That he's a bigger man than I expected him to be

He stares at me with all the anger that I should have rightfully have expected from someone who knows everything I've done. I swallow hard, even if I haven't drank a single sip from the bottle, and try as best as I can to look to pathetic to beat to ****. I keep my eyes down, I scratch the back of my neck, I murmur nonsense; I do just about everything I can think of in order to make sure I look guilty to him. I mean, I certainly did feel guilty about all of this, but right now my main motivator is the fear I have of getting mauled into pieces by the giant gorilla I just let out of his cage.

"Don't waste the beer, moron. Bottoms up!" Thad orders me and I go with it because I want to take any chance I have to convince him that I have his best interests in mind. And if I end up **** on my beer and he laughs as I spill half the bottle over my clothes? That's an absolute win, I'm happily taking it.

We're now sitting with empty bottles in our hands and I can't keep myself from wondering if Thad is about to smash me over the head with his, but I dismiss the thought once the frown fades away from his face. "You're not forgiven, mind you" He raises a finger as he says that, then he stands up and gestures for me to do the same. "You've done the bare minimum of giving me my body back. The rest of what you did was for you. I'm going to need some reparations in the form of at least a couple, probably more, of favors. A week full of you giving me some leg-ups might, and I insist on the word might, make up for the week you made me spend like that. And none of the benefits I might get from my time as a nerd count for the favor total, I'll have you know."

"So you're still an amazing cook?" I know damn well I shouldn't have asked that right now if I didn't wanna risk pissing him off again and getting my lights turned off, but the wide grin on his face gives me all the answer I need. He even reciprocates the high-five! Although he does start frowning again after he realizes he did that, so maybe that was a bridge too far. "Sorry, got carried away!"

"Yeah, you definitely did." He sighs. "So, Krys. What's up with her?"

I groan and roll my eyes. "What isn't? Honestly, she's the worst. So, hear me out here. She starts out as this chubby short-haired chick that's constantly fighting with her dad and she chooses to rebel against him by dating me. Well, sorta dating, we never really had a proper date or called ourselves anything, but we went down on each other from time to time. First wish, I make her hair long in order to make any change and get us out of the black and white era and back to living color. Second wish I make is to make her totally hot, I'm talking something way better than liposuction could ever do in a fraction of the time and cost. Except that makes it so that she never dated me. And, as it will turn out later, she was never into me at all. Said that I was just someone for her to mess around with because she couldn't get herself anyone richer and that I was just a bum."

He raises an eyebrow at me. "And you believe her?"

I raise one right back "Why wouldn't I? People are apparently compelled to tell the truth about everything when I have them in stasis."

He crosses his arms "Because it sounds to me like you broke her heart when you showed that you didn't care to keep dating her as the person that she was. And that, combined with changing her life over and over again, you probably erased any good feelings she might have had for you originally."

I look out the window. I don't want to look at him now. "No, she said she's always the original Krys when I have her there, so that can't be it." I'm the one that was there, who is him to try to lecture me.

"Oh yeah, because the human mind is so rigid and incapable of being altered by emotions and the tendency to forget. And that goes double for when magic whose true power and limits and functions we might only know the bare essentials about is involved. I'm sure Krys couldn't just be convinced that she's her original self talking whenever she talks to you, rather than being a true amalgamation of all the version of her that you've created dancing around to take turns in controlling that mind but always assuming its her true unadulterated original self who holds all the power and calls all the shots. Nope, I'm sure you're right. When could Devin ever make a mistake, folks?"

If he wanted to get on my nerves he's done it now. I turn to face him, staring into his eyes and not backing down despite the size difference. "Well I'm sorry, but who the fuck made you an expert on her life? Why are you defending her?"

"BECAUSE NOW I KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE, DEVIN! You made me know exactly how those who are most unwanted by others when it comes to relationships fucking feel like. Do you really think that Krys wasn't shattered when she realized how quickly you went straight into changing her body as a whole? Look, I know it won't count and it won't matter to you because it happened precisely because you did that to her, whatever! I still dated Krys. She had insecurities, man. She felt lost over what she could even do to get on her parent's good side without wrecking herself or validating their worse positions. I dunno, maybe she was more honest with me because we went further on some level? But maybe that raised up her list of concerns because she used to have body issues, and the universe tried to replace it with something else. I really don't know, but... I don't like to hear you talk about her like that. If you're gonna do it don't do it with me, I'm not interested in hearing you. Not now."

