[ bodyswap - mayko and karen ]

[formerfratboy]

Mayko's first thought when she wakes up isn't that she feels strange or that she's somewhere unfamiliar, though both of those things are true. Her first thought is there's someone in my bed, when she's pretty damn sure she went to bed alone.

"Mmph," she says against a shoulderblade, her fingers stretching out against the firm, smooth skin of someone else's stomach. For a moment, when she's in that fuzzy space between waking and sleeping, it's hard to remember that she should be questioning this, that she shouldn't just sink into the comfort of another person's body. Her fingers wander for a moment, up over stomach and ribs and....

It's then that she realises she's in bed with a woman, and even if she'll admit it's possible she had a few drinks the previous evening, to account for her lack of memory of her bedpartner, she's pretty sure there's not enough beer on the island for that.

"Uh. Good morning?"

That? Is not Mayko's voice.

Comments

[callofkaren]

"Morning," Karen mumbled back happily, and she stretched a little under Nick's hand. Considering the different ways to be woken up in the morning (and in the night with the occasional nightmare), this ranked high on Karen's list.

[formerfratboy.livejournal.com]

There's just no polite way to yank your hand off someone else's breast, so Mayko slides it off instead, letting it rest against the safe territory of her stomach again as she tries to reconcile herself with what's happened.

Suddenly it feels like she was tempting fate, when she asked Jill what it was like to be inside a man's body.

"We have a problem," she says, though the words sound ridiculous considering the scope of the problem. From Mayko's perspective, anyway.

[callofkaren]

"Not on my end," Karen replied. Nick sounded serious , though, and it didn't seem like going back to sleep was an option. She rubbed her eyes, trying to wake herself up a little more and turned over to face him. "What's the problem?"

[formerfratboy.livejournal.com]

"The problem is, I'm not who you think I am," she says, still struggling to wake up entirely herself, the body she's in awkward and uncomfortable as she pushes herself up onto one elbow. "My name's Mayko, and I have no idea whose body I'm in."

Whoever's it is, though, it's pretty happy to be in bed wrapped around a woman right now, which is a whole new level of awkward.

[callofkaren]

Karen blamed still being half asleep on her poor reaction time, because it took her a few full seconds of blinking up at Nick before the fact that that wasn't Nick finally clicked.

"You're kidding me," she said, and sat up quickly, gathering the sheet over her chest. It was a little harder to move away from Nick (because, hey, her body liked his, too), putting a few inches between her and whoever was in there.

"That's Nick Stokes," she said, glad that it wasn't Gideon again, or, God forbid, Jim. "My name's Karen Filippelli."

[formerfratboy.livejournal.com]

"Nick," repeats Mayko, with something that's almost relief but not quite. It's hard to be relieved by anything when you've just woken up in bed with someone else's girlfriend. "Thank God." At least Nick's a friend, which doesn't make it much better. Just a little. "Karen? I've seen you around. I work in the lab."

It's an awkward position to make introductory small talk from, especially when it's apparent her current body still has other ideas, but she's not being given much of a choice.

[callofkaren]

Hearing that it was at least someone familiar relieved Karen a little bit, but she was still trying to get over the whole someone else in Nick's body thing.

"Probably when I drag Nick out of there," she said, managing half a smile. It was weird, talking about Nick like he wasn't there when she was still talking to him.

When her eyes drifted down to his lap, she cleared her throat and turned away, looking over the edge of the bed for any clothes. Luckily Nick's shirt was pretty close, and she quickly pulled it on and stepped out of bed. It was probably for the best. "How about we get you dressed?"

[formerfratboy.livejournal.com]

"Yes!" says Mayko, not even worrying about how desperate she must sound. Pants are just about the best idea she's ever heard. "The sooner the better."

She's sure she's been in more mortifying situations than this, but she can't think of any off the top of her head.

[callofkaren]

Any other time, Karen might have found that cute, but she was still more concerned about how weird the whole situation was.

She pulled on a pair of shorts herself, before picking out a few things from the clothes Nick kept in her hut. For other mornings that didn't involve a ripoff of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

"Here you go," she said, laying the pile down on the bed, then she gave Mayko a considerate look. "Want me to turn around?"

[formerfratboy.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, yes, Mayko hasn't even figured out the particulars of this body yet and isn't quite ready to parade around in it naked. On the other, Karen's probably seen it naked a lot more times than she has, and assuming a healthy sex life in the exact condition it's in now.

In the end, instead of answering, she just pulls on the pants as fast as she can, stumbling only a little, and making the whole point academic.

"I should probably...." Mayko starts, gesturing towards the door but not really moving. "Uh, where are we, exactly?"

[callofkaren]

Karen was finding it a little hard not to start seeing everything as amusing, especially when Mayko seemed so uncomfortable in Nick's body — and she didn't really blame her.

"We're on the west beach," she answered, and turned almost a full circle as she looked for Nick's baseball cap. His hair was a mess. "We're between both paths, but if you hang a left on the beach you'll get to the one that goes by the Hamlet faster."

[formerfratboy.livejournal.com]

Even just moving is difficult in this body, and while Mayko has always known, in an abstract way, the different ways in which men and women are put together, she hadn't really expected it to feel this different.

"That's the one that goes straight up to the compound, right?" she says. Though what she's going to do when she gets there, she isn't sure. Coffee first, then... everything else.