Who: Zania (in Reagan!) and Caius When: Morning, Wednesday, June 27 Where: the D’Onofrio residence Status: Complete
The night before had been pleasant, even if Caius still felt a bit wary about this carnival and the man who was running it. He hadn’t seen Radley again when he’d been there, but that didn’t mean the stranger hadn’t been in the background somewhere, watching. Caius hadn’t noticed anything overtly weird happening while he and Reagan had been seeing the sights and riding a few things, hadn’t heard any screams of anything but joy. Not that he knew what he would do about it if he had ... but still. He’d relaxed a bit after a while, and actually enjoyed himself. They’d gone home to some vigorous sex on the couch, then gone to bed content.
Caius was still content by the time morning rolled around. Any full night of rest was a relief, since it meant Reagan hadn’t gone wandering again. Barely conscious, he cracked his eyes open to take in the daylight, then Caius closed them again and rolled onto his other side to get as much sleep as possible before his alarm started going off. He snuggled up close to his wife’s warm body, slipping an arm around Reagan’s waist as he settled into spooning her. The warm curve of her ass always felt good against his morning wood, and Caius breathed a sleepy sigh as the smell of her hair filled his nose.
Zania had thoroughly enjoyed herself at the carnival the night before. After the Maze of Mirrors, they’d gotten high on the Ferris wheel, then laughed their way through the Funhouse. The clowns had been a rather creepy touch, but that seemed par for the course in a carnival of that sort. It added to the flair of the place, and she’d have been disappointed if there hadn’t been at least a few spooky sightings. Afterwards, she and Gabriel had come home and fallen into bed together, enjoying each other’s bodies until they were too tired to continue. She woke slowly, never a morning person, but the press of him from behind made her think they could have some lazy morning sex before heading into work. She hummed her appreciation and snuggled further into the bed and him, her eyes still too heavy to open.
Gods, he loved it when she did that, and Caius’s erection started to feel less like the boring morning kind and more like arousal. He pushed back against her snuggling a little, still half-asleep himself, and moved his hand up to cup one of her breasts, thumb brushing against the nipple. He wasn’t in any rush, or even had any goal in mind, it just always felt lovely to cuddle his naked, sexy wife. Even having fucked their brains out before bed, it never took that spark of desire long to light him up inside. His own eyes still closed -- not that he would see anything but Reagan in front of him if they weren’t -- Caius pressed a kiss to the back of her shoulder.
Zania smiled as she felt his hand cup her breast, her nipples hardening beneath his touch, but there was something off there that she couldn’t quite put her finger on. His hands felt smaller, or her breasts bigger, neither of which made sense. Then she opened her eyes and forgot about her breasts completely. Zania sat straight up in bed, eyes wide as she pulled away from Caius. “What the fuck, Caius?!” Her hand shot to her mouth, the sound of her voice all kinds of wrong, but familiar. All of it was wrong, but familiar, and it made her wonder if she was in some kind of fucked up dream. She brushed her hair out of her face, then grabbed it in her fist before giving a frustrated little growl. This wasn’t her hair, it wasn’t her voice, it wasn’t her body, and he wasn’t her man. And when her magic swelled inside her as she swelled with rage, it wasn’t her magic either. “What. The. Fuck!”
Startled, Caius jerked back and sat up himself, his expression alarmed. “What?!” he exclaimed, his eyes sweeping over her. There was obviously something very wrong, but she looked perfectly fine to Caius, just disheveled and upset and pulling her own hair. “What’s wrong with you?” His mind was frantically turning back to what he may have done -- Reagan had never reacted that way to his advances before, especially not out of that sort of serene, sleepy state. She hadn’t gone sleepwalking the night before and he’d missed it, had she? None of her looked bloody or dirty, like she’d been outside since they’d gone to bed, but fuck, what if he’d missed something again?
“Everything!” Zania snapped, climbing off the bed and marching her nude ass into the bathroom. Once glance in the mirror confirmed her fears and she spun back to the bedroom, bracing her hands against the door frame. “I’m not Reagan,” she said, voice tight with the anger she was doing her best to contain. “I don’t know what the fuck happened last night, but we’ll find her. And then we’ll fuckin’ fix this. I just need—pants.” She hurried back into the room, determined to find clothing, but having no idea where to look. Her nudity didn’t bother her. It wasn’t her body, and clearly Caius had seen it before, and it wasn’t like she’d never seen him. There was no time for modesty in her mind. “What did you do last night? Did a spell backfire? Did you summon something?” she asked as she dug through a drawer before turning to Caius. “Where the fuck are her underwear?”
