endlessdel | (no subject)

When he had gone to sleep the night before, he'd been thinking about Ginger. About the body. About what she had been before she was a body.

When he woke up, Ginger was standing right over him, silent, with a hole in her head. He didn't breathe - blinked and she was gone - it must have been a remnant of his subconscious, leftover from a dream he couldn't remember; one of those weird human things. But something else was wrong. Nearly everything else. He'd changed before, and he could recognize subtle shifts in his body.

This wasn't subtle.

It wasn't even his body. It was a naked, very female one, with raw, recent knife scars on the wrist -- and he knew precisely who it belonged to.

He just wasn't sure what he was doing inside it. He couldn't change form - that was a very liquid metal specific function. Besides, he definitely wasn't in the IPD office anymore. The chaos level was similar but there was no paperwork, only… art?

And no Sarah. Instead, a pair of dogs was watching him.

He sat up, slowly adjusting to the new parameters, trying to recall the dogs' names. The one with the keys seemed fairly oblivious to the situation - in fact, he seemed fairly insistent on licking him - but the German shepherd was looking at him in a very intent, very intelligent way.

Dogs had always been efficient terminator detectors.

"BaRNaBas, wHY Am I iN DeL's bOdy?" he frowned. He had her voice, too. There had always been an odd quality to it that he couldn't quite interpret or even grasp, and now he was producing it.

Barnabas gave a single bark in response. Even if he knew, he had no method of sharing the information. Dogs rarely communicated in human language. Unless they were in a Disney movie, like the strange one with the talking lions.

This wasn't a Disney movie. And there were people in the room, silent people like Ginger, but he didn't know them. After a moment of consideration he concluded that they didn't exist - not tangibly here - but were imprinted in Del's mind somehow.

He was dressed and outside a few minutes later, with a cone of ice cream in his hand and Barnabas following him quietly, probably to watch over his owner's body.

This was not good. The T-1000 was under psych observation already. And there was an investigation going on, a killer on the loose. Becoming the anthropomorphic representation of insanity was not a smart plan.

He needed Reese.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Okay, if Del was in Lupin's body, then whomever was in Del's body wasn't Del. She'd stopped by IPD for a look at the map and realized that Del's place was near Trance's, which meant she started walking back there.

She was pretty damned sure the inhabitant of Del's body was probably flipping out and that wasn't going to be peachy at all. There was this niggling sense that she needed to check, anyway, because she liked Del anyway. She cut through the forested section and came out fairly close to the treehouse.

And there was Del. Well, her body. With an ice cream cone.

She stopped and blinked.

"That's going to melt everywhere, you know."

He needed Reese and he needed to stop seeing people and his head was starting to throb. He pressed the heel of his palm to his forehead but it didn't do any good, and the heat couldn't be helping. Tropical weather and insanity were clearly a winning combination.

The ice cream was nice, but it wasn't really enough to negate everything else, and now there was an imaginary purple person bothering him, and it was just too much to deal with.

He clenched his jaw and without a word, tossed the cone at the hallucination.

"Jesus fuck," Reese snapped as the ice cream slid down her face. She just stood there for a very long moment and then scowled. "Why the hell did you just hit me in the goddamn face with an ice cream cone? Good fucking morning to you, too."

Reese was crabby, she couldn't help it. Even after coffee, she was still annoyed and she still had no idea who was in her body or why this shit was going down. Christ. She managed to wipe her face off and then stood there trying to figure out what she was going to do with her hand.

He should have said 'chill out, dickwad', as a finishing touch. John Connor would have been proud.

But the purple woman didn't disappear, and in fact remained quite solid as the ice cream hit her in the face. Barnabas gave him a disapproving look. Then the T-1000 froze and stared as she snapped at him. He didn't recognize the voice, but there was something very familiar about the inflection, and the word choice.

"ReEse," he began, looking her over uncertainly. "REEse iS ThAT yoU? I NeEd YoU to Be ReeSe. EveN ThoUgh You'RE PurPle. i'M SorRY I ThrEW icE CreaM At YOu. I tHOghT You WeRE fAKe."

He was thinking faster than usual. Or maybe he was just verbalizing it all. Either way, it was disconcerting.

"Austin?!" she said, surprised as hell. "Oh my fucking God." Del was gonna need to talk to him. "Are you okay in there? Del was gonna come looking for you. Ah well, her body, which would be...you. I'm not fake. I swear. I'm just stuck and now I'm a bit sticky and very crabby."

She stopped in front of him...her. Him.

"Why did you think I was fake?"

"oKAy iS NoT a GooD woRD For iT, ReeSE," he managed, his voice wavering to the point of nearly trembling. "i'M inSane aND iT's a bAD TiME to bE to Be inSanE, thERe's bEEn a MurDEr. i cAn LicK yOu iF yoU'Re sTicKy." He wasn't supposed to have said that part out loud.

He grabbed her by the wrist when she was close enough, needing to cling to her, to make sure she was real even though he knew she was. She had to be.

"aLL tHe peOpLE i'VE SEen sO faR wERe faKe. BuT i CaN sEE yOu'RE nOT. i cAn FeeL yOU."

"Easy," she murmured, hugging him the best she could without getting anything sticky on him. "It'll be okay, Austin. We'll figure out how to get you back into your body." Somehow. She'd kept her ears open about the murder, instinct warring with the fact that there were others handling it already. "We'll figure something about helping with the murder investigation, too. Lemme wipe the ice cream off and we'll...we'll do something. Something to help. I'll stay with you. I'll stay right here."

He was trembling a little, he only realized it once purple Reese hugged him. She was small but he was even smaller.

"i sAW GinGEr toO, BuT sHE'S DeAd." He'd seen the body yesterday, cold and dead and completely expandable. He knew Ginger, he knew killing, he had to help. He couldn't just do nothing.

He was relieved Reese was here, it didn't matter what body she was in, she was still Reese. "aRE yOu suRE yoU DoN't WAnt mE to LicK iT oFF?"

"You'd have to lick my face, too," Reese said. "I'm not sure how Trance would feel about Del's body licking ice cream off her. Best to wash my hands and face, I think, but thanks for the offer."

She quirked a little smile and kissed him on the temple reassuringly.

"Let's go to the compound that way I can wash up and we can check in on the IPD." She hadn't managed to get any ice cream on her clothes, which was something of a miracle, so she didn't have to change. One less bit of trouble.

"It's a good place to start."

"YouR bOdy's NAmed Trance?" he quirked an eyebrow, considering it. "it'S a NicE nAMe, nice boDY toO, i LiKE the shADe. But yoUR reaL BoDy is BetTEr. yOU coULd ask TraNcE about fACe LicKing LatEr."

He smiled back on instinct that was partially his and partially belonged to the body and it ended up a little fractured. It sounded like a good plan, but then his mouth tilted with concern. "CoMMAnDer ViMES pRObaBLy wouLDn'T LiKE mE beiNG inSaNe aGain."

"We'll talk to Vimes," she promised gently. "He'll understand and you'll still be able to help. I know he won't discount you just because you're trapped in Del's body." Her smile was still small, but there. "It is a very nice shade of purple. If you really want me to ask about face licking, I'll do it just for you."