//-----------------------------
// Story: Growing Up Fast
// Chapter: Home Sick
// Author: darf
//-----------------------------

                    “Hey lil’ buddy, wake up. It's almost half past ten."
                    Thunderlane knocked before opening the door. He surveyed his brother’s bedroom as he stepped past a pile of schoolbooks – for someone so young, Rumble’s room was kept relatively need, save for the odd stack of comic books that seemed to escape from the closet of their own accord.
                    The lump in the middle of the bed covered by blankets must have been Rumble, but he hadn’t moved when Thunderlane called. Come to think of it, he’d missed dinner. Maybe he was just a bit under the weather?
                    “You okay bro? The day’s gonna be gone if you don’t get up soon, and I’m guessing you wanna have breakfast.”
                    Thunderlane nudged the mass under the blankets with a hoof, poking it in the side several times.
                    “Uhhhh…”
                    Rumble’s face as he rolled out from under the pillow he was using as a shield almost made Thunderlane recoil in shock.
                    “Holy cow! Are you feeling alright dude? You look awful!”
                    “Bluhh…” Rumble couldn’t manage a proper response. True to his brother’s not-so-tactful observation, he did give the impression of a pony who’d been run over by a tractor. His hair was disheveled, his eyes were bloodshot and bleary, and his wings were crumpled and haphazard with feathers sticking out in every direction.
                    “You don’t look like you’re gonna make it up any time soon. Are you sick? Does your stomach hurt or anything?”
                    “No…” Rumble groaned, fighting the urge to wrap himself in bedding again. “Just not feeling good…”
                    “I can see that,” Thunderlane said. He prodded experimentally at one of Rumble’s protruding wings, earning an exhausted sounding groan. “Maybe it’s best if you stay in bed today, champ.”
                    “Gnuhh…”
                    “I’ll take that as a ‘yes’. Look, I have to get to work, but I'll get Flitter and Cloudchaser to come check up on you in a bit, okay? If you need anything before then, just stick your head out the window and yell."
                    Rumble didn't even manage a grin at his brother's awful suggestion. He dragged the blanket back up over his head and groaned with a low voice into the fabric.
                    "Yeesh. I'll stay home if you need me, dude. I don't want you expiring while I'm at work."
                    "'s fine... not that sick."
                    "You could have fooled me."
                    Thunderlane lingered with his eyes on Rumble's pile of tangled blankets as he parted the bedroom door.
                    "You sure? Last chance."
                    "Mnuh."
                    "Alright. Remember to drink lots of fluids... Or, I guess if you're smart, you could wait for Flitter and Cloudchaser to come by and they'll help you with that."
                    Rumble shifted properly for the first time since his brother's intrusion, but still only responded in a series of mumbles.
                    Content with Rumble's health for the time being, Thunderlane made his way out of the bedroom, rustling his wings as he readied himself for the flight to work. He'd have to stop and see the twins on the way there - but, that was far from something to be upset about.
                    In his bed, Rumble felt like a larva in a cocoon of sweaty garbage bags. He'd tossed and turned all night, throwing his pillows in every direction and struggling to shake the feeling like he was melting. Every time he'd closed his eyes, bizarre visions had surrounded him: flowers and herbs and dancing, all of it led by a sight in the horizon that had revealed itself as what turned out to be Zecora's backside. And several times an hour Rumble had jolted out of his half-sleep with a gasp, finding himself twisted in his bed sheets and with the strongest fuzzy feeling between his legs he'd yet experienced.
                    Now that it was morning the visions were gone, but Rumble had traded the sensation of sinister looming fauna and oddly tantalizing posteriors for a mouth laced with sandpaper and a headache rivalling an earthquake. On top of the more tangible discomfort, there was an extra feeling coursing through Rumble's body that he couldn't quite place – the feeling that somehow, part of him was trying to jump out of his own skin. His body itched from the inside, and it left him with a constant feeling of unease; it was only through exhaustion from too much turning and thrashing that he managed to keep still.
                    With the carapace of damp blankets wrapped around his head, Rumble coaxed himself back to sleep with less difficulty than he'd expected, falling again into a chasm of dancing vines and a tingling in what felt like an ethereal limb provoked by the curves of black on white at the periphery of his vision.
