Thicker Than Water
Thicker Than Water
By Sovandar
This D&D-inspired story contains sexual scenes between a transforming man and a much smaller but very adult male reptile. If you're young enough that society in general thinks you're all sweet and innocent and angelically pure, then you shouldn't read the following, even if society's wrong in your case.
This story was written some years ago; but recently, I dusted it off, changed a few bits around, and as an added bonus had it turned into a 4-page comic by the awesome Sakita Star - see it at http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4032010.
No copying without permission lest the wrath of the great god Copyrictus strike you down, all characters are fictional, and no resemblances are intended.
* * *
Edgar Abram looked in wonder at the scroll before him, the words of power delicately etched out against a backdrop of immensely complex arcane formulae, the spell it held just waiting - no, begging - to be let free. When he'd asked for the spell codex, he'd expected jottings and directions on how to work the spell, not a ready-prepared magic scroll, ripe for casting almost at once.
"This seems complex for mere kobold mages", he said, flatly, taking care not to betray his excitement. It would be bad for his coin-purse if the merchant knew how much he wanted this spell.
Corayn the kobold - the merchant in question - bared his teeth in a confident and knowing smile. "You'll be surprised. We kobolds are often underestimated, good magus. This spell - as you see - is not beyond the greatest of my clan's sorcerers. Indeed, it helped enhance the powers of many of them."
Edgar nodded. He'd had a grand stroke of luck, running into the group of kobolds bringing goods to the market for sale; Edgar was so rarely at the market, and apparently, they came only once every half-year. He'd asked them on an impulse about their clan's magical prowess, and they seemed eager to boast of it once they overcame their initial suspicions. He'd given them a slip of parchment bearing directions to the small lodging he kept in a village some distance to the north, and promised great wealth to the first kobold to bring him a codex of a particular spell that they'd boasted of.
Edgar had heard of this magic in his master Thaddeus' library; a spell that was apparently used by some of the larger kobold enclaves, which could awaken dormant sorcerous powers in beings of draconic descent. The books Edgar had read suggested that, since kobolds were the least amongst dragon-kin - and on occasion, laughably so - that if used on those with a stronger draconic bloodline, it might enhance sorcery to an even greater degree. Perhaps enough to even be a match for a true dragon's magic; there was even an anecdote of a half-dragon - a bastard cross-breed between human and dragon - who had used it to burn away her human side altogether, and become a full-blooded dragon complete with the immense powers they possessed.
Edgar could achieve great things; he had known that all his life, but it wasn't until his fifteenth birthday that he began to understand that the fire he could *feel* burning in his blood was the blessing of sorcery, not some disease or curse. He had long known that his great-great grandfather had been a mighty silver dragon, a reclusive being that had not been seen in generations; it seemed that a fraction of that dragon's power had passed to him, and Edgar began to want more.
Hence, he was apprenticed to a wizard, Thaddeus, a mediocre mage whose seventy-seven years encompassed no deeds of note, nor any attempt to scale the heights of power. Apprenticeship under this ambitionless man did not suit Edgar, not one bit; he resented the way that Thaddeus' slow, ponderous lessons held him back more than helped him to advance, and he was sure he detected the raw edge of resentment in Thaddeus' tutelage, recently. He was already very nearly a better mage than Thaddeus himself, and when he'd had half a century of practice, he'd be better than Thaddeus could ever have been.
But this spell, this stroke of luck, could empower him beyond his wildest dreams. With his powers at last surpassing Thaddeus' meagre ones, he could tell the old man exactly what he thought of him, and just walk out, never looking back. The world would be his oyster; his powers, all but unmatched - and all it took was this one short-sighted, greedy, foolhardy kobold, who was still awaiting his payment; a hefty purse of gold, large enough to contain many thousands of gold sovereigns.
"Magus, might I take my payment now?" asked Corayn.
Edgar forced a smile, trying to make it seem friendly rather than malicious. "I must see if the spell functions as intended, first. You understand."
The kobold looked quizzical, a faint hint of unease permeating his nervous but businesslike façade. "I'm not sure I follow, Magus." He laughed, humourlessly. "I do hope you are not accusing me of something!"
Edgar's expression darkened with his impatience. "I've heard tales of kobold cheats and scoundrels. You will have your payment once I am certain the spell works."
