Chapter 1: Little Red Riding Hood
Patrick couldn't see more than a few feet in any direction. The fog had swallowed the path behind him some time in the last hour, and Lucas had been swallowed along with it. Patrick pulled the hood up against his face and tugged the hem down. He frowned, briefly, at how much more cloth there was than there should have been. Then he forgot about it.
He thought back to how the morning had started, which led to thinking about the summer, which led to thinking about Lucas, which led to deliberately not thinking about Lucas ... something he'd had a lot of practice at.
Patrick was called "Red" because of his fiery, dark auburn hair. He hated the nickname, so by the time he was ten, he kept his hair buzzed. After puberty hit, a carpet of red sprung up his torso that he also buzzed. In the showers after rugby practice, the red hair seemed to have its own shining properties as it glistened in the water, and the nickname quickly returned. Even his best friend, Lucas, joined. That night he shaved his chest and abs, buzzed his pubes, and kept them that way.
After graduation, Lucas was gifted by his grandmother a rental cabin in the woods for a few weeks. She emphasized when gifting them the full month just how much money she was losing during the peak of rental season, though Lucas could see the twinkle in her eyes. Or, he hoped that's what he saw. "Cabin" was a misnomer: Despite being over five miles from the nearest neighbor, the house was three floors with five bedrooms, an exercise room, theater, and central open floor plan with living room, kitchen, and dining area.
Three of his friends were able to set aside other responsibilities, and they all left for the cabin in the middle of nowhere.
Patrick, Lucas, Greg, and Henry all got along well, and each had their own room if they needed to work off stress. They spent their days hiking, swimming in the nearby lake, camping under the stars, and playing games on Granny's state-of-the-art entertainment center. There was no internet this deep in the woods, so there was a transition period of angst for the otherwise connected teens.
Patrick's mid-July birthday came, and that meant presents. Greg took the easy way out and got Patrick a gift certificate to the bookstore at the college Patrick would be going to. Henry, a budding foodie, also took the easy way out and got Patrick a large assortment of candy ("and if you have trouble finishing it, we can help!"). Lucas on the other hand ... his present was a bright, fiery red sleeveless hoodie. Fortunately, he also supplied several bottles of beer and harder liquor, gifted by his older brother, for the night's partying.
While they all had fun together, they naturally broke into two groups: Patrick and Lucas, Henry and Greg. It wasn't unusual for either set to be gone for several days. But, after a week with just 8 days left for their summer gift, Patrick and Lucas grew concerned about the other two. They decided to look for their friends themselves, rather than alert the police. The only thing they had to go on was a vague memory from breakfast days earlier, when Henry said they were going to hike towards the west, something about a college cheerleader camp.
Patrick and Lucas set out early the next morning with backpacks of food (mostly the sweets that Henry had given Patrick). It was unseasonably cold that morning, so Patrick put on the red hoodie that Lucas had given him. It fit well: sleeveless, showing off the arms that rugby had built, and it was bright enough that Lucas could spot him through the trees.
The two headed west along a worn path. The cold weather and the nearby lake gave rise to a thick fog among the trees, so thick that the two young men could hardly see the path in front of them. Each had their eyes cast down, trying to follow the winding, narrow trail, and they quickly became separated.
Shivering from the cool moisture condensing on the exposed skin of his legs and head, Patrick called out while remaining perfectly still: "Lucas!" He listened intently and heard nothing, the fog dampening any sound other than his immediate vicinity. Thinking out loud, he reasoned, "Come what may, if I follow the path and never stray then I won't get lost; I can easily backtrack if I need." He considered leaving a trail of candy or wrappers, but thought he might need the food and didn't want to litter – a conscientious millennial – so he didn't.
He kept walking, not noticing the trees closing in. The path wound on. And, somewhere behind him, two sets of footprints became one.
So, Patrick continued to hike as the path wound through the trees, which were growing thicker and more forested than where Lucas' grandmother's house had been. Eventually, the path broadened out and grew more flat and well-worn, but still the fog prevented him from seeing much farther than a stone's throw. He had been hiking for a while and was getting hungry, so he found a large rock next to the path and set his pack down. He unzipped it and reached in, pulling out some bread, jam, and sweets. Pouring the jam on the bread and squishing it to spread it out, he turned to put the jam back into his covered picnic basket –– no, that's not right.
