Shannon was really upset. Her boyfriend, Dan, was yelling at her in public.
Ok, we should back up a moment. Dan isn't an abusive asshole. He's actually a really nice guy, normally. Tall, athletic, captain of the varsity football team at his high school. Most people thought he'd hook up with some pretty bitch (say, perhaps, a certain vindictive cheerleader). But in a twist that tended to only happen in movies, Dan had fallen for a short, nerdy girl who wore glasses. Shannon wasn't ugly, but she had mousey brown hair, wore thick glasses, and was slightly overweight. Years of torment by other girls had destroyed her self image.
But when Dan needed a tutor to stay on the team (not that Dan is stupid either, but his parents had always pushed him to excell in sports, not academics), he realized there was actually a cute (if geeky) girl right under his nose all along.
It was hard to get her out of her shell, and harder still to get her to admit she wasn't bad looking at all. And to her credit, she'd started to diet and exercise. Sure, she couldn't cure being five foot nothing, but Dan insisted she was adorable.
So why, knowing that she had self esteem issues, was the love of her life screaming at her? Well, having competitive parents put a lot of pressure on Dan. Even though Shannon had helped him realize there were more important things in life than 'throwing a ball for a living', he couldn't break the desire to make them proud of him.
And turning down a free ride to a college just to play sports wasn't an easy decision. Not that Dan had realized he would need to make a decision like that, until Shannon told him about HER college plans. She'd won an academic scholarship to a prestigious school- on the other side of the country.
And was Dan yelling at her because she wanted to go there, and not be with him? Hardly.
She'd told him, predictably, that she wouldn't be able to handle being away from him, emotionally. It would destroy her, and he knew it. But just as he was about to say he'd turn down the scholarship...
"I won't go. I'll go to your school. Unless you...don't want me..."
And that's when Dan lost his shit. Shannon was high maintenance, as she was emotionally stunted and fragile. But she was worth it, and he knew it. Not that her hangups weren't a walk in the park. But his girl was a GENIUS. 177 IQ, that was smarter than Einstein! The sky was the limit for her!
And she was going to give that up for his dumb jock ass? No. Fucking. Way.
Of course, all Teri saw was a tall muscular guy yelling at a scared tiny girl. So she administered her own brand of justice.
One moment, Dan was yelling at Shannon, and then, suddenly, where two people had been, there was one person. She was seated where Shannon had been. She wore an outfit that was a reasonable fusion of Dan's muscle tee and jeans with Shannon's plain blouse and modest skirt. She still had the Letterman Jacket, but it was smaller to fit her frame.
Dan had been 6' 3". Shannon had been just a fraction under 5'. Combined, they somehow turned into a pretty, athletic girl an inch over 5' 7". Her features were a pleasing combination of Dan's movie star handsome looks and Shannon's understated cuteness. She had dark brown hair (a fusion of Dan's black, and Shannon's light brown). She had one blue eye (Dan's right eye) and one hazel eye (Shannon's left eye). She wore glasses, but she removed them, as they just made everything blurry.
The new girl was confused, but she headed out of the shopping center, to Dan's...her...car. It wasn't until she got behind the wheel (and adjusted the seat for her height) that the two minds started to realize what was going on.
"...Danny? Are you in here?" Shannon 'thought' loudly.
"Uh..Shan...what...what's going on??" Daniel Rose was suddenly very scared.
Shannon made their body look up at the rear view mirror, and adjusted it with her (their?) left hand. "Well, in short, we seem to be sharing a single body, that appears to be a hybrid of our previous bodies."
"Wha...what?!" Dan was freaking out, but the girl's left hand grasped her right.
"Shh, Danny, it's ok. I think it's STS. We've been merged together."
"...oh."
"Danny? Baby? Don't freak out."
But despite her saying that, she felt tears forming, and soon they were crying. "Oh honey.."
"We're...we're..." In his memories, he suddenly heard his Dad's words.
'STS my ass. Those people are freaks, and they should be in a zoo instead of getting my hard earned money...'
Dan's father was a bigot. Sadly, that was fairly common in their small town.
"Danny! No! We're not a freak! Or a monster! That's your father talking!"
"You...you heard that?" Dan's mental voice sounded very young...and scared. Actually, quite feminine, Shannon noticed. It was strange for her to be the strong one, but she found she was glad she could do this for him.
