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Egg Hunter: Cluster Headache
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Chapter 7: Not a Morning Person
Hunter woke up to a faceful of soggy pillow. He couldn’t immediately remember why the pillow would have been so wet, but as he began rolling out of bed and realized what he was wearing, the events of last night started trickling back to him.
He couldn’t believe that he had decided to do something so depraved, but the tight red clubbing dress that he always envied seeing on Geosha was proof that he really had done it. The breasts that were filling out that dress made it clear that his perversion didn’t extend to just wearing the dress that he had fantasized about in the past, but that he had crossed a much more severe line last night.
He couldn’t be caught like this again! He couldn’t let people know that he had spent the entire night like this.
Scrunching his eyes tight, he focused on ridding himself of the evidence. Within moments the dress vanished and was replaced with the comfortable, casual clothes that he was used to wearing with his old avatar. Short shorts, a tank top, and a light unzippered green hoodie.
He let out a sigh of relief as his small fluffy tail was given space to breathe as it poked out above the top of the shorts. He hadn’t realized how numb it had gotten being crammed in that dress. The hole that he had made helped, but even that was a tight fit and did nothing for him when his terrible sleeping position had pulled his tail back under fabric for the entire night. He’d need to think of a less rushed solution for the next time…
Wait… he wouldn’t ever wear the dress again! He was never going to do anything that perverted ever again! He couldn’t believe that he would do something so offensive to the trans community in the first place!
He couldn’t keep pretending to be a girl, because he knew that he wasn’t one. He wasn’t a girl and he wasn’t trans and that meant the breasts had to go as well.
He let his eyes flutter open again as he looked downward at his newly re-flattened chest. He couldn’t help but feel a pang of disappointment throughout his body. The next step would have to be-
No!
He couldn’t do it. His mind seized up at the idea of putting that… thing… down there in his pants. He knew that guys had… that… down there, and since he wasn’t a girl he should have it too. Just like in real life. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it though.
Shame overwhelmed him as he decided that no one needed to know what was in his pants. Keeping those privates unaltered was incredibly perverse but as long as no one found out, he could pretend like he wasn’t doing such a thing. The fact that he was doing something like this probably meant that he was fetishizing trans women or something. If anyone knew, he would never be able to pretend to be a trans ally ever again!
He left the bedroom which had nothing more than a bed in it and moved to the bathroom. There in the mirror, he could see a shadow of his mother staring back at him. Judging him!
He really did look too much like her. He examined his face closely in the mirror, focusing on each individual feature and keeping himself from seeing the whole thing at once. Slowly, he focused on changing features. Erasing the barely visible freckling… changing the angle of his eyes to be a bit more almond shaped… slightly thickening the bridge of his nose… making the face overall just a tad more round.
The end result was a face that still didn’t look masculine, it was undeniably feminine, but it highlighted more of his Indian heritage rather than the Irish side. He still bore a strong resemblance to Mamata, and they could probably still pass as sisters, but he looked more like his father’s daughter than she did.
No! Siblings not sisters! Child not daughter!
He liked being cute but that didn’t mean he needed to be a girl for that. There wasn’t a problem with his face being feminine. He wasn’t crossing any lines like this… but he still looked too much like Mamata’s clone!
The next few minutes were spent obsessively playing around with different hair cuts and styles. Mamata let hers hang down, long and wavy, so Hunter decided the best thing for himself would be a short hairstyle. Every hair was painstakingly styled with the end result looking a good deal more like a pixie cut rather than just the standard generic boy’s haircut.
When he was fully satisfied with his updated avatar he felt ready to stop hiding in his bedroom. He just had to brace himself first so he wouldn’t break down in tears the moment Mamata and Eternity began ridiculing him for the travesty he showed them last night.
Silently, he snuck out of his room into the satellite’s hallway. He didn’t know what time it was and therefore had no clue if anyone else was even awake. The thought occurred to him only then that he could know the time if he wanted to.
He focused his mind and a moment later a clock appeared in the corner of his vision. This was something that he had been trained to do early but rarely actually used. He had been taught to partition off a small section of his mind and have it count the time, second by second, minute by minute, hour, day, month, and year.
It had taken days of painstaking focus, but at some point his mind began continuing the count without his conscious intention. It had been running on its own ever since for years on end. In that entire time, it had only deviated from the actual time by mere minutes.