She wasn’t Reagan? Caius had no idea what she was talking about, and it showed on his face. Staring at his wife with concern as she headed for the dresser, he pushed the covers off of himself to get up. Caius wasn’t thinking about his nudity either, much more focused on Reagan. He pulled the Obscurities forward and blinked his eyes black, studying her with the enhanced vision -- she still looked just like Reagan. Her magic looked the same. But there was a strange sort of blur around her head ... what the fuck was going on? “If you’re not Reagan, then who the fuck are you?” he asked before answering anything else, his voice low and quiet. Caius’s extremities were tingling now, his own magic waking up and getting ready to go on the defense.
“I’ll give you three guesses,” Zania said with a hint of a smirk. This whole situation might have amused her if she’d had any say in it, but she didn’t like being fucked with and it felt like someone else’s idea of a joke. She rifled through the dresser until she found a pair of underwear, then turned to face him as she pulled them on, catching sight of the obscurities. It made her pause for a second, then scowl. “Put those away. It’s just me with your wife’s tits. Which are lovely, by the way,” she said, reaching up to give them a small squeeze. “Don’t tell her I said so. Are you gonna put some clothes on? Or are you planning on attacking me? Because I’m still fully capable of fucking shit up.” She summoned fire to her hand in what was meant to be a small display and instead erupted in a full fireball that she immediately vanished. “What the fuck is wrong with her magic?!”
For a second Caius thought maybe Westin had come to collect on them in a hugely fucked up way, but nothing about the tone of voice matched up with that idea. It was the don’t tell her I said so that tipped him off fully, and Caius’s expression shifted from dangerous wariness to pure bafflement. “Zania?” he managed to get out right before the fireball. It made Caius flinch back a tiny bit -- Reagan’s fire didn’t usually scare him, but he was naked and they were in their bedroom. Well, his bedroom. “Be careful,” Caius snapped, stalking over to where he had a black robe hanging up. He yanked it down to pull it on and tie it up tight. Zania had seen his entire body up close and personal, but that had been a long time ago and in wildly different circumstances. She’d been in her own fucking body, for one. He let the Obscurities fall back, the whites of his eyes returning. “What the hell have you done? Why are you inside Reagan? Where is she?”
“Why do you assume I did this? Do you think I’m that fucking incompetent? Do you think I want to be in this body? That I thought, you know what’ll be fun? I want a change—I’ll just become Reagan! It’s just the opposite of everything I’ve done with my life, but sure!” Zania snapped, throwing her hands up in anger. The idea that she would have brought this on herself touched on too many nerves, as if her own life wasn’t good enough by someone else’s standards. The rage she felt was irrational, but the situation was insane and it was her way of coping. Either that or she’d laugh hysterically. She refused to be upset. “I did not do this,” she said, stepping close enough to poke him in the chest. “I did not ask for this. I don’t know why it happened, or where Reagan is, but I’m guessing she’s in my body. If not? We’ve got an even bigger problem.”
Irrational anger of his own swelled behind Caius’s ribs and he batted her hand away with the back of his hand. He’d never wanted to hit Reagan before, no matter what she did to him, and he supposed that was a true sign that the woman in front of him was not his wife, because he wanted to slap the shit out of her. Zania was lucky she was wearing Reagan’s face at the moment. “You’re goddamn right we will,” he growled, heat in his eyes. It was becoming obvious that this wasn’t something Zania had done on purpose, so maybe it wasn’t some of her magic gone awry, but what else could it have been? Something glitching with Reagan’s own magic? What if this thing she was going through was escalating in weird ways? Would she eat Zania’s magic from the inside out and then come back to her body? His palms were starting to sweat. “We didn’t do this eith--” Caius’s word got cut off by his phone coming to life on the nightstand. It wasn’t the alarm, it was ringing. He turned and practically lunged for it, almost dropping the damn thing before he swiped the screen correctly. It was Zania on the caller ID, and Caius had never been more relieved to hear her voice answer his rushed “hello?”
