Chapter Text

Chapter 24: Prove or Probe 

He woke with a start, his heart racing and the taste of copper in his mouth. Taylor's hand was still outstretched, his fingertips tingling from the touch of the mirror. He blinked, trying to make sense of the room around him, the memory of the succubus's alluring gaze still lingering.

He looked down at his hand, illuminated with the harsh light of day, expecting to see the same trembling, masculine digits, but what greeted him was a delicate, feminine hand with refined nails and smooth, unblemished skin.

Panic surged through him as he realized that he was in his apartment, not the fraternity's crimson-lit auditorium.

Rhys looked over from his spot on the couch, his eyes widening when he saw Taylor waking up. "Are you okay?" he exclaimed, his voice laced with shock and confusion. "Who are you, and why did you pass out wearing my favorite shirt?"

Taylor had hoped it was all just a vivid, albeit terrifying, dream. But here he was, in his apartment, with his body changed into something utterly foreign and his best friend staring at him like he had grown a second head. He took a deep breath, trying to compose himself before speaking.

"Don't freak out, okay?" He said, his voice now too feminine was unmistakably not his own. "It's me, Taylor"

Rhys stared at him, the disbelief etched on his face was palpable. "What the fuck are you talking about?" He demanded, his eyes darting the feminine figure before him.

Taylor looked down at the shirt, the fabric clinging to her new curves in a way that was both thrilling and terrifying. He felt the urge to laugh hysterically at the absurdity of it all, but the gravity of the situation held him firmly in check.

"I know this sounds crazy," he began, his new voice broke with nerves and a sob burst out and resonated in the air, "but something happened last night during the Sigma Kappa Beta ceremony..."

Rhys's eyes bulged out of his skull as he stared at the figure in his shirt, the person claiming to be Taylor. "This is a sick joke. I don't know what you frat guys are up to, but this is crossing the line" he managed to choke out, his voice trembling with disbelief and a hint of anger.

Taylor took a deep breath, the feeling of breasts pressing against her ribs unfamiliar and unsettling. It felt like it was about to fall apart into small pieces. Rhys remained rooted to the spot, his eyes flickering over Taylor's new body as if searching for any sign that this was an elaborate hoax.

"I know it's insane," Taylor said, her voice a melodic blend of vulnerability and urgency. "But I need you to believe me. They summoned... something, and it's stuck with me now. It change me... into a woman."

Rhys's jaw dropped, his eyes darting from Taylor's face to her chest and then back up again. He took a step back, his eyes narrowing. "Where is Taylor? he sent me a WhatsApp saying he would be here...? Oh shit! Is this some kind of frat initiation prank?"

The succubus inside Taylor's head sighed, rolling her eyes at the predictability of humans. She had seen this reaction before, the disbelief and fear of the unknown. "I knew Rhys wouldn't take you seriously," she said to Taylor with a soft growl that made him jump on the couch. "Who the hell would believe such nonsense!?"

But Rhys wasn't buying it. "This isn't funny!" He was getting worked up now, his fists clenching at his sides. "What did you do to him?"

Taylor's eyes filled with tears, seeing her roommate's reaction, her voice quavering. "Rhys, please, it's me! I swear!" The sobs took over, her body trembling with the force of them. He felt so powerless, so utterly alone. "I... I need... I need your help!"

Rhys took a tentative step forward, his expression a tumult of doubt and concern. He reached out a hand to touch Taylor's shoulder, but he shrank away from his touch, his sobs turning into gasps for air. The succubus within him stirred, feeling the weight of his skepticism like a noose tightening around his new form.

"I know it's getting me into trouble with Disney, but just like Elsa says in 'Frozen', let it go," the succubus advised Taylor, her voice seemed to resonate in every cell of his new body. "You've endured a lot today, but it's normal for you to cry, even if you're a man in a woman's body."

Taylor took a deep, shaky breath, trying to calm the storm of emotions that raged within him. But he began to cry more intensely and collapsed onto the couch, the fabric muffling his sobs.

Rhys, still in shock, took a cautious step towards Taylor, his hand hovering in the air as if to touch but then retracted. "Tell me the truth," he demanded, his voice shaking with fear and anger. "Where's my roommate?"

"This isn't a prank," Taylor managed to whisper through his sobs. "It's real. I'm real. And I need your help to fix this."

Rhys stared, his mind reeling from all sorts of questions and fears. The figure before him, though unmistakably feminine and attractive, had Taylor's eyes—his best friend's eyes—desperate and pleading. She was two inches shorter than him, and her bobbed light brown hair looked remarkably similar to his friend's, but Rhys couldn't help thinking that the Sigma Kappa Beta members were just pulling his leg and that the cat's ear could blow at any moment.

He took a cautious seat beside the sobbing form, his heart pounding in his chest, allowing himself a moment of indulgence. "Okay, let's assume it's true," he murmured, his voice tight with anxiety. "Tell me something that will convince me you are really who you say you are, something only Taylor and I know."