That was the basic process for creating any kind of psychic construct or thoughtform. Partition off a part of the mind, teach it a task, and let it perform that task. There wasn’t any sentience involved. That was the same way he had created his autopilot… the thing that had now become Mamata.
He couldn’t figure out how she had become sapient. It shouldn’t have been possible. Unlike the clock, she wasn’t supposed to be actively using a part of his mind at all times. She should only have been active when he told her to and cease activity when he didn’t need her anymore. It was just one of the things that he would need to talk to his mentor about this morning.
The clock told him that it was currently a few seconds past 5:37 am and they wouldn’t be meeting up until 9:00 am at the earliest.
Mamata wasn’t the only topic he needed her advice on. Getting Eternity out of his head and into his own body was the biggest issue. Then there was the matter of Zoey discovering that she had psychic powers of her own… that meant Mark had powers too without even knowing it. It wasn’t a safe situation for them to have powers but not know how to control them.
Hunter crept silently through the hallways into the bridge, careful not to make enough noise to wake anyone up. He was surprised to find as he entered that the screen was on and showing that the body was currently in their apartment’s kitchen cooking breakfast. He assumed Mamata was controlling the body but had no way to be sure. At least not until a hidden speaker crackled to life.
H! Come downstairs to the kitchen!
That was definitely Eternity’s voice that he was hearing although it sounded kind of off. He hoped that since it said ‘come’ instead of ‘go’, that meant he was down there too instead of being the one controlling the body.
One quick elevator ride later, he had no idea why there was an ‘out of order’ sign on it, Hunter stepped into the satellite’s kitchen. Being just below the bridge, the kitchen was roughly the same size and shape as it, but with significantly fewer things occupying it.
On the far side of the room, walls of various appliances stood below a massive glass window which showed a breathtaking view of the Earth that Hunter had created. From where he stood, he noticed that he had not only forgotten to add The Great Lakes to the Earth, he had also forgotten about the Baja peninsula which should have extended from beneath California. The longer he stared at it, the more noticeable all his errors were starting to become. He looked away from the window before they could get to him any more.
Along the other walls were numerous cabinets and countertops. Several of the counters were set up to look like buffet style food warmers were on top of them, however as he had found out yesterday, these were just for show. They had neither food in them nor the ability to keep any food warm. Not that such a thing was even necessary when they were headspace. Above the counters, wall mounted planters with vines hanging from them had recently been added as decoration.
Aside from the stuff along the walls of the kitchen, the room was practically empty. The only thing that occupied the center of the room was an extremely large, oversized round table with booth seating surrounding it. Or at least, that was what had been there last time he came through. This time, the table had been replaced with a circular bar that looked halfway between a Star Wars cantina and a retro-futuristic cocktail lounge from the 80s. The booth seating had been replaced with barstools all around it and at one of those barstools sat Eternity.
He was laying down with his head on the bar, facing away from Hunter. For a moment, Hunter had an impulse to sneak into the center and pour a drink for him, pretending to be a bartender. There was a pillar in the center of it covered in shelves of liquor bottles, as well as racks suspended from the ceiling with plenty of glasses hanging down from it. It was already fully stocked with everything he would need other than a proper bartender uniform.
As appealing as the idea messing with Eternity was, Hunter decided against it. After remembering Eternity’s flirting from last night… they had come so close to almost kissing, but neither of them had the nerve to make the final move. If he wanted to avoid another situation like that, Hunter had to keep from acting too playfully. He needed to be professional. Besides, if everything went well in the meeting with his mentor, Eternity would soon be gone from his head. It was best to not get too attached for now.
“Hey…” Hunter called out softly to get Eternity’s attention without startling him. Eternity rolled his head over to look at him and Hunter couldn’t help but blurt out, “...you look like shit.”
Those words might have come out by accident, but they were also true. As Eternity turned to look at him, Hunter could see thick stubble covering his slightly gaunt face and bags under his eyes. His cowlicked anime-esque hairstyle was even messier than usual. That… was not how he looked yesterday when he wore a smooth and round baby-face.
“Hey, cutie.” Eternity said weakly. He sounded as tired as he looked. “Changing it up to a tomboy look? It suits you.”
Hunter had already hardened himself so he wasn’t flustered at the compliment. But still… It was nice to know that he wasn’t the only one who thought that tomboys were cute.