Zania was perfectly willing to stand there and argue with him, but when she saw him go for the phone, she let him take the call. Seeing her name flash on the caller ID was reason enough to keep quiet and Zania busied herself with tracking down something to wear. Reagan’s wardrobe was nothing like her own, but she still had a few things that looked comfortable enough for Zania to tolerate them. She pulled on jeans and a t-shirt, and listened to Caius’ half of the conversation while she brushed her hair and pulled it back in a pony-tail. She’d had her dreads long enough that it felt weird to have anything else, but it also made her kind of miss this. But Gabriel had only ever known her with dreads. It made her reluctant to change. It made her wonder how he’d reacted, waking up with a woman that looked like her, but didn’t act like her. Assuming her body was with him. The thought of it being anywhere else filled her with dread, but she forced herself to wait until Caius hung up the phone before questioning him.
It was highly strange, talking to the woman on the other side of the line. It was Zania’s voice, but it didn’t sound anything like the way she spoke, that was all Reagan. Who was highly upset about all of this, naturally. Caius was plenty upset himself, but it was slightly reassuring to talk to her, no matter who she sounded like. She hadn’t done this on purpose, if this new ability of hers was involved at all. That was still in question. Reagan mentioned that Gabriel said he and Zania had been at the carnival the night before as well, and they’d both enjoyed a few of the same attractions. Caius suddenly felt sure that had something to do with it. They both agreed they all needed to convene, and it seemed easier to do so at the Castell house, since Nic was there too. “I love you,” he murmured quietly to her before they hung up, trying to ignore the weird feeling he got saying that to another voice when he could see his wife in the room. Caius stood from where he’d sat on the edge of the bed and went to their closet to find some clothes for himself too. “It seems you’ve both just somehow switched bodies,” he said to Zania-in-Reagan. “So we’re going over there.”
“Just switched bodies. Like that’s a thing that randomly happens,” Zania said, arms crossed over her chest. Reagan’s chest. It wasn’t something she was going to get used to, not quickly, and she hoped she wouldn’t have the time to. At least Reagan was a witch like she was, with an affinity for fire, otherwise she’d practically be crawling out of her skin. She couldn’t imagine what it would feel like to be without her magic and remembered that Reagan had felt that at one point not so long ago. Now it felt the exact opposite, like she was almost bursting. It had never been her magic, so she didn’t know exactly how it felt before, but it still felt wrong to her. “Is something going on with her magic?” she asked quietly. It was a personal question, one Reagan might not want her to know the answer to, but if she was in this body, then she should probably know what she was dealing with until they got things resolved.
Caius pulled some pants on with his back to her, then shed the robe to get into a shirt. He’d meant that it seemed like only they had made some switch, and Reagan’s mind wasn’t lost somewhere else, but he didn’t bother correcting her sarcasm. She was quieter at least, less volatile, and he didn’t want to start her yelling again. Reagan rarely raised her voice, it was jarring to hear that kind of distress coming out of her mouth, and his nerves were already feeling frayed with all this. Caius didn’t think he could tolerate another outburst. The question made him glance over at Zania as he bounced his shoulders to settle his clothes. “It’s a private matter,” he said flatly. He moved to grab a pair of socks out of the drawer and tugged them on hastily. “Just keep a lid on it, okay? No magic until we get this all straightened out.”
Zania frowned, not liking that answer one bit. She understood privacy, but she was living in this body at the moment and didn’t like the sort of surprises that haywire magic might result in. “Sure,” she said tightly. “Just keep in mind we might need magic to get this straightened out.” The idea of sitting on the side and letting Reagan and Caius sort this out for them didn’t appeal to her in the least. As angry as the situation made her, this was a puzzle to be solved and she was itching to sit down with Reagan and sort out how this had happened. It was something in the last twenty-four hours, maybe even less, and her mind leapt to the carnival, wondering if Reagan had been there as well. Just because she hadn’t seen her, didn’t mean that wasn’t the common thread. “Did you go to the carnival last night?” If the answer was no, she could stop wasting her time on that train of thought and cross it off her list.
