The voice in the back of his was rather undeniably the same voice as Ghost's. And that was definitely him on the table, breathing deeply and evenly like he wasn't actively ruining this for himself. 

It was really hard to be in denial at moments like this.

"So." His heart--her heart--was beating a little too fast, but he tried to keep his/her/their voice steady. "This is my power. Apparently. Don't worry, I go back when I wake up. I think. Just, ah, let me--"

He stood, reaching over to his body. Shake shake shoulder shake. "Umm." Yeah that was not working. And he would feel really, really stupid slapping himself in front of a staff member. Slapping himself with a staff member? 

Blood was rushing to their cheeks. His embarrassment had surpassed mortification to such an extent he'd apparently required a second body to express it. Oh crap oh crap. He tried waking himself again, shoving a little harder, and accidentally knocked himself straight off the stool. He hastily caught his body by the shoulders, easing it to the floor. His body slept on, content to let him deal with this mess alone.

"Oh not good. Not. Good." Her voice was really well suited to panic, he noted.

I can hear you, he admitted, because it would be more embarrassing if he kept pretending he didn't, and she found out later. Am I going to get kicked out for this?

There was something like hope tinging that question. As if somewhere in the back of his mind, he was still thinking he could go back to his old life, if his new life would just stop being crazy. She would be able to feel the whole kaleidoscope of that emotion, just as easily as he could feel hers.

While hearing him admit and own up to his power was somewhat gratifying on the mutant admission and integration front, those were not the words she wanted to hear from her own lips right now.

Yes! They should totally wake him up. Ghost shook his shoulder too. Or, well, maybe she helped? A little? Okay definitely that time!

> "Oh not good. Not. Good."

They eased him down to the floor. Ghost just wasn't strong enough to lift him with pure muscle. He would probably just fall right on through her fingers anyway. Ghost checked her power and her body. Still in stasis. It worked best when she could keep her incorporeal bits on the inside.

"Jiri-kun. Let me drive."

> Am I going to get kicked out for this?

Of course not. Was her knee-jerk reaction. A more final, "I don't think so." was what came through her mouth after sorting through the rush of feelings she'd had that also did not belong to her.

I- we may have to get some help to move you. Ghost looked around —Ha! She could look around!— but it was summer and the sun was shining. Everyone had somewhere else to be. In fact...

"Do you uhm... want to finish your tour?" It felt a bit hypocritical to be awkward about this since she could do something similar. "Because another new student is due for orientation today." Susan, Ghost supplied the name helpfully. At least, she was pretty sure she'd been the one to think of it. "After your time slot comes hers. She's due any time after 3." And the oven clock read 2:45 pm.

She was talking. And moving. It felt really, really weird to not be in control of his body--

Err, her body. Right. Turning over control... yes, yes he could see where that might help the situation. At the least, it might calm one of them down. He tried to relax, tried to will himself into a little ball in the back of her mind, tried to visualize withdrawing his hands from her arms like he was taking off a pair of gloves

oh god that mental image

Yeah. Never visualizing that again. But he was pretty sure it had worked.

"Okay, I think you're in control now--ohgoddammit. Sorry! Language. Sorry." He clapped a hand over their mouth. His dad would have yelled at him for that, too. God's name, and all that.

Jiri joined her in looking at the clock. He really wasn't sure which one of them had glanced that way first. Susan. Yeah. He remembered: the other welcome packet. "Three?" He said, as the green number ticked to 2:46. "I guess I'll try to be awake by then?"

I really sincerely doubt I'll be awake by then aaaaand apparently I can't have private thoughts right now this is fantastic.

"But tour, sure. Sounds great."

It did not sound great. Nothing about this sounded great. And that was before the intercom crackled from the ceiling.

"Maya to the front door. Miss Susan is here."

 Miss Susan. At least she sounded cute.

He was trying. He got points for that even if he did slip up in the language department. Ghost removed the hand from her mouth. "It's so weird to hear me say those things." And to speak of herself doing things that she wasn't doing. Yes. Most discomforting.

"Sure." Sure tour. Sure.

> "Maya to the front door."