“What is up with…” Hunter wasn’t sure what exactly so he just gestured vaguely at Eternity’s whole body, “...all this? Did you even sleep last night?”
“Nope!” Eternity said as he pushed himself upright and then staggered to his feet, “Mamata had me up all night helping her with a special surprise.”
Out of impulse, Hunter stepped forward to catch him as Eternity stumbled forward and was surprised to realize that Eternity was now almost a head taller than him. He needed a moment to make sure that he hadn’t shrunken by accident again and confirmed that Eternity had grown himself by more than an entire foot. He was almost 6 foot tall now by Hunter’s estimate.
“What happened to your ti-” Eternity stopped himself in the middle of his sentence and stood up off of Hunter, “How about I make you some breakfast?” He asked while flashing a weak smile.
“How about you go to sleep?”
“Nope! Not until Mamata shows her surprise off to Mark.” Eternity refused immediately and walked over to one of the catering setups, “What do you want to eat? Also, tea or coffee?”
Hunter sighed before responding, “I’ll have chai and whatever is fine foodwise.”
“Perfect! Two chai teas and mystery breakfasts!” Eternity chirped with fake energy.
He began scrounging through a basket of teabags next to one of the food warmers before finding what he was looking for. He ripped open the packaging of the two bags that he grabbed and put one each in a pair of plain mugs. The mugs were instantly steaming, releasing a strong spiced smell throughout the room. Had they filled up with water by themselves?
Hunter came over to take a look at the mugs as Eternity wandered over to one of the cabinets. The water in them had already fully steeped to a light brown color. Hunter looked around and saw a small station nearby, full of creamers and sweeteners. He added a splash of vanilla soy milk and honey to one of the mugs then turned to watch what Eternity was up to now.
He had grabbed what had looked like two microwave popcorn bags and brought them to something that looked like a microwave. Eternity swung the fancy door on the ‘microwave’ upwards to throw one of the bags inside and after only about 15 seconds, there was a ding and he pulled out a fully loaded plate of food.
After throwing the second bag in the ‘microwave’, Eternity waved Hunter to come back over to the bar. He gave a hard kick to the side of the bar then stepped back as the bar suddenly sank down into the floor. The very top of the bar, from where the racks of glasses were hanging, turned out to be the round table that was there during the tour yesterday. A moment later, the barstools all sank down into the floor followed by the twin crescent shaped booth seats rising up to take their place.
Eternity placed the plate of food down on the table and gestured for Hunter to sit, “Poor view, Madam of Zelle.”
“... what?” Hunter couldn’t help but be dumbfounded at Eternity’s poor impression of a French accent.
“It means ‘For you, Miss’” Eternity explained.
“...no… no it doesn’t.” Hunter didn’t bother him with the correct pronunciation but instead sat down at the table with his mug of tea and took a look at the food that Eternity had placed down. He was surprised to find the plate had what looked like a restaurant quality smoked salmon bagel and hash browns on it.
He took a bite of the bagel and was shocked at how good it was. It was on par with the food he’d had during the occasional fancy brunch out with his parents. After a few more moments of savoring the flavor he realized that it wasn’t just ‘on par’ with that, it tasted exactly the same.
Could this food be a recreation of his memories? He took a sip of his tea and let out a sigh of contentment after enjoying the rich flavor.
A minute later, Eternity had arrived with his own cup of tea and plate of food in each hand. He entered from the other end of the booth seat and scooted over to be directly next to Hunter. The plate that he had brought with him had nothing but a tall pile of bacon on it.
Eternity pulled out from his pocket what looked like two small compact mirrors and tossed an emerald green one to Hunter. He flipped his own neon orange one open to show that instead of a mirror, there was a small screen on the top half, while the bottom half was covered in buttons like the ugliest flip phone that anyone had ever thought up.
Eternity hit one of the buttons, causing a monitor to descend from the ceiling. This monitor showed a continuation of the scene that Hunter had seen on the bridge. Mamata was in the apartment kitchen and was currently pouring batter onto a griddle. Not far away from her were two plates, one with a couple of decent looking pancakes while the other had a much larger stack of overcooked and burned ones.
Eternity started explaining what the device he handed over was supposed to be before taking a sip of his own tea. “That’s your comms device! You can use it to broadcast your voice throughout the entire place and take a look at what the body sees at any time. Plus if you hold the button on the side there, the fronter will be able to hear as well.”