Patrick stared at the basket. Something about it wasn't ... he turned it over in his hands. Wicker, lidded. It smelled faintly of Granny's kitchen. He'd packed it himself, obviously. He exhaled slowly and set it down, beside the rock.
It had gotten warmer, so he unzipped the hoodie, releasing a lot more cloth – still bright red – which he decided he didn't really mind: It made for a nice large napkin he could spread over his legs and set his food upon to eat. His head down in concentration, he occasionally brushed a lock of fiery red hair from his eyes.
Patrick munched on his bread and jam, while looking around but not really looking or focusing on anything in particular, and upon finishing the bread and jam he looked down at his lap for the sweets, gummy bears in particula– no, a sweet bun that he had packed after making them last night. Right? Granny liked sweet buns. So did Patrick; he giggled momentarily at the thought.
Finishing his lunch and sweets, Patrick brushed the crumbs from his long coat and stood up, thinking, "It is very beautiful in the woods." He picked up the basket by the handle and continued to walk the path, looking for his friends, and vaguely wondering why he was alone – didn't he come with someone else?
Patrick walked through the woods for at least another two hours, and during that time the afternoon sun succeeded in burning off at least most of the fog. It was enough that he could see a clearing up ahead with a small cottage.
"I wonder if they know where my friends are?" he thought aloud. He walked up to the cottage and went to knock on the door. Quickly realizing that he looked a little weird with his hood up, he took it down, absent-mindedly brushing more long locks of crimson hair from his face. He raised a thinner hand than he remembered, and his wrist looked different in the red sleeve. He knocked anyway.
"Just press the latch," he heard from inside the house. The voice wasn't Granny's, but why would it be?
A quarter-minute later, Patrick heard heavy footsteps approaching from inside, and the door opened to reveal a large man.
"Red?" the man asked, looking hungrily at Patrick. "Is that you?"
"Who are...?" Patrick replied, stunned.
"Red!" the man exclaimed, embracing a stunned Patrick, who felt positively tiny in the big wolf of a man's arms. "When we got separated earlier, I ran along the path through the woods and found this house. There was no one here, but I thought my Granny mentioned something about owning a cottage or two in the woods, so I just busted in and thought you might cum by!" Patrick licked his lips, his tongue grazing over sharp canines.
"Lucas?" Patrick was still trying to figure out who this guy was, stunned at the changes.
"Yeah! What, don't recognize me? And why'd it take you so long to get here? You get lost, Red? Did you eat too many sugar buns along the way?" he winked.
"How'd it take you so not long to get here? And what do you mean?— you look different ... don't you? I mean, what are you wearing? I mean, what big?— you look a lot taller ... my head hurts ..." Patrick had conflicting visions of his best friend in his head. On the one hand there was his almost-twin jock – except for the hair color – while on the other hand was this man who was decidedly two heads taller than him with more facial hair than someone should expect to grow in weeks, let alone a few hours. That was not to mention the much more muscular man standing in front of him now than he had left the home with this morning.
"Dude, come in, where are my manners?" Lucas forcefully put his large paw of a hand on Patrick's back, pulling him inside the one-room cottage.
Patrick looked around, seeing things he didn't want to think a granny would have. One corner was a complete sex area, including a St. Andrew's cross, fuck bench, sling, and shelves of toys. He blinked rapidly – why would a random house in the woods have all that? He turned back to the large man who remotely resembled his best friend but – no, he looked more and more like how Lucas had always been. Patrick's mind felt tingly, but it had for a while now.
"I ... I don't understand," Patrick tried again.
"Huh?" Lucas answered, not understanding the not-understanding.
Patrick blinked. Something was wrong with this room. Something was wrong with this man standing in front of him wearing Lucas's face, that was on a body that Lucas had never had. Something was wrong with the way Patrick's pulse was behaving – thumping in excitement, rather than fear – and the way Patrick's eyes kept dropping, and the fact that he was acutely, horribly aware of exactly how warm it was in the cottage.
"You okay?" Lucas asked, tilting his head, stretching his neck. The motion did something to the muscles along his thick neck that Patrick did not want to think about, but his cock did.
"I ..." Patrick started. He almost had it. He could feel it, the thought was right there, just at the edge ... . The fog, something about the basket, the hoodi— the cloak. No! It was supposed to be a ... a ... a cloak. But, it was ... something didn't make sense, and he tried desperately to reach for that thought that kept eluding him, like a toy in a claw arcade.
His mind felt like warm taffy. The thought stretched. Snapped.