 

 
                    "Gah!"
                    Rumble gasped and snapped upright. The tangle of blankets wrapped over his limbs came with him, hanging from his shoulders like a shroud of hot, dead butterfly wings.
                    Momentary panic onset in the few seconds just after waking up. Rumble jerked his head back and forth in an attempt to ascertain where he was, and what had changed to reconcile the dream he'd been having a moment ago.
                    He was at home, in his bedroom.
                    Rumble sighed.
                    On the bright side, aside from the feeling that he'd just gone for a swim in a pool of sweat, Rumble felt a bit better. The internal ache like cockroaches under his skin had mellowed – though, it felt like it might just be a momentary abatement, like the return of cohesion as an urge to vomit disappeared before your stomach abruptly told you it was time to be emptied.
                    Rumble steadied himself half-upright and tried to shake the cobwebs out of his head.
                    His blankets were a mess, poking up in parts and forming a misshapen set of mountains over his body, spiking up and falling into valleys haphazardly. Rumble grabbed a clump and threw them sideways off the bed. The mass of the fallen blob dragged the rest of the blankets with it, sliding over Rumble's body and landing on the floor. The way the material grazed against his skin made Rumble shiver - and as the last tail of the blankets descended, skirting between his legs, Rumble gasped as his body jumped.
                    Was that...?
                    He'd never seen it like that before.
                    Was that part of how sick he was feeling?
                    With little regard for what might potentially be an illness-inflamed appendage, Rumble prodded at the thing between his legs with his right hoof.
                    "Ah!"
                    The shout bounced off the bedroom walls. Luckily, there was nopony else to hear it.
                    Wow. That felt good.
                    It was a strange sort of good; like someone was tickling him in a way that took all the agonizing discomfort of uncontrollable laughter and condensed into a warm, happy, sort of desperate feeling. It felt almost a little too good; a sort of burning, worrying good.
                    Of course, Rumble prodded again with a little less caution this time.
                    The moment his hoof touched the spotted skin standing up between his hind legs, the engorged length of flesh twitched. Involuntarily, Rumble's eyes closed, and he let out a soft groan.
                    Woah.
                    Well, this was a growth of some kind... he wondered if Zecora had misinterpreted exactly what he'd meant.
                    The feeling of tingling along his skin was worrying. As much as the waggling length bobbing at the end of his body seemed inviting, Rumble felt a subconscious suggestion in the back of his head keeping him from continued poking.
                    What time was it?
                    The clock at his bedside table clicked in answer. It took longer than normal to hold the hands still in his mind to read the time.
                    Almost two thirty.
                    Rumble suddenly felt very thirsty. He managed to pull himself up and out of bed with the thing between his legs bobbing perilously along the way. It hung down like an arm reaching toward the ground, and when it grazed his leg, Rumble felt his spine twitch.
                    He wasn't stupid. The mechanics of sexual biology were something that was at least covered in brief in school, even if it had just been a very short, awkward seminar by Cheerilee, blushing the whole time as she explained the differences between colts and fillies. Rumble had felt annoyed at the gaggles of giggling foals around him as the picture examples were presented – he didn't find any of it funny: just boring.
                    This was certainly far from boring.
                    Rumble turned on the sink with his teeth and held his face under the cold water, collecting a decent set of condensation before pulling his head out of the miniature waterfall. The cold water made his skin feel less hot, but the warmth emanating from lower down persisted.
                    A colt's... penis... Rumble forced himself to think the word, finding it a mixture between crass and titillating – it wasn't supposed to become... big... unless.... well, ever at his age. Cheerilee had said that when the class was older, they might start to experience feelings and sensations throughout their bodies that they wouldn't understand, and those meant they were growing up. And there were signs for both sexes that seemed to carry a regard of societal restraint. Male's became... engorged... when they were excited by a female, and females... something about a gesture? Tails, or... their eyes... winking? Rumble was fuzzy on the details.
                    Either way, there were no girls around. Except–
                    The memory of Zecora in Rumble's head was much more focused in his head than it had seemed at the time. He'd caught glimpses of everything around the tribal kitchen, ingredients and procedures – but now, he could only think about the one aspect that had followed home and into his dreams.
