Jason woke up on the floor.
It wasn’t just the weight of David’s arm across his chest, or the stale scent of sex and sweat still thick in the room. It was the way the sunlight hit his face differently now—filtered through a layer of fur. His ears twitched before his eyes opened. The carpet was rough beneath his shoulder. The stretch of his tongue against his teeth caught against longer canines.
His sheath throbbed, half-hard, warm and slick.
Jason groaned low in his throat, then immediately winced. It came out more like a growl. He rolled to the side slowly, careful not to wake David, and sat upright.
The couch was a disaster—soaked, matted with fur and other fluids. His nest of cushions lay half-kicked apart, his body heat still lingering in the fabric. Jason looked down at his legs, now fully furred, and flexed his toes. His paws dragged against the carpet, black pads pressing into the fibers.
David stirred behind him with a grunt. A heavy breath. Then a noise Jason couldn’t place. Not a word. Not quite.
Jason turned.
David looked different in the light. His ears were long and expressive now, twitching slightly. Fur hugged his lower body, silver and dark along the muscle. His jaw wasn’t quite human anymore. When he exhaled, his nostrils flared like a startled stallion. His cock hung long and dark between his legs, resting heavy against his thigh.
"Fuck," David croaked. Then blinked, frowning at the sound of his own voice. "So much for separating."
Jason hesitated, tongue dragging awkwardly across his canines. He blinked hard, trying to remember how to respond like a person. His tail thumped against the wall, betraying him. He wanted to touch. Lick. Mount. He shook it off.
"We need to get up," he said. The words felt thick in his mouth, shaped differently by the new weight of his jaw and muzzle. He had to speak slower, let each syllable roll across unfamiliar teeth and tongue. It came out gruff, hoarser than he meant.
David nodded, rising slowly. His knees cracked. The sound made Jason flinch.
"I don’t feel... off," David muttered. "After everything, I should feel broken. Or cursed. Or something."
"You don’t feel human either," Jason replied.
They didn’t speak as they dressed. Or tried to. David’s sweatpants didn’t come close to fitting. He found an old pair of gym shorts—stretchy, low-slung, the only thing that might accommodate the shape of his new body. Even then, they barely clung to his hips, the waistband straining around thick muscle and fur. The bulge of his sheath and the heavy line of his shaft pressed clearly against the fabric.
Jason looked away. He felt a jolt in his gut.
Their eyes met.
It was lust, undeniably—but layered now with something slower, heavier. Something dangerously close to attachment.
Jason stood slowly, eyes drifting to the mirror. "We can’t keep pretending this is temporary."
David followed his gaze, quiet. "You mean the changes? Or... us?"
Jason looked at his reflection. Part man, part beast. Muzzle, fur, eyes too wide. Years of online fantasies, carefully curated folders, and anonymous confession threads hadn’t prepared him for this. It was everything he had once wanted—and it terrified him.
He didn’t see himself. He saw something that wanted. Something becoming. Something real. He felt a pulse of need. A spike of panic. A shiver of awe.
Confused. Aroused. Afraid.
"Both," he said.
Jason didn’t move. The silence in the room was loud—alive. He felt his pulse behind his eyes, in his sheath, in the back of his throat. Pretending wouldn’t help anymore. Denying it made it worse.
And standing next to David, looking like this, he finally admitted what he hadn’t let himself feel: it wasn’t just the magic pulling them together. Somewhere in all the closeness, all the shared nights and casual touches, something deeper had taken root. It wasn’t just lust anymore. It hadn’t been for a while.
Maybe that was part of what had gone wrong with Lena. He’d kept a part of himself from her—not just the kink, but the way David had always lingered just beneath the surface. There’d never been space to name it, and now it didn’t need one. It was here, undeniable.
They weren’t coming back from this.
---
They tried to keep busy.
Jason paced while David cleaned the couch. Neither mentioned what they had just done. Jason made coffee out of habit, not hope. The bitter smell hit his nose like chemicals and ash, sharp and misplaced. Human things didn’t fit right anymore. They pressed at the edges of his senses like a shirt one size too small.
