Rey Skywalker, Ben Solo and a very annoyed BB-8
Freaky Friday, Day 3 | Butler Hall | G
⚠ No, just BB-8's distrust of Ben
Rey bent down, scooping up Pilot to cradle against her chest, before turning towards the door of her newest living quarters. While BB-8 didn't have any objection to being delicately lowered down to the ground floor via the Force, Rey had come to understand that Pilot had more significant qualms on the matter and the only way she'd come to figure out how to easily take the dog down from the room was to either allow him to jump or to carry him. And given how this particular day they appeared to be higher up than she felt comfortable letting him jump? This meant she was carrying him down as she descended, while her droid companion waited patiently to be lowered down.
Once all three were properly on the ground floor, Rey let Pilot down and slipped her hands into her pockets. There was something faint, just at the edge of her senses, since she'd woke that morning. As though a faint whisper. With it being so early, she'd yet to tap fully into exploration of this sensation, though a generalized feeling of dread was brewing in the pit of her stomach.
Meanwhile, BB-8 zipped ahead of his companions. It was another new day and things had seemed calm this week. It'd been far too long since BB-8 could remember true calm. Sure, the week prior had allowed for moderate exploration across a vast new planet, but he spent most of it observing Rey from afar; watching as she tried to spend the week salvaging materials that had been strewn about since the destruction of Butler Hall that occurred the week prior. He hadn't taken much time to himself for his own interests. And while he hadn't come out and informed her yet? He was likely going to take this week to venture off and speak with his friends.
One of which he spotted now ahead.
Speeding up, leaving Rey and Pilot behind, he spun quickly towards Baymax. "Baymax!"
Ben didn't turn around because, well, he didn't think about himself being Baymax. Like, he knew it, but it hadn't really occurred to him that people would call him Baymax.
As it was, he was just thankful he'd managed to get out of his room. The entire movement as Baymax was impossible, and he felt as if he were walking clunky and slow. He knew, on a logical level, that his legs were simply shorter than he was used to, but that didn't mean that it was any easier, or that he was enjoying his movement any more. He was headed to the cafeteria, although he realized he didn't probably need to eat.
What was he even doing?
Ben stopped, and turned around, and then noticed Rey and Pilot and the droid. Oh shit.
He could just ignore them? That's what he'd do, he'd just ignore them and go back to the room…
Beebee came to a skidding halt in front of Ben and leaned backwards so he was able to peer up at the care robot. Rolling back and forth from side to side, he began to whirl, "Are you going to the clinic? I think we should take a census of the lollipops we have on hand. Do you have enough?"
Rey, meanwhile, glanced up and blinked. She could feel Ben's presence as clearly as she could any other day. As though he was right there in the same room. Except, if she were to fall back on her senses, she knew this not to be true. And yet...
Her eyes narrowed and through the connection, she tried to reach out, 'Ben?' She didn't even given the care robot a second look while working through this.
Great. Of course the little round droid with attitude would be friendly with the larger marshmallow AI. Ben should have realized this. He sighed as he realized that there really wasn't any way he was going to be able to just get away without them realizing what had happened.
He should have known better than to leave his room in the first place.
"I'm not going to the clinic." He hesitated, shifting his weight, and feeling very off balanced with it. Because it just didn't all feel right. "Because I'm not Baymax."
Beebee rolled back a couple feet, photoreceptor fixed on Ben, as though he was trying to process what had just been said to him. "What?" It hadn't quite dawned on Beebee what Ben was saying; despite having lived through three different universes where magic seemed to frequently cause sporadic body swaps.
Rey's attention, which had still been moving around the room as her confusion mounted, snapped to Ben almost as soon as the words had been spoken. She stared directly ahead at Ben now.
No.
Her hand came up to cover her mouth immediately but it wasn't quick enough to shield from view how she was pulling her lips in as an attempt to keep from laughing. "You...you look...like a balloon."
