#fft14

“What the fuck?”

Killian’s sleep rough voice came from her… his… mouth.

How was this possible?

This had to be some freaky, weird dream.

People couldn’t just… switch bodies.

So what happened?

~*~

Killian woke slowly, confused.  He could have sworn that he’d remembered to set his alarm the night before, but the light filtering through the closed blinds told him it was later than he normally woke up.  His confusion deepened as he realized that he was in Emma’s apartment.  He’d gone home last night, after the disastrous dinner. How had he ended up at Emma’s apartment, in Emma’s bed?

And why was everything blurry?

Killian roughly rubbed a hand across his face to help wake himself up and was shocked to not feel his signature scruff against his palm.  Had he decided to shave last night, for some odd reason?  He’d had a few more drinks after getting home and had defiantly been drunk by the time he’d gone to bed, but surely it hadn’t been enough for him to not remember shaving? And apparently make his way to his girlfriend’s apartment?  It had been a long time since he’d been blackout drunk, but that would also explain why he still couldn’t see properly.

“Bloody hell,” he murmured in a voice not his own.

That woke Killian up and he shot straight up.  He quickly scrambled out of bed and promptly fell flat onto the floor, his limbs not obeying.  He heaved himself back up and stumbled his way toward the bathroom.  

He was… Emma.  

And he looked exhausted.

The underside of his… her… eyes were puffy, as if he’d… she’d… been crying.

The realization that Emma must have cried sometime after returning home from dinner was like a knife in his heart.  That was his fault.  Him and his stupid, ill-timed proposition.

Killian dropped his head forward.  

“What have I done?”

Before he could spiral too far down that depressing line of thought, he heard Emma’s phone start to ring.  He clumsily left the bathroom and spotted Emma’s cellphone on the bedside table, which showed a picture of himself relaxing on Emma’s bed and his name on the screen.

If he was in Emma’s body… she must be in his!

Killian scrambled across the bed and swiped across the screen to answer the call.

“Emma?  Are you alright?” He inquired frantically.

The line was silent for a moment before he heard his own voice answer in reply.  

“Killian, are you… me?”

He answered in the affirmative before repeating his question about how she was.

“I’m confused as fuck.  What is going on?” She asked.

“I don’t know, Emma.  But we are going to figure it out,” he told her, “I promise you, we will get this sorted.”

Emma’s voice quaked when she asked, “How?”

“I’m not sure yet,” he answered honestly.  “Stay put.  I’m going to head over there and we can figure this out, together.”

He could hear Emma breathing heavily on the other end of the call.  Eventually, she replied, “Okay.  That sounds good.  I’ll get the coffee started.  I feel like we’re going to need lot of it.”

                                                        ~*~

Four hours later, Emma and Killian were in his living room doing research on how they could have swapped bodies.  Killian was on the floor, surrounded by piles of books on mythology and legends. Most were from his own shelves, history nerd that he was, but some he had grabbed from the library on his way over.

It was weird, seeing herself from the outside, especially looking so academic. He was wearing her glasses, unwilling to risk any damage to her eyes by trying to put contact lenses in he’d said. They kept slipping down his nose due to a broken nose pad, which reminded her that she needed to get a new pair.

While Killian was in his element with the books, she was using her rusty internet sleuthing skills and was hunting down information online using keywords and search terms Killian suggested.  Something that was frustratingly difficult with only one hand.  Did they not make laptops or keyboards that were easier for one-handed individuals to use?

When another term brought her to a page about yet another mythological trickster, she asked, “Does every mythology have some sort of trickster god?”

Killian looked up from the book he was skimming, face thoughtful.  “I believe so.  Some even have multiple, in a way, with many entities representing different mischievous attributes.  Pan would probably be the trickster of Greek mythology, but there is also Eris, the Goddess of discord.  And Dionysis could be considered a bit of a trickster, being the deity of madness.”

Emma couldn’t help but smile at Killian’s thorough answer.  Even though mythology wasn’t his area of study, he was a historian and always tried to give the most complete answer possible.  

After answering, Killian looked contemplative.  “Do you think we have been cursed by some sort of trickster?” He asked slowly.

Emma’s eyebrows shot up.  “Do you?”