                    Zecora's... behind. It was almost hypnotizing. Round, curvy – it looked soft even from a distance. And when Rumble thought about how he had stood behind the zebra watching her bob and shake her rear only inches from his face…
                    Rumble gave a short gasp as he realized his unexplained erection had grown even harder as he fantasized. The disconcertingly lengthy organ he still didn't feel belonged to him had straightened out completely and was now pressing against his stomach.
                    And his stomach... it felt tight. Like he had eaten too much and was ready to burst.
                    There was that feeling again. Of his skin crawling over his own bones, aching to escape and fall away.
                    Despite the rigid member underneath him, Rumble's legs gave way in the height of his discomfort, and he fell to the bathroom floor, the cool tile chilling against the increasing heat of his own body temperature.
                    Had there been something wrong with that potion?
                    The sound of a door slamming jolted Rumble out of his painful self-occupation. It was only mid-afternoon, last time he checked. Thunderlane shouldn't be getting home until–
                    "Rumble? Are you here?"
                    The voice that carried up the stairs was shriller than it had any right to be, but it was still gentle and feminine enough for Rumble to place in an instant.
                    "He's probably still sleeping upstairs, silly," the first voice’s counter answered. The two voices were very similar, with only a minor distinction in intonation setting them apart. The shouted question felt spikier, and more insistent and tomboyish, where the response felt just a tiny bit softer, fluffier, and more gentle.
                    "Well, we should probably go up and see how he's doing then," Cloudchaser said.
                    Rumble could hear the pair's hoof steps on the stairs.
                    He considered panicking aloud, but decided his attention was likely better directed elsewhere.
                    If he crawled into bed they might not see it. Even if they did see it, did he owe them an explanation? They might just be curious why a colt was sporting such a big...
                    Rumble considered the shower. The steps up the stairs were moving slowly.
                    With a yank on the wall-dial, a freezing cold spray of water began to cascade down from the shower head. Moving too fast to give himself time to think, Rumble flapped his wings and jumped into the shower, clenching his teeth in shock as the icy liquid coated his skin.
                    When it hit his erection, Rumble wished he could bite through his own tongue.
                    The spotted length, for its part, bobbed irreverently in the stream. It gave no sign of going down.
                    Rumble could hear the flattening of the hoof steps as they reached the upstairs hallway.
                    No more time.
                    Rumble shoved the dial into the wall and ceased the flow of water. He allowed himself a single shake to dry off, grimacing as his penis slapped absurdly against the side of his leg. He flapped his wings and flew from the shower without stopping, throwing his bathroom door closed behind him and landing in the bed with a creak of his bedsprings. Unconcerned with untangling the bed sheets, Rumble grabbed the nearest clump of blankets and threw them over himself, turned onto his side, and closed his eyes.
                    His bedroom door parted seconds later.
                    "Hey Rumble, are you in here?"
                    "It's his bedroom, where else would he be?"
                    "Quiet, he might still be sleeping!"
                    Even with his eyes closed, Rumble could separate the voices. Flitter. Cloudchaser. He could picture them in his mind's eye, swishy silver hair and delicate pink bow making their way into his bedroom.
                    He held back a groan as he felt himself twitch against the blanket.
                    "Rumble? Are you awake?"
                    Flitter had mistaken his groan for one of ill discomfort. To be fair, Rumble certainly felt uncomfortable. Even with the nagging insistence of his brand-new adolescent growth-spurt, Rumble still felt like his entire body had been wrung through a furnace or washing board. Maybe both. And his bones ached too, like he'd been in an accident in his sleep. The dreams were vivid, but not that vivid, and he couldn't remember doing anything other than staring at Zecora's ass anyway.
                    Twitch.
                    "Come on big guy, rise and shine. Your brother asked to come by and see how you're doing."
                    "Mnuh..."
                    Rumble didn't have to feign the lack of words – even if he was able to assemble some sort of coherence, the combination of precipitous sexual tension coursing through his body for the first time, alongside the aching cross between what felt like illness and body-dysphoria was enough to rob him of any words that sprung immediately to mind.
