~~ “I can do, what?”“Just by being close? You don’t have to do anything? Nothing else happens…the powers just…poof?”

“yup, I am like base in the game of hide and seek, or a time out to a super power tantrum. I’m pretty sure its like mutants are human around me.” She shrugged. “ and oh that freaks you out, but you give me, ghosts flying all around and expect me to just say ok. I suppose its all perspective. And I was kind of hoping that I my body being here would fix all this…odd that this effect doesn’t boil directly down to a mutant ability. And disappointing. ”


~~“That’s all well and good, but you need to listen to me.” “If you’re not by me, you need to work at it all the time. All. The. Time. Keep them out of your head or bad things can happen. Really bad things.”

“Oh.” She had just been shooting them glares and concentrating on the madness at hand…”I can do that.”

~ “You’re some kind of idiot alcoholic on top of everything else. That’s good to know…”

~~“It’s fine Lee…we’re not going to let him out of our sight. You’ll have time to fill him in after he sobers up.”

She maneuvered around and set close to Her body. “No offense ,but I kind of feel the same way about me. Or uh, well you know what I mean.” She said this to Lee who was in Rupert’s body. So weird.

**“I’m dreaming, obviously. I must say, Tarin, you look much better this time around.”

~~“You idiot…this is not a dream.”

“And it’s a bit late for flattery.” She rolled tarin’s eyes.

***“Mark me down for coffee, as well. Then hours and hours alone in my apartment with Pink Floyd and Springsteen, cooking, a walk across the park with Flipsy to pick up some ingredients, a co-op, and more cooking. I believe I went to sleep hugging my dog.”

“Flipsy?” She gave the drunk on the ground an odd look, she hoped that Tarin’s face did Disdain as well as hers. What kind of dog did youname flipsy. She would bet it was something girly.

~~ “Did you do anything at the festival? Did you talk to anyone, eat anything, drink anything? What all did we have Lee?”

“Maybe it was just the park in general? This is too weird.” How the heck wasn’t this a mutant issue? Aliens maybe?

"Just shut up, Rupert," Lee said as she heard the comment about the eggplant. That's really all there was to say.

Tarin said that they were going to stay close to Rupert, who was currently in her body, so that when he sobered up, they could more fully explain her powers to him, so he'd have a better idea of what he was going to have to deal with. That sounded like a great idea, except for the fact that this was Rupert they were talking about; it wouldn't matter just how useful, or important, what they were telling him was, what was the chance that the man would actually listen to them?

Point in case, the drunk that was in her body seemed convinced still that this was a dream. Something which Tarin (it was still very hard to think of that woman as being Tarin) shot down quickly.

At least at the moment, though, it appeared that the common denominator that they all shared was the fact that they had all gone to the Park the previous day. It definitely wasn't the best link, but it was the best they had to go on so far. "We mostly just wandered around," Lee said slowly in reply to Tarin's question about what they'd done at the festival. "We got ice cream at one point, and had a couple pops to drink. Oh, and there were those muffins, too."

>> “Flipsy?”

Flipsy. Was what a real man (woman) named his (her) real dog. All the Tarin-snatcher had said was one word, but that tone was enough. Rupert didn’t let anyone give his poodle-spaniel any flack. Not the entire NYPD, and not this manly woman-thing. She opened her mouth in protest.

>> "Just shut up, Rupert.”

His own voice told her. This dream was rather messed up, wasn’t it?

“I had a muffin, too,” she stated, rather victoriously. If any of them needed proof that this was a dream, look no further than that, Tarin—their common link was muffins. Oh gee, oh gosh—the muffin man had switched their bodies! Rupert ducked her head against her arm, and giggled.

Tarin waved a hand dismissively in Tyranny’s direction. “It’s not that I’m freaked out by it. I’ve just seen it before. Exactly your power before.” he said, tilting Tyranny’s head to the side as he studied her in his body. Similar mutations were nothing rare, it happened all the time, but something like this that was completely identical? Tarin concentrated on the body he was wearing, there were no powers to speak of, nothing to be aware of. His power was constantly active, and beyond that he could always kind of feel the ability under the surface, waiting to be tapped into. For Tyranny, that didn’t seem to be the case. He frowned thoughtfully at her comment about the spirits and shrugged the shoulders he currently possessed elegantly. “I never said you shouldn’t be freaked out. In fact, I said you should be.”

