At the Crossroads (Patreon)

Matt had no idea what was happening.  One moment he was jogging up the winding mountain road, and the next the road was gone.  In his panic he thought the hillside had given way, or that he’d tripped and fallen over the edge, but that wasn’t quite right either.  He didn’t feel any sense of movement, no rushing wind or hurtling plummet, just a sense of weightlessness.  There was no ground beneath him, nor was there a sky above or a horizon in the distance as he frantically looked around.  He called out, yelling until his throat felt raw, but there was no sound, or if there was, it was immediately swallowed by the endless void around him, not even making it to his nearby ears.       

He tried to remember what he’d been doing.  It was a nice night, and after being in the car all day a jog sounded wonderful.  He’d rather have found a gym to do some lifting, but the fit young man knew he was lucky enough to have found a motel, as dingy and lackluster as it was.  Construction on the highway had backed it up for miles, so, trusting in his GPS to reroute him, Matt had gotten off at the next exit, only to find himself in the middle of nowhere.  It was remote enough that the streets didn’t have names, only numbers, and as he drove down the barren state route, seeming to travel farther away from civilization, not towards it, he quickly realized he’d made a mistake.  There wasn’t even an on ramp for him to turn around and return to, leaving him with no other option than to follow the road up the mountainside in the hopes that he’d eventually hit a town, or at least a road that would connect back to the highway.  

Three hours later and nearly running on empty, Matt pulled into Cliffdale.  Under other circumstances he might have found the old Appalachian mining town quaint, but after nearly fifteen hours of driving all he wanted was to be out of the car.  It was hard enough for the virile twenty four year old to keep his trim, athletic body sitting still for more than a few hours at a time, so to have been cooped up for so long was torture.  

He’d filled his tank at the combined gas station and motel and decided to call it for the day,  reminding himself that he wasn’t in any hurry.  If it took an extra day for him to get back home it wouldn’t be the end of the world.  He’d just graduated, so there were no more classes to worry about, nor was there a job waiting for him to get to.  He didn’t need to push.  He’d let everyone know where he was and he’d see them by the same time the next day.  

And the town seemed friendly enough.  The old man working the desk told him he’d be fine if he wanted to go for a jog, and if he was hungry when he got back there was a bar down the street that served food until two.  He’d told him it was best not to go up the mountain roads in the dark and to stick to town, especially on such a foggy night, but Matt would be careful.  And so, content to chalk it up as an adventure, he’d slipped on a pair of gym shorts, peeled out of his t-shirt, and began his jog, ignoring the advice and trekking up the mountainside.  The gradual slope was just the kind of exertion he was looking for, coating his leanly muscled torso in a sheen of sweat after only a few minutes.  He had to constantly wick his brunette mop back so the salty liquid wouldn’t sting his eyes, and he could feel his solid rear and toned quads burning with the effort.  

It was exactly what he’d needed after the long day behind the wheel.  The summer air was warm and humid, and it was so quiet the combination of chirping crickets and his pounding heart were almost deafeningly loud by comparison.  The fog parted as he made the climb, revealing a moonless sky that, without any other light pollution on the dark mountainside, was so densely packed with stars they shone with an almost neon brightness.  Matt remembered feeling relieved when the ground started to level off as he approached the crossroads.  The moment stuck out in his mind because he specifically thought it odd how the wispy strands of the milky way seemed to move and swirl between the stars.  Then he was floating in the void.  

Matt kicked and flailed in a futile attempt at swimming through the air, the motion causing his arms and legs to ache painfully.  At first he was glad for any sensation other than the numb weightlessness, but as the aching began to intensify at his chest and legs he was anything but happy.  The crushing weight he felt building between his modest, sculpted mounds and at his lower back made him fear that he was having a heart attack, that this was all a cardiac-induced hallucination.  He’d heard that heart attacks could make arms and other body parts hurt, and he’d been pushing himself.  Though he’d never had problems in the past, it wasn’t unheard of for fit young guys like himself to have undiagnosed issues, and he started to worry that he wasn’t going to make it back down the hill.  Until the pressure seemed to give all at once.  Matt gasped, feeling like his entire body was sneezing and cumming at the same time as the painful, mounting tension fled, leaving only a pleasant tingle in its wake.  It made his head spin, but when that spinning finally stopped he wished it had been a heart attack after all.  

