Josh's body groaned as he tried to turn to find out who he was with. That voice was definitely familiar. Was he back home? He felt sluggish and his sight was still unsteady but - through it all - he felt like Josh again. He had gotten so accustomed to referring himself by other names - José, Jerome, Jamal, Jace and then Ace - that just knowing that he was Josh was a comfort. That voice though... Josh focused and saw...
"Miguel? Is that you?" Josh saw the familiar, handsome face of Miguel looking down at him with a smile. Josh immediately recognised Miguel's dark complexion and short beard. Josh took sight of Miguel's tight, denim shirt, with his shelves rolled up to his elbows highlighting his thick forearms. It looked a bit crumpled and Josh - his sight becoming clearer - noticed that Miguel looked a bit more dishevelled. Had he been waiting for Josh to wake up? For how long? Josh was surprised at how relieved and touched he was that Miguel was here, that he had waited for him. But that didn't explain why he was here at all. "Miguel, it's great to see you." Josh felt wheezy, his voice sore and raw. "What are you doing here? How did you find me?" Josh coughed - his throat was dry and his voice sounded raspy. Miguel smiled, clearly happy to hear Josh speak again. "I must have been down as an emergency contact, I dunno. I just got a call that my bro was in hospital, had hit his head and could maybe use a lift home." Bro? Emergency contact? It dawned on Josh that he wasn't quite home yet. Maybe he wasn't Josh at all.
"Miguel, am I José again?" Miguel looked a bit taken aback. "I mean, yeh, I think so" he replied. Josh closed his eyes and sighed. It had been wishful thinking that he could make it home that easily - he was still trapped. Trapped as José. Was that really though, he thought, that bad? Sure, he wasn't back with his parents but as José he was young, he had a job, he shared an apartment. He was, Josh considered, also a fucking hunk, far hotter than he had been in his original life, and without the anger that came with Jamal or the dumb vacancy that came with Jace or Ace. All of the lives he had lived over the past 48 hours, his short stint as José had seemed the most settled. He also - now looking up at Miguel again - had someone also like real family. Someone who came to the hospital when he was in trouble and clearly stuck around. Despite everything that had happened, that meant something. Josh paused. Something struck me about what Miguel had said. "But, what do you mean 'you think' I'm José? You're not sure?" Miguel grimaced. "Well... look bro. It's nothing bad, I promise. I think you just need to look for yourself."
Josh looked at Miguel with panic, what was wrong? Had he injured himself when he was tackled, lost a couple of teeth? He started pulling himself out of bed, but the grogginess remained and his centre of gravity felt off. Miguel helped him to his feet and Josh noted with horror that he had to look up at Miguel. That was new, he was supposed to be tall as José... Miguel helped him towards a mirror in the corner, Josh feeling unsteady on unknown legs. Breathing deeply, Josh looked up and saw...
He was José again. Kind of. The dark skin, the handsome face, the thick wavy hair on his head - it was all familiar. But whereas José had been tall and lean, his body built for reaching over pools and working shirtless in the hot sun, this body was far shorter, far girthier. Not just girthy, but thick - he was a compressed, more muscular version of José. Even with his long hospital gown, Josh could see his chest straining against the thin material, could see the gown bunching up against his thick biceps. His size, his bulk, it reminded him of his time as Jamal, even if he didn't quite have the height any more. His newfound bulk and shortened height as José wasn't the only difference Josh noticed as he felt the thick dark hair that covered his arms and caught sight of the dark rug that popped out of the top of his hospital gown and covered his thick legs. José he had been moderately hairy, but this new form was absolutely covered. Not only that, but he had a thick bushy beard. What had happened? Who was he now?
Josh looked closer at his new face, his new body, the stranger staring back at him in the mirror who felt both completely new but also... familiar. The resemblance to José was there, but the thick beard reminded him of Jamal. And there was something else about his face - was he someone more handsome? José had been a looker, but now the face was somehow more symmetrical, the eyes more alluring. He was stunning, much like Jerome had been. And topping his face off were thick, luscious lips - almost exaggerated - which combined with his handsome face and tank, hairy body made him a study in contrasts. A pretty boy with a hard body. But it was more than that - these lips, they didn't belong to José. They belonged to Ace. It dawned on Josh that although he had somehow defaulted back to José, he hadn't defaulted all the way. He was now some mishmash, some amalgamation of everyone he had been previously. He might resemble José by being Hispanic, by being related to Miguel, by being handsome, but the fact he was absolutely loaded with muscles and had a thick beard came from Jamal. The height and his new hiruste form, that must have come from Jace, as well as the fact - he now noted - that was somehow sweating just from standing still. His ass was a shelf popping out the back of his gown - that he had taken from Ace. And his pretty boy face was a José, Jerome, Ace hybrid. Was there anything else?
He looked at Miguel, eyed him over, and then looked back at himself. In some ways, they were more similar now than they had been when he had been José. As José he had been leaner and taller than Miguel, now he was shorter but bigger. He actually looked more brutish than Miguel now with his thick frame and hairy, blocky body. There was something else different though, something that made them more similar. Josh - inspecting himself closely in the mirror - took stock of the thick beard, the lines around his eyes, of his weathered hands. He was older again, probably in his early 30s. That increase in age, something this body had borrowed from Jerome, or was it Jamal? How old had he been then? Fuck, his head hurt trying to keep up with all his past selves and how they merged into this man standing in front of the mirror. He felt unsteady on his legs and as he started swaying, Miguel was there to catch him.