This was turning out to be quite Dr. Seuss-like. "I'll just... give you both the tour. At the same time. It'll be fun." Yeah. She didn't sound the most convinced either.

Okay. They could do this. Maya went to take a step toward the door with one foot. Jiri went to take a step with the other. The result was that she sort of just shifted her weight back and forth and no one went forward at all.

Maya close her eyes. Stop. Breathe. Let's try this again starting with the left. Just like a three-legged race. But. Two legs. Or Four?

Together they stepped over Jiri's body and went for the front hall.

Susan was waiting for them. She stood at least 7 feet tall with arms that stretched nearly to the ground. Her hands were almost as wide as she was, nails painted a delicate pink. Her skin was greyish beneath her upsized hoodie and jeans.

Maya's smile was automatic. She'd seen her fair share of strangeness at the bookstore and the Mansion over the years. "Hi there! I'm Ghost." She offered her hand. Whether the girl had touch-based powers or not, Ghost knew that even just offering to touch someone who society would deem untouchable, would go a long way to earn her trust.

"It's so weird to be talking in this voice," Jiri said. "Not that it's a bad voice. Just... not mine." In any way, shape, or octave.

On the subject of tours, he tried to be polite. "Are you sure this is a good idea?" 

"I'm sure you know what you're doing," he even more politely continued, as they stumbled and stalled, and caught themselves on the kitchen counter, and possibly stepped on one of his body's hands, he really didn't want to look. "How long have you worked here?"

A few months? Days? Hours? ...Did he think that out loud? Shiiii--Crap.

Left, right, left, right. This was a safer thing to think about. Jiri was left.

Slowly, inexorably, they made their way to the foyer. Jiri was focused enough (left, right, left, right) that he did not at first notice what was in front of them. Then the shadow fell on them. It was long, broad, all encompassing. The figure was silhouetted by the windows that framed the Mansion's doors. A suit of armor? He hadn't noticed it coming in, but then, there'd been that whole dust typhoon. The whirlwind that was Ghost was not to be underestimated. 

But if it was a suit of armor, there was something wrong with it--the arms, the hands, were all out of proportion with the rest. It was taller than it needed to be, the head dwarfed by the mountain that sat below it. And... and... pink. On the finger nails. So pink.

Unconsciously, Ghost's left leg began to drag a bit as they continued to approach. In the back of her mind, Jiri huddled in abject terror. 

>> "Hi there! I'm Ghost."

They were stretching out their hand, a hand that looked like a seed next to a redwood compared to the over-sized slab of flesh that reached out to meet them halfway. The gargantuan meat grinder moved slowly at first, with fits and starts, as if hesitant, unaccustomed to shaking hands.

Of course it's unaccustomed to handshakes, it could wrap that car compactor around our whole body and shake--

"Oh god no." Jiri unequivocally jerked their hand back, and dragged them back a step, if only with their left leg. "No no no no."

That was not safe to touch.

I first came to the Mansion when I was 17, I think? Whenever the Registration Camps were released. Or, rather, when violent mutant attackers released the incarcerated mutants. It was mostly the same to her. Scrambling out over mud made from blood was remarkably similar to slipping in regular mud. Even if the dead were all someone's child, she'd been more worried about not getting left behind at the time.

It's okay, Jiri. Ghost's leg started to move back and prime her escape. She shifted her weight so he couldn't do that any more. This was an important time in gaining a young mutant's trust!

It was fine so long as his internal panic didn't...

>"Oh god no."

Jiri pulled her hand back and they collectively stumbled backward. Ghost could feel her face twist in abject horror and could only watch as Susan's face crumbled. Every "no" spoken was a nail hammered into her growing ire. The elemental slapped her hand over her own mouth and tried to stand up straight.

Stop! Jiri, stop! Even if she was trying to hurt us, I could—"go incorporeal!" Ghost squeaked and did just that as Susan made a grab for him. Her. Them.

"Susan. I'm sorry. I didn't... Jiri... I have..." Words were hard.

Everything turned bad colors and the certainty he'd had--that 96% sure he was awake certainty--started rapidly slipping down the scales.