The void swallowed his scream when he looked down and saw the round, jutting shelf of muscle that had swallowed his carefully built pecs.  As if unable to be contained by the bulging mounds alone, the excess muscle flowed over his broadened shoulders and down arms that had become thick, beefy pistons instead of the toned, lean extremities they should have been.  Unable to see the rest of his midsection over the protruding new slab of a chest, Matt ran his hands along his sides and stomach that both seemed to taper too far inwards before exploding outwards again at his waist.  His eyes went wide, his mouth falling open, as he reached behind as best as his widened arms would allow and felt a set of round, mammoth globes that were at least twice as large as they should have been.  He kicked his legs instinctively, unable to see the meaty new thighs he could feel rubbing together or the heavier package he felt flopping against them.  

It was the tattered remains of his shorts and boxer briefs that first showed signs of movement.  Matt was so caught up in prodding at his altered body that he’d barely noticed how the now-too small garments had exploded off him, and just as he stopped to look, the shredded strips of fabric making his stomach turn at the amount of growth they suggested, gravity took hold once more.  He watched them suddenly drop, disappearing into the inky blackness that was now reaching out to claim him.  The rushing, plummeting motion that had been so conspicuously absent arrived all at once, taking Matt’s breath away as his vision went dark.  

**********

“Ffffuuuuuuuck Matt...goddamn that...feels...good…” Jason moaned into the mattress, his ass in the air while his friend’s tongue eagerly licked his hole clean.  He knew it was a dream, but that didn’t dull the bliss shooting through him or lessen the joy he felt at seeing his friend again.  Despite Matt’s altered body, Jason knew that the muscled hourglass really was his friend.  The other man’s lantern jaw and piercing eyes could belong to no one else, and while his body may have been unrecognizable, Jason had no doubt that beneath those oversized pecs beat the heart of the man he’d known since childhood.   

The dreams he now so looked forward to had started shortly after Matt disappeared, and now Jason wondered how he ever could have thought of them as nightmares.  They always began the same way at first.  He’d be in an apartment that he somehow knew belonged to the other man, who appeared the way he always had, and Jason would dart over to swallow him in a bear hug.  But as soon as his arms were around his friend, Matt would would suddenly erupt with muscle, shredding whatever clothes he wore.  Jason would try to pull away but his friend would keep holding him tight, pressing him into the mountainous pecs while Matt started kissing at his neck.  

This is where the dream would vary.  Sometimes Jason would find himself on his knees, desperately licking at his friend’s enlarged cock, while other times it would be Matt eagerly swallowing Jason’s average rod.  And then there were the times where Jason would arrive mid-dream, drifting off to sleep in the real world only to find himself suddenly impaled on Matt’s lap, his friend’s fat tool working his insides while he grunted ecstatically and clutched at the other man’s inflated muscle tits.  

Jason hadn’t known what to make of the dreams.  As an entirely straight lady’s man who had absolutely no difficulty landing a hookup, he was horrified to find himself locked in a passionate embrace night after night with his former best friend and wingman.  Matt was the closest thing to family he had, filling the void left by Jason’s uninterested foster parents.  They were like brothers, and aside from the reddish tint to his hair and slightly more pale skin, Jason even looked like his friend.  The two did everything together, constantly trying to outdo the other in their own version of sibling rivalry.  Their competition kept each other motivated in the gym, which only further fueled their ongoing contest in the bedroom as they kept a running tally of who scored more often.   