The moment he took the sip of tea, he immediately spat it out all over the table, “Oh god, that’s nasty!” With a petulant shove, Eternity pushed the mug of tea away from himself, knocking it over and spilling it all over the table.
This felt more like the Eternity that Hunter knew rather than the fake polite act that he had been putting on.
The tea that Eternity knocked over spread across the table, coming close to going over the edge. Before the mess got worse though, Hunter waved an arm out and willed the mess to disappear. He wanted to tell Eternity off for that but as he looked over, he could see a noticeable air of depression surrounding the other person.
“What’s wrong?” Hunter asked as Eternity halfheartedly picked at his plateful of bacon.
Eternity didn’t bother responding, instead just picking up a slice of bacon, taking a bite, and making a face. It wasn’t dramatic like his reaction to the chai. He wasn’t shoving the plate of bacon away, but something was clearly bothering him.
“Seriously, are you alright there? Is my memory of bacon not tasty enough for you?”
Eternity put the partially eaten strip of bacon down and seemed conflicted on how he was going to respond. For a moment, he looked like he was going to act mock offended but his expression slowly shifted back to a suave facade.
“No, no… it’s fine. Fantastically crispy, just the way I like it. Surprised you figured out my trick to making this food so quickly…” Eternity dropped the act for a moment as he let out a tired sigh, “I’m just… not in the mood for…. delicious, savory meat this morning. I should be… but I’m just not…”
“Why ‘should you’?” Hunter asked. He took a bite of his own delightfully crispy hashbrowns. They were cooked to perfection and Hunter struggled to recall where exactly he had eaten these.
Eternity gave Hunter a baffled look and said, “Because bacon and breakfast meats are manly? And I am a man after all.” With the suave act gone, it was clear that Eternity wasn’t trying to brag or flirt with that statement. It was just stated as a matter of fact.
Hunter blinked at Eternity’s ability to say such a thing so seriously, then burst out laughing, “Seriously!? You’re forcing yourself to eat something you don’t want to because it’s ‘more manly’?” Tears started forming in his eyes from the sheer absurdity of that statement, “Breakfast foods do not have genders! That is such a silly thing to say. What’re you, eleven?”
Hunter took another quick bite from his salmon bagel as he stood up from the table. Damn… that was tasty. “Now, what do you really want to eat, Eternity?”
A blush started creeping into Eternity’s face, “I can, uh, get it.”
Hunter rolled his eyes, “C’mon, drop the toxic masculinity mindset and just tell me what you want.”
“Whaddaya mean, toxic?” Eternity grumbled in response.
“Stop worrying about acting manly!” Hunter said, letting the words come out naturally, “I’m a man, and I don’t give a crap about eating a manly breakfast or have a problem with letting people get stuff for me.”
It took a moment for his head to catch up with this mouth and realize what he was saying. He was just asking to be mocked for calling himself a ’man’ after what he had done last night. Eternity gave him a look that he knew was going to precede a joke at his expense. The joke didn’t come through.
“It’s different though. You’re like… a girl… on the inside and I’m not.” Eternity said while still looking at Hunter like he’s talking to a moron.
Despite how wrong Eternity was with that statement, Hunter couldn’t help but feel a flutter in his stomach. It was a stronger reaction than Eternity’s faux gentlemanly act had given him.
“I- uh, wouldn’t be too sure about that if I were you.” Hunter responded awkwardly.
“You think I might be a girl too?” Eternity asked stupidly, “I think I’d know if I was a girl or not…”
That was definitely not where Hunter was going, but now that it was brought up… did Hunter think that Eternity could be a girl as well? Considering that he came out of Mark’s head, it was definitely possible, but Hunter wasn’t sure if Eternity was actually part of Mark or not… he didn’t want to fall down that rabbit hole of worry again though, so Hunter just dropped that train of thought.
“What would you actually enjoy eating?” Hunter asked again with a bit more firmness to his voice.
“Oh, umm… it’s at the top of the stack in the breakfast cabinet…” Eternity responded before slumping in his seat and pushing the plate of bacon away, gently this time. It was still easily within arms reach of him though.
