Who: JR and Tommy Where: Somewhere on the station What: Awakenings When: When people first start waking up Rating: Low Open: No Status: Complete
JR felt very strange for multiple reasons, though it took him a minute to put them all together as he woke up.
First off he felt bigger than he remembered, a good bit bigger around in fact. Second he felt something shift inside him, a very odd sensation he'd never felt before. Third he was floating.
He opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was the large pregnant belly and breasts attached to his body, or rather Elyssa's body. Evidently they'd swapped again and now he got to experience what it was like to be in the third trimester with twins. Joy.
JR took a deep breath and shoved that to the side. Freaking out was something he could do later. Right now he needed to figure out why he and everything else seemed to be floating in mid-air, and where he was. Because this place definitely wasn't anywhere he’d been before.
***
Tommy had woken up maybe twenty minutes earlier or thereabouts, and struggled through a couple of minutes of not-very-controlled panicking (Had the Man come back, had he been captured again, what was going to happen to him now?). The red lighting was really not helping him relax, making him think that everything was bathed in blood and threatening to have him curling up in a little ball yet again, and it wasn't anywhere near bright enough for him to make out any real identifying details.
"C'mon, Tommy, c'mon... be like JR or Uncle Jake, stop freaking out and get on with it," he muttered to himself more than a couple of times, then started forcing himself to work through things logically. The floating was new, and he seemed to be in some corridor or hallway or something - not that he could see much other than where the walls were, thanks to the freaky lighting. But that still meant that he wasn't trapped, not like before when he'd been taken. So he could go somewhere else where the lighting wasn't a nightmare in the making.
He checked that his magic was still working, and the dull red light was soon joined by his green magelight which resulted in everything around him being bathed in a weird yellowy light. Still, it wasn't red, which could only be an improvement. Then he used his magic again to try and shove himself over towards the closest wall. Once he was there, he grabbed hold of what looked a bit like a door-frame, ignored the shakes in his hands and started to push himself along to where there was an intersection of corridors up ahead.
"Hello?" he called out, loud as he could, and listened for any replies. "Hello! Anyone there?"
***
“Tommy?!” JR had figured out the fact he was in a corridor, but short of trying to use his breath as thrust there hadn’t been much he could do except float and try not to freak out. That was damn difficult when you were by yourself someplace strange, bathed in what he assumed was red emergency lighting, in someone else’s (very pregnant) body. Each time the twins shifted or kicked was just another reminder and another impulse to freak out, and they seemed to pick up on his anxiety and squirm that much more. So the sound of his brother’s voice had never been sweeter. JR latched onto the fact he wasn’t alone and held onto it fiercely.
He would not allow himself to panic, no matter how much he wanted to.
“Tommy! Where are you! And where are we??” He twisted his head to try and look in the direction of the voice.
***
Tommy looked round at the sound of the voice and then realized that he knew it! Shep was wherever he was. He relaxed a little bit, since she always seemed to know how to deal with things. Weightlessness wouldn't bother her in the slightest, either, what with her space commando fighting history and all that.
"Hey! I'm on my way!" he yelled back, "and I dunno yet!" He worked out what corridor to head down and sent his magelight on ahead, before launching himself towards Shep's voice. He gave himself a bit of an extra shove with his magic, and quickly made his way along the walls towards his sister-in-law.
"Let me know when you see my light!" he added, keeping it well in front of himself at all times.
***
JR waited impatiently for the light to appear, focusing all his attention on the direction his brother’s voice had come from and trying to ignore everything else. He wasn’t alone wherever the hell they were, not like the last time the Island had chosen to dump him someplace else. At least that time it’d had the decency to leave him in his own body instead of someone else’s.
Finally he spotted the light. “I see it!” He yelled. Shortly thereafter his brother appeared behind it, his mage light hard at work. “Tommy! Am I glad to see you!”