But then Matt never made it home and Jason had been devastated.  He was so distraught that even the confusingly erotic dreams were a blessing as long as they let him spend time with his friend.  He didn’t care that he woke up with soaked, sticky sheets or that he actually started to look forward to dreaming about riding another man’s dick.  Jason didn’t know why his friend looked the way he did, or why his own body would be different in some of the dreams.  All that mattered was that he and Matt were back together; at least until he woke up.  But until that happened he was content to go with the flow of events, letting the dreams take whatever shape they may.  

“Glad you like it,” Matt purred, giving Jason’s solid little cheeks a squeeze before sliding up to drape himself over the smaller man’s back.  He held himself up with one arm and wrapped the other around his friend’s midsection, his fat cock brushing against the hole he’d so recently bathed.  “I can’t wait until we can do this for real.”  

“Wwwwhhhuuunnn….wha...wait...what do you...mean…” Jason grunted as Matt plunged inside, thrown by this new direction the dream was taking.  Neither of them had ever acknowledged before that the events were all happening in Jason’s head, but as he looked back over his shoulder and bucked in time with his friend’s thrusting, he saw a perfectly lucid expression on Matt’s face.  

“Soon,” Matt whispered, his soft lips brushing against Jason’s ear.  “At the crossroads.”  Before Jason could give voice to any of the countless questions his friend’s vaguely ominous statement birthed, a body-wracking spasm shot through him.  He arched his back in the dream, letting out a wailing moan as he came.  

“HHHHUUUunnnnhhhhh!”  Back in the waking world Jason found himself upright in bed, his lean torso covered in sweat and the sheets tossed aside by his thrashing.  His solid cock had escaped from his boxer briefs and was still spurting the last of its load while his groggy, lust-addled brain tried to make sense of the dark, unfamiliar surroundings.  

“Shit, man...you weren’t kidding…” 

The sound of Nick’s sleepy voice brought a humiliating rush of clarity, and Jason felt his body go crimson as he remembered the small, dirty motel room he shared with his burly friend.  “Sorry about that,” he said, his tone sheepish as he tried to stuff his softening cock away.  “I warned you…” 

“I guess I didn’t expect it to be so...explosive,” Nick said, laughing awkwardly.  Jason had confided in him about the dreams he’d been having, but seeing the effects in person was more intense than Nick had imagined.  He’d been pulled out of sleep by Jason’s groaning whimpers and had opened his eyes to see his friend writhing on the bed.  When he saw the other man’s rigid pole slip out of his underwear he’d tried in vain to wake him up.  A part of him felt guilty for watching such an intimate display, but in the moment, with Jason’s leaking cock wagging around, Nick didn’t want to actually put his hands on his friend.  “I mean, I’ve heard of grief making people do crazy things, but I’ve never heard of it making someone queer before.”  

Jason sighed and fell back on the small mattress, glad that they at least had separate beds.  He’d never hear the end of this as it was.  “It still hasn’t.  It’s not like I’m suddenly into guys…” 

“Just Matt,” Nick interrupted, propping himself up on a beefy arm.  He looked down at his thick, hairy pecs and shook his head.  “Is it weird that my feelings are hurt?”  

“Fuck off,” Jason laughed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.  “I’m not even into Matt, not really.  It’s hard to explain...I just...okay, like right now when I think about him, it doesn’t do anything.  But when I see him in my dreams, we…” he trailed off, his face growing red as he realized how unconvincing he sounded.  

“I still think you should go talk to someone, man.  It’s been a year now.  He was my friend too, but you’ve gotta move on at some point, you know?  I agreed to come out here with you ‘cause I also want some closure…” he paused, waiting until Jason met his gaze to continue.  “That’s why we’re here, right?  For closure?”  

“If I can’t find anything else…” 

“Dude!  No!” Nick barked, sitting up in bed.  He threw the covers aside and kicked his meaty legs over the edge, giving Jason an unobstructed view of his beefy, furry body and stuffed red briefs.  “What do you possibly think you’re going to find?  The police already investigated everything.  They found his car and his stuff, but no sign of him.  Nothing.  You heard the old man when we checked in...they tore this town apart.  What?  You think there’s some conspiracy?  You’re gonna take on the whole town to find out?”  