                    "Aw, Rumble, are you okay?"
                    There was a definite difference between the two pegasi. They blended together in a crowd, certainly, but given the situation their personalities were staunchly unique. Flitter, for example, was the one to let her voice dip in sympathy of an injured colt – Cloudchaser was probably groaning in her own head about how she'd been roped into checking up on a sick baby for a friend.
                    Rumble opened his eyes. Flitter smiled at him from only several inches away.
                    Twitch.
                    Rumble groaned and hunched himself together. The feeling of the blanket against the head of his engorged member felt far more sensuous than it had any right to, and the curl was the only way Rumble had been able to keep himself quiet.
                    Flitter's eyes widened at what appeared to be a display of all-consuming illness.
                    "Ohmigosh! Hun, do you need me to take you to the hospital?"
                    Her hoof. Her hoof on his back. It was so gentle and soft. It seemed to ease away the tension underneath his skin.
                    Rumble collected himself as he kept crouched, trying desperately to hide the organ so eager to tent itself under a likely patch of blankets.
                    "No... no, I'm fine. Stomach just hurts a little."
                    Rumble managed a half-heart smile which Flitter met with more concern.
                    Her eyes were so big and pretty... and her hair was soft, and slender, just like the rest of her body.
                    Please no twitching...
                    "Rumble's tough, he doesn't need to rush off to see the nurse over a stomach flu. Do you, guy?" Cloudchaser asked.
                    Flitter glared at her sister for making light of the situation, but Rumble was fairly confident it was his best out. At least maybe he could get the pair out of the house so he could calm down and sleep off the rest of whatever feeling was coursing through his body.
                    "No... like I said, I'm fine. Just probably need more rest."
                    "Do you want us to leave and let you get back to sleep?" Flitter asked, rubbing her hoof up and down Rumble's back.
                    Yes, said Rumble in his head. Please leave so I can get rid of this thing between my legs and go back to sleep. And when I wake up tomorrow, all of this will have been an awful dream.
                    Dream...
                    Curves. Bouncing.
                    'I want to grow up.'
                    He'd grown up in one regard.
                    "No," Rumble blurted, turning his head to face the twins.
                    Flitter met him with a smile. As much as her sister might be annoyed at the obligation, Flitter relished the opportunity to take care of such a cute little colt. Besides which, Cloudchaser might grumble, but both pegasi liked Rumble. They spent enough time around his brother to know he was going to grow up into a handsome lady killing stallion, which meant they should take advantage of his innocence and cuteness while it was still around.
                    "I mean... I'm feeling a bit better, but just lying in bed all day is really crummy. Could you guys maybe just stay for a bit and keep me company?"
                    Against the cynical budding adult-hood in his own conscience, Rumble allowed himself a perfect set of puppy-dog eyes.
                    Flitter melted, and even Cloudchaser couldn't hold back a visual 'aw' with an earnest grin.
                    "Of course! Did you want us to get you anything? Water, or soup maybe?"
                    Rumble's head was spinning. Despite everything since awaking – all the sensations that had left him feeling like his head was working separately from his body – Rumble felt oddly calm all of a sudden. The quelling electricity underneath his skin that had brought the real drop to the pit of his stomach had vanished, eased away by the presence of the two delicate winged beauties currently standing in his bedroom.
                    He wanted them to stay. And for once, for reasons he couldn't describe, he felt more capable of convincing them of his worth than ever.
                   "I'd really like some water... but I think I can manage to get up for it myself. I really just need to get out of this bed... it feels really gross after lying in it all day."
                    "Are you sure? We'd be happy to fetch you something to drink, or get you some new blankets," Flitter offered.
                    Cloudchaser shot her a sideways glare, as if to say 'speak for yourself' – but Flitter remained unflinchingly doting on the 'sick' colt in front of her.
                    "Well, can you maybe go downstairs and get me a glass, and I can come down and sit on the couch for a while?"
                    "Sure!"
                    Flitter grabbed her sister by the foreleg and pulled her towards the door, a gesture that earned an eye-roll and sigh from Cloudchaser. She shot a quick grin to Rumble as if there was some joke that only the two of them were aware of, before being dragged downstairs.