***
Tommy's brain had been providing him with all kinds of fun scenarios that were all variations on a theme, namely that the Man was back and was tricking him into heading towards Him by using voices from his family. Tommy had been doing his best to ignore the thoughts, but they were starting to really get to him. And then he'd heard Shep yelling about seeing the light and he couldn't help but speed up, and then he saw her and almost lost his grip on the wall.
He managed to keep going, though. "Hey," he said with a very faint smile, once they were close enough. "Are you okay? You're not hurt or anything, right? And the babies are okay?" he asked, and then moved so they were only a couple meters apart.
***
“I think I’m all right.” JR patted himself down, looking for any obvious problems now that his brother had raised the issue. No blood anywhere and he didn’t seem to hurt. Being weightless wasn’t so bad, other than not being able to move. “I’m not hurt as far as I can tell, and the babies are wiggling away in there so I think they’re fine too.” He made a face at that, aware of how strange that sounded. To him anyway.
“What have you found out?”
***
"Not much," he admitted, "I was in my room, just, y’know… reading, but I don’t remember falling asleep, and then I woke up back down there." He pointed back down in the direction he'd come from, before continuing. "I'd only been awake a few minutes before I heard you, and then I came here as quickly as I could. Have you heard from anyone else at all?" Like JR or one of his other siblings, or his parents or uncle Jakes and aunt Sunis, maybe?
He looked all round him as he spoke, still slightly on edge at the notion that the Man might be lurking even though he knew He was dead, and fought down the urge to shiver at the idea of it. Then something occurred to him. "Do you need help getting over to the wall?" he asked, then held a hand out to see if they could reach each other. If not, he'd just nudge her closer until he could catch her hand.
***
“Yeah neither do I, then I woke up like this.” JR shrugged. There wasn’t anything he could do about it. Hopefully he’d switch back before the due date, but with his luck he wasn’t counting on it.
“And no, I haven’t heard anyone else yet. You’re the first.” He hoped Elyssa was nearby, with his body safe and sound. If she wasn’t in his body then it would really be time to freak out. “Hopefully we’ll start hearing from someone else soon.”
He glanced around for anything that he could use for momentum to get to a wall like his brother and didn’t see anything. “I will, yeah. Can’t exactly fit in armor right now so no way to move in zero G.” Considering he was wearing a maternity top stretched over the belly, some leggings and socks he definitely wasn’t ready for any moving in zero gravity unaided, let alone combat.
***
Tommy nodded as Shep pointed out her lack of armor, and glanced round at the corner between the wall and ceiling he was beside. There were panels and little raised parts every so often, and he figured he could use those to his advantage. He couldn't reach by just stretching an arm out, but if he could find some sort of foothold or thing to grab hold of with his toes, that might help. "Just... give me a moment," he said as he spun in place. He realized pretty quickly that the ceiling was his best bet, with little grooves round the edges of the ceiling panels - wide enough for him to slip his toes into, and a quick check with his fingers reassured him that there weren't any pointy things or blades hiding underneath. He was sore enough already, thank you very much. Once he was in position, sort-of-standing on the wall, he reached out again but still came up short.
"I'm gonna use magic. I'll try not to poke you or anything, it should just feel like you're moving all of a sudden, okay?" he explained, and made a little gesture with his hand, as if he was trying to get Shep to come over and see something.
***
“The whole family has magic Tommy,” JR tried not to roll his eyes. Everyone except for he and Jules had grown up with the ability to do some magic, and since Jules had become a mermaid she could do spellsongs so now he was the only one without magic.
He felt a pull toward his brother, and found himself drifting toward the outstretched hand. It was a huge relief when he was actually able to grasp it and close the distance between them.
***
"Not all of us. My dad doesn't," he pointed out, just as he caught her hand and carefully pulled her back towards the wall, not letting go until she could grab at one of the wall or ceiling panels. He slipped his foot free and spun round so that he was the same way up as Shep, and then smiled as he noticed bump-activity. "I guess they enjoyed the ride," he said softly, distracted from mentioning that JR didn't have magic either as he watched the squirming for a moment. Then he realized that the light was changing and the nerves that he'd been struggling with since he woke up in this weird new place were threatening to overwhelm him yet again. There was a much brighter, cleaner light than his own approaching, and it was moving quickly.
