The Hallways, Saturday Morning

[wwiii]

"Oh, god."

Somebody was having a minor crisis in the hallway.

"Oh god oh god oh god."

Somebody had woken up in a dorm room on the third floor, as opposed to the hotel room that he'd fallen alseep in the night before. That somebody had instantly realized, before anything else, that he was wingless and sleeping alone, and the rest had gone somewhat downhill from there. There had been the first glance in the mirror, distracted at first by the lack of wings, and then sharp and panicked as he took in whose face was staring back at him. There had been a few minutes of wide-eyed, stupid staring after that, while all the little gears ground into place.

And then there had been a moment of utter terror, where he had to keep himself from flinging himself out the window because that was generally the fastest way for him to get into town. The sprint down the hallway had been short-lived, because somewhere just before the stairs, Warren had learned for the first time in his life what it was like to be not only even remotely out of shape, but asthmatic.

On the plus side, at least he'd managed to find clothing to pull on besides the Space Battles boxer shorts he'd woken up in that morning.

"Karla!"

Warren was not having the best of mornings, standing at the top of the stairs and trying to catch his breath. No sir.

[OOC: Open, as hallways tend to be! If you want to run into a wheezing Not!Topher, here's your chance. You might get desperately hit up for rickshaw fare. Or just incoherently spazzed at.]

Comments

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

Matt had been asleep in the common room (Again. Thanks Rebecca.) when the shouting started. Forgetting his blind kid act he ran into the hallway.

"What's wrong?!"

[wwiii]

"She's going to kill him!" Yes. Yes, that was an excellent reply for Warren to use, right there, on the poor kid who had just run out to make sure he wasn't dying or something. "Me! She's going to kill him, and then I'll be dead because he's me! Or maybe I'm just him? Oh god I can't breathe."

This was going beautifully.

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

Matt's grip on his cane tightened. "Who's going to kill who?" Matt demanded. "And where?"

[wwiii]

"Karla! Topher! At the hotel! All the way at the hotel and I can't fly there."

Use your words, Warren. Or just slump against the wall some more and continue wheezing. That worked too.

"I'm gonna die and I'm not even going to be there for it. Unless I'm not, but then where am I?"

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

Okay. Matt had listened to radio enough to know Topher's voice which was enough for Matt to do a double take.

"Um. Sorry, but you sound exactly like Topher," Matt said slowly. "Or am I missing something?"

[wwiii]

"No!" Warren was now doing a fair bit of righteous flailing of his arms. "That's the problem! I'm Topher! Why am I Topher?!"

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

Matt shook his head in confusion. "Okay, I need you to take a couple of breaths and calm down. Can you do that for me?"

[wwiii]

"No," Warren all but wailed. "I think Topher's asthmatic!"

Breathing was hard, damn it!

[childhood-taunt.livejournal.com]

"And why are you referring to yourself in the third person?" Matt asked.

And then something Warren had said struck him. "And since when could he fly?"

Was Topher another one of those super powered people?

[selfhelphero]

Billy was on a mission this morning, after waking up and realizing that whatever had been bothering him all week was gone. He'd wanted to talk to Topher for a little while now, since the weekend they were girls really, but just hanging around him with Tony had proven that trying to have a serious talk with Topher while they were all feeling weird was a terrible idea.

So, Billy had set off to find Topher while everything was normal. He smiled when he spotted him in the hallway, and if he wasn't so focused on figuring out how to say what he wanted to say, he might have noticed the panting. But then, it wasn't like he hadn't seen Topher like that before.

"Hey! I'm glad I ran into you," he said, running his hand through his hair. "Um, I really need to talk to you."

[wwiii]

"Tuh?"

Talk. Talking with words. Words were awesome. Warren would have a better grasp on those things when he wasn't torn between screaming, yelling incoherently, or gasping for air.

So mostly Warren was going to just remain propped against the wall, wide-eyed and utterly confused.

[selfhelphero]

That wasn't the sort of reaction Billy had been hoping for, but he soldiered on anyway, before all of his nerve faded. "Okay, I know we left things in a weird place after our run with Tony, but... well, it's kind of about that."

[wwiii]

Oh, Billy. Warren was going to be so apologetic in a couple of minutes, wasn't he?

"It's about... okay....?"