                    With the girls gone, Rumble tried desperately to will himself into a somewhat normal state.
                    His skin still felt like eraser outsides stretched over a swarm of insects... but there were girls waiting for him downstairs.
            
        
 
                    Eventually, Rumble's excitement subsided. His steps felt electric against the carpet as he shakily made his way across the bedroom and out into the hall. His skin was still damp from a combination of water and sweat, and every other second his stomach threatened to escape from his mouth through his esophagus... but he wanted to go downstairs. He wanted to have water with Flitter and Cloudchaser, just like his brother did.
                    The guard-rail on the stairs proved an essential companion on the way down. Rumble's legs seemed to be changing length as he used them, missing easy steps and reach too far down on others.
                    As Rumble reached the bottom of the stairs leading to the kitchen, Flitter ran to him immediately, her eyes overbearing with sympathy. She reached out a hoof to help him forward and succeeded in guiding him inside the kitchen proper before Rumble waved her off.
                    The inside of Rumble's house had always outshone the outside veneer. His brother spared no expense when it came to extravagant interior decorating, and so the kitchen was replete with a set of marble countertops and the latest and greatest in food-cooling technology. The room as a whole was far bigger than it needed to be – but for once, Rumble didn't feel quite so dwarfed next to the giant counter island he was standing next to. Once he was sure he had his footing on the slippery surface underneath, he took the time to reassure the pegasus at his side.
                    "I'm okay, just a little woozy. Would you be able to get me a drink?"
                    "Sure! Do you want water, or apple-juice?" Flitter asked cheerfully.
                    Apple juice?
                    "I'm not a kid y'know."
                    Flitter giggled, extended a hoof and rubbed Rumble on top of his head.
                    "Of course you're not... I can see how much you're growing,” she went on with an edge of potential sarcasm. As she spoke, Flitter ran her hoof down Rumble's mane, well-styled and slick on any other day but haphazard at the moment. Her touch lingered on the back of Rumble's neck for a moment before it reached his wings, and Flitter ran her caress over the feathers like she was petting a cat.
                    "Hmmm... actually, your wings are looking pretty... well-developed. Have you been doing exercises?"
                    Words spun in Rumble's head as he felt what had started out as a condescending head-rub turn into a sort of impromptu massage on his back. He considered his response. But the way Flitter had spoken... had he been growing? He'd just felt like he was going to throw up all morning, and hadn't even bothered to check to see if the potion had worked at all.
                    "Um... kinda."
                    Rumble noticed; Flitter was blushing just a bit on the sides of her cheeks, and her wings were flared out ever so slight. Her rubbing had become a little firmer, languishing over each individual feather on Rumble's back. she was right, his wings did feel bigger. Like they were too big for his normal frame: but right now, they fit.
                    "They're really nice and strong..." Flitter murmured, staring at nothing in particular as she stroked. Rumble felt a tingle go through his body, and a stirring between his legs that reminded him of the way he'd felt upstairs a few moments ago–
                    "Hey, Rumble! Are you feeling any better?" Cloudchaser shouted from the nearby doorway as though she hadn't seen Rumble just a few minutes ago.
                    Rumble turned his head simply, but he felt Flitter jump a bit at her sister's voice and withdraw her hoof faster than seemed necessary.
                    "He looks like he's doing okay. I was just, uh, feeling his temperature. It seems alright." The remnants of red on Flitter's cheeks took their time in clearing away, but if Cloudchaser noticed, she didn't draw attention. Instead, she turned her head to Rumble, waiting for his summary.
                    "Uh... yeah, actually. Moving around instead of lying in bed has already got me feeling less like a zombie."
                    Was his voice different? It felt... off. Deeper, maybe.
                    "Well, that's good news. Did you want us to hang around for a bit and keep an eye on you? Your brother knows we don't have a problem babysitting."
                    That word…
                    "No 'babysitting' please, but if you guys could keep me company and make sure I don't... y'know, ralph everywhere, that'd be cool."
                    Flitter cringed at the use of the word 'ralph', but Cloudchaser beamed widely at the delightful onomatopoeia.
                    "Alright, we'll help you out if you pull a technicolor yawn. Won't we Flitter?"