“I just have a feeling they missed something,” Jason said quietly, deciding not to tell Nick about the new twist to his latest dream.  He also didn’t mention how the dreams had been growing stronger as the anniversary drew near, or how he’d felt a visceral need to visit the place where Matt had vanished.  “Look, if I’m wrong, then I’m wrong.  I don’t think grandpa who checked us in last night is a secret murderer or anything.  I just need to see it for myself.”  

“What you need’s a shower,” Nick grumbled, nodding at the drying pools of cum on Jason’s stomach.  “Whole town probably thinks we were in here fuckin’ last night as loud as you were.”  

“I mean it,” Jason said as he rolled out of bed and tried not to think about the semi-hard cock in his damp underwear or his sticky abs.  “If there’s nothing to find, then that’s it.  Done.  Just bear with me for another day.”  

“As long as I don’t have to see your junk again,” Nick laughed, stretching back out on his bed as Jason made his way into the tiny bathroom.  

The sticky jock cranked the rickety handles on the rust-stained shower to life, hoping he’d been more convincing in his lies to Nick than he thought.  Jason had been honest when he’d said he didn’t think of himself as gay, but he hadn’t been entirely truthful when he said he didn’t think about any other guys.  It was a recent development.  When the dreams first began he didn’t view other guys any differently than he always had, but as they approached the anniversary, as the dreams became more intense, the strange desires began to creep into his waking life.  Instead of lingering on passing women, Jason’s eyes drifted towards the men in the room, checking out their solid rears and various bulges the way he used to size up a pair of tits.  The confusing attraction even had him wondering what the guys he checked out would feel like, if their long, thin rods or short, fat pokers would feel the same way sliding in and out as Matt did in his dreams.  Just now, the whole time they’d been talking, Jason had to force his eyes to stay where they were and not drop down to Nick’s stuffed, heavy bulge.  If only his friend had known when he’d made the joke about his feelings being hurt.  

Jason was starting to feel like two people sharing a single body, split between the version of himself that was the straight lady’s man he’d always been, and the confusing stranger from his dream.  With each passing day that stranger knocked louder and louder on the doors of his brain, and while a part of him was scared that maybe Nick had a point, that the grief had just pushed him over the edge, a larger part of him was scared at how much he wanted to throw open the doors and let this new version of himself in.  Or, as he was thinking more and more lately, maybe it wasn’t a new version of himself at all, but something he’d simply denied for a long time.  When he’d dried off and stepped back out into the dirty little room Jason told himself he really wasn’t disappointed to find Nick still bare-chested but with his lower half frustratingly clad in a pair of jeans.  

“So what’s the plan?” Nick asked as he took Jason’s space at the small bathroom sink.  

“I figure we start with the old man at the desk and then just ask around,” Jason said, his stomach fluttering as he dropped his towel and thought about Nick getting a glimpse of his naked frame.  For someone who’d spent his youth growing up in locker rooms and sharing small spaces with other guys it was a jarring sensation, but one he was starting to appreciate.  Still, he slid a fresh pair of boxer briefs on before his cock to twitch fully to life, knowing he couldn’t push things with Nick too far.  “Someone’s gotta be able to tell us something.”  Jason’s eyes were fixed on the way his friend’s broad, muscled back flexed as he slipped on a thin t-shirt, darting away just as Nick turned around.  

“I still don’t know what you’re expecting to turn up, but let’s get started I guess,” Nick shrugged, happy to at least leave the worn little room for a while.  It had the same air of age and neglect as the rest of the town, and it was starting to get under his skin, like he could feel his own years slipping by the longer he was inside.  He’d thought it was just due to their late arrival the night before, but even in the hazy, early morning light there was a surreal aura to the town.  Dense clouds of fog hung in the air, obscuring the view of the mountain that loomed above them and whose towering summit cast the whole valley in a deep, ever-present shadow.  It would have been unsettling to Nick on any occasion, but given the reason for their visit and Jason’s bizarre behavior, the stocky blonde was even more on edge.  

