He's never going to change," Garok said and unzipped the front of Tim's pants, freeing an impressive cock. "Your friend is a fool for so many reasons."
Again, Tim wanted to object, but Garok went down on him. Tim felt the attention as Garok drew his cock over his lips, into his mouth, and down his throat. He groaned as the former beastly jungle inhabitant deep-throated his suddenly aching cock.
Tim looked down and saw Richard's strawberry blond hair atop the head of the man kneeling before him as he felt incredible suction form around his cock.
Garok came up for a breath of air and raised sparkling green eyes to fix Tim with the stare of a basilisk, which served to keep the researcher's cock rock hard. "Without the relic, he would never have changed, and this would never have happened," Garok pointed out.
Tim surrendered to the fantasy he had dreamed about for so long. He made excuses, telling himself that it wasn't a betrayal. He would use the relic and set things right later.
"Continue?" Garok asked in the manner of the great tempter.
Tim submitted to the temptation. "Yes," he said. "Keep going. God, keep going."
Garok, confident in his possession of his new body, gave Tim Johnson the blow job of his fucking life.