[Duncan/Gunnar/Theresa] Awkward

[inchesofevil]

Who:
Duncan
Gunnar
Theresa
When: Tuesday, 8/30
Where: Theresa's apartment
Before/After: After Duncan and Theresa wake up as each other
Warnings: Bodyswap backlog, Duncan's language is pretty mild for once, awkwardness??



Gunnar had always considered himself something of a morning person, but his extra efforts to fight in the rivers for emergency funds, jump roofs with Tai Feng, keep up with Lei Wan, and continue his Earth studies left him busier than he was at school without the benefit of a solid routine. He looked sleepily through Duncan when he greeted him, wearing his blanket like a hooded cloak. Duncan made a noise that the back of Gunnar's mind recognized as speech, but Theresa's yelp and a crash pierced through the attempt at a conversation.

That woke Gunnar sharply. He stared wide eyed at the bathroom door as Duncan disappeared through it. That did not sound even a little bit fine in spite of the claim.

Gunnar debated following, wondering if he could be more help, or if he'd only be crowding, or if it was worth breaking the unwritten rule of not venturing into Theresa's room when Duncan was over. It wasn't the bedroom, but they were still together in one private place. That was much the same thing. Trying to feel productive, he hurried to dress himself, fidgeting and watching the door once he was done. Finally, Duncan emerged again. It was not the relief Gunnar hoped for.

"Is she all right?" he asked, his usual monotone broken by a ripple of worry in the edge of his voice.


She hummed- not something Duncan usually did- and looked over to Gunnar.

"Ah, yes, he's fine," she said, not quite noticing the change in pronoun from either of them. She turned slightly to look over her shoulder again, creasing Duncan's expression into one of concern, as much for the tumble as for what they discussed afterwards.

She turned back. Maybe it was all the activity, the situation, but she had a massive headache already forming. "Mm, were you all right with fish for dinner tonight, Gunnar? I need to run to the store still..."


Duncan dried off and got dressed--could he just say that putting on a bra was a really weird feeling--and then used the towel to wipe some of the steam from the mirror so he could brush out Theresa's hair and pull it back into a halfway respectable ponytail. Another point where having little sisters was useful, he actually had some idea of how to handle women's hairstyles.

He exited the bathroom, dropping the towel off in the laundry before heading to the living room. Theresa's hip was still stiff, and there was a dull ache at the points of impact from the fall, but he shouldered it and pushed it aside. Wasn't the first time he'd taken a fall.

He fell into a seat on the couch, leaning on the armrest, head against his hand. Theresa had given him her winter slacks and one of her blouses to wear, and while it was warm, he didn't mind it at all. Better than being forced into a skirt, at least.

He glanced toward Gunnar and raised a hand in half-hearted greeting. "Hey, Gunnar." Notably absent was Theresa's crisp British accent.


Gunnar was immediately aware of the switch in pronouns and accents. The hair on the back of his neck rose up as he looked between the two of them. There was a vague kind of wrongness reminisce of a movie Lei Wan had him watch once.

"Fish is fine," he replied, almost absently and eyes not moving away from who he assumed to be Theresa.


Unaware that her earlier comments had flown right past Gunnar's head, Theresa made her way into the kitchen and took out the loaf of bread from the cupboard and popped a piece into the toaster. Pausing, she looked back. "Did either of you want toast?" she asked.

There was a definite twang to the words, as though she couldn't quite get her own accent out so fell back on what Duncan's body felt more comfortable using. His own texan accent.

"Are you okay?" she asked Duncan in her body, still looking concerned, though not for quite the same reasons as one might think. "I don't want you hurting." She didn't want to be hurting tomorrow morning. She glanced over and caught Gunnar staring at Duncan on the couch. Ah, it would be a little strange, she considered...


He winced slightly at the twang, not used to hearing it from himself when he wasn't too drunk to think about it.

"Please," he answered to the toast question. He was too focused on watching Theresa and the wrongness of how she moved in his body to notice Gunnar was staring at him.