Hunter nodded and made his way over to the cabinet that Eternity had been digging around in earlier. Inside were dozens of what looked like microwave popcorn bags, however there were strangely no seams in the plastic wrappings on them. Each of them had a simple label with block text beneath the wrapping: ‘Full french toast breakfast, extra syrup’; ‘Strawberry yogurt with honey topping’; ‘Two eggs, sunny side up, with three sausages’, ‘Sausage patty on english muffin’.
That first one was probably what Eternity had been referring to and it sounded like a sugary nightmare, the complete opposite of the bacon he had grabbed before. But it also reminded Hunter of another meal that he could serve instead.
Hunter began tearing through the cabinet. Most of the packs in there were duplicates of extremely basic meals, and he was actually surprised that Eternity had found something as unique as that salmon bagel among all of this. For a moment, Hunter thought that it might not be in there but eventually found a bag labeled ‘Unicorn Pancakes”. He would have been disappointed if these weren’t in there.
Hunter brought the pack over to the ‘microwave’ but paused after swinging the door on it upward. From this angle, he could see broken tubes and exposed wires running all throughout the inside of the machine and if this was reality, Hunter would have expected this machine to set the entire satellite on fire. Actually, it still could if Eternity had some gag rigged up like with the airlock.
“So, I just hit the button after chucking one in, and… that’s it?” He asked.
“Mhmm… you really don’t have to though. The bacon is perfectly fine.” An obvious lie. Hunter could practically hear Eternity’s frown.
After throwing the packet of ‘Unicorn pancakes’ into the microwave, Hunter hit the only button that was on the device. Instantly, through the window, Hunter saw the machine sparking with blindingly bright flashes of light.
For a moment, he really did think the thing was going to light itself on fire, but when the lightshow faded, the only thing that was inside was the stack of pancakes on a plate. The entire process resembled some kind of cheap teleportation trick. Blind the audience with a flash of light, then swap the contents of the machine before they can see again. He couldn’t help but wonder if this machine was some kind of reference to some show or movie that he just didn’t get.
Eternity was still staring blankly at the plateful of bacon, so he didn’t see as Hunter approached with the pancakes and a glass of orange juice.
“Pour vous, monsieur…” Hunter said with the snootiest french accent that he could manage as he set the food in front of Eternity.
Eternity’s eyes widened in surprise as they took in the monstrosity that was placed in front of him. It was a stack of six pancakes, each a different color of the rainbow, covered in whipped cream and sprinkles. To top the entire thing off was a waffle cone to serve as the unicorn’s ‘horn’.
They were something Hunter had gotten during high school after taking Chelsea to her very first Pride event. It had been Hunter’s first Pride too, but certainly not his last. He tried to make sure to go to at least one every year since he always had at least one friend that was too shy to go by themself.
The change in Eternity’s attitude was palpable. He had completely perked up and as he tore into the pancakes, there was a sparkle back in his eyes. Hunter settled into the bench back in front of his own plate but didn’t resume eating right away. Instead he just admired the pure joy on Eternity’s face as he ate. Something about the sight filled Hunter with a sense of contentment, like watching a child on christmas morning or a puppy at basically any moment.
Hunter idly reached over to grab a slice of bacon from the now completely ignored plate. He wasn’t usually a fan of it when it was crispy, but… taking a bite, Hunter realized how much he had messed up. This bacon wasn’t just extra crispy, it was straight up burnt. It didn’t even take a moment for him to realize what this food was a memory of.
Father’s day, back when he was still a kid. Mom had actually taken the weekend off from working and tried to surprise dad with breakfast in bed. Oil had splattered everywhere since she never cooked and the stovetop even caught fire briefly. The smoke alarms had woken dad up so the breakfast in bed never actually happened. Hunter’s dad didn’t even like bacon… somehow Hunter knew that but his mom didn’t. She still forced the two of them to eat it all anyway though. Guilting them over how hard she worked on cooking it and how there were starving children overseas who would have been grateful to eat it.
The memory made Hunter reconsider if Eternity really had been just putting on an act of wanting to eat meat only because it was something men were supposed to do. It was so easy to doubt his sincerity before trying that bacon himself. Now, he wasn’t sure... maybe Eternity really did like those kinds of things usually. Another glance at the childish face of pure joy that had already devoured half of the stack of pancakes reassured him though that no, breakfast meats probably were not Eternity’s preferred choice of food. Not even if cooked properly.
Hunter took a long drink from his mug of chai to wash the taste of burnt pork from his mouth and was surprised when he finished, that the cup was still completely full and still at the perfect temperature.