***
“Yeah.” JR gasped, distracted by the sensation of the twins squirming vigorously in reaction to flying through the air. How had Elyssa managed not to react every time they twitched in there? Of course she’d had time to get used to it before they were so large, he supposed. He grabbed hold of the wall for dear life, not wanting to be floating off helpless again.
“Oh what now?” he groused, spotting the light as well. He had no weapons to defend himself and his children, or Tommy, but at least Tommy had his magic.
***
Tommy stared at where the light was coming from, doing his utmost to keep from freaking out. One of his fists was balled tight enough that his roughly-chewed fingernails were digging into the palm of his hand, and his bones were starting to ache from it. He drifted back into the wall and nearly bumped into Shep, but then caught himself on and pushed out to float between his sister-in-law and whatever the light was. There was no way he was going to explain to JR how he'd let his family get hurt while doing nothing to stop it.
Tommy's fingers started to spark as he prepared himself for whatever was about to happen, and then he heard a very familiar bark just as the source of the light came into view.
"Rawm!" Tommy nearly slumped in on himself as the sense of relief hit him like a tonne of bricks, and then his weird dog was running along the wall towards him, tail wagging and trailing lightning behind him as he did so. Tommy managed a proper grin for once as he looked back over his shoulder at Shep, and then he pushed himself towards his lightning-dog.
"What're you doing here, huh? Why aren't you back home with all the rest of the zoo?" he asked once Rawm was in front of him demanding scritches, and then he wrapped his arms around his dog and buried his face in fur. The dog's lightning wrapped round Tommy at the same time, but didn't give him an electric shock or even a little static burst.
***
Tommy’s protectiveness didn’t go unnoticed, or unappreciated. He wasn’t used to moving around in zero gravity or with the added mass he was carrying around due to being in Elyssa’s body at the moment, so his reaction times were off. Not that he could have done much with no weapons, no armor and a body that was busy growing two new humans and most definitely not in fighting shape.
“That’s one weird dog. But he’s a sight for sore eyes.” JR watched as Tommy greeted his pet and couldn’t help but smile at the sight. His brother seemed more at ease with the lightning dog at his side and that could only be a good thing.
“We should probably try and figure out where we are, and if anyone else is here.” He devoutly hoped Elyssa was here someplace, in his body. And that they’d switch back soon. If not...he didn’t want to think about that right now. Unfortunately it was hard not to with the constant reminders the twins were sending.
***
Tommy glanced round at Shep as she mentioned other people, keeping his now-shaky hands buried deep in Rawm's fur and letting his nervous sparks mingle with the dog's much more obvious electricity. "I... I hadn't even thought..." he said, frowning at himself as he pushed Rawm's muzzle away from nosing at his face for a moment. "Have you got your phone?" he asked, and then checked his pockets. Knowing his luck, his phone had been dropped back where he'd woken up or something dumb like that.
***
“My phone?” JR hadn’t even thought about his phone and patted himself down looking for pockets on the outfit he had on. The leggings didn’t have any, and he would have had a hell of a time getting anything out if they had, but the top had a pocket on the side. Sure enough there was the telltale bulge of a phone in it and he fished it out.
“Here.”
***
Tommy looked up from his one-handed search, loathe to let go of Rawm for the moment, and nodded when Shep held up her phone. "Is it working? Oh, that's... would the network even work here, if the phone's working?"
***
“Only one way to find out.” JR turned on the phone. “It has a signal, now to see if we can actually talk to anyone.”
He scrolled through the contacts, and was relieved to see Elyssa’s name still in there. “Most of the names are still in here. Maybe everyone got moved off the island to wherever we are?” But his relief vanished as he kept scrolling. “Mom and Dad aren't in here, neither is Sookie or little Izzy.”
