Blood Brothers 2 (Chapter 1)

[florida20]

I had intended to leave this story alone after the conclusion of the last chapter but had an itch to continue it and...well...here ya go...
(PS, this is the sequal to part VI of the first set of chapters. To avoid future confusion, I'll number the chapters sequentially after this)

[COLOR=cyan]Part I[/COLOR]
[COLOR=cyan]Part II-IV[/COLOR]
[COLOR=cyan]Part V[/COLOR]
[COLOR=cyan]Part VI[/COLOR]



[COLOR=silver]Blood Brothers (Chapter 7)[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]I rolled the vial of Casey’s blood in my palm, my mind trying to sort out a dozen different scenarios at the same time. From the din which crowded my senses came only one question, travelling as a whisper yet with the force of a typhoo: Would it make me like him? I didn’t know how to use a syringe; I’d never done any drug other than smoking a cigarette in eighth grade. And I’d hated it.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]I mean, it’s not like Casey had an STD. What’s the worst that could happen? Before I could consider an answer, I involuntarily started focusing the BEST that could happen and doing so made my mind wander as if in a dream. I mentally felt my body, one that had felt so top of its class a few days earlier. I had a six pack, sure, but it was mostly due to me being lean. It’s not like it could take a punch. I told my meathead buddies that I had 14” arms but that required a full pump and a pretty solid rounding up. I suddenly felt like a man dying of thirst staring at a river of water, fresh and clean...one that would keep him from ever being thirsty again.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]I took off my shirt and stared at the mirror on my wall. A weak voice in my head told me I was no slouch and an even quieter one said it was silly to compare my development at fifteen to a model on a magazine cover, a bodybuilder football coach, or a freak teenage boy. A louder one mentioned the dozens of same age guys at my school with better bodies than me. Why couldn’t I be the genetic freak?[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“Who listens to the quiet voice anyway?” I whispered to myself as I emptied the vial into the syringe and drained it in my butt cheek. It hurt like hell. Deed done, I dropped the empty syringe and looked back at the mirror. I looked the same, of course, only now my mind saw the reflected image as a cocoon from which a specimen rarely seen on this earth would soon break free. Looking back, that was probably the most powerful I’d ever felt. What had the current great muscle gurus of the world seen in the mirror when they were fifteen? Did they know what they would eventually become?[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]I thought I did, and couldn’t wait. On impulse, I dropped down and did as many pushups as I could before my chest gave out, which wasn’t many considering the intense regimen Coach Rod put me through earlier that afternoon. Standing, I was disappointed to see only a moderate pump, if one I’d be otherwise proud of. For the first time I felt doubt that this would work. My mind flashed to a couple days before, when I’d taken the pills, so sure they’d make me buff. I’d felt the same then as I did now: raging with excitement and anticipation. Would I suffer the same crashing disappointment this time too?[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]Life went on after that night. I ate dinner with my parents, kitchen fully restocked. My dad scolded me for the complete devouring of the household's foodstuffs; I said Casey and I were on a heavy calorie diet and we feasted that morning. For such an incrediably lame excuse, they didn't comment. For all I knew they heard the truth about Casey already. Parents can be so…willfully blind at times. Regardless, I ate like a horse, hoping it would affect me the same as it did Casey. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]It didn’t. A sinful ammount of food's only gift was a night spent stuffed to the point of pain.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]I woke up the next morning, which happened to be Friday, and ran to the mirror. Same body. I walked to the bathroom, weighing myself and was surprised that I saw 154 on the scale. I normally weighed 150. For a moment I was overjoyed...then I realized I had to use the restroom. To spare the details, five minutes later I wasn’t 154 anymore…I was 151. It turns out the disappointment felt the same this time around.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]I went to school as if everything was normal. Any, quite honestly, it was. Casey’s fifteen minutes of fame were still whispered about in corners among the meatheads and muscle-lovers, but that was about it. Although not depressed, I still wandered through the day lethargically. That lasted right up until my appointment with Coach Rod…[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“What the fuck is wrong with you, boy?” Coach screamed in my ear, the veins in his sweaty neck standing out like electric cabling. I had just finished benching 155 five times. I’d done eight reps four days earlier; not good.