The balding, weathered old man who’d checked them in was back behind the counter when they piled into the small office.  “You boys are up early,” he said, the deep wrinkles of his face stretched by the same friendly grin.  He was in the exact same spot, and his switch to a blue plaid shirt from the red one he’d worn the previous day was the only indication that he’d moved at all over night.  “If you’re lookin’ for breakfast, Mason’s has a mean one.  It’s right up the street, can’t miss it,” he said, pointing off into the fog behind them.  

“Thanks,” Nick said, nodding towards the window.  “Is it always so foggy?”  

The old shook his head.  “Not like this.  There’s always fog in these hills, ‘specially early in the morning, but it only gets bad around this time of year.  You get used to...”  

“Is there a crossroads around here anywhere,” Jason interrupted, blurting out the question.  Whether it was due to the abrupt nature or the random content, the two saw the old man’s smile falter for the first time.  

“Why?  You lookin’ to make a deal with the devil?” he asked, his eyes fixed on the lean young man.  

Jason tried his best to sound casual even as he felt his blood go cold.  “No, just curious.” 

“Strange thing to be curious about.  Couple’a city boys like yourselves might not understand just how superstitious mountain folk can be around here,” the old man said, his smile returning.  “Not myself, of course, but you’ll hear some crazy tales you go around asking questions like that.”  

Nick jumped in before Jason could push the issue.  “Got it.  So Mason’s is that way?” he asked, nodding down the street as he grabbed his friend and ushered them out the door.  “What the fuck was that?” he hissed under his breath once they were outside and away from the office. 

“Did you see his reaction?  I told you something weird’s going on here!”  

“Weird?  We were talking about the weather and you just cut him off and started asking about a crossroads?  You’re the one who looks a little crazy right now, dude,”  Nick sighed, glancing around the empty street as they made their way towards Mason’s.  The silence was encompassing, the shroud of fog swallowing even the sound of their footsteps.  Someone could have been following as close as a few steps behind them and they’d never know.  He shook his head and took a deep breath at the thought, refusing to let himself be pulled into Jason’s paranoia.  

“I know what you’re going to say, but just hear me out.  Matt mentioned a crossroads in my dream last night, and now when I ask that guy about it he gets all tense?  That can’t be a coincidence.”  

“You probably just read about it in one of the articles on his disappearance...or maybe you saw it on the map?  You don’t really expect me to believe Matt’s...what?  Ghost? Is actually communicating with you or something?”  

“Or something,” Jason muttered.  “And I know I never read anything about a crossroads.  I’d remember something so random like that.”

“Fuck, man, I knew this was a bad idea.  You coming here is just dredging everything up.”  He paused outside the door to Mason’s, a hand on his friend’s arm.  “You’re not gonna start asking everyone in here about crossroads are you?”  

“You can wait outside if you want,” Jason said, pulling away.  

“Great.  Just great.  Here we are a year later and now you’re going to get US murdered.  Fantastic.”  Nick grumbled, kicking at a clump of weeds as they entered the windowless bar.  

Nick’s fear at Jason pestering the customers was a moot point.  Outside, the front of the building was a wall of dark, worn wood with a small sign perched above the single door, while inside, buzzing fluorescent lights reflected off the mismatched diner furniture, and if the grimy linoleum floor had ever been anything other than a dirty shade of grey, those days were long behind it.  Decades of smoking patrons had left the ceiling stained a similar color, and the pungent scent of stale cigarettes was baked into every surface.  The two were a little surprised at being the only customers inside, though the town itself appeared anything but bustling.  From what they could tell they were the only people currently staying at the motel, and they had yet to see any passing cars or other signs of life.  They’d passed a grocery store on the outskirts the previous night, but the further into town they went, the more desolate it seemed to become.  