                    Flitter was blushing for completely unrelated reasons at this point.
                    "Please... could you not use those words?"
                    "Right, sorry. If Rumble eats lunch in reverse, we'll do clean up, right?"
                    "Cloudchaser!"
                    Cloudchaser's silver mane shone as she roared her head back and laughed.
                    "Alright, that's enough. What would you like to do while you're up, Rumble? Do you want to play a board game?"
                    It might have been the use of the phrase 'technicolor yawn' (as amusing as he'd found it), but Rumble was feeling a rumbling in his stomach again. Against his body's biological urges, however, he found a stronger one in the back of his head to avoid embarrassing himself in front of the twins.
                    "Let's, uh... can we watch a movie? There's a bunch in the living room, if you guys want to go pick one out."
                    "Okay. Are you alright to get into the other room by yourself?" Flitter asked, flapping her wings and lifting off the ground in her sister's direction.
                    "Yeah, I just need a minute. I'll be there in a bit."
                    The twins cleared the doorway and left in search of a palatable title – Thunderlane was known for his movie collection, meaning the only difficulty would be the debate between Flitter's choice in romantic comedies versus Cloudchaser's love of explosions.
                    The moment he had the room to himself Rumble leaned toward the nearby counter and braced himself with his foreleg. The leaned over posture was fully conducive to a potential upchuck – but as much as his stomach threatened, Rumble couldn't feel the delivery.
                    Instead, he felt... strange.
                    Just strange. It was a sensation without proper appropriation. His wings... 'hurt' wasn't the right word. They felt stretched. His feathers were ruffling into themselves, and then correcting as soon as they had changed. And the rest of his body... his legs felt strange too. Like they were pushing the ground further away.
                    Rumble's stomach gurgled as he closed his eyes and leaned his forehead onto his leg. The cold sweat on his brow yielded a strange sensation against his burning hot skin.
                    Obviously, his health was a matter for immediate concern, but his brain was reminding him constantly that there were two cute pegasi waiting for him in the other room.
                    Rumble lifted his head and opened his eyes. The counter-top seemed further away.
                    "Are you doing okay in there champ?" Cloudchaser's voice carried out of the living room, sounding more concerned than impatient.
                    "Yeah, I'll–"
                    Rumble cut himself off mid-sentence. Did he have a frog in his throat? His voice sounded weird.
                    "–I'll be there in a minute," he continued, rubbing a hoof across his forehead. The sweat had at least subsided a bit.
                    Rumble grabbed the glass of water resting on the counter and downed it in one gulp. The cool liquid seemed to quell his stomach's grumbling for a minute.
                    He needed to keep it together now, for movie time.
 
 
                    "We're watching 'Wind Beneath Her Wings'," said Flitter by way of a greeting, holding the movie-case aloft triumphantly. Behind her back, Cloudchaser made a gagging face with her tongue extended.
                    "Uh... okay? Is that a good one?"
                    "It is! It's the story of a pegasus and a unicorn who fall in love, and how their relationship blossoms through their differences and hardships–"
                    "In other words, barf," Cloudchaser interjected.
                    "No barf!”
                    "Right, sorry." Cloudchaser's expression said otherwise, but it was enough to calm the start of another sisterly debate.
                    Rumble sidled over to the living room couch with some trepidation – the ground underneath his hooves felt a bit unstable, like it was lurching out from underneath his center of gravity every other second. The living room was just as big as the kitchen adjacent, if not bigger: red carpeting and shelves lined with games and movies were the furnishings instead of a gargantuan refrigerator.
                    Both pegasus twins stared at him as he made his way across the room, and he found himself sweating with the worry that his body was threatening to topple his chances at an afternoon of movie viewing with the pair.
                    "Woah, Rumble, have you been working out little buddy? You look totally ripped!" Cloudchaser asked, leaning over the arm of the couch as Rumble approached. Rumble took pause at the praise, and gave the front of his body that he could see a quick once over.
                    "I do?"
                    "Yeah, man! You look like you could bench press Flitter if you wanted to!" Cloudchaser giggled and avoided a swipe of admonishment from her sister. When her dodge finished, she locked her eyes on Rumble again – and, though she might not have noticed it herself, Rumble caught the subtlest lip bite as the stare went on.
