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

[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!"

[longislandiceme]

All for the best, because 'kissing his best friend who currently looked like another mutual friend while he himself looked like his girlfriend's best friend' was not an issue Bobby particularly wanted to deal with. At all. Ever.

"All right then, let's go," and without really thinking about it, Bobby grabbed Warren's arm with the intention of ice-sliding the two of them out of the dorms and across town.

Except there was no ice form to be had, of course, because he wasn't in his own body. Instead he got... diamond?

"Damnit!" A beat. "Okay. Plan B. We hire a rickshaw." He had Emma's credit card, after all, and he was not afraid to use it.

[wwiii]

And this was why Bobby was Warren's favorite.

"Thank god," Warren exhaled. "Just running to the end of the hall almost did me in."

He was not used to being this out of shape. Being in shape was kind of one of the default benefits of his particular manifestation of the X-Gene.

He probably couldn't have sounded more pathetic about it if he'd tried.

[longislandiceme]

It took Bobby another moment to figure out how to turn the diamond thing off- it was like de-icing but not, at the same time. "Seriously?" Because he just could not fathom being that out of shape. "That's just sad."

[wwiii]

"I'm pretty sure Topher has perfected the secret to surviving on a diet of juice boxes and artificially flavored starches," Warren groused, attempting to tackle the stairs again, because time was not exactly on their side. "But there's this pretty distinct difference between surviving and being healthy."

Warren's dad ran a pharmaceuticals company. If he was allowed to stay on this particular topic, he'd likely wind up ranting about it all the way to the hotel.

[longislandiceme]

"Hopefully we get this shit figured out before he does something horrible to your body with that diet," Bobby, shining beacon of optimism that he was, said as they (more slowly than he would have liked, damnit Topher's body) made their way down the stairs. "Although I guess the healing factor might take care of that." Well, maybe? But did they really want to find out?

[wwiii]

Warren could name one person who wasn't keen on finding out, and that person was currently attempting to take the stairs about four at a time while at the same time keeping his balance and not breaking his neck.

"I'm kind of banking on the healing factor to keep Karla from killing my body after the sudden and inevitable, horrible mutilation that's going to happen when she realizes it's Topher," Warren admitted, wheezing... only a little bit, so far. Kind of.

[longislandiceme]

"Hey, hey, whoa," Bobby said, reaching out to steady Warren after what looked like a particularly precarious footfall on one of those stairs. "You currently don't have one, so be careful, hey?"

[wwiii]

Bobby was totally Warren's hero, right there.

"Thanks," he muttered, stopping on that step for a moment to kind of catch his breath and get a feel for his balance all over again. "No wings, no healing factor. How do people live like this?"

No wonder the world hated mutants. They were bitter. Bitter and out of shape.

[longislandiceme]

"No kidding," Bobby groused. "It's friggin' cold outside." And he wasn't used to feeling that! At least, not the way most people did.

[wwiii]

"Yeah, but at least you can handle stairs," Warren grumbled, starting back down at a somewhat more careful pace. "And a fall down them."

Warren was half convinced that Topher's body would just kind of deflate if he were to take a tumble, and then he'd be stuck for the rest of the weekend as a shrivelled-up bag of meat and shattered bones.

Warren did not handle 'fragile' well, apparently.

[longislandiceme]

"Warren, that's disgusting," Bobby made a face at him. Because that really was a terrible mental image.

[wwiii]

"And I didn't say that," Warren countered, making a face right back. "At least I'm not thinking about all the horrible things that Karla could be doing to my body right now."

... Oh, wait. Now he was. Damn it. Sorry, Bobby.

[longislandiceme]

"Except you are now," Bobby whined. "Dude, this bites." At least they were finally at the ground floor? Small miracles.

[wwiii]

Small, small miracles.

"I'm trying not to! But I've met Karla!"

And Topher! And one was not going to do much good trying to talk the other down, all things considered!

"How long does it take a rickshaw to get here, usually, anyhow? I've never exactly needed one before."

[longislandiceme]

"No idea," Bobby shrugged, as they headed outside. "I've never bothered." He didn't have wings, true, but even without taking into account the fact that ice-sliding was faster than walking (because he didn't usually use that mode of transportation around Fandom) he did usually have an excess of energy that running or walking could help take care of.

[wwiii]

"It's a small island," Warren agreed. "Nobody should have to bother. Unless they have stuff to carry or something."

A beat. A glance at Bobby.

No. No, he was not going to ask if he could just ride piggyback so they could get going right then and there. That would be rude.

[longislandiceme]

"No," Bobby shook his head. "You're too heavy," that's right, Topher's body. Bobby just called you fat. "And besides, my balance would be all screwy." Adjusting was easy enough when it was just a matter of his own body, but trying to carry someone else? That way laid disaster.

[wwiii]

"You're telling me about balance?" Warren was making another face at Bobby. "I'm used to hollow bones and a wingspan. I can tell you all about messed-up balance, Bobby."

And he would, too. At length, if given the opportunity.

Warren was apparently prone to ranting under stress. Who knew?

[longislandiceme]

"Hey, hey," Bobby stuck out his tongue in an amazing display of maturity. "You're the one who brought up the idea of me carrying you." Sort of. He flagged down a rickshaw driver and then gestured at Warren to climb in. "Well? What are you waiting for?"