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]We were not alone. The high school gym was filled with perhaps a dozen or so lettered athletes, most juniors and seniors and every one of them bigger than me. They all stared at the two of us but with a gaze that said most had been yelled at by the behemoth coach on many occasions as well.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“Give me those ever-effeminate hands of your,” he ordered as he forcefully took them and pulled me to the pull-up bar that stood in front of full-wall mirror. After forcing the person already using the contraption away with a glare, he somehow made a tube of duct tape appear out of nowhere and ordered me to grab the bar. I jumped up and hung from it, watching my tiny lats flair like flattened footballs. My curiosity was replaced with a morbid realization when Coach wrapped my hands in duct tape until they were nothing but grey balls connecting my wrists to the bar. I couldn’t move my fingers a hair’s width.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“Now you’re going to hang there until I get one hundred decent pull-ups from you,” Coach said simply, then sat down and stared. I got to work but only got to eight before I gave up.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“Fuck you, squint,” he said to my reflection in the mirror.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]I pulled again, arms, shoulders, and back burning. After hanging for a few seconds, I was able to do another. “Ten,” he said, not even looking. He looked like he was losing his patience. Over the next few minutes, I did five more before calling uncle.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“I can’t,” I moaned, hanging from the balls of tape with my toes six inches off the ground. Suddenly Coach’s evil eyes were an inch from mine. The bulges of his traps and thickness of his neck absorbed the periphery of my vision.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“If I hear ‘can’t’ one more time from you, ever, I will never train you again. You understand me?”[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]I could only nod and did another rep. “Good,” he said, eyes still on fire. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]Then Coach surprised me by taking his shirt off and leaping next to me on the bar as if to perform pull-ups himself. I looked at our reflections in the mirror before up. Me, the puny fifteen year old, and my new mentor, all 250 pounds of shredded muscle, hanging next to me with his lats flaring like wings beneath his bulging arms.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“You want to look like me one day?” he asked as he performed a perfect pullup. “You gotta work like me.” Then he did another and another. Then he looked at me and said something which changed everything. “You…are…not…Casey.”[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]Something snapped in my brain. I finally admitted I'd been looking for the easy way out. I was looking for a body in a day, like Casey. But that didn’t happen except in two-day-long dreams. This was how you built muscle. I performed another pull-up; Coach did the same. His arms and lats were flushed with blood and bulged as they pulled his weight. I want that, I thought. I did another pull-up; he did too.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]I don’t know how long it took me to get to one hundred but that time was filled with more screams and pain than I knew myself capable of bearing. Coach performed every pull-up as I did, only with much less strain and noise. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]Exhausted, sweating, and ragged. I hung nearly lifeless from the bar, head down and body on fire. I felt a solid pat and squeeze on my lats. “Nice pump, boy,” Coach said as he put a foot stool beneath my feet. I looked at the mirror and was happy to see that my lats actually looked big, as did my arms…even if both felt as useless as a wet sponge. I also noticed that the rest of the eyes on the gym were on me. Coach did too.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“If you assholes have nothing to do but gawk, get the fuck out of my gym,” he screamed, all the more intimidating without a shirt on. He looked like Mr Clean on steroids. Some actually did; the rest turned away and didn’t make eye contact the rest of the hour.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]Coach turned to me, looking as scary as ever but speaking softly. “Ninety-nine percent of everyone who touches a weight will never reach their potential because they let their body tell them when to stop. The second you do that, you fail.” His face was a few inches from my own, and his angry eyes and gorged body filled my vision. He tapped my forehead with his index finger. “This tells you when to stop.” Coach grabbed his shirt from the floor. “Never in your life will you have a body more malleable than the 15 year old sack of skin you now wear. You feel like wasting that time by doing a few pushups then playing video games the rest of the day, you do it on your own time.” He paused, looked at my body hanging in front of him, then a gleam entered his eyes and his lips curled into a smile so small I almost believed it wasn’t there. “See you Monday.”