[IN PROGRESS] end in a day

[unlostsoul]

Characters: Tommy/Dash (reckless_rebel), Teddy/Throne (child_proteus), Billy/Want (unlostsoul)
Date/Time: Sept. 19, late afternoon, well after this thread
Location: The Wilderness
Rating: PG
Summary: Throne and Want have the pinball under control. But sometimes a last minute rescue takes a little speed.

Comments

[child_proteus]

When something pale and blurred cuts across Throne's vision, he's not entirely sure whether or not all of the lights and noise and flashing things have finally decided to give him a seizure. He half expects for the room to start spinning, for his hearing to suddenly hollow out while his legs give way underneath him, but in the end, none of this happens. So he blinks and follows the vapor trail that seems to linger on the backs of his eyelids, only half-realizing the boy who was here has suddenly winked into existence over there. His first assumption is that Want's done it somehow -- another neat trick to add to his arsenal -- but there is no blue light in the direction he's look and something -- he can't tell what just yet -- seems off. Because even though Throne's brain tells him he's looking at Want, his gut's telling him no you moron, Want's over there.

Throne stumbles forward, his head still turned slightly off to one direction, and he connects solidly against the hard wooden floor before literally sliding into Want's side. "How the hell.." Throne whispers, looking at Want, before be twists around to look back in the opposite direction.

And what he sees is Want, only not Want at all, because the colors are all off, like somebody's messed with the hue and balance. Eyes too green and skin too tan, and hair still unruly but shocked completely white. Beyond that, there are other differences too, things about body language and posture, the way that the guy is standing with the child in his arms. But there's not enough time for Throne to process it, just barely enough to look back at Want, who's still blinking and starting to say something that he's pretty sure will include some kind of expletive.

Off to one side, Throne can hear the ball approaching, like the sound that comes when you throw a bowling ball down an alley -- that sound, only multiplied by a thousand. It's enough to pull Throne back to the present, and the moment makes the split second decision for him.

"Focus," Throne whispers pointedly at Want, "or it's my ass." He's hoping that maybe that will be enough motivation for the lot of them to not end up flat, for Want to conjure up another miracle and whisk the ball away far off lands. Throne pushes himself up with both hands, scrambling for a moment back onto his feet before charging, shoulder first, towards the approaching ball. A loud shout -- half roar, half cry -- rips through the air as he hurtles himself forward and low, hoping to get a bit of leverage underneath it.

[reckless_rebel]

There's a moment there where it's like he's looking at his own reflection, stunned green eyes meeting shocked brown. Some part of his mind comments Hey Drake wasn't kidding. Most of the rest of his brain is flailing and going What the FUCK man? And it's not just the sensation of I've seen you or That's my face or even I KNOW you. It's all of them combined and then some. It trips Dash up a moment, and then he goes and looks at Jolly Green.

They are both definitely from his dream. And even if he hadn't dreamed them, he feels it like a punch to the solar plexus, physically robbing him of the ability to breathe for a moment as he gets the weirdest signals. His gut and eyes and emotions are all telling him one thing, but his brain just can't pull up the files to associate with them. Every reaction he might make becomes white noise as he keeps coming back empty handed, no way to react but to just gawp for a second.

Then reality comes calling, and reality hates waiting. The rumble of the ball closing in on them, the delayed whimper of shock from the little kid in his arms--they shake Dash out of his "stare stunned" mode and directly into "do something." He doesn't really formulate a plan, and his mouth is going on way ahead of his brain, but at this point Dash suspects everything is ahead of his brain.

"OkayI'llberightbackdon'tgetsquishedguysthisissofreaky." And he's gone, running, only better then running. He's at the elevator at speeds that shouldn't be possible, let alone humanly possible, and he takes a moment to shove the kid into the arms of some stunned bystander, one of the last hauling the less important stuff, with some instruction to not let the kid go, and then he's turning back around and hauling his ass back to--them.

Even at his speed he's only back in time for the aftermath, the end of it, and he can't keep himself from going back to just staring, kind of stupidly.

[unlostsoul]

Want hears Throne say "Focus," and he thinks Yes, self, good idea. Do that, and then he doesn't hear anything at all. Sound caves in... and caves and caves and caves, and Want feels a bit like he is swimming against the tide or something, trying to make something happen when he hasn't entirely figured out what it is he wants to happen.