Eternity~ Are you looking at one of the monitors~?
Mamata’s voice broadcast across the room at the same time that the communicator that Eternity had given him started making chirping sounds.
Hunter looked up at the monitor that hung from the ceiling above their table at the same time that Eternity did. It was still showing Mamata’s view but she wasn’t in the kitchen any longer. Instead she was standing in the bathroom, turned so that the mirror was just out of view.
Yeah! Eating brekkie still, but I’m payin attention…
Eternity responded mentally while chewing a mouthful of food.
“Alright~” Mamata turned to face the mirror. Hunter’s real face stared back at them in the reflection. “Let's get down to business~”
Hunter couldn’t help but add, “To defeat… the huns!”
Eternity perked up even harder than he had before as he hard swallowed the rest of the food in his mouth. He seemed so happy and… where did his stubble go? “Did they send me daug-”
No~! Enough of that~!
Mamata’s interjection to shut down the song was immediate. “If you have to sing, why not the other song from Mulan instead?”
Eternity sulked. The joy was gone from his face and the apparent sugar high he was developing had already crashed.
“What ‘other song’? That movie didn’t have any other songs?” Eternity responded. The exhaustion was back in his voice. What did he mean though? No other songs in Mulan? There were plenty of them.
“Pretty sure she means ‘Reflection’...” Hunter said. It would make sense that Mamata would like that one. It was practically a trans anthem, even if Disney wouldn’t officially acknowledge it as such.
He didn’t know if Mamata thought of herself as trans though. He would need to ask her, but that thought also brought with it the realization that he’s never actually had a conversation with Mamata. He hadn’t even known she was truly sapient until he saw her interacting with Mark from inside their head, and since then… he’d been worrying too much about Eternity’s sudden appearance in his head to even think about the other stranger that appeared in there yesterday. One he barely even minded letting do whatever she wanted with his body…
“Yeah, right… whatever.” Eternity grumped.
Hunter wanted to ask what was wrong with him. Was he really that upset that Mamata didn’t want him to sing? The question died in his throat though and he never even turned to look at Eternity.
From the moment Eternity finished talking, Hunter was transfixed by what he was seeing up on the monitor. His body’s reflection had rippled only to be replaced by a reflection of Mamata’s true self.
Everything on the periphery of Hunter’s vision faded away as he stared, transfixed by what he was seeing in the mirror there. Seeing Mamata existing in his headspace was one thing, he could always suspend his disbelief when it came to things going on in someone’s mind. Seeing it in the real world though… suddenly it felt more real.
Hunter reached out to the mirror and stopped as his hand touched his reflection’s hand. The transformation wasn’t just limited to the reflection. Both copies of his hand, the real and mirror, were the same. Bright red nail polish adorned each of his fingertips, each with delicate black linework drawn on to create a pattern of leaves and flowers.
His gaze moved from his hand to the reflection of his face. He was absolutely stunning. The beautiful feminine face framed by dark red hair. The tight red clubbing dress which contrasted against his dark skin. Lipstick and blush that formed a perfect transition from his dark red hair to brighter red dress.
He couldn’t help but continue staring at himself in shock and yet despite that shock, in his reflection he was smiling. He was smiling so broadly!
Eh? Mamata? When did you get in here?
Just now~! Got kicked out of the body suddenly~!
Huh…? Want some bacon?
The sounds of talking echoing in the back of Hunter’s head clued him in to the fact that he had suddenly returned to controlling his body without even noticing
So I guess that must mean that bun’s in the bod? Don’t blink, bud!
Hunter wasn’t sure what Eternity was talking about, but it only took a moment for him to realize that Eternity was behind whatever it was that he was seeing. Right in front of his eyes, he saw his reflection ripple and change once more and when the image settled… it was her…
He meant ‘his’... it was his reflection staring back at him! And this one was even harder to turn away from than Mamata’s reflection had been. It was the face that he had spent so much of his morning fine-tuning to look perfect, yet at the same time it wasn’t quite exactly how he had created it.
All the contours were the same, as were the playful bunny ears and the modest chest… that last one wasn’t how Hunter had made it. Didn’t she remove the chest that morning? And yet here it was again. She was also still the same height as her real body. Was she really in reality right now or was this some crazy fever dream?