“Well, well, we don’t get many visitors in here,” the heavyset giant behind the counter boomed, his voice echoing off the cluttered, ephemera covered walls that bore a grimy coating of dust and fryer grease.  He had a thick mane of dark, barely controlled hair and the same friendly smile as the old man at the motel, only his was accentuated by a round, ruddy face.  “What brings you fellas to town?”  

“Looking for a friend,” Jason said, feeling Nick bristle beside him as they settled at the bar.  

“Around here?  Hate to break it to you, but you’re the first new faces I’ve seen in the past two months.”  The man raised a bushy eyebrow, giving the pair of newcomers a slow look up and down.  “Who’s your friend?”  

“He went missing a year ago,” Jason said, adding the next part to gauge the man’s reaction, “by the crossroads.”  

The man’s other eyebrow joined the first as he gave a short laugh and shook his head.  “You know that much, you know you’re wasting your time by looking,” he said, wiping a hand on his stained apron.  

Jason put his hands together on the bar to keep them from shaking.  “That’s the thing...I DON’T actually know that much.  Just something about a crossroads.  Why?  What’s so special about it?”  

The man paused, his expression hardening.  “We already told those government boys everything we knew about your friend…” 

“Not this part,” Jason interrupted.  

“Yet here you are askin’ about it.  On today of all days.”  The man stepped back and crossed the pair of logs that were his arms, letting them rest on his prominent gut.  “Best thing you can do is get in your car and go back to wherever it is you came from.  I’m sorry about your friend, I really am, but there’s nothin’ I can tell you.”  

“So you’re saying we just have to go up there and figure it out for ourselves?”  Jason hopped off his stool and shrugged while Nick just stared, shocked that there actually did appear to be something to his friend’s crazy rambling.  

“I said can’t, not won’t,” the man barked.  “I mean it.  I don’t have any answers.  People’ve always gone missing in Cliffdale, but when it’s a bunch’a poor miners no one bothers to look too hard.  Too much drinking and drugs is what they say.  Then your friend goes missing and the whole place gets turned upside down, and they still don’t bother to listen when people try and tell ‘em about the crossroads.  It’s right up the road.  That’s what you want to know, right?  Where it is?  Just follow that road outside a few miles up the hill and you’ll come right to it.  No one knows what’s up there or why things happen ‘round here the way they do, they just know when to avoid that spot unless they want to end up like your friend.  And some of ‘em do, you know.  There was a whole group of ‘em a while back.  Called themselves a church, but they did things that no house’a god would abide.  Then they went up to the crossroads one night and never came back.  Any of ‘em.”  He rubbed his face, still be shaken by the memory.  “Some folks blame it on the mine...said they’d dug too deep, hit something they shouldn’t.  But then other folks say it was here long before then, even before the Iroquios were runnin’ these hills.”  He spread his arms and motioned around the empty room.  “Most folks leave town for a few days this time’a year, and the people who stick around learned real quick you don’t go anywhere near those crossroads today.”  

“Wait...you’re saying there’s some kind of monster or something snatching people up?”  Nick found his voice again and was incredulous as ever.  “That’s crazy!  And why today of all days?  What’s so special about today?”    

The man shrugged.  “No clue.  Think we’d be lucky if it was just a monster, though” the man muttered, his eyes still fixed on Jason’s.  “All I know is you don’t wanna be up there when the fog clears tonight.”  The matter seemingly settled, he took another deep breath, his expression softening back into the friendly smile.  “Now...you boys want breakfast?”  

They ate in silence, afraid that if they started talking they’d be unable to stop the torrent of frantic questions they knew would go unanswered.  They busied their mouths with food instead, waiting until they were back outside to process what they’d learned.  

“I told you!” Jason cried as soon as the door slammed behind them, punching Nick in a meaty bicep.  “I fucking told you!”  

“Whoa...hold on...just ‘cause you and that dude knew about the same urban legend, it doesn’t mean…” the stocky blonde trailed off, still trying to wrap his head around what they’d learned.  