[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]He walked out of the room, leaving me hanging among a couple dozen jocks. I got the hint; I spent the next hour working my ass off in that gym. Well, that is, after one of the other guys in the room was kind enough to remove the tape from my hands. When I finally left, I felt completely destroyed but my heart raced with excitement and my mind was on fire. I felt amazing; I practically skipped home. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]That night, after eating three meals in four hours, I hit the bed at eight that night and barely took a breath before I was out cold. The next morning I weighed myself. 152. Whatever, Rome wasn’t built in a day.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]The semester progressed and consisted of eating, lifting, school, sleep and an occasional social life. I decided not to play baseball that year and focused on Coach Rod’s training. Each session was brutal but seemed easier as the weeks went by. I woke up every morning feeling a little bigger, a little heavier. The feeling was verified by the tape measure and scale. By the end of the second week I was 155. By February, I could claim 14” arms without any guilt. I became more defined, my pretty boy abs grew deeper and harder and my chest started to bulge as my bench presses reach the 200’s. By mid-February, I started to notice lines in my quads and could actually see the muscle moving under the skin. I was at 160 by that point and had forgotten all about my failed experiment with Casey’s blood. I also felt I wouldn’t have a problem making 180 by next football season.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]People started noticing that my shirts were getting tighter and as the winter chill began to fade, so did the amount of clothes I wore. My abs were becoming famous and being asked to show them became almost a daily event.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]By late February, I told Coach Rod something I never thought would come out of my mouth. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“You think the workouts are too easy?” he asked, his voice rising by an octave. The rest of the people in the gym came to a screeching halt. That freshman punk said what? was written all over their faces.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“I was wondering if we could do this five days a week,” I said sheepishly. “I’m just not hurting the next day anymore.”[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]A devilish smirk grew into an evil grin. “If you’re still saying that by tomorrow, you little prick,” he said coldly, “you’ll get your five days a week.” There was nothing hiding his belief that would not be happening.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]I puked twice, nearly passed out once, but that next afternoon I stood in front of his office and said I was ready for more. He was shocked. But the sparkle I saw in his eyes said he was also proud.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]By March, I “tipped” the scales at 165. I’d gained fifteen pounds in eight weeks! My arms were now a solid 15”, my six pack had become and eight pack, I was getting close to 5’9”, and my legs were beginning to look like a sprinter’s. Although the lightest guy in the gym other than me had to be 180, I looked bigger once the shirts were off, and I was easily stronger. I was benching 225 for reps and could curl fifty pound dumbbells. By mid-March, I was 170 and had pretty much put any shirt with sleeves into cold storage. Although big for a freshman, 170 isn’t much to brag about in high school. One look at my hard and vascular arms would show just how much muscle 170 could hold. Spring break means nothing more than pools and days off for a freshman but I found a way to lose my virginity to a sophomore named Jenna Staples. That was when life took a little bump…[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]The week after spring break, in the hallway between periods, I was suddenly slammed against a locker and before I knew what was happening there was gigantic forearm pressed beneath my chin and pressing my neck against the metal behind me. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“You fucked my girlfriend,” a pair of angry eyes said down at me. They belonged to Jessie Strand, a linebacker on the football team and one of the best wrestlers our school had ever seen. Although only a junior, he was probably the strongest person in the school. He was 6’1, over 210 pounds and, from what I heard, was one of those genetically gifted individuals who was far stronger than their size would imply…and his size was substantial. He wasn’t as ripped as me but at times like these that didn’t matter.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“I didn’t…know,” I said with difficulty. I could see the bulbous shoulders and traps bulging under his shirt. His neck was as big around as some people’s thigh. “She didn’t…tell me.”