(Untitled)

[picksthelosers]

There were some things that Nick should have learned to anticipate during his time on the island.

This? This was not one of them.

He'd woken up as a kid, he'd woken up to Greg turned into a girl, he'd woken up curled up to a Karen that wasn't Karen at all.

But somehow he didn't actually thing that he'd wake up in an unfamiliar hut, with an

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[alaspoorwarrick]

I'm restless, out walking and thinking I need a game of pick up or to pick someone up to take the edge off when I see her. Lacey.

Damn. I almost forgot how fine she is. Guess that'll happen when you meet a lady an hour after getting murdered and not dying but washing up on LOST island instead.

And, a'ight, the baby elephant's kinda...unique, but it suits her in a way, and if that's the weirdest damned thing on this island, I can deal. So I stroll over, laid back but thinking the better of giving the elephant a pat before I know it's tame, and give her the kind of slow once over she's got every right to expect.

"Damn, Lacey. You look good."

[picksthelosers]

Oh. Great.

Fabulous. Wonderful. Whoever he was, he was someone Warrick was hitting on.

Well, no surprise there; Nick knew Warrick well enough to know that the other man could flirt with a tree and make the tree blush.

While he desperately wanted to put a stop to this before it started, the body seemed to have other ideas, and instead of saying something along the lines of Warrick oh my god it's Nick STOP FLIRTING WITH ME, he merely found himself smiling slowly. "Thanks," he said, and, oh, hell, did he just bat his eyelashes. "Not too bad yourself, Mr. Brown."

Oh, god.

Nick kind of wanted to die alread.

[alaspoorwarrick]

Now that's what I'm talking about, you know? Fine looking lady giving me all the right signals, and, yeah, suddenly today's looking way up.

Stepping up beside her, I smile and slide my hand across her lower back. "Why so formal, gorgeous? Pretty sure your chaperone--" I glance back over my shoulder to let my gaze touch the elephant. "--won't mind you calling me 'Warrick'."

[picksthelosers]

While Nick was now pretty positive that any weird less-than-heterosexual feelings he had were limited to either when he was really screwed up in the head or, well, never, this body apparently really liked the attention.

Really liked it.

He gasped quietly, just the tiniest intake of breath, as Warrick's hand ghosted across his back.

"Warrick, then," he said then with a nod. Nick worried his lower lip between his teeth as he fought the body for some control -- control over the words, the thoughts, the everything.

It was tough -- whoever this lady was, the body seemed very used to being set in its ways and was loathe to change to make Nick feel less creeped out.

[alaspoorwarrick]

I'm not one to count my chips before I leave the table, but I gotta say, my hand's looking pretty damned solid. It's not every day a woman like Lacey's chewing her lip over a caress. Not even every year.

That oughtta maybe haul me back a step, but it's just been that kinda month, and I could use put my arms around something warm and sweet. Still, I've been played before, and I remember how she'd been the first day, reeling me in and then laughing me off.

This time it looks like I'm holding the winning cards, but I'm all about testing the theory before I make a complete ass of myself. So I thread my arm around her waist and turn her toward me, bending my head low like I mean to kiss her, but I don't. Instead I say soft and smoky, "Been hoping I'd run into you again."

[picksthelosers]

Nick was going to die. He was going to crawl in a hole and never come out because he was pretty sure -- in the part of his mind that wasn't being totally taken for a ride by this Lacey's body and its demands -- that he was never going to be able to look Warrick in the eye again.

Mostly because the body simply gives Warrick a sultry smile. He's a little stuck for words, his brain warring with Lacey's own impulses, and he can't quite manage to do much more than quizzically lift his eyebrows and tilt his head to the side.

He knew he should have just stayed in the hut. He should have stayed in the hut with the elephant and the butterflies and the miniatures. Because this was kind of shaping up to be, well, a disaster.

[alaspoorwarrick]

That's an invitation if I ever saw one, damn. The lady's tilting her head and that mouth is just begging.

A'ight, okay, she's wandering the Island in pajamas with a baby elephant in train, but there's something about her, y'know what I'm saying? Something familiar in that laugh that sounds like slots ringing off the Strip. And if she's asking for a kiss, then I'm not the guy who's gonna say no.

I bend my head lower, brush my mouth over hers, soft and sweet, while my thumb strokes her jaw. It's a first kiss, and, even if I'm never admitting it where Nicky can hear it, a first kiss has a special kind of magic. It's something you gotta respect.

With Maureen or Helen, it might be different, but a first kiss with Lacey oughtta be slow, like this, lips just teasing 'til I finally cover her mouth and kiss.

[picksthelosers]

Nick -- well, no, not Nick, particularly, but rather Lacey's body -- responds to the kiss, lips parting against Warrick's, and he--she, because this is most emphatically not Nick--sighs in satisfaction.

The hands--no, those aren't Nick's, either, they're certainly not under his control, not yet--come up to splay across Warrick's chest, elegant fingers curling ever so slightly into his shirt.

And then, you know, Nick's rational mind--the part that knew he should not be doing this, not ever in a thousand hundred million years, he loved Warrick but in that manly sort of way, not that manly-yet-homoerotic sort of way--kicked in, and his eyes went wide as he realized that he was totally kissing Warrick.