                    "Well... I mean, I have been getting a bit more exercise, and stuff," Rumble lied. He didn't feel any 'buffer', but he did feel different. All of a sudden, different. The itch under his skin had subsided a bit, and it was still there in the background, but now it was superseded by the sensation that every part of him was just a little bit extra. Longer, bigger? Just, more. And still shifting in a way he couldn't quite pin down.
                    Cloudchaser's stare felt nice.
                    "Can I start the movie?" Flitter asked, poising herself at the entertainment unit. Thunderlane had spared no expense in exorbitant extravagances for the purpose of movie viewing, so the giant television that held the center of the room was big enough to dwarf any of the room’s three occupants.
                    Rumble nodded, and Flitter slid the disc into the tray where it settled with a click.
                    "Come sit down, man. You should get off your hooves if you're still feeling sick."
                    'Man'. That from 'little buddy'. Rumble hid a smile and made his way over to the couch. There was room on Flitter's side–
                    "Hey, make room for Rumble, sis! He's sick, he shouldn't have to walk around any more than necessary," Cloudchaser admonished, and shoved her sister down to the other end of the couch, making a perfect Rumble sized spot right in the middle of the couch.
                    It wasn't like Cloudchaser to be so nurturing – as a result of the unprecedented concern Flitter only huffed in a mildly irritated fashion when she was shoved to the far end of the sofa. She sloughed off the minor offense almost instantly, and patted the space next to her with her hoof.
                    "I'm sorry, Rumble. Please, come get comfortable."
                    Flitter's cheeks were still a bit red, for some reason.
                    As Rumble made his way to the middle of the couch, he felt something brush up against his side. He turned his head to find Cloudchaser's forelegs on one of his wings – it did look a bit bigger, now that he took the time to notice it.
                    "Uh, sorry big guy. Your wings are just, uh, kinda buffed out... I thought I was out of the way, but I guess not."
                    Rumble nodded and took his spot between the two sisters. As the last of his feathers brushed across Cloudchaser's outstretched leg, he swore he felt her move along with him for a moment, prolonging the touch for a few seconds.
                    The leather of the couch squeaked as Rumble took his seat. Almost a whole couch cushion – more than he could ever remember taking up before. His body sunk nicely into the well-constructed upholstery.
                    Despite the sizeable real-estate on either end of the couch, Rumble felt bodies press against both sides of him.
                    "Sorry, Rumble, is it too crowded for you?" Flitter asked. Her eyelashes fluttered as she spoke, and the scent of her hair-conditioner wafted under Rumble's nose with a poke from her pink bow.
                    "No, it's okay."
                    The opening credits of the movie began to roll across the television. Rumble felt the pressure of both bodies wiggle just a little bit closer.
                    Cloudchaser's was especially warm. It almost burned against his skin.
                    "Blech, I hate these stupid lovey-dovey movies," Cloudchaser lamented. In the course of speaking she adjusted her body on the couch, muffling the creak of the shifting cushions with her speech. Rumble felt the tuft of Cloudchaser's wings against his own, the two sets of feathers brushing against each other. Cloudchaser's left front hoof was on the side of his stomach.
                    "Oh, shush. It's a beautiful movie... and there's a lot to learn about romance in a film like this, even for older ponies."
                    Flitter flapped one of her wings when she spoke, and the gust of air on Rumble's skin reminded how hot he felt.
                    The hoof on Rumble's side felt mostly nice. It was moving in soft circles, tracing against his fur and bringing a tingling along with it.
                    But it also brought to light how much his stomach hurt. It seemed to be deciding to invert itself again, and this time Rumble's organs felt in danger of periphery damage.
                    "Uh, can you guys excuse me for a second? I'll be right back."
                    Without waiting for a response Rumble jumped up from the couch, and only just held himself back from running out of the living room. The twins shared a glance as he left, but Cloudchaser's eyes hung on Rumble as he exited. Again, her teeth traced over her bottom lip.
 
 

                    Rumble leaned over the downstairs bathroom sink and splashed a deluge of cold water over his face. It helped, a bit. His skin still felt like it was on fire, and now his stomach was filled with accompanying lava.