Taylor sniffed, wiping at the tears with the back of his new hand. He took a deep, calming breath, and with a tremor in his voice, said, "Let's see, I once told you that I regretted not voting in the last election because I was too busy playing 'Call of Duty'... I also... last Christmas you dressed up as Santa Claus to surprise your little sister, and even though you didn't want to post the photos on Facebook, she did it on your mom's account."

"That's not very convincing," Rhys murmured, his skepticism evident. With a caustic chuckle, he added, "Maybe he told you, or maybe you saw it on the internet."

Taylor felt a surge of anger, his fists clenching. "You think this is funny?" he yelled, his voice a high-pitched echo of his former self. "This isn't a game! I AM Taylor, you moron!" He screamed aloud desperately. "Don't you get it?"

Rhys took a step back, his eyes wide with confusion and a hint of fear, wondering if her reaction to seeing him enter and faint was the product of some psychological imbalance. "Look, I don't know what's going on," he said, his voice shaking, an ultimatum. "But if you don't tell me where Taylor is, I'm calling the cops, the dean of the university or whoever it takes."

Taylor was extremely irritated that Rhys didn't believe him, that he thought he had somehow agreed to play a mean prank on him by colluding with the members of Sigma Kappa Beta. No matter what evidence he used, his words just didn't seem to penetrate the fog of disbelief that had settled around Rhys.

The succubus inside him sighed, her frustration palpable. "Your human friend can be so dense," she murmured in his head, her voice a gentle whisper that seemed to caress his thoughts. "But this isn't the first time you've argued without either of you giving in, is it?"

Taylor took a moment to consider her words, his sobs subsiding into sniffs. The truth was, Rhys had always been stubborn, especially when people laughed at him or at what he believed. He'd become entrenched in his stubbornness, and there was no way... Taylor flinched as he realized there was indeed an argument in his favor.

"Schrödinger's Cat," he gasped through his sobs, the words barely audible. "It doesn't matter if you believe me or think I'm lying, but I need your help. That's all that matters."

Rhys was surprised, not because the girl used the topic of one of her conversations, but because she seemed to be reasoning the same way as his friend and roommate. He looked again at the girl's appearance; she looked like she'd had a bad night, with her arms and legs covered in marks and the slight dark circles under her eyes. That look of despair didn't seem fake at all. It took him a second to settle on the only reasonable option they had both come to that time.

"Just tell me everything, from the beginning," he said, his voice softer, his skepticism wavering in the face of Taylor's raw emotion.

Taylor took a deep, shuddering breath, and the words began to spill out of him, a torrent of fear and confusion that painted a vivid picture of the events that had unfolded in the crimson-lit auditorium. He recounted the Hell Week trials and how the final gluing ritual put the final touch on his entry into the fraternity.

Rhys listened with a mix of horror and disbelief, his eyes never leaving Taylor's face, searching for any sign of a lie. But the story was too bizarre, too detailed, and too heartbreaking to be fabricated. He heard about the candles, the mirror, and the chanting that seemed to echo in the room even as Taylor recounted it.

"You said they were summoning something," Rhys interrupted, his eyes searching Taylor's new face for any hint of deception. "What was it?"

"A... su... succubus," Taylor whispered, the word barely leaving his lips, feeling the weight of the revelation like a lead balloon. The room grew silent, the only sound the muffled cries of the girl with Taylor's eyes. Rhys stared, his mind racing with thoughts of mythical creatures and college pranks gone wrong.

"A succubus?" Rhys finally managed to ask, his voice a mix of incredulity and dread. "With horns, wings, and a tail?" add a touch of sarcasm.

Taylor nodded, feeling a fresh wave of despair crash over him as the gravity of his situation sank in once more. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and the succubus inside him whispered, "Let it out, boy. It's okay to be vulnerable." And with that, Taylor let go, his body convulsing with sobs, his new breasts heaving with every racking gasp.

Rhys sitting there, watching her (him?), was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. "Why they summoned a succubus?" He asked, his voice filled with skepticism. Taylor felt a pang of annoyance at the question, but he knew that his friend was just trying to wrap his head around the situation.

"What do you think? It wouldn't be to help them knit patchwork quilts!" Taylor exclaimed with a touch of sarcasm and desperation. "They wanted... They..." He paused, the words sticking in his throat like a mouthful of dust.

Rhys stared at the horror that was seeing into his consciousness, beyond his wildest imagination. He had heard of fraternity jokes going too far, but this was beyond any conceivable boundary. He felt a strange mix of emotions, pity for the girl before him (whoever she was), anger at the frat brothers who had done this, and fear for his own safety and sanity.

"Okay, so they summoned her, and you say she transformed you," Rhys spoke slowly, trying to digest the unbelievable tale. "How did she do it? Was it magic?"

"Rather, something like quantum metaphysics," Taylor replied, his voice a shaky mess of sarcasm and nerves. "That's what the succubus told me..."

"Told you?" Rhys echoed, his brow furrowing with skepticism. "How could you know what...? Did you talk to it?"

