You find yourself standing in front of Blane’s place. You also find yourself fairly impressed.
George peers up at the tall, building in front of you. “Wait. You live in the old high school?”
Blaine, still a duplicate of his father, grins under his thick, salt and pepper mustache. “That’s right. It’s the original school building, built in 1923.” He pulls a set of keys from his jacket, which no longer fit him, and starts unlocking the double doors. “It was originally going to be what’s now the ‘Warehouse,’ but I fell in love with the place. So I moved in.” He pushes open the doors and motions for you to step inside.
The halls are empty and your footsteps echo in the barren space. It smells clean, though, and it seems well-kept.
George shivers. “It’s like some sort of haunted house.”
Blaine steps in behind you. “I know. Isn’t it great? This way.”
He guides you all up a flight of stairs, climbing until you reach the third floor. By that point, all of you save Chris and Amelie are huffing and puffing, the exertion working against your rounded frames.
Blaine leans against the wall at the top of the stairs to catch his breath. “Not much further. It’s just down that hall. Damn, my dad is out of shape.”
George’s face is a shade of crimson, and sweat has soaked his shirt. “You think you’ve got problems? Try being my dad.”
You’re probably the least winded out of the three of you, but you certainly feel what they’re talking about.
Before long, you make your way down the hall. Blaine enters a side room and flicks on the light. As the fluorescent flickers on, you see a large, flat screen television mounted on the far wall, in front of an overstuffed couch and two easy chairs. There’s also a ping-pong table, a pool table, and a variety of arcade machines lined up along the wall, not to mention several other goodies scattered around the room.
George whistles. “You live here?”
Blaine shrugs as he eases himself onto the couch. “Yeah man. This is my game room, where me and my friends can hang.”
You hold back a chuckle as you hear the phrase come from a man of about fifty. “Not a bad set up you’ve got here.”
Chris plops himself into an easy chair, still looking fairly peeved about the whole situation. “Well, don’t get too comfortable. If this doesn’t wear off by sunrise, you’re going to be in big trouble.”
Blaine glares in Chris’ direction. “Easy, there.”
Amelie rolls her eyes. “You boys have fun with your sleepover. I’ve got work in the morning, and I’m still not entirely convinced I haven’t been drugged. If you need me I’ll be sleeping in my room on the second floor.”
Blaine waves at Amelie as she leaves the room. “Night!”
George makes his way to the pool table and starts turning the billiard balls over in his hands. “So, you and her both live here?”
Blaine nods. “Yeah. Chris, Amelie, and me are all roomies. Chris got the first floor, Amelie and second, and I’ve got the penthouse.”
You make your way to the unclaimed easy chair and have a seat. You try your best to avoid Chris’ glower. You can’t help but feel a little guilty for doing this to Blaine and Chris. They seemed friendly enough. It wasn’t fair to them. You just hoped this would wear off like you predicted.
After a minute of silence, Blaine nods at you. “So, your dad…”
You shrug. “What about him?”
“Did he ever… mention me?”
“Uh, no. Not really. Sorry.”
Blaine shrugs, leaning back in the couch cushions. “It’s fine. I wondered if I did something to…” He shakes his head, leaving the thought unfinished. “You guys want something to drink?”
After a few drinks, you find you and Blaine hit it off quite nicely. It was as if you were old drinking buddies. You also drink way too many beers. Even Chris can’t keep his glower going forever. While he isn’t as talkative as you or Chris, he eventually falls into a nap in his own chair. George spends his time playing one-man pool, which seems to suit him just fine. He’ll occasionally interject in your conversation or give a loud, boisterous laugh, which startles Chris to wakefulness, only to drift back off again.
“It’s weird, y’know?” Blaine reaches down and jiggles his gut under his ill-fitting clothes. “After a while you kind of get used to it.”
You nod. “I have a theory. I think that we don’t only get the physical features, but some of the mental stuff as well. I mean, our dads were, like, best friends or something, yeah?”