The kobold looked taken aback; his yellowish-brown scaled face darkened as he flushed in embarrassment - but the shocked and aghast expression still seemed forced somehow, maybe even rehearsed, to Edgar's careful eye. The creature was probably expecting something like this.
"Well, *good* sir magus", Corayn said slowly, putting heavy emphasis on the 'good', "since you have both my money and my scroll, I suppose I can only wait." Corayn's stare had a steely edge, and there was a disquieting glint in his eye that almost gave Edgar pause - almost. If the scroll worked, the kobold would be no match for him in the event that Corayn was a sore loser; and if it didn't, Edgar would be well within his rights to withhold payment anyway.
Edgar took a final look over the scroll, trying one last time - in vain - to decipher the magic completely. Transmutation, he sensed, as expected; something in the formula that would react, strongly, with dragon's blood; something else that would assist in making magic flow freely. It was all as he'd expected, but far more complex than he'd dared imagine, and it was beyond his abilities to understand it all.
But, it was time to begin. Edgar concentrated, and began the incantations as the scroll instructed, using his magic carefully, cautiously, to unbind the seals that held the spell's power in check, that kept it locked in parchment.
The ritual took mere seconds before the spell suddenly burst forth with a ferocity that took Edgar by surprise. He felt purest magic rush through him, a shock like being hit with a wave of icy water; an instant before a burning sensation of fire in his veins almost brought him to his knees.
Then, in the merest of moments, it was gone. Edgar felt, deep down, that it had worked; his powers felt somehow concentrated, more focused. He took a deep breath, exhilarated, feeling his magic shift into a new configuration.
"Ahem", said Corayn, coughing to remind Edgar of his presence. "Now that you have ascertained its function to your satisfaction, magus..."
Edgar grinned, letting a little of the malice show this time. "Of course. I believe I said this bag's contents would be yours..." so saying, he picked up the bulging coin purse he'd placed carefully on the mantelpiece of the small workshop, out of the kobold's reach, and threw it to the ground at Corayn's feet.
The bag's string was not tied sufficient to prevent the coins from spilling, and Edgar watched Corayn's inscrutable face with wry amusement as the kobold realised that the bag had only a thin layer of golden sovereigns at its head, with the remainder of its weight being copper coins and gravel from the path outside.
There was a long pause, Corayn's jaw grinding back and forth with irritation, before he spoke. "You cheated me", he said, flatly, without a hint of surprise.
"It's the purse and all contents, as you agreed earlier to accept." Edgar turned his nose up at the small creature. "If you're dissatisfied, I suggest you be more careful with your negotiations in future. Now be off with you, fool. I have work to be doing", taunted Edgar, venomously.
"Perhaps you should also be careful who you buy from, magus. We kobolds always get even, when we are wronged", replied Corayn, without emotion or emphasis.
Edgar took a menacing step forward, and swung his fist dangerously close to the kobold's muzzle, intending to startle rather than strike the two-and-a-half foot reptile. "I said, *leave*!" he shouted.
Corayn flinched as Edgar stepped toward him, then skittered several paces back as he lashed out, away from the aggressive man; but Edgar had already forgotten the kobold. As he had reached out his hand, he had noticed the back of it was different than it had been, only moments before.
Instead of the familiar fleshy tones, criss-crossed with blood-filled veins, and covered in pale hairs, scales stood instead. They were small, delicate, and leather-tan in colour. Even as Edgar watched, they spread, and he began to feel a strong, unpleasant prickling, tickling sensation as they advanced.
As he stared a long moment, the tingle started to make its presence known all over his body, and he watched in surprise as the short, blond hair on his head began to come loose, drifting down past his stupefied eyes.
He remembered the anecdote he'd read of, in Thaddeus' library, and realised that the spell had triggered a transformation in him: he was becoming a dragon, his dilute bloodline coming to the fore.
He laughed in sudden glee, the disquieting sensation of the change suddenly seeming so much less of an imposition. This was better than he could have hoped for!
There was a polished, silvered mirror by his alchemical apparatus; he usually used it for spells of scrying, to observe events at distant locations, but he used it now for the mundane purpose of simply examining his reflection.
His normally hazel-brown eyes had a definite yellow tinge to them, he noted, and the pupils were taller, narrower than usual; across his almost bald scalp, the tan scales were spreading.