"I ... I think my head hurts," Patrick finished. Yes! That was the thought.
"Yeah, you said that," Lucas replied, still watching him with a patient, hungry expression that also didn't belong on Lucas's face but was definitely something Patrick's body was reacting to in new, different ways.
"I mean, man, you look different. Dude ... what big pecs you have!"
"Yeah, what about them?" Lucas responded, tearing open his button-down flannel shirt and bouncing his smooth muscles up and down, grinning at his friend. As he continued to bounce them, his shirt dissolved, and thick hair grew from the skin, dusting his pecs with a coat that met in the middle and continued down into leather pants that definitely hadn't been there this morning.
Not reacting to the wardrobe change, Patrick continued. "But Lucas, what big arms you have."
"The better to hug you with, bro!" Patrick was rooted to his spot and didn't move at the sudden motion of Lucas throwing his arms around the smaller man, embracing him in a tight hug. Patrick could feel the warm, hard muscles that his face was inadvertently buried in, and inhaling, he smelled the forest on his best friend, like the forest after rain – earthy, musky, yet clean and renewed. Patrick felt feelings he hadn't had before well up to the surface and almost moaned into the embrace. The size difference grew subtly: Patrick's muscles deflating slightly while Lucas's swelled even larger.
The embrace lasted a lot longer than a normal bro hug and Patrick felt something hard poking him in the stomach. Attempting to ignore it, he couldn't help but feel turned on by his decade-long best friend, and he felt his own hands grip the back of Lucas's shirt without consciously deciding to.
During the bro hug, Lucas rocked slightly back-and-forth, both rubbing his leather-clad dick on his friend and rotating the two of them so that it was Lucas's back to the front door, blocking Patrick's easy access. It was a subtle, predatory move that now came naturally but Lucas didn't notice. Finally, Lucas pulled away, and continued to grin hungrily at Patrick.
Catching his breath, Patrick looked his friend over again, just as Lucas was looking him over. Patrick didn't notice that while they were hugging, his own clothes had dissolved, much as Lucas' shirt had. But, while Lucas still had his (or, someone's?) pants, Patrick only had his long red hoodie that, for all intents and purposes, was now more of a cloak.
Trying one more time, Patrick said, "But Lucas, what big – dick? – you have!?" before slapping his hands over his mouth, astounded that he had just said the quiet part out loud.
Lucas grinned more, wider if that was possible, his teeth bared, and then jumped on Patrick, toppling him onto the bed. Holding Patrick's arms up and out, and kneeling on Patrick's legs, Lucas whispered, "The better to fuck you with, my dear Red."
Lucas's mouth and tongue started just above Patrick's right ear, traveled down to his neck, and he nibbled slightly, his canines glistening in the light from the candles that were suddenly – had always been? – lit by the bedside. Lucas moaned above him, his hard dick leaking onto both of their stomachs. Where Lucas's precum hit, an auburn glow shimmered in the low light, restoring what had been shaved earlier that morning.
Lucas moved from Patrick's neck down to his hard nipples, flicking them with his long, wet tongue, the saliva spurring more, subtle changes: Patrick's hard-earned pecs that had already deflated a little now further contracted: His chest felt different under Lucas's tongue: lighter, somehow, like something he'd been carrying in his pecs for years was being licked away. He arched into it before he could stop himself, the feeling of something missing gone with a swipe of the long, wet tongue. He didn't try to stop himself again. His shaved chest grew back the short, red hairs that he had been removing since mid-puberty. Patrick did not notice any changes, but felt the cloak get in the way of squirming under the large man above him and went to take it off.
Seeing him struggle with the garment, Lucas stopped him, and with his mouth next to Patrick's other ear, he whispered, "No, leave it on."
Patrick surrendered to the experience, overwhelmed by the feelings of his best friend licking down his body, squirming in his tight embrace, as his cloak spread underneath him like a fiery sheet to frame his pale skin and newly lean frame. When Lucas licked around Red's rose, Patrick experienced feelings he never knew existed, which were quickly elevated as Lucas gently thrust his massive cock into Patrick – his leaking cock had spent the last several minutes lubricating Patrick's tight, unopened hole. Throughout the foreplay, Lucas hadn't taken his pants off, so the soft leather could be felt and smelled by both young men, enhancing Lucas's natural scent.
