Coraline Jones (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
curiously_cora) wrote2008-08-15 02:24 am
curiously_cora) wrote2008-08-15 02:24 am
[for adam] - I tell myself I am Alice but I cannot wake up
I am in a room with mirrors to which I have the only key. My heart beats very fast, and I am afraid. I should not be here. Mohinder will not like it.
I look in the first mirror. I am there, my blonde hair a tangle as I fight with another boy over a stuffed toy and then another. The toys cry out in familiar voices and I let go, falling backwards, tumbling into the next mirror.
I am stabbing the boogeyman with a fork. I think I am going to eat him. He will do some good before he dies. But he does not die and I am on the ceiling. Small and frightened and screaming. My blood drops from my mouth, until a boy comes. The mirror shatters stabbing him and he dies, but the broken mirror sets me free.
I run and there is another mirror. In it toy soldiers march into dark caves. A tall man with eyes of steel tells me to fill the caves with gas, but I don't want to. Another big man with a sword comes and he saves me, his princess, and tells me the past is not written in stone. I don't understand, so I flee.
A scary man catches me and sings me to sleep. He is not Mohinder or Matt, and I am afraid to sleep, but I can't help it. I sleep, but I am not sleeping beauty. No one can wake me and I am trapped in my nightmare mirrors, spinning from one to another and another until I am screaming at the top of my lungs, shouting but no one hears.
I tell myself I am Alice. It is only a dream and I can wake up.
I do not wake, but the dream becomes nicer. A friend holds me and comforts me. Sometimes he looks like Mohinder. Sometimes I don't recognize him, but he is safe and I curl closer in my dream. "Coraline, you are safe," he tells me, but my name is Molly or Mohinder. I'm confused and I want to wake up.
Mohinder rolled closer to the warmth, reaching out instinctively to pull it closer, tuck it under his arm and against his chest. It didn't budge and nor did it feel familiar, except that it was male and strong and smelled clean. Whoever it was had obviously come to his bed willingly. The fleeting thought crossed his mind that it might be Owen, but his half-conscious mind dismissed the possibility before he could wake enough to worry over it.
Still half-asleep, he smiled and sleeked a hand over a strong abdomen.
I look in the first mirror. I am there, my blonde hair a tangle as I fight with another boy over a stuffed toy and then another. The toys cry out in familiar voices and I let go, falling backwards, tumbling into the next mirror.
I am stabbing the boogeyman with a fork. I think I am going to eat him. He will do some good before he dies. But he does not die and I am on the ceiling. Small and frightened and screaming. My blood drops from my mouth, until a boy comes. The mirror shatters stabbing him and he dies, but the broken mirror sets me free.
I run and there is another mirror. In it toy soldiers march into dark caves. A tall man with eyes of steel tells me to fill the caves with gas, but I don't want to. Another big man with a sword comes and he saves me, his princess, and tells me the past is not written in stone. I don't understand, so I flee.
A scary man catches me and sings me to sleep. He is not Mohinder or Matt, and I am afraid to sleep, but I can't help it. I sleep, but I am not sleeping beauty. No one can wake me and I am trapped in my nightmare mirrors, spinning from one to another and another until I am screaming at the top of my lungs, shouting but no one hears.
I tell myself I am Alice. It is only a dream and I can wake up.
I do not wake, but the dream becomes nicer. A friend holds me and comforts me. Sometimes he looks like Mohinder. Sometimes I don't recognize him, but he is safe and I curl closer in my dream. "Coraline, you are safe," he tells me, but my name is Molly or Mohinder. I'm confused and I want to wake up.
Mohinder rolled closer to the warmth, reaching out instinctively to pull it closer, tuck it under his arm and against his chest. It didn't budge and nor did it feel familiar, except that it was male and strong and smelled clean. Whoever it was had obviously come to his bed willingly. The fleeting thought crossed his mind that it might be Owen, but his half-conscious mind dismissed the possibility before he could wake enough to worry over it.
Still half-asleep, he smiled and sleeked a hand over a strong abdomen.
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"S'too early, Cora."
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With Jack there'd been none, and with Alcuin he used them. His half-conscious mind appreciated the comfort of it, of someone caring about him, caring for him. He sought memories of the previous night to tell him who it was, but not immediately finding them - had he been drinking again? - and not wanting to be cold, said, "Perhaps it is, but it's a pleasure, pleasure."