"I did. I can actually...access, I guess...your memories. I don't think we can have any secrets from each other...not anymore."
"Oh..then...you're going to hate me." Dan shared a memory of the first time he'd encountered Shannon Graves. He was 16 and Shannon had been 14 (she'd been so smart she'd skipped a few grades in junior high). Ashley Bryce was pretty, popular, and a cheerleader.
He'd been wanting to date her for some time (I mean, almost all the boys at school did, and, it was rumored, some girls as well) and she'd finally given him a chance. He was sadly at that age where he felt the guy had to change to be with a girl. So when Ashley was being mean and bigoted, well, he followed suit.
One day they cut through the Library, and Ashley saw Shannon. "Oh God, it's that fat nerd baby. She doesn't belong here, you know she was a freshman at 12? I wish she'd die so I wouldn't have to look at her."
"Yeah, me too." Dan had said.
"Danny, if you love, won't you help me teach that whore a lesson?"
The fused girl burst into tears as Shannon realized the truth. Later that week, when she'd opened her locker, it was plastered with pornography- men with big cocks fucking overweight women. They had to send her home for three days while she recovered from the emotional overload.
"Shan...I _am_ a monster! I did that to you...I didn't tell you because...because..." Dan's voice became softer, and yes, definitely more feminine. "...you'd hate me."
Somehow, Shannon found strength from within her. Her brain was formulating a theory, but this needed to be attended to first. "Danny. Stop. Please. I love you. I know you love me. I can _feel_ your love. I can feel everything now. If I'd known this was twisting you up inside so much, oh God, baby...yes, that hurt. It hurt so much. And I'm guessing that you can feel that now. You're seeing my memory of that. Oh Danny, I was in a bad, bad place. But that wasn't you. That was Ashley, using you. Like she uses everyone.
Listen. I forgive you. We were both different people then. You've made up for that a thousand times over."
"...i won't stop." Danny seemed to get control of himself. "I'll never stop making that up to you, I swear. Oh fuck, what is wrong with me, my emotions are out of control!"
"Yeah, I've noticed. Look, Danny, here's the thing. We're one person now. We still have our separate minds and personalities, but we're sharing the same headspace. That means there's going to be bleed."
"What, like a head trauma?" Dan thought about the time he got a mild concussion.
"Not..exactly. What I'm saying is, my mind and yours are mixing together, to some degree. Those are my wild, out of control, female emotions you're feeling. And right now, I'm drawing on your confidence- it's the only thing keeping me from going completely insane." Shannon reached over to stroke...well her right cheek. Danny wasn't exactly in control of their right side, but it 'felt' more like his side of their body.
For whatever reason, she knew she was dominant and therefore, had more control..but she wasn't going to use that if she didn't have to. If Danny was suddenly made a prisoner in his own (her own? their own?) body, he'd completely lose it. And that would probably mean she'd go for a ride on the crazy train with him.
"Think about how we got in the car. That wasn't you or me. It was both of us, acting together. Do you remember Venn diagrams?"
"..yeah. Yeah! I do." Danny seemed to brighten up. "Or...well...maybe you do, but that means I do. So weird.."
"Keep it together, baby. So, imagine one of those. There's a blue circle, that's you. And a pink circle, that's me. And there's an area where both circles overlap. That's...us. Now over time, that overlap might get larger or smaller, I don't know. But it shows that we're no longer separate people, physically or mentally."
"I mean, I understand it. Because you understand it. Which proves your hypothesis is vali...ugh, what am I saying?"
"Easy baby. Easy. You're reaching out, and thinking with my brain. Or whatever part of our combined cerebrum is my brain. We can do that. I can, for example, describe a Sweep, Trap, or Bootleg play. That's your knowledge. Um...wait, you can play piano?"
The fused girl blushed. "Yeah, my Mom got me lessons. Dad said it was a waste of time and too 'girly', but I kept practicing. I like making music. I just...I've kept that secret for so long, I never thought to tell you."
The girl closed her eyes, nodding her head. "Oh my God, Danny! I can _hear_ it! Is that..it is! That's Philip Glass, 'Metamorphosis'! You're amazing!"
"..you think so? Thank you." Slowly, the fused girl started to smile.
"There we go. Oh Danny, I don't know what to do next. I mean, there's a hotline and a website for SLS victims. We could get government aid. But..I mean..I'm technically still a minor. And your Dad would never..."