He was going to leave it to Reagan to make up something about how her magic must feel to Zania, Caius didn’t have the mental bandwidth to spin a plausible lie right off the tip of his tongue. Hopefully Reagan would be thinking about it already, since he assumed she could feel Zania’s magic in the same way. Caius slipped into a pair of sneakers close to the closet door and pocketed his wallet and keys. He nodded and shot Zania a dark-eyed glance. “Yeah, we were there. Reagan said she and Gabriel are already thinking in that direction. I met the man who’s running the thing, the night they arrived. I don’t doubt there’s some fuckery going on with it all.” Caius turned to head toward the bedroom door, then glanced back at Zania, looking her up and down. “You want shoes?” he asked, thinking there was a pretty fair chance she wouldn’t. Zania was that kind of hippie person. The only times he’d ever seen Reagan leave the house barefoot had been on her murderous walkabouts. He already felt responsible for making sure Zania took care of Reagan’s body.
“I didn’t notice anything at the time, but it doesn’t really surprise me either,” Zania said, speaking of the carnival as she attempted to get ready. She didn’t want to dig through Reagan’s things, but there were some things she thought she should probably grab. Her purse, her phone…She assumed Reagan normally wore makeup, as she did herself, but she wasn’t going to even attempt to replicate another woman’s makeup routine. It would be like attempting to fix her hair. So all she’d really grabbed was her purse and her phone when Caius asked if she wanted shoes and Zania shot him a look like he’d lost his mind. “Of course I want shoes,” she said, then turned into the closet to find herself some. Every woman had a collection of shoes, herself included, but hers was very different from Reagan’s. She sighed and slipped on what she hoped were comfortable flats, then went to join Caius. “Let’s go.”
Caius was glad that Zania didn’t drag her feet and try to put on makeup or something. He was sure that Reagan wouldn’t want Zan going through her stuff, even in her own body. Hell, he didn’t want her going through stuff, and he considered Zania a friend. Even if she didn’t like him much anymore. He couldn’t really blame her, he knew he wasn’t a terribly likable person. All of this was weird and uncomfortable and he was already dreading Reagan hearing about how they’d woken up. It would be crazy to hold it against him when it was another woman in his wife’s body, but Reagan was crazy sometimes. “I knew I had a bad feeling about that fucking carnival,” he grumbled as he led the way out of the bedroom and down the stairs. “I told Anthony they were trouble, but he said sign anyway. And now this.” Caius knew that his father wouldn’t care, even if he went to complain to him. Anthony would just tell him to figure it out, so that was what he was going to try to do. He held the door for Zania and then moved to lock up behind them.
Zania glanced at Caius, a scowl pulling at her face. “Please tell me you’re not thinking of calling your father.” She refused to turn to her own parents for assistance, but that was often because she thought herself smarter than they ever were. Anthony was a different case. The man might be the most powerful witch in town, but Zania didn’t trust him an inch. She’d known Caius long enough to know Anthony had fucked with his head, and the last thing she wanted was him fucking with hers. “It might be the carnival. It might be Point Pleasant taking advantage of the carnival. It’s hard to say at the moment. I want to get down there, see if I can’t feel it out.” She hadn’t been paying that kind of attention last night, purposefully impairing herself for the fun of it. Today she wanted the opposite.
Caius bristled internally and barely held himself in check from snapping at her. He didn’t want to call his father, the days of Caius voluntarily turning to him for help with anything magical or personal were over. Anthony was a last resort to him now. “I don’t need him, we’ll figure this out ourselves,” he muttered sourly. “We’ll all go down there.” Caius walked with her to the car, pushing the button on the key fob to unlock it. He already figured that their next stop would be the carnival, after they’d all convened at the Castells’. He wasn’t quite looking forward to having a confrontation with the unknown factor that was Radley, but Caius would do what he had to do to set this right as quickly as possible. He could only imagine what Reagan was going through.
“Good,” Zania muttered, but didn’t comment any further. They might not be close any longer, but she still considered Caius a friend. A difficult, somewhat volatile friend, but she knew some would say the same about her. There were subjects that immediately brought her hackles up and it would not surprise her in the slightest if Anthony was one of those subjects for Caius. If he was willing to keep him out of the equation, then she was willing to let the subject drop. It seemed they were both in a piss poor mood and she didn’t feel up to starting a fight with him, not before coffee. At least at her house she could depend on Nic to have a pot going. After coffee, and hopefully a bit of productive conversation, they could head down to the carnival. The faster they could get this resolved, the better for everyone.