“It means Matt could still be out there,” Jason said, feeling true excitement for the first time in a year.  “That’s what these dreams are!  He’s been reaching out!”  

Nick closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his flat, wide nose.  “Even if I believe any of this...and I’m not saying I do...how do you know it’s really him?  I gotta be honest, from what you’ve told me it doesn’t sound like Matt.  Unless you two have been fucking for a while?”  

“You don’t think I’ve asked that same question?  I just...know.”  

“Then where is he?  If he’s not a ghost, and he’s not here, then where the fuck did he go?”  Nick felt a slight rush of relief as a pair of cars passed in opposite directions, a sign that they hadn’t vanished into some foggy limbo.  “And why doesn’t he look like himself?”  

“I don’t know!  But I’m going up to those crossroads tonight to find out.”  

Nick stopped and put his hands on Jason’s shoulders, tilting his head to look his slightly taller friend in the eyes.  “And then what?  Let’s say there’s even a shred of truth to this...shouldn’t we go get help instead of throwing ourselves into whatever trap Matt stumbled into?”  

“There’s no time,” Jason said softly.  “I felt it even before that guy just told us all that.  It’s why I needed to be here for the anniversary...there’s something that happens today and only today.  I can’t wait another year, and we don’t have time to try and convince anyone.”  

“So that’s it?  We just blindly march off into the unknown?”  

“No,” Jason shook his head, “not we.  This isn’t what you signed up for.  You’re going to take the car and go home.”  

“Bullshit I am!” Nick roared.  

“You’re not wrong about getting help.  If this is true, if I don’t make it back, you’re still around to dig up information,” he smiled at the furious look on Nick’s face, thinking how cute his friend was when he was angry.  “And hey, worst case scenario you come back in a year.”  

“I am officially not okay with any of this,” Nick grumbled.  He spent the rest of the morning and the following afternoon trying to talk Jason out of it, even going so far as to contemplate knocking his friend over the head and throwing him in the trunk of the car.  If this had all taken place two days ago, or somewhere else, he might have done it, but the burly blonde could feel the humming energy in the air.  It wasn’t just the aged, dirty motel room that made him uneasy; it was everything.  The very ground beneath them seemed to vibrate with a dizzying pulse.  Both of their phones were acting up, and they kept getting a static shock whenever they touched each other.  As crazy as it all sounded Nick wasn’t enough of a skeptic to deny what his gut was telling him, and if there really was a chance they could find their friend they had to try.  

“It’s starting to clear...looks like it’s time,” Jason said shortly after the sun had gone down, watching the fog gradually begin to disperse.  The plan was for him to literally follow in Matt’s footsteps.  Like his friend, he’d stripped down to a pair of gym shorts and was going to go out for a jog, following the same route that, based on witness statements, Matt had.  “I can see the old man’s still in his office, so I’ll stop and ask for directions.  That way if I don’t…” he paused, letting the sentence hang.  “...someone else will have seen me go.”  

“You’re really gonna do this?” Nick sighed and wrapped Jason in a bear hug, knowing better than to argue further.  “It feels weird to say I hope it works,” he said with a sad laugh, “but if you see Matt tell him I say hi.”  

Jason gave Nick’s plump cheeks a squeeze and pulled away.  “Hey, maybe we’ll both be seeing you sooner than you think,” he grinned, blowing his friend a kiss from the door.  

He left Nick blushing and stammering, stopping in the office as promised on the way.  The old man behind the counter wasn’t smiling this time, but he didn’t try and stop Jason when the young man asked him for directions up the mountainside.  He made it a point to wave at the few cars who passed, wondering if this was how things had gone for Matt as his lungs burned and his legs ached.  He felt bad for leaving Nick behind, but unlike his beefy friend, Jason didn’t have as much to lose if things didn’t work out.  His missing friend had been the one constant in his life, so he’d do whatever it took.  