On the bright side, the woman seemed to think she could handle the spirits, even if she didn’t like them. Tarin nodded, this was okay. Things were going to be okay until they could figure out what had gone wrong and get them all back in their proper bodies. Lee and Rupert bickered some more and Tyranny brought Tarin’s body over to sit by her own, reiterating what Tarin had said to Lee. He nodded his head and grinned slightly, “I understand completely.” he said, still shocked at the pitch of his voice.

Tarin stared at himself for a moment, wondering if his face looked the same when he wore it. It was one thing to look at yourself in the mirror, it was another completely to see yourself from someone else’s perspective entirely. Tarin had never lacked confidence in his physical appearance and he didn’t think this experience was going to change that. It was still strange though, he realized he was staring.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” he said, shaking his head slowly, “It’s just odd to see myself without a mirror. Please tell me you’re doing the same thing.” He suddenly felt the need to justify, “I really didn’t do anything inappropriate with your body…just washed your hair…eyes closed the whole time…”

Lee and Rupert were bickering again, Tarin noticed, this time apparently about everything they’d done the night before. Lee had pointed out everything they’d eaten or drank and Tarin nodded. The street vendors obviously hadn’t gone to the trouble to get a liquor license for the event…there hadn’t been a drop of beer to be found. Just those free muffins…which apparently all of them had eaten.

“You’ve got to be kidding me…” he said, staring incredulously around the room. “The muffins?”

Rupert was giggling, and Tarin scowled when it was nearly as cute as when Lee did it herself. This wasn’t Lee though, this was Rupert…the asshole who’d tried to put a bullet in his head more than once…but brought a really good apple pie to apologize. Brought a really good apple pie to apologize and subsequently walked into a dream nobody should be a part of. Tarin pushed himself off the couch and kneeled down, firmly grasping Lee’s body by the shoulders and setting her up with her back against the couch. He pinched her, hard on the arm, then cast Lee-in-Rupert’s-body an apologetic look.

“You’re not dreaming…though I’d have called this more of a nightmare from the start.”

Tarin fixed Rupert with a firm look, “And you need to start listening to what Lee has to say. We don’t know how long this is going to last and if you screw things up, you’ll kill her body…and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life with your hairy Italian ass as my wife.”

~~ “I never said you shouldn’t be freaked out. In fact, I said you should be.”

“oh. Right.” So maybe this whole thing had addled her brain a bit and she was repeating what others had already made clear.


~~ “I understand completely.”


“Oh, I’m sorry.”, “It’s just odd to see myself without a mirror. Please tell me you’re doing the same thing.” “I really didn’t do anything inappropriate with your body…just washed your hair…eyes closed the whole time…”



“I don’t think anyof us are used to the experience, and yeah, I’m checking me out. I’m not shy. Don’t worry about me, I wasn’t there for it, so, while yes that’s very…gentlemanly, I wouldn’t hold it against you. I would say just make sure its ok with your wife, but seeing as she shaved the goon over there, its probably safe to call it even.” She shrugged to Lee in Rupets body, obviously leaving the ok to her to divvy out.. “ I haven’t had the chance to do any washing up…I think I will probably just do deodorant, for the time being if it is all the same to you.”


“You’ve got to be kidding me…”. “The muffins?”

Tyranny sang lightly as Tarin abused his wife’s body in her own. “Do you know the muffin man, the muffin man? The muffin man! The muffin man…do you know the muffin man, who lives on dreary lane.” She thought that was how it went…”Well, how the heck would we track down that weird looking guy giving out the cursed muffins? I guess we could start with finding who hosted the event. The city should have some sort of record for that. And they should have a list of vendors…from there we could go back to the city and see who all has rights to sale muffins… that was vending, assuming they did it the legal way.”

“did you happen to bring my cell phone?”

At first, Lee only partially heard what Tarin and Tyranny were talking about, she was busy trying to deal with Rupert. But as they said more, more and more of her attention turned toward them.

Lee blinked. Tarin, in that woman's body, had showered, with his eyes closed. Lee blinked again. She hadn't even thought of that before now. When she'd shaved Rupert's legs and chest, she'd been convinced at the time that she'd had some kind of breakdown again, so it hadn't been the same.

And apparently, they'd all had the muffins at the Park the day before. Which made Rupert in her body start giggling. And then Tarin in the woman's body was moving, setting her own body up into a sitting position, and pinching her. Only it wasn't her, it was Rupert.

Then an apologetic look was being shot her way. "Don't worry, he deserves it, and I've felt worse," Lee said softly, though her voice sounded rather rough. She didn't think she'd ever get used to hearing Rupert's voice when she said something.