May Writing Challenge: I Don't Belong Here

[Sean *]

It's writing challenge time! To enter, just post a ficlet (300-4000 words suggested) in this thread. When the voting for this month's OTM winners comes around, a voting poll will go up for this as well.

The Challenge: Your character wakes one morning to find themselves in the world of their play by. If their play by is an actor, you can choose one of their acting roles, or their real life. If their play by is a musician/model/other famous person who doesn't adopt a fake reality (contrasted with, for instance, the Aquabats), you must use real life. How does your character react to the new reality and to the mistaken identity?

The rules:

• Characters must be in Hammel canon, but the ficlets are not site canon by their very nature.
  
• Entries must be more than 300 words.
  
• You can enter no more than three ficlets. Any ficlets posted after the original 3 will not be considered for voting. If you want to post more, however, have fun.
  
• Ficlets must be titled.

[Percival Quinn]

Trust Me...
Words: 1064

Where Percival woke, it wasn't a bed. It wasn't a room. At least, it didn't feel like a room. It didn't look like a proper room. There should've been a whole room just for sleeping, and somehow, there wasn't.

Weary eyes dragged themselves open with force, hands pressed to the floor at either side. And as Percival propped himself up, his hands were covered in dust. No, not dust. Dirt. A desert? Eyes to the sky. A desert with two moons?

Whizzing past his head at an incredibly high velocity was... What was that? A bright blue light. His eyes immediately widened as he followed the trajectory of the terrible aim, watching that supposed light burn straight through the ground itself.

He hauled himself up, no time to marvel at the magician-like coat he was suddenly sporting as his instincts told him to run. Where? He had no idea. In what direction? Whichever felt right. But legs which felt much fitter than his own were powerful enough to carry him out of harms way. If he had the time to piece things together, he might wonder why he was in the middle of what seemed like a desert with lasers being fired at him. But he didn't have that time, now did he.

Keeping pace, he was fast enough to outrun his attackers. A look over his shoulder and they were most definitely gone as he turned an instinctive corner. But when he turned back, he immediately hauled to a stop.

Police box. Eyebrows furrowed; what the hell was a police box?

Bright blue doors flung inward, inviting him in.

With the cry and declaration of his impending extermination still behind him, he was quick to take the assistance wherever it came. Stepping through, doors closed behind him.

It wasn't until he stood there that he realised he was hardly in the smallest space available. Somehow those little doors had welcomed him into an extraordinary, ridiculously large space. He immediately stepped forward towards the console, fingertips brushing along the angled edges in search of something; anything. Surely someone had walked these spaces before him. Surely there was some remnants of another life left behind.

There was, but there was little difference. There were a myriad of lives he could feel, but everything felt too familiar. Like his own. But those faces; who gave him those faces?

"I must be dreaming." He expressed, raising a hand to run it along the length of his face.

"Who's there!"

An unfamiliar voice. An unfamiliar, strained accent. Percival whirled around, hands instinctively filtering into the pockets of his pants, the lower portion of the coat he wore flinging out to reveal the red lining on the inner side.

Feet were quick to hurry themselves up the steps; Percival stood with anticipation until he met a face. A face he knew. Eyes grew wide.

So did hers; the obnoxious student one. The one who didn't like to use her psychometry because it was too much of a burden. The British one.

What was her name? "You."

"You-!" She raised a finger, pointing at him accusingly. Those eyes looked terribly cross; Percival removed his hands from his pockets and raised them. Seconds later, both hands flew in her direction, pointing at her.

"What've you done?" Percival asked.

"What've you done?" She asked instead, raising her eyes up to glance around. But they weren't really looking; some things never changed. "Where am I? What is this; is this some sort of... Bizarre training regime?"

Right, she was the asking questions one. She always liked to ask, never to answer. "You tell me, Penelope; you were the one in here." He reasoned, because surely that made sense.

"The doors wouldn't let me out." She argued, glancing to the very set he'd come through.

Which forced silence to fall, as his eyebrows rose in curiosity; "The doors let me in."

"Have you got a key?"

"No, I didn't-" Patting his pockets down, he very quickly realised he wasn't carrying one. Or that he didn't need to. "They just opened." Waving his hand, he indicated up the stairs towards the first series of bookshelves, "Take a spare; in the pages of The Time Traveler's Wife." Without a word, Penny took steps towards it, fingers grazing the cool metal of the hand rail.

"I know." She suddenly shot flatly. But she stopped, and he stopped. His hands pressed to his face. Penny turned on a heel and raised a hand, pointing to him again. He extended both hands out, pointing back to her. "How did-"

"How did you-"

"I don't know, I just... Knew."

"I just knew."