Well, safe to say I failed to see that one coming. What a guy, that Thad. He's angrier at me for being angry at someone who screwed me over than he is at me for screwing him over. "Simp."

We stare at each other. One of us is going to have to back down and walk away from that moral high horse. And it's gonna be me, because the part in my brain that is in charge of survival has taken the reigns again and has allowed me to remember me that he's back to being Captain America after the muscles and I am hardly Ironman out of his suit. "Sorry, that was the salt talking."

He nods at me, acknowledging what I said, but not seeming interested in speaking up again. Is he waiting me to say something? "She ended up well with her folks, you know? Made her a daddy's girl, kinda didn't mean to, but apparently she liked it."

He smiles. "That's nice." And by popular demand, the silence returns.

But it was quickly taken off-stage again when the door opened and Amber walked in with a concerned expression. "Hey, are you two okay? We're not sure what you were yelling about but you two were definitely yelling about something. Did you have a fight? Do we need to talk about it?"

"Everything is fine!" Thad yelled abruptly in the least convincing manner I had ever seen anyone lie in my entire life. Well, at least the least convincing I remember, maybe I witnessed someone worse when I was a baby or something. Regardless, he did definitely scoop my girl up into a bridal carry and plant a kiss on her lips, so I was going to have words with him as soon as she left the room. "Look, it was a roleplay thing, we'll explain later, come back here in five minutes or so. Or maybe when I give you a text. Yeah, the text idea is better, glad I thought of it, I'll make sure to send it when appropriate, won't take much time at all, you should probably be naked already when you do, ignore all we say, we both love you all a lot!" He shoves her out of the bedroom as gently as someone could forcibly shove someone out. "I have things that I need to explain, right now! Story time with Thad 'The Man' is about to start!"

"Oh, you better be able to explain why-" I cut myself short when I remember that Amber is polyamorous. And she's always been. And with Thad being a hunk, that means. "Are you about to tell me that we're both dating Amber?"

He laughs and he shakes his head. I am not reassured. I am in fear of whatever is going to come out of this man's mouth. "No, no, things would be much simpler if we were just dating one girl together. See, part of why I'm **** to not stay mad at you, apart from your fucking wish that forces me to want to be friends with you, is that we kinda have a good thing going on with, let's say, seven girls total at this point." He pats me in the shoulder a couple of times, laughing nervously as he does it.

I must have a really funny expression on my face, because his laugh turns more natural for a moment as I stare at him struggling to believe what I heard. "You-I-What-I-You-I-HOW?"

"Honestly, that's detail for later, when we have someone else to help me explain it to you. Luckily, Amber is the one who we just told to enter here naked in a moment, and she's exactly who we needed. Take of your clothes, we're making her remember everything!" He's out of his shirt before I can get a word out and soon he's going to be out of his pants as well.

"Wait! If she remembers everything we're gonna reset back in time and we wouldn't be having this conversation and-"

"Hey, genius, have you ever thought of adding 'From now on' at the start of your reality change? Sounds like it would be really useful to prevent that thing from happening!" He's throwing his socks around. "For fuck's sake Devin, you don't want be the one guy who is still clothed when the threesome starts, take your clothes off too!"

I am not happy in the slightest that this was happening, but evidently we are going to be doing this now. I rush to take everything I have on off as quickly as I can. I turn around to ask Thad if he's sent Amber then message when I see "For fuck's sake, how big is that thing and why do you have it?"

"Very fucking big and you returned it to me, now don't be a bitch about it. She thinks that you have gotten over it by now." I see something across his face, like he is trying to extend an olive branch? "For transparency's sake, she dated you first and she likes us both equally." I stare at Thad and he stares at me. We both cross our arms. We are clearly acting like very mature men at the moment. "You know, for a guy who clearly wants to fuck a lot of ladies at the same time, you seem to be get really sentimental whenever you hear they also want to fuck a lot of dudes. Grow a fucking pair and pick a side, either you're both exclusive or you're both open."

Is he going to be about this over everything? "What did I do to deserve this?"

His eyes were bugging out "Do you really want to open that can of worms now, of all times?"

We were interrupted by a fully nude Amber entering the room again, arms crossed and head tilted in a very 'I want to see how you explain this one' fashion.

At least things should get simpler once I cum inside her, right?