Alternate Universe
by Pares

Livia's Invariant Factors. Again. For her birthday, actually. May she live forever!

: : :

Someone who was *not* her, and someone who was *not* Bayle... In fact, she could hear Bayle in her little futon downstairs, and *she* didn't seem to be alone either.

She heard double Heys! in different registers and she wondered if she could get to her gun before this turned into a hostage situation, but before she got there, the other person in her bed had leaned over her (big. male.) to rummage in her bedside table first.

She brought her knee up hard and the guy grunted and rolled away, off the mattress into a crouch.

"What the hell is going on here?" they both yelled.

"Oh, shit," she heard the guy mutter, and she saw his face for the first time. He looked weirdly familiar. His eyes...

"That girl--" he said, and she realized he was wearing only boxers and a T-shirt. Bayle, she remembered, focusing her hearing downstairs, oh god if they hurt her--

And the big guy turned as if he'd heard something himself, and she wondered, what kind of robber shows up at your house in his underwear, in your *bed*, and then gets out of it and turns his back to you?

But she could only hear the rapid beat of two hearts, and the animated patter of two people. Maybe Bayle'd had some study buddies over and this one had gotten drunk and... insane and wandered away from the pack for a little rape attempt?

This made almost no sense. But Bayle didn't smell afraid, and the guy she was with didn't smell aggressive, so...

In fact, the guy in her loft didn't smell libidinous, or drunk for that matter, only confused.

Jen hadn't known she knew what 'confused' smelled like, or even that it had a smell, until that moment.

Her assailant turned around again, frowning at her. He rubbed his eyes and blinked, and frowned at her again.

"Hey, beefstick, you wanna tell me what you're doing up here?" She didn't go for the gun; she was sitting right next to the open drawer; she could always get to it first, and she figured he knew that.

"Uh. Yeah. Jesus. Blair brought this girl home, and-- this place even *smells* like my loft--" And he stops to flare his nostrils and close his eyes, taking a deep draught of air. "Except... girl."

Jen was beginning to wonder if this guy had a head injury or what when he sat down on the bed and scrubbed his hands through his hair.

"Look. This is gonna sound... completely nuts. But this girl, Willie or whatever her damned name was, this little redhead, she had a few too many Honeybrowns and started crying on our couch about her ex-girlfriend or something. Blair was trying to talk her down, but she got all worked up anyway. Started going on about how in an Alternate Universe she and the girlfriend were still together, and happy, and then she got pissy, started ranting about werewolves, just *on* and on and she was annoying the hell out of me--" He paused, probably thinking he should try to stop sounding like an obvious asshole, but at the moment Jen felt a curious sympathy for the guy, and he seemed to realize that, and he continued. "I mean, she'd woken me up with her sob story in the first place, and I went downstairs to tell her to cut it out already, and by the time I got downstairs-- uh. She cursed us. As far as I can tell, anyway. Her hair was all standing up and blue sparks were flying around, she muttered something about the 'sisters of our souls' and I woke up-- here."

"And I'm supposed to believe that, as opposed to cuffing you and your friend downstairs and taking you to the station?"

"Well. *I* wouldn't believe it either, except that you're sleeping in my bed." He cocked his head, something like wonder in his face. "And you look... I dunno. The eyes maybe. But hell, you're even wearing white socks!"

From downstairs, Jen could here Bayle and the other man giggling. They tumbled out of her bedroom and the guy shouted upstairs.

"Hey, Jim? Can you believe this? I mean, it's incredible!"

And against her better judgement, she turned around and leaned over the banister.

Double fucking vision. It was like a bad Disney movie down there. Except for the stubble and the breastlessness... Okay, they were clearly the male and female versions of the same person. Their *eyes*, the shape of their mouths... They stood the same height, they were wearing the same *earrings* for Pete's sake, and they were standing so close together, their identical mops of curly hair were mingling together. In fact, they seemed to be holding hands. The two of them gaped up at the loft, and Jen realized she and... Jim, she guessed, were gaping right back.

Bayle made one cute little male scientist. Which was hardly surprising; she made a ridiculously cute female one already.

She could hear the male Bayle, oh god it rhymed, mutter, "Jim's a total *babe*, man!"