Hunter brought a hand to her chest and felt it squish down. Soft and yet firm… she could feel the pressure on both her fingers and ribs. It somehow felt different from when she was just in her head and… Hunter realized that he really shouldn’t be playing with himself like this. He tried to will them away again and yet… he failed?
What!? Hunter stood frozen in front of the mirror, the woman’s face looking back at him showed the same expression of fear. Why couldn’t he control his avatar’s appearance anymore? Was this not just an avatar? Was this really his body? It felt more real than any of his avatars ever felt before.
If he was somehow stuck like this, could he… could she deal with living as a girl in real life?
Sigh~ I think your illusion broke H~? What do you think she’s panicking over~?
Umm… well, I did give her her boobs back since she got rid of them this morning…
Why~!? Couldn’t you have just limited it to just her face~? You said the full body illusion used up too much of your mental energy to keep up~!
Hey! I should get extra credit for that! You know how much concentration it takes to make these illusions? I spent a lot of time working on all of them. I wasn’t expecting her to switch up so much this morning! It was hard enough just getting the new face right on such short notice!
You better not have wasted too much energy with that~! Face only next time~! Sorry about this H~
Hunter was still too entranced with her own reflection to even recognize the conversation going on in the background. Possibilities were flowing through her mind. She would need to get an entirely new wardrobe for work… and come out to everyone as trans and somehow convince them… not that she was actually trans, but given the circumstances, people would just have to believe her. She didn’t know why, but the thought of doing that filled her with euphoria.
That fantasy came crashing down around Hunter as the reflection rippled once more and his real reflection returned to the mirror. His stomach turned to lead but before he could even begin berating himself for those stupid thoughts of his, a wave of vertigo overwhelmed him. His limbs felt like they turned to jelly and everything around him began fading to black. The world seemed to fall around him and the next thing he knew, his body lurched and a headset was pulled off his face
He was back in his head again, sitting in the captain’s chair on the bridge. Back in his avatar, but flat chested once again. A wave of disappointment overcame him as did a wave of exhaustion.
“Alright, out of the chair please~ I’ve still got things to do~” Mamata said impatiently and for a moment Hunter was tempted to just refuse.
Ever since his last dive into Mark’s head, Mamata seemed to have been using his body more than he had. Letting this continue didn’t seem like a good precedent to set, but a look down at his chest again made him realize that he was too tired to bother arguing. The urge to sulk was just too strong for him at the moment.
“Whatever… just do me a favor and text the boss to let him know that I need a personal day today. Say it’s a family emergency or something if he asks…” Hunter told Mamata as he got out of the uncomfortable chair that he assumed Eternity was responsible for. Since he was going to be going to the library this morning, he would definitely need to take the day off work.
“Great idea~! I hadn’t even thought about that~” Mamata chirped happily.
What was she so excited about? Didn’t matter… Hunter just felt numb now and couldn’t bring himself to care at the moment. He assumed Eternity was still down in the kitchen and he didn’t feel like being around anyone right now, so as Mamata climbed into the seat and pulled the goofy oversized headset on, he turned away and decided to go to his room.
He paused at the door to the hallway though. He was tired and sad for some reason. His go to response for that had always been to just go to his room and crash on his bed, but at the moment, that felt a bit less appealing. Eternity was just downstairs and he couldn’t help but remember how the two of them had such a good mood going both this morning and last night… only to be interrupted by Mamata each time. Sure he was annoying a lot of the time, but he also had a way of making Hunter feel just a bit special.
Eternity already knew that Hunter was actually a guy… probably… but he didn’t treat Hunter like one of the guys. Hunter was so used to being treated as ‘the guy’ in relationships, despite that always making him feel a bit uncomfortable. It was always up to him to be the one to ask the other person out, make all the plans, pay for everything, and initiate physical intimacy. If he didn’t then he was treated as a coward… indecisive… cheap… impotent.
Eternity hadn’t expected any of that out of Hunter so far. He had just… taken the initiative himself for all of that. The only other person to be like that had been… Mark… when they thought that Hunter was Mamata…
“Goddamn… this is just some rebound stuff, isn’t it?” Hunter asked aloud in the empty bridge.
He knew that he didn’t have the best of reasons but headed down the elevator to the kitchen anyways, hoping that whatever would happen would give him some kind of emotional pick me up.