The sky was crystal clear by the time he saw the crossroads approaching in the distance, the multitudinous points of light overhead shining bright enough to dapple the ground with star-cast shadows.  Jason knew something was happening when he saw the strands of the milky way begin to swirl, stretching out to mix and mingle with the constellations, but instead of slowing his pace he increased it, letting out a defiant roar as he heaved himself with full intensity towards the unremarkable intersection.  

**********

“MMMmmm...fuck...guys...that feels...mmmnnn….” In the waking world, Nick moaned blissfully in his sleep.  The burly blonde writhed on his bed, his thick cock hard and oozing against the sheets as, in his dream, Jason’s soft lips were wrapped around it while Matt’s thick rod filled his aching hole.  As with his friend’s dreams, Nick loved the sensation of Matt’s oversized pecs pressing against his back, his own piston arms feeling small as they clutched at the disproportionate brunette’s muscled girders wrapping around him.  

He’d hoped for the best when Jason never returned.  There were plenty of questions, but enough people had seen his friend go up the mountain that he never faced any real suspicion, especially when the camera over the parking lot showed no one else exiting or entering their room.  Most people assumed Jason just couldn’t deal with things anymore, but Nick knew better, feeling more relieved than confused when his own dreams began a few weeks later.  

Just as his friend had described, Nick found himself dreaming one night of an unfamiliar apartment filled with two very familiar faces.  Those faces were the only thing familiar, though, as Nick stared in shock at Jason’s new look.  From the waist up his leanly-muscled friend looked more or less the same, but there was nothing remotely similar about the impossibly large, round cheeks hanging off his back, or the small, petite little cock that had replaced his formerly long hose.  And while Jason had described Matt’s curvy, overly-muscled new look, he wasn’t at all prepared for the way seeing it in person made him feel.  

He wasn’t prepared for any of it, and he still didn’t understand all of the specifics.  As vivid as the nightly excursions were, as with most dreams the details became blurry when he woke up.  He knew the crossroads were just that; but instead of mere roads, they were an intersection between one world and another.  He’d pieced together enough to learn that the junction was only aligned on the specific night his friends had vanished, but what caused it and how it functioned was beyond him.  Not that he really cared how any of this was possible as much as he was concerned with the after effects.  

Instead of being horrified as he thought they would be, his friends appeared perfectly content with their alternate reality and warped bodies.  Jason was all too happy to shake and bounce his gravity defying cheeks against Nick’s throbbing cock, not at all bothered by his own minuscule member.  If the shrieking howls of pleasure Nick heard when he’d finally crossed a line and sucked the tiny organ into his mouth were any indication, Jason didn’t miss his former body at all.  

He still didn’t know how his friends found their way into his dreams, but he was slowly starting to accept the why.  It was as hazy as all the other details, but from what they’d said they could only show up if he wanted them to, and not just in a “missing his friends” kind of way.  Like Jason he’d refused to accept what that implied in the beginning, but after the first night spent squirming on Matt’s cock the confused blonde began to reexamine his life.  He thought back to the most recent example in the motel room, of how fixated he’d been on watching Jason’s sleeping cock thrust and spray while his friend had been having a similar dream, before reluctantly remembering the drunken blowjobs and jerkoff sessions he’d shared back in the frat house.  

The brawny blonde didn’t label himself as gay, but he’d hooked up with more men than women in the past month, and he looked forward to his romps with Matt and Jason more than anything.  His own body was starting to change in the dreams, and though he’d been scared the first time he found himself half the height he should have been, Nick had become hooked on finding guys in the real world that were significantly bigger than himself.  

The anniversary was approaching again, but Nick still didn’t know if he was going to join his friends.  As much as he enjoyed visiting their world, he liked his life and wasn’t so sure he was ready to give it up for something else.  The thought of running around in a muscled, pint-sized version of his body made him ache with longing, but it was also a one-way street.  Should he chuck it all and join his friends in their changing bodies, or should he stay in the world he knew and try to figure out his changing identity?  

He was at a crossroads.