Perhaps he had been getting high, if his voice squeaked like that. He cracked open an eye to glance up at the face above him. A lot above him, and he frowned. Mohinder didn't recognize the handsome man at all. How rude!
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"Are you coming down with something, Coraline," he said, his voice hoarse with sleep. "Are you hot?"
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My god. His hands! They were so small. And his skin was white. Mouth hanging open, Mohinder registered exactly what else was missing. He was small and female.
Otha. Conscious- Conscious... Why couldn't he think right?! Conscius...FINE. Bodyswitch.
"I'm not sick," he declared. "And I'm not Coraline."
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Adam shot up right so rapidly that he overbalanced and fell out of bed, ending up on the floor in a tangle of limbs and tousled blond hair.
"...What the bloody hell did you say?"
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He whimpered at the sound of his voice and the obvious overuse of exclamations, his fingers trembling on the bed covering. Then he looked over the side, and the little girl body he was in let out a high-pitched giggle that made him whimper all the more.
This was definitively not opt- opt- NOT AWESOME.
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"Okay...Who the hell are you, and what are you doing...possessing my little girl?"
He paused. He wasn't sure that he'd ever referred to Coraline like that before.
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Still shaking, he did the only thing he could think of. Stuck this Coraline's hand down from the side of the bed to shake. "Dr. Mohinder Suresh. And I...don't know." He pressed his lips together - that felt funny, they were skinner than he was used to and it made the skin on his face pull weirdly. "Well, maybe...a couple of weeks ago other people had this happen. Maybe we're just...late?"
My god, he hoped not. He really really really hoped not because it might be a little bit awesome to have a new mind to explore but he already wanted his body back.
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"Adam. Carter. I look after Coraline. I...have to go find Coraline."
He got up, pulling on his jeans over the boxers that he'd slept in. He could run to the compound and find Angie, and then they could both look for Coraline and...
"You're going to be careful with that body, aren't you?"
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"Where does she sleep? Where are her clothes? Is she uh-uh--" What was the word? He could see it in his mind, but the harder he tried to reach it, the further it slipped away. Frustrated, he tried to think of things related. Drugs, especially penicillin. Bees. Shellfish. Citrus, Rodney McKay was -- "allergic," he said almost triumphantly, then finished, "to anything?"
Kneeling up on the bed, he looked over at Adam, trying not to scowl or pout with frustration. "I'll bring her home at night and try not to wear her out with my schedule. How old is she? Is she, am I, blonde? I was dreaming and I thought she was Molly the little girl I used to look after and--" Mohinder lifted a hand to stop his mouth, eyes going wide with horror.
When he took it down again, he breathed out slow and tried to force his mind to slow down. "This is going to take some getting used to."
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And that was a lot of questions."
He took a deep breath.
"She's eleven. And, yeah, she's blond. She sleeps in there," He pointed to the open bedroom door. "Unless she has nightmares, which is why you're in here. She's not allergic to anything I'm aware of."
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He felt very...weird and...not awesome at all. This body he as in, she could be his daughter, and he had to dress and bathe and feed it as it were his own and try to be himself at the same time and that was going to be very hard and it already made him want to cry a little.
But he would do his best to keep her safe and happy while he was in her body, he would. "Does she have friends or other family I need to know about?" When it happened the last time, he'd made a mental list of things he'd want to know if it happened to him. Most of the list seemed forgotten but relationships were important and he didn't want to damage any of hers. "Anyone she doesn't like? Anything she doesn't like?"
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Like she was his own daughter, and that was the weirdest part about it and the least awesome.
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He swallowed, a little wild around blue eyes.
"I have to go. You'll...be alright? You'll be careful with her?"
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"I'll be okay," he said and the bit off all the other words that wanted to tumble out, except one solemn vow: "I promise." So what if he was scared? Adam would be freaking out over Coraline. The least he could do was keep it together long enough for him to go look for her.
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"Be good," he said, before he slipped out of the door.
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It also felt bad to get a kiss intended for Coraline and to be told to be good, for more reasons than he could even think through because he was too busy collapsing on the bed and burying his face in the pillow and trying not to cry.
It took him a few minutes to pull it together enough to go into Coraline's room, but by the time he did, he felt a lot better, and ready to do some exploring.