Silence. Again. Dumbfounded expressions shared between the two. It was always difficult between memory-based individuals to see past what was real and what wasn't; often times, those lines blurred together. Percival had never seen her eyes so wide. How did she get her eyes that wide? It was like she was malfunctioning.

Just as he opened his mouth to speak, the space they were in shook violently. Her hands were quick to reach for the railing again for stability, and all he could do was turn to the console as sparks flew from it. The evident distress forced them both to hold on as tightly as they could, and it didn't seem to be letting up. Some kind of rejection, maybe? But the doors had opened for him.

"That's right; we're under attack." He pointed out amidst the chaos.

"Attack?" That suddenly didn't sound so foreign; "By who?"

"I don't know, who do you think?"

And he caught the connection before something could be said. Before the word could pass either of their lips. With a hand firm to the console, he reeled back to look. She was pointing at him. Again. His hand flew out, this time as an extension. Briefly, her eyes searched the palm reached towards her. The violent nature of whatever it was they were on only grew worse. But for whatever reason, she smiled.

She took his hand, and with a small pull, Percival dragged her over. In an instant, both reached for the exact same handle. The sudden miss caught them both by surprise. She raised her eyebrows at him, and he just stared back at her. Sheepish. Did he become sheepish?

"Sorry, boss." He declared, leaving it for her to fly.

[Gunnar Frey]

Life in 1973

“Life goes on, but does it really go on for the sleeping man?”

The voice stirred Gunnar from his slumber, the store owner rolling over and absent-mindedly rubbing at his eye with his left hand. The bed groaned underneath his weight; funny, he thought. It didn't normally do that. The springs must be giving out or something. It was a nice feeling, being woken up by a soft voice for a change and not the shrieking of that god-damn cockatoo, and he gave a small smile to himself as he rolled over again onto his back. The smile turned into a slight frown as a spring jabbed him in the ribs. Yep, definitely time to invest in a new mattr--

Wait...

A voice?

Gunnar's head snapped to the side and he gave a yelp as he saw a figure sat on a chair in the corner of the room, the Brit scrabbling backwards and almost falling off the edge of the bed. It was a young girl, probably no more than ten years old, wearing a bright red dress with a white collar and clutching a vaguely terrifying clown doll. So stuck was he on staring at her in stunned disbelief, that it took Gunnar a long moment to realise that this room was not his bedroom. The walls were a different colour, there was not a single computer or snake tank in sight and it smelled faintly of mould. “Who are you? What the HELL is going on?”

The girl cocked her head slightly to the side. Her voice was quiet and soft, yet it carried a tone of menace that clawed right to the bone. “You do not like me and my clown. I can see I make you frown. You are so far away from home; did you ever really want to roam?”

“No. No no no no.” Gunnar pointed at her, eyed wide as his breath came in quick gulps, his heart hammering at his ribs like it was trying to escape through them. “No! This is a dream. A really messed up dream! Come on, wake up! Wake up now! Stop taking the piss!” Gunnar slapped at his face, willing himself to come to and escape out of this dated nightmare of a room he'd found himself in. No matter how many times he slapped, no matter how hard he willed it, the walls stayed the game grubby cream colour and the girl stayed sat and staring at him.

“I'm sorry you're lonely here, but don't you think you could be lonely there?”

“No! I am not listenin' to this! Whatever you're playin' at, stop it now, alright?” Gunnar got out of the bed, almost falling over as his legs got tangled in the sheets, then filling with a fresh wave of horror as he realised that his usual black boxers that he slept in were gone. In there place were a pair of off-green flannel bottoms. “Wh... You re-dressed me?” The invasion of his senses and everything that he held so private to himself was too much to take in, and he yelled incoherently as he stormed to the door and tried to open it. It was locked, and no matter how much he hauled at the handle or threw himself against the door the heavy wood would not budge. “LET ME OUT! NOW!”

“Isn't it better here, where you can be busy? Away from the white rooms that are too cold?”

Gunnar pulled at the handle with all his might and then threw himself at the door again but he just bounced off it ineffectively, his knees buckling underneath him through sheer stress. He kicked at the door near the frame, trying to force it off its hinges, but it stayed solid, like it was mocking him and his inability to get away from this nightmare realm. Gunnar used the bed to drag himself back up to his feet, regaining his breath for a moment and staring at the door, too afraid to look back at the terrifying girl who seemed to know all his darkest secrets and fears. His stomach was a bundle of knots and he thought he was going to throw up, but he steadied himself and ran at the door again, gripping it tightly and letting himself fall back, trying to use his weight to force it open.

“When on earth will all this end? I am your friend, your only friend.”