Her next question got a sheepish, "I'm fine. I'll have someone heal it when I go to the church later." Because it was not fair to leave Theresa's body in worse condition than he found it.


Gunnar's eyes flit between the two of them when they spoke, he too noticing the wrongness and all the differences in the way they spoke, and the likenesses to one another. Theresa did not seem any more settled than Gunnar was. He looked to Duncan, completely missing the question of toast and focusing more on the details of the strangeness happening around him.

An answer that didn't make much sense came to him, but his subconscious might have picked up on Duncan's initial attempt to explain.

He stepped after 'Duncan' and looked to him shyly. "Theresa," he said, meaning it as a question, but lacking the lift in tone it needed. He looked back at 'Theresa'. "... And Duncan."


Well, it wasn't like it would be difficult to leave it in worse condition. Things just happened that way.

"Ah, are you sure you want to go to the church?" she asked. "Like that, I mean. Do you need me to come with you?" She paused. "Couldn't I do it? I mean, I should be able to..."

Lacking a response from Gunnar, she put two pieces of bread in the toaster and pushed the lever down, but looked back to him again as though to make sure he didn't want any toast.

She blinked at him and then smiled at him. "Mmhm. It should rectify itself in a day or so..." She looked aside and up again to him. "Remember to let me know as soon as possible if it happens to you, all right?"


"I don't want to skip out on the academic shit just because my brain's in the wrong body. ...But it'd probably be a good idea for you to come with."

He lifted his head when Gunnar followed Theresa into the kitchen, following him with Theresa's eyes. Brow furrowed, eyes shifted between Gunnar and Theresa. Hadn't she told him earlier? Maybe he hadn't been awake enough for it to register.

"Sorry, it's probably real fucking surreal to see from the outside," he said. There was a word that just sounded wrong coming out of Theresa.


If it happens to you. Gunnar went stiff with the thought. He was not sure if Duncan-- Theresa-- being calm about it made it more or less worrying. His eyes shifted again to Theresa-- the Duncan Theresa-- and the hair on his neck bristled with the use of language.

There was so much of this that was Wrong!

Gunnar gave up and slumped his head on Theresa's shoulder. She did not look or sound the same, but touch, maybe, could be the same. At least he wasn't looking at either one of them for a moment.

"I will make tea," he said, defeated.


"Do watch your language while you're in my body, Duncan."

Peanut butter and honey out of the cupboards, she went hunting for a knife. At least height wasn't an issue, all of them standing roughly the same.

She paused as Gunner gave a little telltale sigh, followed by a familiar thump on her shoulder. Well, it felt a little different, but it was similar enough for her. She tried not to smile too much at the action and reached over to give his head a pat.

"A day and it'll be done. If I'm to go to the church with Duncan, you might be better off on your own until we're back... do you mind getting the groceries?" she asked, as though that were the thing that concerned her most.


He snapped an incredulous look at Theresa. Not allowed to swear just because it was her voice he was doing it with? That was not fair.

He crossed his arms and slumped back against the couch with a sullen face. Fine. No swearing in Theresa's voice. At least not around Gunnar, since he gathered that was the real issue for her.

The thought flickered across his mind to forbid her from things like letting Gunnar lean on her and patting him on the head while she was in his body, but he knew that was just him being stupid and jealous, so he ignored it. Well, that and it was weird and uncomfortable to watch because he and Gunnar weren't especially close, but it would be tyrannical to bar her from showing affection because of that.


The had pat was familiar enough, but there was still a sickly heaviness in Gunnar's chest. "I do not mind," he said, and if he sounded particularly dejected, it was only because of the dread of knowing the distinction between Zenderael and Earth was very much gone. Vepha's pranks, Pelusa's wrath, Mezzron's blood lust... there was no longer an invisible, incomprehensible barrier to project him from gods or demi gods.

He lifted from Theresa's shoulder without looking at her, trying in futility to correct the situation with his mind's eye. With one hand, he fetched a kettle and began filling it with water for tea. A glance toward Duncan ruined his efforts to re-visualize everything the way it was supposed to be. "You prefer coffee?" he asked hesitantly, then looked to Theresa.