Killian scratched behind his ear, clearly embarrassed, but all Emma could concentrate on was how surreal it was to see her own body display Killian’s tick.  

“We are obviously looking at some type of supernatural cause, as impossible as that seems, so it’s as good as an answer as any,” he eventually admitted.

Just as Emma was about to answer, her phone buzzed.  It was her calendar app reminding her that she and Killian were supposed to meet Mary-Margaret and David for dinner and drinks that evening. She showed the notification to Killian, who blinked owlishly at it.

“We have to reschedule,” he simply stated.

Emma was shaking her head before he even finished. “Both of us can’t cancel.

They’ll know something is up and we’ll never hear the end of it until we tell them.”

“We could claim one of us isn’t feeling well,” he suggested hopefully.

“And Mary-Margaret will be over with soup within the hour,” she countered. After a moment, she continued, “Research is more you’re area, so I’ll go and make-up something to explain your absence.”

“Such as?”

She shrugged, her eyes on the website in front of her.  “Maybe that we fought last night and you… well, me, technically… are not currently in the mood to see me, or rather you.  The best lies are those with some basis in the truth, after all.”

The room was silent in the wake of her suggestion.  Emma looked up from her computer to find Killian staring at her.

“Is that how this day would have gone, if we weren’t in this… unusual situation?” He asked, his voice soft.

Uncomfortable being under her own gaze, Emma shifted on the couch.  “Possibly,” she admitted.  “I probably would have called Mary-Margaret at some point.  Asked for her advice on the situation.”

Killian continued to study her.  

“And you?” She eventually asked.  “I already know that you came home and drank half the bottle of rum David gave you for Christmas, so would you have just spent the day nursing the hangover?”

The hangover that she was still coping with, even after a substantial amount of water and numerous cups of coffee.

“Ah… yes.  Sorry about that,” he apologized.  “I was planning to invite you to Granny’s for breakfast, actually.”

“Really?”

Killian nodded solemnly. “I guess it would have been a fool’s hope that you would have been willing to meet after last night.”

Emma’s heart clenched painfully.

“Killian, I…” she started but her phone rang just as she did.

She was about to answer it before she remembered that she currently wasn’t herself and neither of them were in the habit of answering the other’s phones.  She passed it to Killian, who grabbed it as if it were a snake about to bite him.

“Just… act like me?” She suggested hopefully.

Killian rolled his eyes before answering the call and putting it on speaker phone.

“Emma!” Mary-Margaret’s excited voice filled the room.  “How are you this morning?”

“I’m fine, M. You?”

“I’m having a lovely day.  Are you and Killian still meeting David and me tonight?”

“That was the plan.”  Killian did a rather good job imitating her more succinct pattern of speech, Emma noted.  Much better than she was at his.

“Excellent.  Would 5:30pm work for the two of you?”

Killian looked at her for guidance.  Emma signaled for him to answer, hoping he could come up with some reasonable explanation for his… her… absence.

“Actually, I’m feeling a bit tired today. I was thinking…” He started before being interrupted by their friend.

“Are you sick? Do you need me to bring you anything? I have some chicken noodle soup I made on Saturday.” Mary-Margaret was true to form, immediately offering all the comforts she could provide to a sick friend.  

Killian looked startled and he struggled to interrupt Mary-Margaret.  “No, I’m not sick,” he insisted. “I just didn’t sleep well, that is all.”

“Are you sure? It will only take thirty minutes or so for me to warm up some of the soup and bring it over,” Mary-Margaret insisted.

Killian stumbled over his words as he replied, “No, I really am fine, truly. 5:30pm works great.  We’ll meet you at Granny’s.”

“Ok, great! See you both then!”  After that, the call disconnected but Killian continued to stare at the phone.  

“That didn’t go like I had hoped,” he eventually said.

Emma tried to remember if Killian had ever had the full force of Mary-Margaret’s protective nature turned on him before.  She didn’t think so.

“Don’t worry about it.  If we can’t find a solution to our… problem before dinner, we can just get them drunk enough that they won’t notice if anything is different about us.”

Killian looked dubious at her suggestion, but he couldn’t offer any other alternative plan.  Now with a time limit, they both dove back into their research.

                                                         ~*~