Blaine nods as he takes another drink of beer.
You continue. “That’s why we’re having such a good thing going, here. Our dad’s got along pretty good, so us as our dads get along good, too.”
Blaine sputters and laughs through his drink. “Man, either I’m drunk, or that didn’t make a lick of sense.” He laughs again. “Oh, god. Only my dad says that.” He strokes his mustache. “You know, I never really considered growing one of these. But I actually really like it.”
You stroke your goatee. “Welcome to the club. I don’t think we got anything on George, though.”
George strokes his enormous beard and laughs.
Chris jerks at the room-shaking noise. “Whazzat?” He immediately starts examining his body. “Are we back to normal, yet?”
Blaine laughs. “Not yet. Go back to sleep, you old geezer.”
The three of you laugh as Chris glares at the rest of you.
Suddenly, there’s a loud thumping from downstairs, almost as if somebody was banging on the ceiling. You can barely hear a voice. “Would you guys shut up? I’m trying to sleep!”
This only causes the three of you to break out into laughter once again.
You wake up to the sound of your cell phone ringing. Forcing yourself to wakefulness, you find yourself in an unfamiliar location. It’s only when you see the arcade machines in the noontime sunlight that you remember you’re in Blaine’s game room.
You dig your phone out of your pocket, seeing the word “DAD” flashing in block, white letters on the screen. You take a deep breath and tap the green “Answer” button.
“Hi, Dad.” You feel immense relief not to hear your father’s deep rumble coming from your mouth. You do hear it, however, from your phone.
“Son? Where the hell are you?”
You look around the room again to get your bearings. You have a slight headache, but feel otherwise fine. You can also remember the previous night clearly enough. Either your father’s body was able to take the brunt of the hangover, or the sock magic reduced the aftereffects of alcohol. You glance at the sleeping forms of Blaine, Chris, and George. Though they were hidden from the sun by the shadow of the couch, you could tell they were no longer in the forms of their fathers.
“I’m with some friends.”
“All night?! Get your butt home right now! You’re mother’s worried sick.”
It was time to attempt damage control. “No, no! Not all night! I, uh, left this morning.” You were terrible at lying. “I left a note.” You didn’t.
“We’ll talk later. I’m at work right now. Go home and apologize to your mother. I’ll see you tonight, and we can discuss your punishment.”
“But, dad-“ But it was too late. He’d already hung up.
You sigh and collapse back into the easy chair. You glance down at your clothes, which were now too large for you. At least you were back to normal.
“Dad troubles?” Blaine sits up and stretches, his clothes now seeming to fit him properly. “I mean, different dad troubles. Not the ones form last night. I bet if you let me talk to him he’ll go much easier on you.”
Blaine stretches again as he crosses the room and flicks the light back on. Somebody must have turned it off last night. Amelie must have checked on you all before going to work.
You stand up, too. You stretch, but something feels a little off to you. You feel your body. You weren’t your dad. You were you. Weren’t you?
Your hands stop when they reach your stomach. You pull up your oversize shirt, revealing a small gut. You weren’t exactly a scrawny person, but you certainly didn’t recall having this. As you look closer, you can see a thin covering of hair leading up from your belly button. You pull off your shirt completely. Your previously average torso has developed some muscle tone. Not only that, but there’s a fine covering of hair on your chest. It was a far cry from what your father had, but it was more than what you had started with.
Blaine grins at you. “Gad to be back to your old self, eh? Yeah, me too. I mean, being my dad was actually kind of fun, but I like being myself.”
You look up at him, a panic rising inside you. “But I’m not.” You look closer at him. “And neither are you!”
Blaine chuckles. “What do you mean?” He pats his torso. “Of course I…” He trails off, his hands grabbing at his stomach. He lifts up his own shirt. Where he would usually have a set of abs, he had a small belly instead, with a sparse covering of hair. “What the hell?” He examines himself closer, looking at his arms and feeling his face. “Okay, this isn’t bad. This is doable.” Again his hands hesitate, this time on his upper lip. He rubs a finger under his nose, as if feeling something. You can see a shadow of stubble, as if he’d gone several days without shaving there. “That’s weird. It’s like there are leftovers.” He pats his stomach. While it has some softness, his original muscle is still underneath. “I’m still me, right?”