Shouts and crashes, explosions, gunfire, shouting and screaming and a night sky nearly bloated out by smoke. Falling, hands squelching down into slippery red mud and he knew he knew what was in it--

73%

The thing in the foyer, its face was contorting, turning into something even more gruesome. If he stopped to think about it rationally, it was almost like watching CGI--animation so good that it looked real, but with that undefinable wrong to it. The Uncanny Valley effect, that whispered in the back of the human brain that what he was looking at was fake, was not human, was something to cause a feeling of revolt on a primal level. 

66%

And then the world went black and white, went negatives and positives, he couldn't see but he could hear the thing screaming and hear Ghost protesting but he didn't have ears anymore

57%

didn't have eyes but he could see--see the hallway, like someone had carved a mold of it, like it had been set on a shelf to dry and later they'd pour in the plaster and stairs and banisters and doors and walls would be real again. Everything was inverted, flipped, the negatives turned to positives.

41%

Calm descended as the scales tipped and tumbled. Surreality was comforting like that.

...Oh. This is just a nightmare, isn't it? Okay.

Okay. He could deal with nightmares. He'd been having them for months.

”You’re all the SAAAAAAME!”

“No! Susan! It’s another new student!” Ghost ducked instinctively even though the swipe went right through her head, momentarily dissipating her smokey form. “He’s having to get used to his powers and this place and it’s not fair to ask you to forgive him, or me, but please just hear me out for a minute!”

She wasn’t thinking about why Jiri had gone practically radio silent. Ghost was too busy moving herself through Susan’s legs while Susan tried her best to stomp on her. It was okay that Susan was focusing her anger on Ghost because Ghost was not currently as breakable as the Mansion’s lobby.

Either Susan was actually listening or was taking a moment to consider Ghost in this form and how previous attempts to smash had not come to fruition.

Ghost took the momentary reprieve to both move toward the door and introduce her current cohabitator. ”Susan, I’d like you to meet Jiri.”

Jiri say something!

Jiri floated in the back of his tour guide's mind, in the comforting void of no-longer-caring. This was a dream, so he didn't have to care. He was free to poke at things with these trippy dream-senses and relax control of life. Net result: he'd given back nearly full control to Ghost, just like she'd wanted. 

It was funny to watch her use it. All this hopping around, and dodging and ducking, and giant hands through his head which tickled. It was like watching a silent film, almost. Except not so silent. But there was that same feeling of disconnect from reality, of distance, of watching things play out and not really getting it at first until someone flashed up a dialogue card with fancy scroll work borders. 

>> Jiri say something!

Okay. Why not. 

The teenager considered the scene, squeezing things lightly with their edges--with their air?--to increase the definition. 

All right.

"I am sorry for my behavior. I ask you not to be upset with me, and please don't cry." His was the most soothing of Ghost-voices. "Crying will not make you prettier."

There was a blissful innocence to his bluntness. Someone had asked him to narrate the dream, and he'd provided. No harm intended. When he woke up, these two were just going to disappear, anyway.  

“JIRI!” Ghost put her hands on her face as Susan punched through her and through the bannister behind her.

“I’m not crying, you ass!”

Ugh. Okay. New tack. “Come see his body, Susan!” Ghost started to drift toward the kitchen but stopped once she realized how very bad an idea that was.

Yes. Show the emotionally laden girl with the body of an olympic weight lifter the helpless body of the boy who’d just insulted her. May as well blindfold her and tell her there’s candy inside while they were at it.

“Body?”

“Uhh.”

“Is he dead?”

“Uhh.” Ghost’s voice rose an octave with each deliberation.

“Is that what you do? Collect the dead?” Oh. Finally. A question she could answer.

“No. I’m just an air elemental. Ghost is a nickname because… well… I look it. Jiri, he’s a-” bodysnatcher seemed a term in poor taste here ”Mind. Jumper. Yeah. Uhm. There might be a class come fall about how to defend your mind against psychic intrusion. I should probably brush up… heh.” Well, Susan at least wasn’t throwing punches any more.

“Show me.”

The banister made a really satisfying crackle-pop, like rice crispies on a bonfire. 

"Cool." It was an airy expression of admiration, expressed through the air-hands clapped over their air-face. "Is it making you feel better when you punch things? Because It's making me feel better. Don't stop."