So focus. He squeezes his eyes even more tightly shut and mutters. He's not really forming words, just sounds, just the random flecks of thoughts that pass through his mind but aren't quite loud enough to be heard over the need to focus and the sudden certainty that what he wants is that last ball gone. Not gone away, gone somewhere else, but actually no longer in existence.

The pop this time is so surprising and so big that he actually falls over backwards, his head swimming a little, and he has to squeeze his eyes again, rubbing the lids until blotchy grey and white lace patterns appear, before opening them to a world that is not totally nonsensical.

Well, relatively. The world is still a giant pinball machine and over to the side, staring in wonder or shock or just because what the hell else are you going to do, is his doppelganger again. Want pushes himself up a little straighter, so he can see over his knees and reassure himself that Throne is still alive and well and, at least, on his way to being in one piece again. Then he throws himself back on the ground, tossing an arm over his face and waving his other hand in the direction of the other guy.

"T?" he says, "I think the stress has finally gotten to me. I am having hallucinations."

[child_proteus]

Throne's not entirely sure what happens next, only that one minute he's slamming hard against the curve of the ball, every muscle in his body pulled tight and straining -- those familiar feelings of something misaligning or breaking or tearing take hold of his body as he absorbs the impact of metal against flesh. That moment, however, lasts only an instant, before Throne's vision is awash with blue light, burning so brightly that his optic nerves seem call it quits of a second, like there's nothing else left to see in the world now that he's seen Want's magic.

And then suddenly, nothing. No glow, no light, and most importantly no ball -- which Throne doesn't realy realize until he's face flat on the varnish-slick floor and muttering irritably under his breath, "Thanks for the heads up, David Copperfield." He stays like for a long moment, finally looking up and groaning when Want speaks. Eventually Throne crawls his way up onto his side, pulling himself along the ground towards Want in an expand-and-contract catepillar-like motion. When he reaches him, Throne lets himself flop back down, his eyes eventually re-finding what all of the fuss is about. The sight of Want-only-not-Want is enough to jog Throne's brain again, and he finds himself thinking, oh yeah. That guy.

"Maybe you have magical mystical evil twin making powers," Throne then mutters at Want out of the side of his mouth. His intention is to say this quietly -- conspiratorial, Cloak-and-Dagger style -- but unfortunately, he's too hopped up on adrenaline and other happy-funtime, near-death-experience kinds of chemicals, so the best Throne can manage to pull-off is a giddy, over-modulated stage whisper. He flinches when he realizes 'quietly' is not quiet enough and then ditches the subtly act for something a bit more straight forward.

"Oi!" he calls and points an accusing finger towards other-Want. "You there. Are you all his fault?" Throne pokes the air in front of him as he says 'you' and then switches over to his thumb when he says 'him', jabbing it sideways into Want's shoulder.

[reckless_rebel]

"Everyone keeps calling me a hallucination today. What's up with that?" Dash gripes, stepping closer to Want and Throne even as his brain is trying to process that, hey, his evil twin or mirror image or whatever can apparently make things disappear and that the Jolly Green giant is... Well green. And blond. And giant. And also stops speeding humongous pinballs with his chest. These revelations are both strange and perfectly natural and it's a weird dichotomy to face as he steps forward to join the two flopped teens, stopping a few feet away and sort of crouching. He wants to look at Throne some more, because how often do you see that? But his eyes keep wandering back to Want and just... Staring.

"With his coloring I think I'm the good twin." Dash points out, eyes flicking back and forth between them, but always returning to Want, seeking something in the features. Anything that isn't familiar. But he isn't finding it. "But um. No such luck either way." There's a pause and he flashes a grin, bright and on edge but still cheeky. "Nemesis."

There's another pause and he tries to shake some thoughts into place. Even the flashing lights and bright plastic can't distract him though, he's too focused on staring. But he came down here for a reason right? Right.

"So, uh. Kind of... Awkward but I'm Dash. If that wasn't enough of a clue. And I'm kind of freaking out here. Also, came to tell you that everyone's evacuated so you two can stop playing 'stop the pinball with my face' or whatever it was you call this game." Something tickles the back of his mind, like there's more to be surprised about here, but he needs to take the shocks one at a time, and here's Throne and Want a whole bunch of shocks all at once.

Not fair.

[unlostsoul]

"Oh god," Want grumbles, wedging his elbows up and then slowly raising himself up to balance on them. "If I have been making an evil twin every time I do that, we are so universally screwed."