"I know, Shan. I know what he'd say. I'm not his son anymore. Uh, we are a girl, right? I mean, we haven't checked, but..." Dan trailed off, embarrassed.
"I'll do it." Shannon unbuttoned their denim skirt, and giggled to find that instead of panties, they were wearing girl's boxer briefs. She reached into them, and found soft pubic hair and a vertical slit. Even the casual contact was like a bolt of electricity running down their spines.
"Oh...wow..." Even when his cock had been touched...it had never felt like _that_.
"Yeah, I guess girls are more sensitive. And there's probably a feedback loop, as you feel it, and then I do, and then you feel what I'm feeling..."
"It felt good. Do that again?"
"Down, tiger! Focus on the task at hand, fun time comes later. So we've established our body is definitely female. At least physically. We could have seriously screwed up chromosomes, like an XY female, or an XXY female."
"Oh. That would suck, right?"
"Well, XY females actually tend to be kind of hot looking, but the law doesn't fairly consider them proper girls. The XXY females do have some medical problems and deformities. But we seem pretty healthy."
"Well not that health, I mean our tits are...uh..." Danny trailed off.
"Smaller, yes. Well you had pecs, and I was overweight. The tradeoff seems to be a smaller bust, since we are definitely not overweight now. There's some lean muscle on our body. We aren't anywhere near as strong as you were, but I bet we're in great condition for a...17 year old girl?"
"Oh because I'm 18 and you're...right...that makes sense. So what's our next move, then?"
The girl sighed as Shannon replied. "College is on hold now. We can't play men's football, but it might be possible to claim that academic scholarship. Start thinking of a sport we can play- we can't let all your athleticism go to waste. But having heard you play, we're definitely taking music whenever we get to go. We'll call the hotline, get an appointment with a specialist. Then we'll...run away. Clean break. I'll send my Mom a letter or something- she wasn't a bad parent, just...distant. She never understood me. At my age, she was a party girl.
We wanted to be together forever. We got our wish. Maybe not the way we wanted, but I can live with this."
"So what do we call ourself...?" Danny's mental voice was 100% female now. Given her proximity, Shannon could see there was a lot about Danny that had been repressed, and he'd had a stronger feminine side than she'd realized.
Well it only made sense to nurture that now. "I'm thinking...Dani. With an 'i'."
"Oh...wow...really?"
"Short for Danielle. Don't worry, I'll always be your Shan Shan." She hated that pet name, but she knew..could feel..how it felt for him to call her that.
"I love you."
"I love you right back."
The girl wrapped her arms around her chest, hugging herself tightly.
TWO YEARS LATER
"Well, baby, here we are, college at last." The school wasn't Shannon's first choice, but they'd encountered slight prejudice due to their SLS, even though, physically, they were completely human. Well mostly. Their body still retained Dan's physical strength, toughness, and athletic ability, despite their being no physical reason for that to be the case. And it turned out fusions aged at a reduced ratio, just like those who suffered Mitosis STS. But other than that, they were a healthy female.
They could even have kids, if they wanted to, but while Dan had fully embraced her new gender, she wasn't quite ready for that. And really, they were only 18..or 20, depending on how you wanted to look at it.
"Yeah. Oh this is going to be great. But are you sure about majoring in music? I know how much science and math gets you hot and bothered." Dani (she referred to herself by their shared name now) replied.
"It...it does not!"
"Love, I'm right here in your head. I know it does. And I love it when you have our brain firing on all cylinders, it's amazing to witness." Dani's right hand reached over to squeeze her left.
"Oh baby...you get me way more hot and bothered when you talk like that. Well at least you let me sign up for sports, I know you miss football."
Dani mentally shrugged. "Eh, Lacrosse is ok, and I kind of like the idea of Gymnastics. Are you sure we can fit Fencing into our busy schedule?"
"Hey, the two of us can do anything we put our minds to. I believe that."
Dani smiled. "So what about the other thing?"
Shannon sighed (well, to an onlooker, Dani sighed, but it was the same difference, really). "Yeah, masturbation is fun, but I agree. There's no way you'd be comfortable with a boyfriend, so...we need a girlfriend. And I guess a women's college was the best place to look."
"I'm looking, and I see a lot of really fine girls." Dani grinned.
"Hey! We want looks AND brains, Mister!" Shannon tried to pretend to be angry, but failed.
"That's Miss to you!"