Taylor felt the absurdity of the situation wash over him like a wave. "Yeah, she's in my head," he whispered, his voice shaking with the weight of his words. "And she's... she's pretty chatty." He paused, gathering his thoughts before continuing, his eyes glazed with the surreal experience of sharing his mind with an ancient being. "It's like we're connected. She can feel what I feel, and I can feel what she... feels. It's..." He trailed off, searching for the words to describe the alien bond he now shared with the succubus. He knew he sounded like a crazy woman hearing voices in her head, asylum fodder.

Rhys's skepticism didn't waver. "That's insane," he murmured, his eyes searching Taylor's for any sign of a break in the delusion. But all he saw was raw, unfiltered pain and confusion. The girl's story was so absurd, so outlandish, that it was almost convincing.

Almost.

Rhys took a deep breath, his eyes never leaving Taylor's transformed body. He felt like he was on the precipice of a rabbit hole that went deeper than he ever thought possible. "Alright, let's say I do believe you," he began, his voice tentative. "What else has that... that succubus said to you?" He hesitated to use that word.

Taylor took a shaky breath, his new breasts rising and falling with the effort. "She's trapped inside me. It's been showing me all these... these things," he gestured to his new body, "But she's not like that. She's... she's just stuck here, like me." The last words ended on a wail, and he buried his face in his hands, his shoulders shaking with the force of his sobs.

Rhys felt his chest tighten with a mix of pity and fear. The girl—no, maybe-Taylor—was clearly in distress. He had to do something, even if it was just to help his friend get through this obviously traumatic experience. "Well," he said, his voice steady despite his racing thoughts, "tell me more about this... succubus."

Taylor's sobs slowly subsided, and he lifted his head to look at Rhys with a watery gaze. "It's strange, but..." He began to explain the succubus's presence in his mind, how she talk to him, guiding and sometimes mocking him, and how they had come to an uneasy truce.

"She didn't crave souls, blood, or... anything else, Rhys," Taylor continued, his voice gaining a hint of strength. "Nor does it seem like she has any malicious intent. She's just... Are you listening to me?"

For the past few seconds, Rhys's gaze had been fixed on the neckline that revealed the two loose buttons of the Hawaiian shirt that now fit Taylor's new form snugly.

The succubus chuckled inside Taylor's head. "I see your friend can't keep his eyes off of me," she teased. "It's not like he's never seen boobs before."

Rhys didn't seem to have heard anything, just staring at the same spot with an emotionless, bland expression worthy of Steven Seagal himself. Taylor realized that the succubus was right; his friend had always had a thing for the chests of others, even if it was his own.

"Hey, buddy, would you stop drilling my tits with your gaze!?" He exclaimed, smacking Rhys on the left arm. The action was a strange mix of playful and defensive, a gesture that was oddly... familiar.

Rhys's eyes snapped back to Taylor's, his brow furrowed, and he shook his head as if he couldn't believe what his eyes were seeing, his cheeks flaming red. "Sorry, I just..." He couldn't finish his sentence, his eyes darting around the room as if searching for an escape from the awkwardness. "I wasn't looking at... you have a... a birthmark... right there." He finally managed to get out, his voice a little too high-pitched, pointing at the spot where Taylor's shirt lay open, revealing a little splotch of skin.

Taylor looked down and realized what had caught Rhys's attention: a small port wine stain just above the swell of his left breast, a reminder of his original body. It was shaped like a right triangle, halfway between a set square and a protractor, its sharpest point pointing toward the nipple, but barely visible. Rhys knew about it because the subject had come up once when he'd seen him step out of the shower in a towel (from the waist down), and because Rhys's mother was a dermatologist.

Rhys's hand almost hovered over the port wine stain, but Taylor slapped his hand away with surprising strength. "Don't touch!" Taylor said, his voice a mix of annoyance and embarrassment. "It's mine, okay?"

Rhys jerked his hand back as if it had been burned, his eyes wide with shock. "I'm sorry," he mumbled, his cheeks flaming even more. "It's just... I remember it... that triangle."

Taylor looked down at the small, almost imperceptible patch of darkened skin on his new, round chest. "Yeah," he said, his voice a mix of bitterness and resignation. "It's the same one. Although now I guess its angles don't add up to 180 degrees."

Rhys blinked, his mind frozen by what he had just heard.

"You know, buddy? Euclidean or non-Euclidean geometry, that is the question," Taylor quipped through his embarrassment, trying to ease the tension with a touch of humor. He tugged at the collar of the Hawaiian shirt, pulling it closed over the telltale mark. The shirt's fabric clung to his new curves, and he felt a strange sense of both vulnerability and power that he hadn't experienced before.

"Don't worry," the succubus chimed in, her voice soothing in Taylor's head. "It's part of being a woman. You'll get used to it."

But Rhys wasn't frozen with wide-eyed embarrassment; he only knew ONE person who would come up with such a terrible math joke at such a critical moment.

"T-Taylor?" Rhys's voice cracked as he whispered, his eyes finally meeting Taylor's, which held a silent plea for belief. "Oh dude!" he breathed, the reality sinking in. "You are... Oh dude!

To be continued… 

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