A sudden uncomfortable sensation of constriction around his hips made him suddenly realise that he was still fully clothed; he feared his garments might even injure his changing body, if he did not remove them. He began to tug at his shirt, even as the prickling across much of his body began to intensify; not even his groin was spared the onslaught, and he tried to ignore the growing, almost painful discomfort which encompassed his most sensitive flesh.
Sloughing his shirt, he paused only a second to note that his nipples were rapidly fading into the flesh of his chest, before he wondered suddenly why the scales on his front were the same small, delicate ones on the rest of his body. He'd expected wide, flat scutes; but, he supposed, they would grow later. He then hastened to unbuckle his belt, reasoning that the sturdy leather would be the most potentially dangerous item on his person during the transformation.
With the belt buckle unfastened, his trousers fell unimpeded to the floor, causing him to notice that his toes, at some recent point, had sprouted small but sharp-looking black claws, and had pierced through the front of his shoes, ruining them. Crossly he started to kick them off; but, looking down the front of his body, he was startled to see that before his eyes, his undergarments were rapidly swelling into a tent, as the powerful tickling sensation across his penis began to provoke a physical reaction.
He spent several long, stupefied seconds looking down at himself, trying not to stare at the growing bulge of his inflating manhood, but somehow unable to look away completely; as his erection grew, the more sensitive it became, and the harder it was to ignore the intense and increasingly stimulating sensations emanating from it.
Startled at an unexpected feeling of motion at the back of his undergarments, followed by a sudden and bizarre feeling of friction coming from an organ he'd never had before, he reached down with a long-fingered, clawed hand to release the short length of growing tail from its confinement in cloth, trying to peer over his shoulder to see it.
Pulling the undergarments down slightly caused the fabric to rub over the tingling head of his cock, abruptly sending a shudder of momentary pleasure through him. With the added stimulus of his ongoing transformation, Edgar foggily realised, his changing penis had become suddenly much more sensitive than usual. Without thinking, he pulled the undergarments down over the erect organ, freeing it as well, and traced a freshly-clawed finger along its still-human length, shivering at the touch. He glanced up at the mirror as he did so, to see what he looked like now.
He felt sure for a moment that the mirror had grown, ever so slightly, but the thought was lost as he saw that the growing patches of scales had engulfed much of his body now; his eyes had become completely slitted, yellow, and reptilian; and his face had pushed out nearly two inches as a draconic muzzle began to form. The sensations from his crotch began to intensify even further as his penis began to change shape; the skin along its length becoming scaly and withdrawing slowly to form a slit at its base. A drop of precum appeared at the tip, which was visibly narrowing to a tapered point.
He had only a moment to notice this, though, before he saw and remembered with a shock, that he was not alone in the room; Corayn, the forgotten kobold, stood barely three feet behind him, eyes wide, watching Edgar's changes with intense fascination.
That would have been embarrassing enough; but what made it worse was that Corayn had partly disrobed, opening his shirt to reveal his scaly chest, and pulling his own trousers and undergarments down to his knees. What made it even worse than that was the way that one of Corayn's hands was caressing his own belly and chest as if he were imagining a lover, while the other hand worked languidly but firmly over the short, pointed length of Corayn's cock, protruding lewdly from a slit between his short legs, moist with glistening fluids.
Edgar stared for a long moment, stunned, before an urgent need for modesty assumed control of his actions, and he grabbed at his crotch with both hands, trying to block the kobold's view. The rough, freshly-scaled skin of his hands and arms scraped over the hypersensitive flesh of his cock, and he gasped suddenly at the power of the sensation. Suddenly not caring that Corayn was there watching, Edgar's motion morphed into grasping at his changing penis with both hands, squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing gently at it, even that slight motion feeling strong enough to make him dizzy with pleasure.
The sensation of fabric rustling broke his revelry a moment, and realised that his undergarments had just fallen from his body, too, leaving him completely naked. Removing his hands from his throbbing, dripping penis, he opened his eyes and looked down to confirm this - and was startled again when he saw that Corayn had moved around, and was standing in front of him, now completely naked, crouched down very slightly, and with his muzzle open wide, moving forward to replace Edgar's hands with his own.