How did preference work now, exactly...?


She made a face at Duncan. Yes, no swearing in her body while Gunnar was around. Even she thought it was weird to hear the words in her proper voice.

Unaware of Duncan's inward grumbling, she turned her head back as the toaster popped and went back into the cupboard for a plate. Unaware of Gunnar's inner turmoil, she looked back over to him, assuming he was upset by the swap in the most basic sense, and said, "tea is fine....?"

He'd looked back to her. She looked to Duncan, as though that might explain why. Ah, that was right. Duncan preferred coffee. "Tea is fine, isn't it?"


He did prefer coffee, but when your girlfriend is British, you learn to like tea. "Tea's fine," he affirmed.

He didn't even feel that usual morning grogginess that he needed his morning coffee to overcome. That was nice. (It failed to occur to him that that meant Theresa was probably the one feeling it instead.)


Tea for everyone. Gunnar was inwardly thankful nobody asked for anything else. Keeping track was something that could turn easily circular. It was possible he was over complicating this. (But it was wrong and so difficult to think about!)

He heated and steeped it in silence, most of his grogginess abandoned in favor of the arousal of surprise. That would wear off later, hopefully after the tea had time to set in. With Theresa working in the kitchen, he approached Duncan on the couch to offer him a cup, and looked at him far too long. Up until now, he'd been able to mostly ignore Duncan's presence, and paid him minimal attention. Now, it was too difficult not to stare and noticed every nuanced difference in posture and mannerism.


She'd feel that grogginess all day, not the sort to purposefully go and drink coffee. She didn't even really feel like she wanted the toast, her stomach definitely not feeling that interested in it, but she would force herself to it anyway.

"When do you want to head out?" she asked as she turned, seeing Gunnar staring at Duncan in her body again. To say she felt a little jealous was an understatement, but she pushed it aside as best she could, trying not to pout. Only a day, she remembered. And hopefully Gunnar wouldn't switch during it, either.


While Gunnar handled the tea and Theresa the toast, Duncan hauled himself to his feet and wandered back to the bedroom to retrieve his phone from Theresa's nightstand. He checked his messages on the way back, reclaimed his seat on the couch and passed the time while he waited for the others to finish.

Normally he would've been helping, maybe even offering to cook a full meal himself, but he just didn't feel up for it right now. He was trying to handle this as casually as Theresa was, but he was not equipped to. It was taking a lot of energy to keep from freaking out or thinking about this too hard, so he didn't have any to spare for helping with breakfast. Plus, he still had the Dark and the Denizen on his mind in addition to the body switching thing, which made for another item he was trying not to think too hard about.

The posture Theresa's body displayed was definitely Duncan's. Feet flat on the floor, knees apart, slouched forward with his arms braced on his legs, phone in his hands. There was nothing feminine about it.

When Gunnar approached, he straightened somewhat, sliding his phone shut and setting it aside. He offered a polite smile as he reached out to take the tea. "Thanks, Gunnar."

He didn't notice the staring. He was distracted first by the tea, and then by Theresa's question. "Uhh...whenever, I guess. We can probably get most of it out of the way by early afternoon, since I can't do any of the magic training today."


Nope. Once the tea was handed off Gunnar looked away and would never look back again, convincing himself that was Extremely Possible and Absolutely Reasonable for a few seconds. The very idea it could happen to him was another layer of discomfort he couldn't shake on his way back to the kitchen to set everyone's place.

... They were going to church. It was another bit of dread that was only now hitting him with his other concerns slightly nudged out of the way.

"They will not need her in your place?" Will they?


"There isn't much to be done by me, but it will probably make it easier to move around with me present," she said, a sort of apology in her voice. "Magic training sounds interesting, but I've no need for it, so we'll probably be back in the early afternoon."