***
"What?" Tommy blinked. Shep wasn't Shep, there was body-swapping going on ...wait. "What? What do you mean, they aren't in there? Where... Where would they go?" The sense of panic was almost instant, sinking in as he asked his questions; The Man had them, He wasn't dead, He'd decided to kill his dad again along with his mom and his sister and his niece, everything they’d lived through since the Spire fell had been a trick and, and… Rawm nuzzled into Tommy’s neck and licked at his ear, snapping him out of his panic.
***
JR reached out toward his younger brother, but he wasn’t close enough to touch. “Breathe little brother. We’ve got to hope they’ll show up soon. Maybe they got sent someplace else or whatever brought people here isn’t finished yet.”
***
Tommy nodded, finally realizing who he was talking to. His magelight burned low, flickering as he dragged his thoughts away from all kinds of awful thoughts, and Rawm kept threatening to lick down the side of his neck which, gross.
"JR?... He's dead. Right? The Man. Just... Tell me He's dead and He doesn't have Mom or Dad or Sookie or Izzy. Please."
***
“Yeah it’s me in here Tommy.” JR nodded and pushed himself off the wall to embrace his little brother, who clearly could use a little reassurance at the moment. “He’s dead.” Whatever liked to mess with them was clearly still around, because hello he was in his wife’s body instead of his, but Tommy didn’t need to hear that at the moment. “I swear to you the bastard got what was coming to him when the Spire blew. Kat ripped his heart out, for real.”
***
Rawm moved back a little as JR moved closer, and Tommy clung to his big brother as best he could, listening as he retold how the Man had died. "Good," was all he said. He stayed quiet after that for almost a full minute, and then pulled back a little after a tiny foot or fist poked at him a couple times.
"Sorry," he said quietly, and ran a still-very-shaky hand through his hair before looking round at his brother. "I, uh... I thought you were Shep."
*** JR let his hands fall to his belly when Tommy pulled back a bit. Damn that was a weird sensation, feeling them move inside him like that. Definitely something he was going to have to get used to, unless he switched back quickly. And maybe thinking of himself as a ‘she’ again if he didn’t anytime soon, who knew?
“Yeah well I didn’t exactly go screaming my name at the top of my lungs either.” he slugged Tommy very gently in the shoulder, affection clear on his face. “I kind of figured it out when you got confused at the phone. Just hope Elyssa is somewhere around here wearing my body instead of someone else having it.” Which would make the whole thing that much weirder.
***
"We should go find her," Tommy suggested, "or you could call her? Although if she's somewhere like this, there aren't very many landmarks that would make where she is unique. 'The corridor with red light' is pretty much everywhere that I've been in this place so far, so it wouldn't help us find her."
Rawm padded along the wall to nudge at JR after that, and Tommy's hand quickly found itself back in the dog's fur. "Maybe Rawm can help us move about? Or just you. I can use my magic to push me along."
***
“Hey how about I call her?” JR agreed after listening to Tommy’s description of the place. “I wonder where the hell ‘here’ is anyway?” He mused, glancing about. “The corridor looks like it has a curve to it.”
After allowing Rawm to nudge him back to the wall he turned his attention back to the phone, selecting his wife’s contact number and hitting ‘call’, before bringing it to his ear. After two tries he lowered the phone and shook his head, frowning. “She’s not picking up, it’s going to voicemail after five rings. Maybe everyone is still asleep?”
***
“At least it means she’s definitely here, though. Right? If she wasn’t here, it wouldn’t be connecting at all. So that’s good. We just gotta explore until we find her.” Anything to keep busy, really. Tommy felt like ever since he’d got back, he’d done nothing much beyond thinking about things, and getting lost in his own head was a surefire way of making himself get even more worked up and nervous. A new place to explore might actually help him in some way?
Rawm huffed as Tommy spoke and moved to stand by JR, ready to help them explore.
*** JR nodded as Tommy pointed out that Elyssa was here someplace. Her name wouldn’t be in the phone otherwise.
“Sounds like a plan little brother.” JR agreed. “I’ll probably need to take it easy some, what with the precious cargo I’m carrying, but I think exploring this place is the best idea I’ve heard yet.”