Lucas thrust gently, slowly – painfully slowly – at first, while Red let out high-pitched whimpers. With one hand, Lucas easily palmed Red's wrists and kept them restrained at the head of the bed, while with his other hand Lucas traced one long, pointed nail gently across Red's armpits, chest, nipples, and worked his way down Red's faint abs. He used his finger on Red's leaking, modest cock, rubbing just under the head in soft, gentle circles as Red writhed underneath. Red heard himself making sounds he'd never made before. They weren't the grunts of the rugby pitch, not anything he had a name for, and couldn't bring himself to care.
When Lucas got to Patrick's balls, he was thrusting harder and faster, causing Red to jolt back-and-forth with every firm thrust of his leaking cock. Red gasped as he felt a new sensation emanating from his worn hole, an extra pressure that was rubbing deliciously across his prostate, and was extra thick with each thrust in and out of his hole. The new knot near the base of Lucas's cock was forcing Red's tight hole open even more, finally swelling enough that it locked Lucas's cock in until he flooded Red's cavity with hot cum. Red felt it – all of it, wave after wave – and somewhere underneath the white-out pleasure was the dim awareness that he was never going to want anything else: There was no going back after this.
"You might've eaten all those sweet buns on the way here, but you have the sweetest buns I've ever had," Lucas whispered in Patrick's ear as he shifted his hips back for one more hard thrust, blasting his load into Red's eager hole. The faint whisper and light breeze across the smaller man's ear was enough to set him off on his own hands-free orgasm, spraying his load across both of them.
As Lucas collapsed next to Red, the latter man felt resolved, like his story in life was now complete, and he could continue this life of lust with his friend forever.
He lay very still, listening to Lucas breathe, feeling Lucas's chest rise against his own side, still awash with the scent of leather and wet earth. The cloak was warm beneath him, spread wide like a blanket he hadn't asked for and didn't want to give back. The candles – the ones he knew without a doubt had always been there – threw shadows across Lucas's jaw and throat, their light further casting long shadows from his mountainous pecs crowned by tightly peaked nipples. Red watched him the way he'd been not-watching him for years. It was a relief, actually. The not lingering on his form in the showers, not having his hand just a bit too long on his knee ... everything. Exhausting, all that not-watching that filled his mind, whether old or new.
His body felt different. Lighter. Like the version of himself he'd been keeping carefully shaved and tucked away had finally been allowed out. He snuggled a little more closely to Lucas, thinking about not thinking, the smell of his own cum across his face when the door to the cottage burst open, and both teens looked up at the intruder. He was a burly man, but otherwise a generic late-40s-early-20s-middle-30s-looking guy, wearing something one would think is a costume from a Robin Hood cosplay. He came at them both and from his belt he pulled out a large, shining knife.
Shocked and scared, Lucas asked, "What! Who are you!? Please, don't hurt us!"
The man himself seemed slightly surprised, and he responded, "I'm The Hunter. I'm here to save you from The Wolf. I'm supposed to split him open."
Red somehow knew without really knowing – a True Fact, the kind you don't earn, you just receive – that The Hunter meant Lucas.
Red looked The Hunter up and down, his fear turning into lust, and he grinned. "Oh, I think you can split both of us open, just not with that knife, and we'll have to take turns ..."
Lucas, too, looked at The Hunter and his eyes went wide, for showing through The Hunter's pants was the biggest cock he had ever seen.
Lucas jumped out of bed and pulled the kni— the large dildo from the surprised Hunter's hand. He threw the sex toy on the ground, where it floundered before settling. No one noticed it disappear, too busy with Lucas removing his belt and lowering his pants. Lucas turned away from The Hunter and then said over his shoulder, "Oh yeah man, split me open, nice and wide," before he grabbed The Hunter and pushed him on the bed, where Red gave him a long, sloppy kiss.
Several hours later, while Lucas and Red were sleeping in the smell of forest and cum and sweat, The Hunter quietly pulled his clothes back on and exited the cottage. He left the dildo as a present for the friends, putting it on their shelf with the others. He walked to the edge of the clearing, muttering "shouldn't've affected me." He murmured under his breath, gesturing with his hand from up to down. A shimmering wall surrounded the clearing, rippling slightly with an iridescence that only he could see. To anyone else, the wall hid nothing, but the perception filter would simply cause anyone to ignore it, while keeping those inside from perceiving much around them.
"That's one," he said, his voice a mixture of concern, bemusement, and intrigue, as he walked down the path and slowly disappeared. Though, it might have been that he was just hidden by the fog.
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