Edgar hesitated a moment from the surprise, or he would have leapt back, out of the diminutive creature's reach; instead, he just had the time to wonder why Corayn needed to crouch down to reach his groin, since the kobold had only barely reached the top of Edgar's thigh when he first walked into the room, before Corayn's hand wrapped around his penis, and guided it immediately into the waiting muzzle.
It was, almost, a perfect fit; Edgar's reluctance vanished like mist in the morning sunlight as he felt the sudden, alien stimulation of a row of short and sharp teeth graze the length of his penis, and a warm, wet tongue wrapped around it like a ribbon on a candy-cane, the forked tip lapping at the precum that dribbled down its length. Edgar put both hands behind Corayn's head, trying to force him down further onto his cock.
Edgar nearly bent double with the sudden, shocking power of the oral stimulation, and caught sight of the mirror again; he gasped upon seeing his own, almost completely tan coloured hide, the growing length of the dragon-like muzzle, the extending whiplike tail behind him, and best of all, the contrasting yellowish hues of the naked kobold suckling eagerly at his crotch.
It finally dawned on Edgar that he had shrunk by at least a foot, and was still shrinking, even as he watched; Corayn was having to drop to his knees, continually adjusting his position, and Edgar could feel that more and more of his cock was fitting snugly into Corayn's enthusiastic muzzle.
The thought was banished as soon as it occurred to him. Some sorts of dragons are quite small, he rationalised; likewise, dragon musculature is hidden behind their thick, armoured scales, and isn't visible the way a strong human's would be, which explained why his broad-shouldered figure now looked lithe and thin. It didn't quite process, with that single distracted glance, that to an outside observer, he might now be described as a closer well-built, slightly deformed, very tall kobold, than to a dragon.
Edgar was not a complete stranger to sex, but it was not something he had the opportunity for often; combined with the multiplied sensitivity of his transforming body, it was only a matter of seconds while Corayn worked on his flesh before he felt his orgasm brewing rapidly. His testicles pulled up close to his body, and to his surprise, he felt them being pushed up, into his abdomen, becoming internal in the instant before the floodgates opened and Corayn's muzzle was filled with cum, without any warning.
Edgar gave a screech that managed simultaneously to sound like a moan of pleasure, a cry of pain, and a start of surprise and shock; his body shuddered for several seconds as, wide-eyed with the overwhelming intensity, he emptied himself down Corayn's throat.
As his orgasm began to fade, his legs suddenly cracked and crunched as the bones realigned to a digitigrade stance, and Edgar fell forward heavily, his cock flopping out of Corayn's surprised mouth as the weight of his body knocked Corayn onto his back, flat on the floor.
Edgar half-caught himself on his changed hands as he fell, but his body still landed astride Corayn's chest with enough force to knock the wind out of the smaller reptile, who could only lie there for a moment wheezing as Edgar's cock threw a last few gobs of cum over Corayn's head before beginning, gradually, to soften.
Edgar could still feel the intense tingle of the ongoing transformation shooting through him, and still felt high in the afterglow of a monstrous orgasm; but, he didn't feel satisfied, somehow.
He shifted his weight slightly, trying to get up, and the rough abrasion of Corayn's chest scales on the exposed underside of his tail, over the skin of his wet cock, and the unguarded anus, felt suddenly wonderful, enticing. Edgar's tail, displaying a mind of its own, lashed back and forth as if wagging, and caught itself on Corayn's dripping penis, very close to Edgar's backside.
Edgar had never even considered having sex with a man before, but he suddenly felt inspired with an urgent need for that organ, and eagerly he pushed himself back along Corayn's recovering body, feeling the dribbling tip of the kobold's cock scrape against his rear end.
He paused just a moment before he pushed back further, feeling that tip begin to spread his anus open, the tingling transformative sensation seeming to intensify all over his body. There was a moment of resistance before the weight of his body, still nearly half as large again as Corayn's, forced his sphincter to part, and he sat heavily on Corayn's groin as the kobold's dick hilted completely inside him.
There was only a momentary twinge of discomfort before pleasure coursed through Edgar, amplified by his transformation and somehow more intense than even Corayn's superlative muzzlejob had been. Edgar's half-soft penis throbbed again as it rushed back to full hardness, and Edgar felt triumphant as he heard Corayn moan in startled pleasure.