There had been a run with Tony? And things were weird? Warren was still not exactly firing on all cylinders just yet, his brain still kind of stuck on the whole 'someone is going to die across town' thing, so while he was painfully aware that he wasn't in his body at the moment, he wasn't entirely pairing that up with the fact that Billy wasn't actually intending to talk to him, per se.

[selfhelphero]

Billy smiled softly at Topher and took a deep breath. "Okay, I'm just going to come out and say it. I like you. I mean, I like you, and I think maybe you like me too? Because we always have fun together and then we end up sleeping on each other and--and Peter said you do and I think Kenzi agrees and--I was thinking maybe, um... I was wondering if you'd like to maybe go see a movie or something. Together. Like we were going to do with Tony but just us." Like a date, he thought, but Billy figured he'd babbled enough for the moment without knowing if he'd scared Topher off forever.

[wwiii]

Oh, hey! There went Warren's mind, booting into action a few moments too late!

Good going, Warren's mind.

"Oh, Billy, I..." Warren bit his lip, momentarily distracted from the need to save Topher's life and his own by extension. "Oh, god, I don't even know how to..."

This was awkward. Wasn't this awkward? Warren was certainly feeling a bit awkward here.

"... I'm not Topher."

SEE? HE SPAT IT OUT!

[selfhelphero]

Of all the responses Billy had thought he'd get the thousand times he'd run through this conversation in his head, that wasn't even close to one. "Um. What?"

[wwiii]

Just think! This could be like a dress rehearsal for the real deal, Billy!

"I'm not Topher," Warren repeated, looking about as apologetic as his current face would allow. "I just kind of woke up like this, in his room and everything. I'm Warren."

A beat. Okay, he had to come up with something more helpful to say than that.

"For what it's worth, I think the two of you would make a cute couple?"

Warren was the most helpful ever.

[longislandiceme]

Bobby saw your crisis and raised it by being bodyswapped with someone who'd already taken his body for a joyride once before, Warren.

So he was storming through the hallways, intent on finding his room, and... not really looking all that closely to where he was going.

Unless Warren moved out of the way pretty damn quick, collision was imminent.

[wwiii]

Sadly, 'Topher's body' and 'quick' did not belong anywhere in the same paragraph together, unless there was a 'was not even remotely' sandwiched somewhere firmly between the two.

So, yeah. That there was a collision, and the wheezing Warren was now kind of just relocating his freaking out to the floor.

"Emma?"

[longislandiceme]

"No!" Bobby scowled, from where he was on top of who he assumed was Topher. "It's Bobby. Emma's gone and stolen my body. Again."

Never mind that Topher wouldn't have had the slightest clue of what Bobby was talking about. He was not exactly in the most coherent frame of mind right now. Which was evidenced by the fact that if he was thinking straight he might have noticed the fact that "Topher"'s thoughts sounded an awful lot like Warren's voice. Except he wasn't, and he also wasn't used to hearing thoughts like at all unless they were the kind directed at him by someone who was actually supposed to be a telepath.

[wwiii]

"Oh." That cleared that right up, then. "Well, when you get her to give it back, could you tell me how you did it? Because I'm supposed to be somewhere across town with my girlfriend right now!"

Deep breath. Exhale. In. Out. Air was awesome.

"And naked! And not Topher!"

[longislandiceme]

"Who- wha- oh god Warren?" Bobby was just gonna take a moment to boggle.

[wwiii]

"I have no wings and Karla is probably with naked Topher right now and I smell like Doritos!"

Warren's life was so hard, Bobby. Harder than Scott's, even.

[longislandiceme]

"Emma Frost is currently running around knowing God knows what in my body," Bobby wailed. "This is the worst ever." A beat. "...Karla's gonna kill him," he realized. "Do you, uh- want me to come with you? For backup?" As horrifying as his own predicament was, his best friend was also in a crisis of his own, here. Bobby couldn't just leave him like that.

[wwiii]

If Warren hadn't been busy trying not to just die of Topher-ness as he pulled himself back to his feet, he probably could have kissed Bobby, just then.

... Except not, for about a million reasons that spanned everywhere from 'kissing Emma' to 'kissing Bobby' to 'being Topher' to 'having a girlfriend.' So Bobby kind of lucked out, there.

"Yes! I look like him, I'll be the first to die if he hasn't been yet! Backup is good!"