                    Was he sick? He still couldn't be sure.
                    A sudden shift in his stomach made Rumble lurch and gag, and he braced himself for the forcible removal of his stomach's contents into the nearby toilet bowl.
                    Instead, the feeling inverted itself. Rumble's body internalized its desire to explode, and the resultant impact was a feeling like every inch of his skin was escaping. Rumble held back a scream of panicked discomfort only by virtue of the fact that his mouth felt like it was shifting too.
                    The cold marble of the toilet was suddenly on his chest. He grimaced with pain as one of his hoofs bashed abruptly into the nearby bathtub. And his wings brushed the shower curtain, causing the sometimes horrible sometimes wonderful noise of shifting plastic.
                    Rumble managed to restrain another gag before the force of his body's discomfort threw him to the floor. The perpetual shifting of what felt like every organ and inner working of his skeleton was beyond disconcerting – throwing up would have felt like a relief. Instead, Rumble felt stretched, and sort of bloated.
                    The shifting went on. Rumble wished he could muster the strength to right himself, but every time he tried to move his limbs cried out at him in protest, and they did so in a voice that was very unfamiliar. The floor felt much bigger all of a sudden, or maybe there was just more of it. Rumble could sense an entire body's worth of tile that encompassed a much larger section by volume than it ever had.
                    As far as he could define it, Rumble was in a sort of blissful agony. His skin was stretching. His wings were blooming on his back like demonic flowers.
                    And, against the cold caress of the bathroom tile, he felt something else growing much larger as well.
                    The universe did at last have some mercy, or perhaps his body in general. The feeling of rubbery expansion and compression died down, and Rumble caught his breath, exhausted purely from his body running its own internal marathon. It took him a minute or two to collect himself.
                    As he steeled his hooves to lift himself off the ground, Rumble heard a knock at the bathroom door.
                    "Rumble? Are you okay in there? We paused the movie, but you've been gone for fifteen minutes."
                    Flitter's voice... it sounded musical. Rumble pictured the pegasus attached to it – slim and tiny and fitted with that adorable bow on her head. Through whatever trickery of his internal perspective, Flitter suddenly seemed in Rumble's mind’s eye perfectly delicate and feminine; enough to rouse him from the floor, and rouse something else just a bit at the same time.
                    "I'm okay, just cleaning up."
                    Rumble's voice surprised him with its depth. It apparently surprised Flitter as well, given the gasp on the other side of the door.
                    "You don't need any help? You sound..."
                    "I'm fine. I'll be out in a second, okay?" Rumble pulled himself up as he spoke, narrowly avoiding a crash into the sink with one of his inadvertently outstretched wings.
                    "Okay... just don't keep us waiting any longer, okay?" Flitter requested with a hint of a giggle. Rumble waited until he heard the patter of hooves down the hall before he breathed a sigh of relief.
                    Standing in front of the sink, he hazarded a look at the mirror.
                    He had to brace himself on the counter to keep from returning to the floor.
                    Rumble wasn't sure if he was staring at himself or his brother from the reflection in front of him. Well... it had to be him for several reasons, he told himself. For one, as buff as his brother was, he'd never had muscles like that. And... well, the colours were all wrong. And the hair.
                   Rumble raised a hoof to his mane and ran it through the slick length of black, whisking it back in a suave kind of swirl. His lowered his hoof to eye level and traced his gaze along the limb it was attached to.
                    Rumble was very confident that, in excess of Cloudchaser's suggestion, he could bench-press either pegasus – or both, if he wanted to. His chest felt like a compressed barrel housing two sturdy lengths of plywood on front and back... and his wings felt like they could lift him through the roof and into the sky with a single flap.
                    And... elsewhere...
                    Rumble wasn't about to look, given the awkward logistics, but he could feel it slap against his leg when he moved. And, apart from the picture of a bent over Flitter with her taut little rear walking the hall, Rumble didn't have much to go on at the moment. Though, that though might suffice if given enough focus.
                    Taking one long, drawn out breath, Rumble fumbled with the doorknob for a minute after realizing it was now at a significantly different relative height, and let himself out of the bathroom, heading back to the living room.