He kept still a moment, simply feeling the kobold lodged inside him; Edgar leaned forward and licked a thin rivulet of his own cum from Corayn's chin, before his longer, thinner arms pressed Corayn's head to his shrinking chest, revelling in the intimacy of the moment. He felt a pleasured twinge as the cock inside him seemed suddenly to grow - or rather, as he shrank further toward Corayn's size.
Corayn, evidently feeling something of a second wind, abruptly twisted his body, toppling Edgar onto the floor. Corayn's cock emerged from Edgar with a wet plop, and Edgar groaned in wordless disappointment as Corayn leapt to his feet.
Edgar was about to roll onto his stomach and get up, when Corayn loomed over him suddenly, seeming much bigger than a mere moment before, spreading Edgar's legs wide apart, and kneeling between them.
Edgar realised what Corayn was doing, and grinned happily as Corayn dove forward and started to rub his cock at Edgar's freshly transformed cloaca.
As Corayn pushed in, Edgar moaned in sudden delight; Corayn's cock felt much larger than it had only moments before, filling him completely, stretching him open to the point of pain but no further.
Edgar's new tail, still twitching and writhing of its own volition, snaked through Corayn's legs and wound itself around Corayn's own; Edgar revelled in the sudden, alien sense of closeness, and crossed his legs behind Corayn's back to try and pull him in, further, deeper.
Edgar felt the transformative tingling begin to fade, and he knew it was almost complete; he felt joyous, ecstatic, and threw his arms around Corayn, pulling their bare bodies together, feeling his trapped penis rubbed roughly between their bellies, almost weeping with how wonderful it was. Corayn's head twisted, and brought their muzzles together in a reptilian approximation of a kiss; Edgar kissed him back with heartfelt passion.
Edgar felt Corayn tense suddenly, a strangled cry rising from the kobold. Knowing what was coming, and feeling a similar feeling rising in his own crotch, he loosened his bear hug and instead grasped Corayn by one shoulder, while the other hand flew down to his own neglected cock, grasping at it.
He felt Corayn's cock twitch deep inside him, buck one, twice, and then felt a cascade of hot, fluid warmth enter him. The sensation was so fantastic, so erotic, he felt his own penis throb violently and start to twitch as his second orgasm welled up, even before his hand reached it.
He turned his head to the side and saw the scene in the mirror for a frozen instant; Corayn's yellowish body, subtly muscled and inordinately attractive to Edgar's lust-crazed mind, loomed over a slightly smaller male kobold with plainer, tan scales; Edgar knew it was him, and he could see his partner's cock still pistoning in and out of him, a small trickle of cum leaking from his no-longer-virgin tailhole, while Edgar himself arched his back, hand wrapped around his own protruding cock.
Only an instant the scene lasted, before Edgar exploded violently, a stream of cum hitting Corayn under the chin and dripping down onto Edgar's writhing, pleasure-stricken body; a second squirt, no less powerful, painting the tip of Edgar's own muzzle, and several smaller spurts making a wet mess on Edgar's chest as he huffed, riding the orgasm out to the bitter end.
As it began to trail off, it suddenly struck him; he'd just seen TWO kobolds in the mirror! He looked back, doing a double-take, and saw that he was not mistaken. Realisation hit him; he had not turned into a dragon. Corayn had tricked him, and now, Edgar, too, was a kobold. Worse, Edgar suddenly realised, he was lying here with a kobold - a male kobold, no less - atop him, happily taking him up the rear, while he lay back and enjoyed the thrill of it more than anything he cared to remember. Mind control - it had to be.
He pulled himself away from Corayn, feeling that juicy cock slide free from his well-used and slightly sore rear end, and tried to pretend it didn't feel good.
Sitting upright on the soiled remains of his discarded clothes, his own cum dripping from his body, he looked down at himself. "I'm... a... a kobold!" he said, stupefied, as if this might be a major revelation to Corayn by this point.
Corayn arched an eye ridge quizzically. "Yes, and a handsome one, too. You'll be a hit with the ladies... if you wouldn't prefer more of the same." Corayn gestured to his own body as he spoke, a lewd bare-toothed smile creeping across the stiff reptilian face.
"You tricked me, you bastard! This isn't what I wanted!" shot back Edgar, angrily.
"Now, now," Corayn admonished, "I said you'd be surprised. It's not like you even paid for the scroll, either - I warned you, kobolds *always* get even", smiled the kobold, victoriously.