Tea was fine, but she still had that nagging foggy ache in her head. She moved aside to find a notepad and a pen and set them down on the island, tea and toast forgotten, in order to start writing down the list of things to pick up.

"You may as well stay the night again, Duncan. We can pick up some of your things while we're there.

"If there's anything you need that's not on here, Gunnar, just get it and I'll pay you back when we're back. Or- oh, well, you know where my purse is. That's fine, too. Ah," she said, looking back to him, "you didn't have anything to do today? Ah, dear, I'm sorry, I just thought of it..."

Very strange words in Duncan's voice.


He shook his head in answer to Gunnar's question. She didn't have a working knowledge of holy magic and didn't plan on becoming a cleric, so the only thing they could possibly need her to do that he was currently incapable of was resurrection.

And, no. He was not subjecting his girlfriend to that. Anybody in need of a resurrection could wait a single fucking day.

"It'll be easier to get shit done if it looks like I'm there, that's all." Pause, guilty wince. "To get stuff done," he corrected, at a mumble.

At first, the suggestion to spend the night again was accepted without comment.

And then he actually thought about it.

His head snapped up. "What if we don't wake up as ourselves again tomorrow, but instead of being each other, it's someone else?" He sounded very worried about this. That meant Theresa potentially waking up next to someone that wasn't him in his body AND WOW THAT SOUNDED LIKE IT COULD BE PRETTY DANGEROUS.


Gunnar forcefully re-reminded himself that was Theresa, and that he was answering to Theresa, and not to Duncan. "Nothing planned," he said, already reverting back to not expanding on that information or his plans more automatically, but hadn't realized his own offense.

Yes Duncan that sounded dangerous and also terrifying. Gunnar's neck hair stood up again as he looked back to Duncan. Who was Theresa. And he was never mentally accepting of this. "Then it would be best to remain in your bodies respective places," he said, frowning. But that meant... that meant a lot of uncomfortable things. Like Duncan being here with Gunnar by themselves, and Theresa being in the church. He fidgeted in place and tried to find some way to make himself useful, but all that was left to do was straighten and out of place fork no one would have noticed anyway.


She hesitated, unsure what to say to that realization. Spend the night alone? There was a sudden, strange fear curling inside of her stomach as she thought on it. She hadn't been alone ever since she'd taken Gunnar in. She took another drink of tea to cover up her uneasiness, though she didn't do it very well. Duncan's face was more prone to expressing worried feelings.

"Ah... although that goes the same for being separated..."

No, no, she didn't like this at all.


"Yeah, but--" He gestured furiously, trying to capture the idea of why that was different. It didn't work. It was also some of that nervous energy that was intrinsic to Duncan but was just strange on Theresa.

The explanation he finally settled on was, "There's a difference between waking up as someone you don't know and waking up with someone you don't know--you know?"


Gunnar's thoughts were quickly siding with Duncan's. He looked to Theresa, concerned, then back again before settling on a spot between them both.

"There are those that would take advantage," he said, though in his mind it was a lot less an intimacy concern and much more a murder concern.

It usually was with Gunnar.


"Okay," she said, "okay."

There seemed to be some annoyance to her voice. She understood, she just didn't want to. "...maybe I should just stay behind then," she added, brow furrowed as she took a drink of tea. At least Duncan was used to drinking hot things, too. All of this worry seemed fine for Duncan but she didn't see herself getting into any trouble any time soon. If it was for Duncan, that was... fine. That was more understandable. If a little exasperating. But she couldn't see how the concern could be for her, so she simply let it be with a sigh.


...Well that made him feel pretty awful about it. He clammed up, setting his hands on his knees, posture stiff. He stared at Theresa, feeling like he'd fucked up but not sure how to fix it.

"Um." He glanced away, rubbing the bridge of his nose (and marveling again at how different that felt). "Well... I guess...we could both spend the night at the church instead? That way if something happens... I mean, there's guards right there, so..."


Why was Duncan hesitating? Gunnar conveniently did not think on how he would buckle just as fast at Theresa's reaction. Or that it was making him hesitate without being aimed at him regardless.