[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]He responded by pressing me harder against the locker. “Don’t speak, pretty boy, just listen. I… reminded Jenna why she chose me and we’re just fine now. You and I?” he said menacingly. “You and I got a problem.” He looked down at my sleeveless arms and sneered. “Those things you have may sway the ladies but these,” he said as he flexed his free 18 inch arm an inch from my face, “are for kicking ass.” A grunt from behind this overgrown asshole diverted both of our attentions from each other and to Mr. Reynolds, a science teacher, standing with a stern face over a pair of crossed arms. A moment later, Jesse turned to me again and whispered “this isn’t close to being over” before releasing me.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]I collapsed to my knees as he walked away. The whole episode probably took less than ten seconds but I still felt everyone’s eyes on me as they walked by. Although I my mind pooled with legitimate fear, rage and obsession covered it like an oily sheen.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]The feeling lasted until just after the final bell rang as I walked towards the gym at the back end of the school. I was under the covered walkway among a sparce trickle of students each on their way to various after school activities when I suddenly found myself staring up at the aluminum overhead from the ground. Stars danced before my eyes. A second later, as I was forcefully pulled up by my neck, pain ballooned across the right side of my face and I felt blood pour from my nose.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]Jesse, now in a white sleeveless shirt that showed just how big his arms were, filled my view. I could hear the hoots and laughter of his friends behind him. “Let’s just say that love pat was the least you deserved.” Then he did something I had no idea would be as humiliating as it was: he spit in my face. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]My mind boiled in rage and before I could even think about it, I shot a bloody wad of spit right in his eye. My stomach dropped and panic took even before the shot hit its targe. Blinking the return fire away, Jesse’s face turned a menacing scarlet and a dark vein started to pulse on his forehead. His friends stopped laughing, suddenly afraid of what might happen. He squeezed my neck even harder, causing the tendons in his arm to bulge. Such power. My arms flailed in a vain effort to push him away. He grabbed them both by my wrists with his free hand. His grip was like a vice and the combined strength of both my arms couldn’t budge him an inch. Jesse looked around and I took the opening to do the same. A small crowd had gathered to watch the show. Looking back at me, his bicep and deltoid bulged even more as he actually lifted me off the ground onto my tip toes to get my face right up to his.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“That’s your second mistake.” He paused. “And you last. It’s going to take me a long time to do what I’m going to do to you,” he whispered in my ear. “Unfortunately, you look like a screamer. And we can’t be interrupted by certain authoritative figures now can we?” He lowered me to my feet. “If I find you alone, you’re dead.” Dropping me, he walked away and didn’t look back as his buddies congratulated him for kicking the ass of a kid two years his junior. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]I wiped the blood from my nose, anger and fury boiling whatever fear and embarrassment I should have felt into nothing. I stormed into the gym, threw my backpack across the room, tore my shirt off, and practically demanded that Coach make this a day to remember. He did his best to comply, but within a few minutes couldn’t help but wonder if something was up. [/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“What the hell’s wrong with you boy?” he asked sincerely as I wiped tears from my eyes after a particularly daunting set with the huge tire. I wasn’t crying, I told myself. The tears just came out with the strain of the last set.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]“Nothing,” I said mechanically. “What’s next?”[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]That night, terrified and exhausted, I came home to find a letter on my bed. It was addressed to me with postage paid but there was no return address. Opening it, I pulled out a large folded sheet of paper that was about the size of a newspaper page when completely opened. On it was a colossal ink handprint, so big that my outstretched hand didn’t even cover the print’s palm. Below the print was a message, written in those familiar, clumsy letters. The message was simple and left me perplexed:[/COLOR]

[COLOR=silver]Get ready.[/COLOR]

[nicotico]

Awesome! Can't wait for more! I love both here, and earlier with the pills, how you subvert audience expectations. We've all read so many of these stories that we know the pills will make him stronger, the blood will blow him up, but here the story goes in a different direction.

Keep it up!