"The spell was supposed to empower me with draconic blood!" Edgar said plaintively, sounding suddenly defeated.
Corayn arched an eyeridge. "Kobolds have dragon blood, you know."
"Come on, nobody takes that seriously!"
Corayn looked offended. "We kobolds do", he said, gesturing at Edgar and himself, reminding the former human of his new species. Then he shrugged, grinning again. "Maybe you should be more careful in your negotiations in future. Let the buyer beware, eh?"
"Is this what gets you going? Conning unsuspecting humans out of fortunes in gold, then using magic to trick them into sleeping with you?" Edgar asked, bitterly.
Corayn looked startled as the accusation hung in the air, stung genuinely for the first time. He paused for a long moment before replying. "The sex was a joint decision, as I recall; and, the money was going to be refunded after... well, all this. Fine, if you really want, I'll apologise for giving you the ride of a lifetime. Besides," Corayn continued, "you should have done your research better - or you'd have known who I work for. The spell you wanted is a myth; simply doesn't exist."
"What?!"
Corayn's expression turned serious. "You had the fortune - or misfortune - to ask a group from my clan, about this particular piece of magic. I work for your ancestor, you see, a certain dragon..." Edgar gasped. "... and when I mentioned to him about this shady human asking for powerful magic, he recognised your name and address, realised why you wanted it, and decided that you needed better motivation to finish your training. For your own good, you understand." Corayn threw Edgar a wink.
Edgar looked blank. "What?! Why? I'm damned good already, and how is *this*..." he gestured down at his new form, "supposed to motivate me to do anything other than curse his blasted hide?!"
Corayn sighed, wiping the cum from his chin onto Edgar's discarded shirt, and starting to put his own clothes back on. "In case you hadn't worked it out yet, this isn't temporary. It's permanent - until such time as you've learned enough to undo the spell yourself, or your master takes pity and does it for you. Until then, you're stuck like this."
Edgar was dumbstruck. How could his own family do this to him?
"You'll find that the spell is quite a nice piece of work, magically speaking." Corayn took a deep breath, and it sounded like he had rehearsed his little speech. "It diverts your own sorcerous power into maintaining it in perpetuity; your powers will be greatly diminished while it's in effect. You'll have to learn to do magic the hard way, the way that most of us have to. Then, when you know the basics, you'll be ready to master your blood-magic yourself, properly this time."
"This is... monstrous!" Edgar said through a clenched jaw, teeth grinding in his new muzzle.
Corayn, fully dressed, ignored the comment, and stood up. "Well, you have an awkward chat to look forward to when you next meet your master. I'd suggest being honest; your ancestor will be watching from time to time, to make sure you're not straying too far off the beaten track again." Corayn gave Edgar a fond but mildly disapproving look. "I'd get cleaned up before then, too. Believe me, it's hell to clean that stuff off your scales once it's dried."
Corayn turned, and was half-way to the door before Edgar spoke. "Wait!" he said. Corayn stopped. "If this was my ancestor's plan... why did he make the spell so I'd... you know..."
"Get 'excited'? Well, it was either have it be pleasurable or have it be painful. Do you think having your bones rearranged is quick and painless?" Corayn shrugged helplessly. "I don't think he intended it to be quite *that* pleasurable, though. You live and learn."
"But... no, that's nor right. Why did he dominate my mind to... make me have sex with you?" Edgar asked, starting to wipe the cum from his chest.
Corayn arched an eyeridge again. "Oh! I see what you meant. Well, the short answer is, he didn't."
"But he must..."
Corayn held up a hand to silence Edgar. "Sorry; the spell may have felt good, but the sex was still your idea; no charms, no compulsions, no mental domination. Those desires were all your own." Corayn regarded Edgar's disbelieving look. "Think about it; you know it was what you wanted, really. Sex wasn't part of the plan from my perspective - not initially, anyway." Corayn smiled a friendly smile for the first time. "But what a bonus that was! Look, I come by here every now and then, on trading missions; if you want, I'll stop by, and we can do it again sometime. I'd like that... I think you will, too, once you've gotten used to things, but I'll let you think about it. So long!"
With a short wave goodbye, Corayn strode out through the door, leaving Edgar still naked, blinking and blinded suddenly by the bright light of the sun, and wondering how in the world he was going to talk his way out of this one.