But in this case, Duncan was still right. Until he mentioned churches. Gunnar started to speak, didn't, and found his own cup of tea to sip and fret with. He did not want to go, but he did not want to leave Theresa, or her body, there. It really could become anyone.

Why were they not more terrified of this?

"Could I...?" he started, but did not find the heart to finish when he looked at Theresa-Who-Was-Duncan and sipped again.


"I'll stay there on my own," she said to Duncan, strangely irritated. "Just leave the door shut in case Gunnar is swapped with someone else."

Gunnar's hesitant question had her look over to him. She waited a moment.

"...what did you have in mind?" she prompted, not as irritated but a little sulky.


The response cowed him; his gaze fell to the coffee table. "Okay," he mumbled. He picked up his tea again and drank, trying to cover how guilty he felt under a complete shift of focus.

That was the end result he'd been asking for, but decidedly not the way he'd wanted to get there.


"I am not sure where I should go," Gunnar said, able to rid his face of uncertainty by speaking it. "Tonight. Where would it be better to stay...?"

His eyes drifted enough toward Duncan to suggest he found his opinion as valuable on this matter.


She sighed. "Just stay here, Gunnar. It's just as like nothing of consequence will happen."

Overcomplicated, really, the whole thing, and the idea of sleeping in a different place, with guards- none of that sat well with her, either. In fact, the idea of it made her extremely nervous.

"...the tea tastes weird," she mumbled to herself.


Duncan, not wanting to risk further ire from Theresa, nodded along with her suggestion. With a door between them, he could be relatively assured of her safety if Gunnar woke up and wasn't Gunnar.

"Maybe because I usually drink coffee?" he suggested, a little more meekly than he'd intended.


"Yes," he agreed, maybe too soon. "All right."

It was one night. She would wake up as herself and be there with him again. Hopefully. And hopefully locking him out at night would not have to become routine.

Was a subject change happening? Gunnar was fine with silence, even after an awkward conversation, but it actually did raise a question he had for some time.

"Why?" Were you not aware tea exists, Duncan. "It is," Gunnar's eyes dipped down, and he look a few years younger, "Bitter."


Bitter. Like Theresa's soul.

It didn't make her like it anymore, though. Except now she might. She sighed. "Maybe I'll try some," she muttered to herself, and with a look of regret overturned her cup in the sink and went about making one of the single cup coffees for herself.


Unbeknownst to the both of them, she would start feeling better once she'd had some.

Duncan's brow furrowed as he looked up at Gunnar over the rim of his cup. "It's an acquired taste. I don't mind bitter."


Gunnar made an unusually childish face like had had just been told broccoli was good for him, somewhat influenced by Theresa's face and voice saying it. There were bitter teas if one steeped them too long. That was to say, incorrectly. This automatically made coffee more incorrect. (When it came to tea, logic was more flexible.)

"We will find tea you like," he said. It was quiet and easily mistaken for an offhand comment, but if Duncan was going to be more of a fixture in Theresa's life, and his by association, it was a more Serious Matter.


"It can wait for tomorrow," she said, tone shifting again to something gentler, trying to brush off that strange annoyance. She leaned back against the counter, hands curled under the edge behind her, ankles crossed. Ah, this would mean Gunnar would be making his own dinner.

She reached up to rub at her nose.

"I suppose we ought to go soon."


"I like tea just fine, Gunnar," he replied, with a hint of exasperation. What a strange issue to push. The only time he really had a problem with tea was when he went in expecting coffee. That was not a mistake he made at Theresa's abode anymore.

"Whenever you're ready," he told Theresa. He wasn't in any particular hurry.


Everyone has their buttons!

Gunnar was not entirely convinced, but it came from Theresa's face with Theresa's voice, even if he rationally knew otherwise, and he quieted himself to focus on his own tea. He glanced to Theresa, who looked too much like Duncan, and looked away again.

It was best, he decided, to leave them to their plans and hope he didn't do any switching himself. The thought made him shudder.