needthepractice | (no subject)

(no subject)

"SOOKIE!"

Any watcher of people would have seen, on that fine island morning, a normally calm and collected woman wandering along the paths and beaches of the island, wearing nothing but men's briefs and a tiny tank top, her hair mussed-- and white hot panic in her eyes.

"SOOKIE!"

How was this even happening to him again? He'd been pretty fucking good, he thought. No sleeping with underage girls, no doing V, no sleeping with just of age girls, no more crab fights, no punching every guy that looks at his sister, no more carving BILL COMPTON IS A FUCKFACE under the picnic tables, no nothing.

"SOOKIE," Jason wailed, sinking down on the nearest large rock, looking a bit like a wilted flower. "Sookie, help me, I don't wanna touch her boobs."

And that was the first time he'd ever said that.

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Meanwhile, Sookie was trundling along, a large bundle of warm clothes in a laundry basket she was hauling back to her hut from the Compound balanced carefully on a hip. Lacking any sort of CD player to keep her occupied, she'd taken to humming more those days, but stopped as she heard someone calling out her name, a distinctly female voice that she couldn't quite put her finger on. Not Serena, not Alice, not Annie... and by the time Sookie arrived next to the woman, free hand trying to work her hair into some semblance of order, she had determined that indeed-- she didn't know this person at all.

Nor was she sure how she'd be able to help a woman who was wailing about not wanting to touch another woman's chest.

Still, she approached the stranger with some trepidation and a faltering smile. "Sorry, miss, but... were you just callin' my name?"

Jason almost burst into tears with relief-- something he'd later blame on being female, despite the blatant lie of it all. "Sookie! It's me! Can't you see?" For a minute, he really, really wished she could still do that freaky mind thing. Not that it was fair to this woman, whose name he didn't even know, to let his sister poke around in her brain.

Or was it his brain?

Maybe it was just his brain that was switched.

He trailed off in the middle of trying to convince Sookie who he was, worrying about how they'd gotten his head open, for a few seconds, and then grabbed her by the arms. "It's me, Jason," he hissed, without any of the original twang. "Some crazy shit is happening here."

What was this, some kind of method acting? Sookie continued to blink at the woman with no sudden recognition as she tried to wrack her brain for anyone she might have met in passing at the Council elections party or at the dance just a few days ago-- alas, nothing came to mind. She yelped as the strange brunette grabbed for her arms, pulling away and raising the laundry basket just a bit, perfectly ready to bring it down on the woman if she had to.

Her eyes darted around briefly in hopes of finding the nearest callbox.

"Okay, so... not surprised that you've met my brother?" Sookie offered helplessly, shoulders hunched. "But if you want to do a proper imitation, you should probably... work on the accent."

Pausing, she decided to humor the woman just a little. "Though I guess if you really are Jason, then you'd know when my birthday is."

"First of July, and I'm not supposed to do anything crazy," Jason repeated like it'd been drilled into his head by Gran since he was little and trying to make up for parentless birthdays. How mooning their elementary school principal on that special day, among other things, made up for the gaping hole in their lives-- well, wasn't that what his whole damn life had been since then? "Also, you know damn well almost every secret I got, no matter how much I wanna hide it. Like when I made a flag outta Hoyt's mom's panties and the first time Tara hit me in the nuts and how I don't never swim on account of Mom and Dad."

The invocation of their parents was a serious thing, but damned if it wasn't necessary at a time like this. Jason was pretty sure they'd understand.

Then again, if he was honest, had they really ever tried to understand Sookie's stuff? Shit, this body was making him all analytical, a word that had very little to do with backdoor sex like he'd thought when he first read it a Reader's Digest a few years ago. They had shit to read at the dentist but he did--

--oh Jesus.

"Oh my fucking God," Jason marveled. "Sookie, I'm so much smarter in this body. What do you think's wrong with me?"

"H-holy ess," Sookie very nearly swore, one hand covering her mouth with very real surprise as she stared at her suddenly female brother, not sure whether she should hug him for enduring the trauma so well or if she should just... recoil. Because it was all so very weird. In the end, she decided to compromise by placing a careful hand on Jason's-- the woman's?-- shoulder, patting and hoping he wasn't going to pull his customary move and start crying into her stomach from where he sat.

She still tried to wrack her brain, moving the hand under Jason's chin and turning the unfamiliar face left and right-- the cut of the hair was familiar, but there were probably a fair number of women on the island with a generous brunette bob.

"Wait, so you... don't think it's anythin' like the island just decidin' to turn you into a girl for a day, right? That this is actually someone else's body? 'Cause if that's the case, I don't think that it's so much that you're smarter than the fact that you're probably thinkin' with your upstairs brain, for once. Lord," Sookie squeezed Jason's shoulder again before quickly rummaging through the laundry. Some of the basket was filled with Walt's clothing-- the more innocuous articles, like shirts and shorts, just to help save water-- but Sookie opted instead for finding a bra and clean underpants, also fishing out a robe in the process. "If this is some random woman's body, I don't think she'll be wantin' to wear your stuff once she wakes up. Where... did you wake up, anyway?" In your bed?"

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