The Making of a Football Player (Patreon)

This 1,674 word story was inspired by a prompt by patron Nate (who also runs the tumblr blog Soul Controls, check it out!) who suggested the following: “Man plays Madden, becomes custom player”. I hope you all enjoy!

Back when he had been a naive kid, Jonathan Barton had wanted nothing more than to be a professional football player when he grew up. He didn’t have the best relationship with his two older brothers or even his father, but every Sunday during the football season the entire Barton family would gather together in the living room to cheer on their beloved Minnesota Vikings. He’d attended his first in-person game when he was ten years old and swore on that day that he’d one day make it to the NFL to play for his family’s team.

Life had other plans for him though, and while his brothers both became star athletes in high school and helped with championships with the football team, Jonathan had failed to inherit the necessary skills or even build the muscle necessary to play sports for the school. It didn’t matter how hard he tried in the home gym that his father had constructed in the basement, Jonathan simply couldn’t lift anything more than the lightest weights and his brothers were merciless in their teasing of him. Even after they had both left home to attend college they continued to mock him for being nothing more than the high school team’s waterboy. He resented them for it and hated the idea that they might get to live his dream by making it to the pros.

Once again fate intervened, though this time it came as something of a saving grace to Jonathan. Both of his brothers had washed out while in college - Jay, the eldest, experienced a gruesome injury to his leg that ended any chance at continuing to play football at a high level, while Josh, the middle child, was busted for persistent drug use and lost his full-ride scholarship and pristine reputation. While he knew it wasn’t exactly in good taste to feel thankful for an injury to one brother and the other developing a drug problem, Jonathan justified it as revenge for just how terribly they had treated him throughout his childhood.

Even at twenty-nine he still bore something of a grudge towards Jay and Josh and family reunions were anything but fun. Jay worked as a mechanic and did nothing but complain about the people who stopped into his shop, while Josh was seemingly working somewhere new every few months. Of the three only Jonathan seemed to have any sort of job satisfaction, but he still would have preferred being a professional athlete over a video games journalist. While it wasn’t the same, he still got to live his dreams through the Madden video games, and played it for at least an hour every night without fail. With the football season having recently wrapped up though, he was playing it more than ever and absolutely dominating in the Franchise season he shared with some of his coworkers.

Looking to relax after a long week of work, Jonathan flopped down onto the sofa and loaded up the game. Upon doing so though, he was greeted by a message asking for confirmation that he would like to download the latest patch for the game. I don’t remember any patch announcements, he mused. Usually they got them through to his place of work and sometimes, if the content changes were big enough, covered them as articles on the site. He’d even set up a notification on his work email for if any Madden news came in, but he’d had no hits for several days. Figuring it was little more than a patch to fix some minor bugs, Jonathan accepted the download and was delighted to find it took a mere twenty seconds to install, allowing him to get right back to his favourite game.

Deciding to start a new career mode playthrough, Jonathan relished at the vast array of customisation options available to him. He never attempted to recreate himself perfectly - considering his disappointing physique, it seemed like an idiotic choice - but the opportunity to try and craft an idealised version of himself was always fun. He decided that this time around his in-game avatar was going to play at the tight end position, because they were usually the guys whose bodies Jonathan most appreciated. The likes of Travis Kelce and Rob Gronkowski combined both titanesque height and powerfully-built muscles to become dominant forces on the football field. In that respect, they were the polar opposite of Jonathan himself, but the thought of himself standing shoulder to shoulder with them and not looking out of place was nothing short of arousing.

Yeah, Jonathan was gay, although the only person in his family that knew was his mother. Even though he was quickly approaching thirty he still didn’t feel ready to admit the truth to his father and brothers, who were all rather traditional in their opinions. Maybe if Jonathan had become the football stud he’d wanted to be they wouldn’t have found issue with him being gay, but considering he was already the punching bag of the family, he didn’t feel like giving them more ammunition.

It took a good fifteen minutes for Jonathan to finish crafting the perfect avatar and while it bore little resemblance to his real life appearance outside of his button nose, round eyes and bushy eyebrows, the gaming journalist was still able to imagine himself as the hunk he had created. Standing at an arousingly imposing six-foot-six and two-hundred-and-seventy pounds worth of pure masculine beef, there was a whole lot of this fantasy version of Jonathan to love, even without mentioning the fact that he was going to be the new starting tight end for the Minnesota Vikings! The real Jonathan only wished he could have the life that his virtual counterpart was about to be enjoying, and that thought lingered on his mind when he hit the “Save Avatar” option, ready to begin playing the game proper.

The loading screen that followed the character creation suite wasn’t much of a surprise, but the static shock from the controller caused Jonathan to yelp in alarm because ouch! He was no stranger to being hit with a small charge from electrical equipment but that had particularly stung and caused him to drop the controller to the ground. As he reached down to collect it from the floor though, Jonathan noticed something rather shocking: his hand appeared to be bigger, with a wider span and thicker digits. Leaving the controller, he raised his hands towards his face and inspected them closely, confirming his suspicions. Definitely bigger… but how was that possible?

Dropping his gaze down to his lap, Jonathan watched in amazement as his skinny legs began to expand, his thighs bulging to become the size of watermelons and forcing his sweatpants to get stretched to their very limits. Further down his feet were similarly stretched, becoming longer and wider and giving him a strong base to support his rapidly increasing weight. Rising to his feet, Jonathan acknowledged just how much closer he seemed to be to the ceiling, but was soon distracted by the sight of his slender chest being injected with sheer masculine power. He was captivated as pecs and abs announced their presence in dramatic fashion, so clearly defined under his threadbare shirt that they looked like the work of some ancient sculptor.

Clenching his hands into fists, Jonathan took in the sight of his biceps rising to form powerful mountains of muscle and the hard lines across his thick forearms. There was a power pumping through his limbs that was just begging to be used; he felt as strong as an ox! Grabbing at the collar of his shirt with one hand, he gave it a sharp tug and ripped it right from his powerful torso, providing the stretched fabric with a warped mercy. Doing so revealed a field of dark hairs had spread across his pecs and formed a treasure trail down into his boxers. By this point he was, of curse, rock hard. That initial stinging pain from the shock had long since developed into a pleasurable hum of warmth, as if his muscles were being peppered by gentle kisses as they grew.

A shrill noise from the television set pulled the newly muscular Jonathan out of his reverie and he was greeted by an error message on the screen: “An unforeseen issue has occurred. The game data seems to have been corrupted. We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this. Would you like to file a report?” Jonathan merely snorted in amusement. What the game’s supposed glitch had done to him was as far from an inconvenience as could possibly be, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to be complaining about it either! In fact, playing a few matches in Madden was understandably down at the bottom of his priorities list given what had just happened to him.

While it seemed obvious that he had been transformed into a perfect replica into the avatar he’d created in the game, Jonathan wasn’t sure just how far that stretched. Did it mean that he was now the starting tight end for the Vikings, or was he still living the same Jonathan Barton life, only with a much hunkier body? His memories didn’t seem to have changed to reflect any sort of new identity, but he supposed he couldn’t exactly rule anything out. This was the kind of situation where no question was too far fetched given what he had already experienced!

One thing was for certain though. It didn’t matter if reality had warped to make him a football star or not - he was going to have some fun getting revenge on his older brothers and father for treating him like the runt of the family! He no longer felt afraid to come out to them either, because what could they possibly do to hurt him when they were all so puny compared to his huge muscular frame? There was a new alpha male in the Barton family and he was ready to make one hell of an impact!