With her words, Beebee swirled around to look at his friend, as if he didn't understand. His dome moved back and forth between Rey and Ben in confusion. "Baymax isn't a balloon! He's a personal health companion!"
"I'm not Baymax," Ben looked at BB-8 with a glare. Well, it wasn't really a glare, because Baymax didn't really do a glare easily. It was more like a 'posture'. "I'm Ben," he muttered.
Rey seemed to have figured this out. "Don't laugh," he told her as sternly as was possible when his face didn't even seem to make a stern look. "It's not funny. It's just how I woke up. It's not funny."
Rey's hand pressed further against her mouth between Beebee's admonishment and Ben's words. A light snicker escaped from the back of her throat and she dipped her head, shaking it back and forth, "I'm not. I'm not laughing."
Beebee stopped looking between them both and looked directly at Ben as the realization sunk in. What had he done? He quickly spun back towards Ben, looking up at him, "Did you do something before you went to sleep? Did you do a Force thing? Where's Baymax?"
"You are laughing," Ben told her, as sternly as he possibly could manage. It was difficult to really affect sternness when he looked like he did, but he tried to put his hands on his hips so he would look more stern. "It's not funny. I don't know why I woke up like this, and no," he told BB-8, "I did not do something with the Force. I don't know where Baymax is."
He sighed. "You're still you," he looked at Rey, and if the robot could be exasperated, he sounded it.
Rey bit down on the bottom of her lip. He was right, of course, and the situation was certainly not funny. It was the second week in a row that he'd been affected by the circumstances of Derleth. And while she certainly was going to try to figure out how it had happened, considering she'd have thought it would have happened earlier in the week with the reset, she still couldn't stop herself from feeling the amusement.
It didn't help that he was admonishing her. Lowering her hand, she nodded her head in agreement. "You are right, you are."
Beebee, if it were possible, looked even more flabbergasted by Ben's statements. Deciding that he didn't care to hear anymore of the pair's conversation, he swivered back towards Rey and extended his grip at her. "Phone." A beat. "Please."
Rey glanced down to Beebee but shifted, pulling the device from her pocket, handing it over to him before her focus returned to Ben. It didn't matter that Beebee was rolling off now and Pilot was following him. "I am. Could you sense me? I can sense you." The feeling of the faint feedback was still present but it didn't feel like him. It was something else but she ignored it still. Ben had her focus.
At least when she wasn’t laughing he didn’t feel as ridiculous.
No, that was a lie, he definitely still felt ridiculous. He glanced mildly after the droid, running off with a phone and who knew what else. Ben turned his attention back to Rey.
“No, I can’t feel anything with the Force. Whatever’s happened I am essentially my consciousness stuck inside an AI… I guess.” A beat. “Kriff, I'm a droid. Basically.”
He groaned.
“I’m a Threepio Pillow. Why aren’t you different?” He didn't really care that he sounded a little bit whiny, he couldn’t help it. Why did he look so completely different and Rey looked completely normal? “This is utterly unfair. There has to be something to be done. I haven’t even done anything this week.”
The merth she'd been displaying to him faltered with his statement. While it was a comfort to know that she still could seek him out, and have an almost guarantee that he was still present, she didn't enjoy knowing that she couldn't reach out to him in the way she'd been growing accustomed to. But the historical precedence of this place had her certain that this was temporary; which was the only reason she'd been more amused than alarmed when her lies had fallen on his inflated state.
She pulled her lips in with his declaration. "A Threepio pillow," she repeated with another slip of giggles before she rose her shoulders in uncertainty. "Why wasn't I last week?" She countered. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to any of this. She pondered the faint sensation at the back of her consciousness once again. Was it valuable to address it?
No.
She chose not to. No need to bring any possible alarm to Ben right now. "It'll subside," she assured him before she got closer. With her gaze fixed on him, she smirked before extending a hand and poking him in the center of his stomach.