David pulled the blinds. The sunlight made Jason flinch, sharp and too direct. His pupils stayed wide—canine, but not quite—and every flicker of light made his ears twitch with animal sharpness. Overstimulation.
By noon, they were doing their best to stay on opposite sides of the apartment—drawn together by the magic, yet wary of how easily it answered to desire.
Jason sat in the hallway with his back against the wall, panting softly. He scratched at the edge of fur spreading near his elbow. His mind buzzed. Words felt distant. The urge to crawl into bed and curl around something warm nearly overwhelmed him.
He didn’t know what scared him more: the idea of changing completely, or how much part of him already wanted it.
The knock came at 1:23 p.m.
Both of them froze.
Jason got there first.
Lena stood in the doorway.
Jason stared. He didn’t know what he expected—anger, fear, maybe even revulsion. But Lena only blinked, her expression unreadable. She didn’t look surprised to see both of them, and that hurt more than if she had screamed.
Her hair was a mess. Her eyes were darker, like she hadn’t slept. Behind her stood a man—tall, thin, bearded—his green overcoat catching the light in ways that defied fabric. His eyes were silver, wrong, in a way Jason’s instincts didn’t like.
“This is my mentor,” Lena said flatly. “Don’t ask his name. Don’t ask him questions. Just let us in.”
Jason hesitated.
The man tilted his head slightly, sniffing once with faint distaste.
"You already know, don't you?" Jason asked.
"I know enough," the man said, stepping forward. "But knowledge and truth aren't the same thing. I need to see for myself."
Jason stepped aside.
The man entered like a shift in air pressure. He paused just past the threshold, then raised two fingers and began to draw.
Light followed his movements—sigils forming in the air, delicate and precise, curves intersecting sharp glyphs until a full pattern floated before him. It pulsed once. His eyes shifted—not glowing, but catching light unnaturally, gleaming silver and sharp.
He looked at Jason. Then at David. Jason felt it like a hand against the inside of his chest—pressure, recognition, exposure.
The sigil dissolved in a shimmer of sparks. The man blinked slowly.
Only then did he speak.
He turned to Lena, but his gaze shifted quickly—first to Jason, then to David.
"The magical structure has collapsed. The curse is volatile—self-sustaining, yes, but barely holding shape. Jason, your changes are advanced. Reversal might no longer be an option without severe consequences. David, you're not as far along, but your connection to him is anchoring the spell. It’s drawing you together. Making it harder to separate the effect from the source."
Jason felt something cold twist through him.
"What does that mean?" David asked, standing behind him now.
"It means the original anchor—the spell that first bound it—has dissolved," the man said. His voice was smooth. Inhuman. "What remains is a living construct, latching onto whatever it can. Jason, David. Your connection has become the new anchor. The curse has woven itself into your identities. It's no longer bound to a fixed shape or ritual. It's shaping itself around what you are becoming. Around what you feel. Unmaking it now would likely unravel both the structure and your sense of self."
He looked between them. "You’ve been fortunate. Your focus on each other provided a form of containment. It stabilized the trajectory—barely."
He turned to David now, his voice sharpening. "But you left. Even briefly—that introduced a risk. Did you come into contact with anyone?"
David stiffened. "No. I—I didn’t even talk to anyone."
The man studied him, silver eyes unreadable. "Good. If you'd spread the spell’s imprint, even unintentionally, it would’ve multiplied. Fractured. Harder to track, harder to stop."
His gaze darkened. "There may be a way to stabilize the magic—but it will cost you something. Perhaps your bond. Perhaps part of your form. Possibly more."
Jason growled before he realized he was doing it.
Lena stepped forward. Her jaw was tight, her voice flat. "Then we find another way."
She didn’t look at Jason. Not directly.
"I told you to separate," she added, softer. "And it made sense at the time. But I didn’t understand how fast the tether would rebound. How... bonded you already were."
Her fingers curled at her sides. "Distance made it worse. Your instincts pulled you back together the second you were apart. You rebounded harder than before. I thought I was isolating a variable. Instead, I poured fuel on it."
The man raised a brow.
"You said containment. Is it spreading?" Jason asked, voice cracking.
The man turned to him. And this time, he smiled.
"Not yet. But it wants to."