Nick made a little panicked noise, then, because this was so not cool, and pulled away. "Ah, Jesus Christ, Warrick," he said, his brain and his needs and his freak-out kicking in as he stepped away. "I don't know who this chick is but I'm sure not her."

[alaspoorwarrick]

Aww, yeah, that's what I'm talking about, soft lips, sweet sigh, a kiss that answers you good with this? and asks how good?

And if Lacey's hands spreading across my chest are any indication, that answer's coming up boxcars and triple cherries, y'know what I'm saying?

I bend my head to take the kiss deeper, sure that's what the lady wants - damn sure it's what I want, but before I can sweep my tongue across those honey-sweet lips, she's backing off, pushing against my chest to get away.

Damn, Lacey, why you gotta play me like that? I'm looking at her hard, and I just know my expression's giving away my hand. I lift my hand to tug at the back of my neck. "Look, Lacey... if you don't want this, it's cool. You don't gotta make up excuses." I'm upset and it's got me talking street. "Just sing it and I'll back off."

So far off you'll be seeing me over your shoulder...shit.

[picksthelosers]

Nick's hands went up -- and this was all Nick now, and the body didn't like it, this Lacey wanted to go back to kissing and seducing and pulling Warrick into her own game of chance -- and he took a few steps back.

"No no no no, no, man, you don't-- oh, no, no, this is so-- look, I'm not Lacey," he said, eyes going a little wide in a panic. A hint of Lacey's own natural accent slipped away and a faint hint of a Texan accent crept in, as perhaps Nick's freak-out gave him, ironically, a bit of the control he needed.

[alaspoorwarrick]

Those words sound all kinds of wrong comin' out of Lacey's pretty mouth. I know my eyes are wide as the Grand Canyon when I look at her, and as deep too, because this is beyond not cool.

I still don't believe it, but Abby's told me a few things, and I'm starting to think maybe there's something stranger goin' on than a woman turning me down.

"A'ight, supposing for the sake of argument, I'm gonna believe you right now," I say, going CSI in a heartbeat. "If you're not Lacey, then who are you, and--" I lean in, using the length of my upper body to close the distance that she's tried to put between us, and speak low and intense. "What've you done with her?"

[picksthelosers]

Nick suddenly knew how every single suspect felt when being interrogated. It'd been so long since the tables were turned on him--and he didn't particularly like thinking about that mess with poor Kristy, it was such Bad Luck for everyone--and he hadn't wanted to revisit it at all.

But there he was, with Warrick inches from his face, feeling for all the world like he was a suspect in some crime he didn't commit. And it really, really sucked.

"I didn't do anything with her!" Nick insisted, standing his ground. This woman wasn't one to be intimidated, either, and Nick was at least glad for that. "I woke up and I was her, and someone out there is running around as me, and it's just -- it's typical Island bullshit, man."

He wanted to say who he was, answer Warrick's first question, but Something was stopping him, Something was holding his tongue and wanting to weave and dance around ever speaking his name.

[alaspoorwarrick]

It could happen, right? Captain Picard and the Tenth Doctor have been here. The TARDIS is grounded here. Shit, I'm here when I should be dead. It's no weirder then any of the other strange shit that goes down here on LOST island.

Doesn't mean I gotta accept it right off, but the thing is, I can't think of a single way to prove it. And I'm starting to get an itch between my shoulder blades that says not only is it true, I'm not gonna like it one bit when I get my answers.

I scowl a little deeper, and keep looming. "I notice you're not answering my question. I'm running real short on patience, so you best come up with an answer, or I'm hauling your 'bodysnatched' ass to the IPD."

[picksthelosers]

Nick took a deep breath, trying to push this Lacey's instincts out and find his own.

Oh, hell, this was going to be painful, on so many levels.

"Goddamn, Warrick, it's me--it's Nick." He looked a little panicked, a little freaked out, at having made the revelation. He'd almost wished he could have lied about it, and he had the feeling that Lacey wouldn't have batted an eye at the lie, but he couldn't bring himself to do it.

[alaspoorwarrick]

I take a step back, then two. It doesn't even occur to me to doubt it. It should. Grissom taught us better than that, but goddamn. I know Nick, I know how he talks, I know how he looks when he's scared out of his mind, and maybe I don't know Lacey that well, but that expression is not hers.

It's 100 percent pure Stokes. "Goddamn."

That itch between my shoulder blades just turned into a full-fledged knife in the back. "What the hell is going on here, man? And why'd you let me--" I gesture between the two of us. "Kiss you?"

'Cos now I'm thinking about that conversation we had at Karen's and wondering if maybe there wasn't something I missed.

[picksthelosers]

Nick took a couple of deep breaths as Warrick backed away, letting his fingers lace at the back of his neck as he tried to do things that didn't involve getting all bent out of shape.

"Man, you try getting stuck in the body of a woman who apparently enjoys flirting up a storm with you," he said a little petulantly. "It's like... it might be me in here, but her mind and her body still has memory and... dude, I don't know, but seriously, this is the most ridiculous experience of my life and I just woke up."