Much to his surprise, the door opened easily and the sheer force of his exertions caused Gunnar to go flying backwards, landing on the floor in a heavy heap. The wind was completely knocked out of him and he coughed as he fought for breath. A quick glance to the side showed the girl had gone without a trace, like she had vanished into thin air. Seizing the chance, he fought back to his feet and made ready to run for it, but then he saw that the doorway was being blocked by a mountain of a man wearing grey trousers and a camel coloured long jacket. The stranger seemed to fill the doorway and had an air of arrogance about him, and the moment he saw him Gunnar wanted to punch that smug bastard smirk right off his face. “Right then. Who are you? Where am I?”

The older man in the doorway gave a quiet, humourless laugh. “I knew ya held your booze about as well as a colander but bloody hell, Tyler, this is bad even for you.”

Gunnar sat up slightly, rubbing the back of his head where it hit the ground and was already blossoming into a lump paired with a migraine that would probably stay put all day. The sickening feeling in his stomach intensified; he really, really did not like the way this brute was looking down at him like that. “Where. Am. I?”

The stranger gave a seemingly dismissive wave of his hand before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a cigarette. “You blind or summat? You're in your flat in Manchester, moron.”

Manchester? That development completely threw Gunnar for a loop. Assuming this guy wasn't lying, how the hell had he ended up in Manchester? That was half the world away, in a country he hadn't set foot in since his mother's funeral a few years ago... How long had he been asleep? What the HELL was going on?

Seemingly impatient and not willing to wait any longer, the other bloke lit his cigarette and took a long draw. “Hurry up, will ya? I've got the car outside; there's been another break in down at the cotton mill. Some daft bird thought it'd be smart to play the hero and got double-barrelled through 'er double-D's. The paper's'll be all over it, and I need you there to be dumb as you are and not answer their questions while I get some real work done. Got it?” The bloke turned and started to walk back down the corridor outside the flat without waiting for an answer.

Utterly confused and dumbfounded, Gunnar just stared in the direction of the door. His head was pounding, his stomach was tying itself in knots and with each passing moment a dozen new questions presented themselves. The only thing he knew for certain was that he trusted the big bloke a hundred times more than the creepy girl with the clown doll. He slowly managed to make it to his feet, his head spinning like a waltzer car, and he called in the direction of the door. “Who the hell is Tyler?”

[Dr. Sean Neville]

That’s Me

Well, I’ll just skip the boring parts,
Chapters one, two, three,
And get to the place
Where you can read my face and my biography.

Sean woke in a large bed, beneath covers that could be called “charming,” if one wished to be charitable, or “hideous,” if one preferred honesty. Although neither stereotypical in his preferences for decor, nor gay (such that the stereotype wouldn’t apply in the first place), he would never have chosen such a pattern for his bedroom set.

He knew his bedroom sets; neither the comforter nor the sheets belonged to him.

The bed did not belong to him.

The person beside him was not his partner.

The telepath squinted, taking in the form of the person beside him. While Josh had always looked younger than his age - and continued to appear to be a full decade younger even now, fifteen years younger than Sean given how the older man actually looked his age - this man surely had to be at least fifteen years younger than him, if not more than that.

Sean had never been intimate with someone that much younger than himself; it violated his strict ten-year rule.

More importantly, he had never seen this man before in his life.

Yet here they were, in a bed that wasn’t his, in a bedroom he didn’t recognize, with Josh nowhere to be found.

That concerned him.

That concerned him far more than the fact that he wasn’t wearing pajamas and was in bed beside a stranger. Sean knew himself well enough to know better than to worry about committing infidelity. He had never been tempted to cheat on any paramour before, and he had never so much as looked at another person since rekindling his relationship with Josh.

There had to be a rational, external explanation for this situation.

His first thoughts turned to swapping bodies or temporal locations with another person in Pilot Ridge.

Perhaps it was a testament to having spent too many years at Hammel that his first thoughts took that direction.

He didn’t feel different. He ran his hands over his body, although with a minimum of movement so as not to disturb his bedmate.

His wingspan seemed similar, and he felt about the same height. He remained male. He had a similar build, including his love handles. From what he could reach, he had his same hairy legs. That meant that a temporal swap was more likely than a body swap.

Beside him, his bedmate stirred without waking.

“Prok, we need to get ready!”

Sean knew that voice.

It couldn’t be.

Still, the man beside him didn’t wake from the calls, and so he took the opportunity to gingerly slip from the bed and into the bathroom. A brief glance in the mirror confirmed that he had his same body – albeit with a terrible haircut. He quickly washed up – splashing water on his face – while fumbling around for his razor.

His razor wasn’t there.

A razor sat on counter, but the telepath had never seen it before. Who would use a straight razor in this day and age?

Footsteps drew closer, although his thoughts remained on trying to navigate the bathroom. After finding a comb and a toothbrush, he looked up and, in the mirror’s reflection, saw a familiar face.