"Woh, easy there little bro." Miguel said, escorting Josh back to the bed. "Although, not sure how much more little you are any more... In age I mean, you're definitely little in height now." Miguel grinned and Josh shot him a look, but then relented. Despite everything, despite the uncertainty, despite not knowing who the fuck he was now, it was reassuring to have Miguel with him. "I'm... I dunno who I am Miguel. It's like I'm everyone I've been through this fucking app. A bit of everyone." Josh grabbed his head, it starting to ache. "I'll grab the doc", Miguel said, leaving the room. Josh looked down at his new, vascular hands, connected to thick, hairy arms. Could he live like this? He had almost gotten used to the idea of being the version of José he remembered - the young poolboy hunk. Would this be that different? He thought through the implications, still feeling dizzy and a bit sluggish. He was a bit older, a bit shorter, but he was handsome and he was built. He was also, he sighed with relief as he reached downstairs, absolutely packing, his huge dick a welcome gift from some of his previous lives. He felt weirdly comforted. Could he get used to this new life?
Miguel returned after a few minutes, trailed by a middle-aged doctor. Josh was struck by how handsome the doctor was, tall and lean with a clean-shaven face and smart haircut. Lying down on the bed in just his hospital gown, Josh realised with some embarrassment that he was beginning to get a hard on just from eyeing up this man. With the thin gown material and his already sizeable cock, the fact he had a chub on was not easy to hide. Fuck, he felt horny. He had a sudden fantasy of grabbing the doc and sticking his tongue down his throat, allowing the doctor to massage his fat ass as it hung out the back of his open gown. He felt his dick rise further and tried hard to keep the thoughts at bay - he needed to work out who he was, how we got here, then he'd deal with these unbridled feelings.
The doctor approached Josh's bed and pulled out his chart, taking no notice (or choosing not to comment) on Josh's clear boner. He smiled and started speaking, but Josh struggled to make him out - it sounded like he was speaking gibberish. The doctor waited expectantly and then started up again. Josh picked up a word here or there, but Josh's head swam as he tried to make sense of the doctor's noises. "Sorry, can you slow down? What are you saying?" The doctor nodded, and looked to Miguel who was himself staring at Josh with shock. Miguel then started up with the same nonsense language as the doctor, then paused. Josh could hear the concern in Miguel's voice, but the words were being lost, distorted. Suddenly, Miguel spoke with complete clarity. "Bro, you couldn't understand us?" Josh shock his head and Miguel sighed. "José, the doc and I, we were speaking English. Right now, you and I are speaking in Spanish. You know that you and I've been speaking in Spanish this whole time, right?"
Josh tried to work this through in his head while Miguel and the doctor continued to chat in their nonsense language. He couldn't understand English any more? What the fuck did that mean? He had been perfectly fluent when he has been José before, what was different? Maybe he was still warming up, still recovering from hitting his head. He'd be back to normal soon, right? Miguel had to translate what the doctor had told him - that he had had a mild concussion, no lasting damage, they could leave shortly - but it all washed over Josh. A concussion wouldn't knock out his ability to understand English, would it? What actually was a concussion? His head hurt, and he felt like he had to strain to keep up with Miguel as he continued to translate the doctor's instructions. He just lay there gaping up at Miguel. The doctor smiled sympatheticly and Josh felt a bit pathetic, a bit useless. Miguel looked down at Josh and sighed. "José, you said that whoever you are now is a mix of the people you had been previously. Were any of those people a bit.. ahem, slow? A bit dim maybe?" Josh shut his eyes. The sluggishness, the slowness, that wasn't the concussion. Height and hair weren't the only things he had taken from Jace he realised, but his smarts as well. Or his lack of smarts more like. So he wasn't just in an older, unknown body. He was dumb again.
As he got ready to be discharged and doctors and nurses continued to filter through his room, Josh soon realised some other attributes he had taken from his previous lives. First, he was attracted to pretty much everyone that entered his room, male and female. So he was bi, like Jerome, no big deal. Secondly, he was horny. Really fucking horny. He had only been awake for a few hours and he could count the number of boners and chubs on two hands (or was it more? Counting wasn't his strong suit any more). It went beyond just regular horniness and often tipped into full blown lust. His body craved, demanded that someone feel it up, massage his muscles, cup his balls, and when one particularly hunky doctor came up with a noticeable bulge in his scrubs, Josh felt an unmistakable ache in his ass. That, he figured, he had gotten from Ace.
Josh tried to take stock of where he had been left and examined his body - the dark skin, the muscles, the hair. It wasn't a bad body, far from it. He was gorgeous, he was packing, he was an absolute unit and an absolute hunk. He did now, however, have Jace's brain and Ace's horniness, and probably would never be fluent in English again. What did this mean for his life? Could he ever get home? "Bro, my phone. Did they ever find it? Where is it?" Speaking now, Josh was acutely aware of the thick accent that came from his throat. Miguel shook his head. "Sorry man, apparently it was completely smashed up. I've didn't even see where it went. You thinking about a way out of this?" Josh nodded, looking at Miguel with a look of sheer innocence. Miguel couldn't help but smile - this guy, who had been a complete stranger until just yesterday, he now felt so protective over him, felt a need to help him guide through the world. It wasn't as if he'd be able to navigate it himself any more. "Maybe you can try and download the app onto a different phone, but that never worked for me, I never even found the app again. I'm sorry bro... I think this is it."