And now they were going to visit his body, sure, why not.

wait what

Wait NO wait what?

His fragile, floating calm shattered around him. I do not think this is a good idea. And I think I really should point out that the last time I thought something was not a good idea, it was coming here to give that thing a tour, and I think the burden of proof is with me when I say it was NOT A GOOD IDEA AND NEITHER IS THIS.

The way back to the kitchen was tragically short, much like his young life. He could at least go out with narration.

Jiri gestured expansively at the body on the floor, like a sign girl on The Price is Right.

"Susan, meet my undefended body. My undefended body, meet Susan." A little bit of jazz hands seemed appropriate at this interval. "Now taking bets on whether I will wake up from this nightmare when I am rendered unto putty."

Ghost took back her jazz hands. In fact, she folded her incorporeal arms and tucked them under her incorporeal armpits. There.

"You have to give trust to get trust, Jiri." And here's your first lesson whether you like it or not.

Susan watched the way that Ghost talked to herself, even when she tried to stop herself.

"This guy is in you?" Susan pointed with a pink painted finger at Jiri. Her nail had to be as big as his nose.

"He fell asleep. We tried to wake him up, but that's his power and it's his first day. Look." Susan obeyed looking closely at the body. It was breathing. Not exactly snoring, but he did look peaceful. Susan lifted a foot up over Jiri's body. It was smaller than her hands, but with her weight there was no doubt the kind of damage she could do.

"Want me to scare him out of you?"

I do not like this lesson. I do not like it at all. And you will not like cleaning the smears of my dismembered body out of the tile grout. 

Ghost was keeping their lips too firmly sealed for him to express this emotion out loud, but he made sure to fill her eyes with a sense of impending catastrophe. And he was breathing hard enough for both of them.

The pointing finger did not help.

The foot really did not help.

"I'm too young to die!" Jiri finally managed to shout, doing everything in his power to throw themself bodily at Susan. 

It was a testament to his state of already sufficiently scared that he didn't consider the consequences of pushing the gargantuan mutant off balance when she was threatening to step on him.

Susan was a mountain of a girl. Jiri and Ghost were the winds that parted around the mountain. Thank goodness.

"He's sufficiently scared, Miss Susan. I don't think that's working as far as waking him up goes. Could you please not upset him any more?"

She may have wobbled a little, but Susan used her huge ham hands to grab onto the kitchen counter.

"Not helping?" She put her foot down suspiciously close to Jiri's face, but at least she hadn't put it on (or through) it.

"I'm afraid not. Do you think we should move his body?"

"It is kinda in the way."

"Jiri?" Ghost tried to reform herself at least into a more human looking incorporeal shape. "I could hop in your body or we can find a way to carry you. What do you think?"

"Did you try throwing water on him?"

"No. Uh. Maybe not on the face? Wouldn't want him to aspirate it."

There were three of them in this conversation, but only two voices. Jiri made sure to differentiate himself from Ghost with a sheer note of incredulous panic.

"Yeah not helping! You think? Please tell me, and be very honest, when has stepping on someone ever been the correct answer?" That foot was way too close to his head, as his(her) wildly gesticulating hands were making abundantly clear (when Ghost wasn't fighting him to keep them still. The result really ended up looking more like one-woman patty-cake than proper pointing.)

"I am not in the way!" He protested on principle. "We're, like, the only ones here! And I am very neatly tucked out of the way of foot traffic by this convenient kitchen island!" More patty-cake pointing. He knew he wasn't making much sense, but none of these options sounded good, especially the ones that involved anyone touching him. "And what do you even mean, hop in my... body... oh."

He facepalmed Ghost. Because she deserved it.

"If you were another body snatcher, maybe you could have mentioned that at some point. How do you stop possessing someone? Because I could really use a mentor, here."

Judging by the fact she hadn't volunteered that information when it first became highly relevant, he assumed she didn't want the role. Sure. Fine. Whatever. Because there were so many other body snatchers he could talk to about his problems. Her implicit rejection didn't sting. At all.

He jiggled a defeated hand Susan's way, like you'd shoo a dog or a very annoying second grader. "No water. Don't make me come over there."

He could do that. Maybe. In theory.