He whirled around. “Sam?”

The telepath knew every line of her face. Her blue eyes. Her brown hair and the way it fell across her forehead when she didn’t brush it – although the hairstyle she wore differed greatly from the long ponytail she’d preferred those years ago.

They still kept in touch, although they had drifted apart. That tended to happen when engagements were broken.

However, despite his familiarity with her features, the expression that settled across it came as a surprise. Sean didn’t recognize that look. “Excuse me?”

Before he could reply, the man from the bed stumbled towards the bathroom. “Prok?”

“Not now, Clyde,” she said, voice polite and feminine but with an edge that reminded the telepath of his sister. “Go use the bathroom in the hall to get cleaned up.”

His bedmate – Clyde apparently – recognized the tone as well, since he spun around and disappeared from the bedroom without a second glance. He paid them the courtesy of closing the bedroom door to provide them with privacy, either from himself or from whoever else might be lurking around the house. Sean hadn’t taken the opportunity to scan for other people.

And now he was too distracted to do so, particularly since he obviously didn’t recognize anyone here, or they didn’t know themselves.

“Who’s Sam?” She asked, confirming that she didn’t know herself, or he was obviously in the middle of some sort of psychotic episode. Much like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, except rather than dreaming of a colorful fantasy world, he had stumbled upon his ex-fiancée and a man who wasn’t her husband, since he’d met her husband and had attended the wedding.

Clearly, something was wrong with his imagination.

She continued to stare at him, expecting an answer. Unsure of what else to do, he reached out with his powers, using them to glean what she wanted to hear (as well as her name). What he discovered surprised him, and he once again felt grateful for his years of training; otherwise, the shock would have been overwhelming.

She thought he was Dr. Alfred Kinsey. The Dr. Kinsey. She was his wife, Mrs. Kinsey, who just happened to bear a striking resemblance to Sam. The man from the bed named Clyde, and he was a research assistant with whom both Kinsey and his wife had shared the occasional tumble - separately rather than together. They were currently in the post-War period, several years before Sean would be born; that explained the straight razor but nothing else.

Such as how? Or why? Or, most importantly, what now? Even temporal or locational displacement wouldn’t cause him to switch identities with someone else, only to change space-time coordinates.

She looked hurt, and appeared more so with every second of silence that passed. Sean didn’t want to inflict any further confusion or pain on someone who obviously expected this situation even less than he had. “Someone that I used to know,” he replied, and then he offered her a smile in an effort to convince her that there was nothing amiss. “You said we need to get ready?”

He could tell that she wasn’t fully convinced, but that she chose to let it go regardless. Apparently the foundation of their marriage involved her looking the other way, or otherwise ignoring oversights or minor to moderate transgressions.

That was familiar.

“For the conference,” she explained - technically reminded as far as she was concerned, but it was the first that the telepath had heard of this.

The conference.

He had no idea which conference that could be, since he didn’t even know the date. However, if it had anything to do with human sexuality whatsoever, he was prepared to wing it. He hadn’t taught the sexual education seminar at Hammel for twenty-five years without learning how to improv.

“I can be ready in fifteen minutes,” he promised.

She nodded but didn’t seem quite satisfied. “When we get back, I want you to see the doctor.”

“The doctor? Why?”

“After your father’s stroke...” Her voice trailed off, and then she blinked rapidly, as though warding off a bad omen. She reached up to touch the side of his face. “I don’t want anything to happen to you, Prok.”

“I’ll make an appointment as soon as we get back.”

He hoped to get to the bottom of this and return to Pilot Ridge and the present long before he had to make good on that promise. The last thing he needed was to get diagnosed with a neurological or psychological disorder.

Not in this time.

Thoughts of the fate he had narrowly escaped when Hammel had found him after his powers manifested caused him to shiver involuntarily.

She noticed.

“I’m fine,” he reiterated, while covering her hand on his cheek with his own larger one. “I need to wash up, but I can be downstairs in fifteen minutes. Just make sure Clyde doesn’t drink the last of the coffee.”

Either the touch or the words appeared to placate her. After leaning up to kiss him, she stepped back. “Fifteen minutes,” she warned, before leaving the room.

Fifteen minutes to compose himself and try to pretend that he was one of the most famous human behavior researchers of the modern era. No amount of role playing with Josh could ever have prepared him for this.

Fourteen minutes and forty-five seconds.

The telepath glanced at the straight razor and decided to forgo shaving for today It would save him five minutes.

Fourteen minutes and thirty seconds.

As he washed his face, he hoped that he wouldn’t destroy the fabric of space-time while trying to find a way out of this situation.

Fourteen minutes and ten seconds.