You look at him closely. He looks almost just like he did when you first met him. Perhaps ears were a little off, as well as his nose. He may even look a couple years or so older, but he seemed like the same person.
“Yeah. Yeah, you’re pretty close.”
Blaine frowns. “Pretty close? What does that mean?”
He rushes out of the room. You run off after him, hoping you hadn’t done permanent damage. You find him in a large bathroom, like you might find at a public school. There’s a long mirror, running the width of the room over a row of sinks.
He’s examining himself closely, his face only an inch from the mirror. He turns to look at his tribal tattoo, which seems intact, if slightly faded. Squinting, you can just make out an outline that might’ve been his father’s flaming skull tattoo.
You shrug. “It’s really not that bad.”
You then get a good look at yourself in the mirror. The first thing you notice is your hair is darker. It’s only a shade or two, but it’s definitely darker. You also look a little older. You’re still a teen, but you could perhaps pass for 17 or 18, instead of 15. There is dark stubble on your chin and upper lip, the remnants of your dad’s goatee. Your body seems a little broader, your muscles a little more toned. There was also a subtle gut to your midsection, which you could easily suck in. You also notice a light coving of hair on your arms, in addition to the hair on your chest and stomach, more remnants of your father. Luckily your hair didn’t seem receded and you couldn’t spot any gray or wrinkles.
These seem to be small changes, the kind that wouldn’t be noticed except for a close inspection. You are much closer to being yourself than being your father.
Blaine grimaces and pats his own subtle gut. “No big deal. I just need to do some sit-ups. In a month or two, this won’t even be a thing.”
“Maybe we’re still changing back?”
Blaine shakes his head, still analyzing himself in the mirror. “I doubt it. It’s past noon. The way you described the changes, it sounded like they wear off pretty quickly. Whatever is going on here is a fluke of those socks of yours. A glitch. There’s bound to be some… erroneous data.”
There’s a knocking on the door. You turn to see George standing in the bathroom doorway. “Hey. I gotta pee.”
George looks like his teen self at first glance. Of course, when looking closer you see some oddities. Even wearing the oversized clothes from his father, you can see he’s a little chunkier than he should be. George is usually rail thin, but you can make out a subtle roundness to his face, and he now has a bit of a gut. He also has what looks like unkempt, two-week-old stubble covering the lower half of his face, what remained of his father’s enormous beard. His scalp hair seemed a bit more wild and unkempt as well, along with a light covering of hair you could see on his arms. Besides all that, he seemed slightly older, just like you.
“George, look in the mirror.”
He isn’t happy. “Oh my god.” He rubs the thick stubble on his chin. “Why am I so different? Why didn’t this happen to you guys?” He strips off his shirt, showing his softened torso and light coverings of hair on his chest, stomach and even some on his back.
You shrug. “It did. I guess there’s just such a drastic difference between you and your father, that it’s more obvious.”
He ruffles his hair. “At least I’m not bald, I guess.”
Blaine smirks. “It’ll be fine, guys. I don’t know what you usually look like, but if you just shave and wear some bulky clothes you’ll be fine. Right?”
Chris steps into the doorway. “What’s going on, now?”
Like the rest of you, he’s fairly close to being himself, with some minor differences. His muscles seem less toned, but he’s managed to avoid gaining a soft gut. Light stubble covers his jaw and his hair seems a little darker and les curly. He isn’t as lucky as you and George, in that his hair seems to be slightly receded. His chest tattoo was faded and he seems slightly older, but you can’t quite pinpoint why.
He squints at the three of you. “How much did I drink last night? Everything’s still blurry.” He blinks furiously and rubs his eyes. He stops and looks at the three of you. “What? What’s wrong?”