Jim snickered, and she felt herself flush. Then the other shoe dropped, and she turned to face Jim.

"So you're--"

"A Sentinel, too," he finished, nodding.

Jen sighed.

If Jim's version of Bayle was true to type, the two of them would march up to the loft and put Jen and her counterpart through a series of annoying tests. It was inevitable.

Except that Bayle and Blair were shaking their heads in disbelief, little comments about Jen and Jim made under their breaths.

Apparently Bayle wanted to show Jim her 'etchings'. Blair was similarly eager to work the 'Sandburg mojo' on Jen herself.

And then the two of them seemed to realize they were holding hands, and with much sheepish (and let's face it, charming: the two of them were cute as hell) blushing, and then some more giggling, they tumbled back into Bayle's little room. Closing the French doors behind them.

"They're not--" Jim began.

"They couldn't be--" Jen started.

The giggling continued, muffled now, as shirts were undoubtedly being tugged over curly, tousled heads.

Jim sighed and clapped a hand over his eyes.

"Look, I'm sorry about this."

"Well. I don't know why I'm surprised. Just because it's... Well, *some* brand of incest, anyway... It's Bayle."

"We're just gonna let them... go at it?"

"*I'm* not gonna break it up. You can try turning the hose on them if you want, but..."

"But we can *hear* them."

Jen gave him an 'I know that, stupid' look.

"And *smell* them," she reminded. "The alternative is letting them loose on us. Which either means we end up doing circus tricks for their scientific amusement, or... uh. You know."

"Fucking them?"

She crossed her arms over her breasts.

"Basically, yeah. I call 'em as I see 'em. And do you really want to go to bed with the female version of your little buddy down there?"

The question remains unanswered, because Jim is, after all, the male version of Jen herself, and she knows the answer very well.

"So. Uh. What do you want to do... in the mean time?"

"That depends. How long do you think you're going to be here?"

Jim tilts his head, eyes hovering at half mast, as he concentrates.

"Blair seems to think the redhead will sleep it off, wake up, bring us back in the morning, and bake us a truckload of chocolate chip cookies in a fit of remorse."

"So it's a one night thing?"

"I sure as hell hope so."

The two of them sat on the bed in silence for some time. Bayle and Jim's Blair didn't do them the same favor.

Blair smelled... disturbingly good. And the *sounds* he was making... And Jen had never actually had to listen to Bayle 'get her groove on', as she'd say. But the breathless little squeaks, and the fun they seemed to be having, was... intriguing. Yeah, *that* was the word, Jenny.

She could see Jim's ears going a dull red, and soon enough she could smell him, too.

"This is ridiculous," she bitched. "It's not like I can't *tell*."

Jim glared at her.

"What the hell am I supposed to do? I can't help it. And you're hot, too, so don't go giving me any shit about this."

"I'm not giving you shit." she snapped. Jesus, Jim was a bastard. She didn't want to think about what that made her. "I'm just... a little uncomfortable with this. I mean, what, you want to play a few hands of Old Maid while the Wonder Twins activate all over each other downstairs?"

"You want to make *out*!?"

"Yes," she said defiantly. Then she had a breath of fresh sanity and stumbled, "I mean. It's only one night. It's already as bizarre as it's going to get. You have my *eyes*. Blair thinks I'm a babe," she whispered, as if confessing.

Jim gave her a dangerous look and she sighed inwardly. She was the strong silent type in every universe, it seemed.

He closed a hand in her short, dark hair.

"He's right," Jim replied, sulky but trying to apologize. Yeah, standard Jen MO.

"Yeah, he is," she said, running a hand down Jim's pretty spectacular, even T-shirted, chest. Gunshot scars grazed his upper arm, and for a second she envied him his other universe, a place she hadn't been riddled with bullets in a dark elevator. But then he leaned to kiss her, and since he knew exactly how she liked it, she forgot to envy him and thought only of immediate sexual gratification.

If Blair's little redhead didn't blink them back to their own universe by 8 AM, it was going to be a hell of a morning after. She could hear Jim grunt a rueful little laugh as if she'd spoken aloud, but then he slipped his fingers past the leg of her panties and she resolved to worry about it when it happened.

END