In this position, and with Dash nearer now, Want can see that his initial reaction was totally warranted. That's his face. And so what if some of the colours are wrong and the way the features move is a little off: it's still his face. And it is such a weird experience to be looking at himself like this, knowing full-well that it isn't himself at the same time, that he has to stare in dumb, shocked silence for a few minutes before he can think of anything to say at all.

When he does, he wedges himself up a little farther so that he can put one hand on his chest and say, "For the record? I'm Want. He's," Want pokes Throne's shoulder in vindictive retribution, "Throne. But I guess you probably already knew that, huh?" With a sigh and a little more effort, Want pushes himself all the way up to sitting, folding his legs in to a more comfortable cross-legged position. Then he looks back over at Throne and holds up his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay, you win. We probably do know him. I give."

Want doesn't move his head when he looks back at Dash this time, just swivels his eyes over and does another survey of his face. Even his voice sounds, if not exactly the same, then close enough to be easily mistakable for Want's own. Want wrinkles his nose and shakes his head. "Weird. Weeeeeird. I mean, geez. What are the chances?"

[child_proteus]

"Uh huh," Throne says somewhat dumbly, though to be honest, he's not quite sure what he is actually agreeing with. Right now, he's too busy staring at Dash with eyes that are almost hyper-focused beneath his lowly pinched brow. The adrenaline has begun to peter out of his system, and his train of thought is finally no longer racing along, bouncing off of this stimulus and that, too preoccupied with getting to the next point that it perfectly okay with skipping over all of the good bits. Now that that's passed, Throne's brain is actually thinking for once and, somewhere along the line, has managed to play catch up. So although he suspects that much of the conversation that's happening at the moment is probably relevant to him , he's way too busy devoting much of his processing power to actually comprehending what it is that he's seeing.

And what he's seeing is Want talking to not-really-Want. And it just so happens that not-really-Want is apparently Dash.

He twists around, onto his hands and knees, giving a small crawl towards Dash as he nudges Want to the side, still slightly mesmerized by the face the face he's staring at, trying to collect all of the fine details where the inconsistencies lie. A stray freckle here, a tiny birthmark there, small differences in the shape of the mouth and the outer corners of his eyes. It's almost like trying to criticize his own handiwork, those moments he finds himself still staring into the bathroom mirror, as he works on figuring out to fine-tune his powers -- shifting forms, trading faces, from Argent to Want to Drake and then back, taking mental notes as he does.

Throne wonders for a minute if this is what Dash is -- some kind of illusion or a trick of the light. He has every intention of actually poking him when he realizes that he's still big and green and probably not the easiest sight for already confused eyes. And so, Throne pauses and pulling himself back behind Want waves a hand towards him as if to say don't look. Turning his back to the both of them, Throne coughs once, awkwardly, trying to cover up the uncomfortable noise he always makes whenever his body changes.

"Better," he mutters to himself and then, turning, nudges Want once, peering at Dash again over Want's shoulder before dropping his chin down onto it so that they're both staring at him almost cheek-to-cheek.

"I told you all the James Bond references had to mean something, Dub. So totally called it. Screw you, Skepticism Boy," he said and then laughed.

[reckless_rebel]

Dash's eyes keep skipping between Want and Throne and back, and when Throne kind of retreats to go do his presto-change-o it's almost a relief because even though that face is also familiar, it's less disconcerting than see the big green guy that was in his dream.

Want, however, remains as disconcerting as ever, and Dash sort of absently raises a hand to wave in front of his own face, blinking a few times when that doesn't really change anything about this. So the three of them are caught for a while staring, and finally Dash rocks far enough back in his crouch that he's fallen on his ass and he can't be bothered to care that it's sort of undignified.

"Okay." He takes a deep breath. "Cue one--note to self, stop freaking out. Two... What is two? Guys? Help? I'm not really doing so good at one yet." Dash grins, not quit cocky, not hesitant, just sort of dazed.

How else is he supposed to react? But shock can only last so long before the questions start to bubble up in his mind, and he leans forward, suddenly eager.

"So... so I guess we know each other? Maybe? This is awesome. But I mean, how? I'm sorry I'm not more helpful, but all I've got is my dream and it didn't really tell me much except that chicks in spandex? Hot. And I think I coulda figured that out on my own. So. Face." He points at Want. "Are we clones or what the hell?"

There's a beat where Dash thinks on things a moment more, and adds, "And how did you guys do that? With the balls? And the... Wow I'm fast." Because it hits him that yeah, he kind of is, and these two should be squished but they aren't. Why wasn't he more surprised by this earlier?