Eternity was still sitting at the table but looked severely out of it. He hadn’t touched the rest of the unicorn pancakes yet and looked like he was crashing hard. How should Hunter act here? Trying to get Eternity to fawn over him when he was in this state didn’t seem right.
Rather than say anything, Hunter just sat down next to him and idly picked at what was left of his hash browns. Gently, he patted Eternity on the back with his free hand as he looked up at the monitor.
Mamata was back in control of his body and was just finishing up setting their apartment’s dining table with two plates of pancakes, silverware, and a bottle of maple syrup that Hunter hadn’t even known they had owned. The hands that moved in the periphery of her vision no longer had the bright red nail polish that he had seen earlier, but her long dark red hair was still there. Mamata had to constantly brush stray hairs out of her face with her fingers. It was odd to think that hair, which was probably just an illusion, could get in the way so much.
“Are you doing that?” Hunter asked.
In response, Eternity seemed to lean into the hand that was petting his back, “mmmnmhmm…”
Hunter couldn’ help but giggle at bit at the nonsensical response. He chanced a glance at Eternity’s face. The eye bags looked terrible, but strangely enough that stubble Eternity had not long ago was completely gone. In fact, Hunter only just realized that Eternity seemed to have shrunk a bit, now being closer to his own height. At the very least, it made the small amount of contact he was giving a bit easier.
Mamata made her way to the apartment kitchen and grabbed the plate of burnt pancakes, easily double the amount that was actually served. After dumping the pancakes into a plastic grocery bag and tying it closed, she dumped the entire thing into the trash.
With that out of the way, she walked up to Mark’s bedroom door and gave it a firm knock. The sound of a heavy thump began reverberating throughout Hunter’s headspace. The thumping continued at a steady pace for a few moments before Mark’s door finally opened.
Hunter could barely appreciate the look of shock on Mark’s face before a crashing sound next to him stole his attention away. Eternity’s head had fallen to the table before startling himself back awake.
Eternity~!!! You ruined it~!
Up on the monitor, the image began becoming blurry as tears started welling up in Mamata’s eyes. The hair that had been framing her face was nowhere to be seen anymore.
“Whoa, hey Hunter… What’s wrong?” Mark asked.
Mamata didn’t respond, instead grabbing onto them and pulling herself into their chest. She softly sobbed while internally berating Eternity.
Why did you cancel the illusion~!? We had a deal~ but you ruined it~!
“Umm… Hunter?” Mark asked awkwardly, “Or are you the other one? Mamata?”
With a sniffle, Mamata pulled away and looked at Mark in confusion, “Emmie~?”
Mark avoided making eye contact and instead looked over at the food on the table, “Oh, hey… breakfast! Thanks, let’s eat!”
“Emmie?”
Mark froze before finally looking Mamata in the eye. With a sigh, they stood as straight as they could before stating, “I’m not Emmie. You can call me Karen. We all agreed to allow me control over the body until 11:00 am… although to be honest, we weren’t planning on waking up at 6:00. Were you not aware that we aren’t working this week? School’s closed for spring break.”
“Oh~ um… could you give the body back to Emmie, please?”
Karen tried adjusting nonexistent glasses, but failed, “No. The body is mine for the next five hours. ‘Mark’ had the body for the entire evening last night and is not scheduled to front again until after 5:00 pm.”
She walked past Mamata and sat down at the table after sliding her plate and chair over just a bit to not be directly next to Mamata’s. She interlocked her hands together as she waited for Mamata to join her.
“If you would like me to pass along a message to ‘Mark’, I would be happy to have someone let him know. He isn’t in our fronting room at the moment but some of the others are and can hear anything you have to say. One of them could inform him.”
Mamata sat down at the table and looked down at her food, “I wanted to discuss our plans for babysitting Robbie today.” There was a bit of an edge to her voice.
“Wait, what!?” Hunter exclaimed suddenly, “What’re you talking about, Mamata?”
Next to him, Eternity still had his head laying on the headspace’s table. He lazily tapped Hunter’s arm and mimed a button pushing motion with his thumb then pointed at the compact he had given him earlier.
Hunter grabbed the device, flipped it open, then noticed a button along the edge. He pushed the button then began taking into it like a walkie talkie, “What’re you talking about Mamata?”
“Fran Schaeffer called yesterday morning, asking if Mark could babysit her nephew Robbie during spring break.” Mamata explained to both Hunter and Karen, “And Emmie agreed to it when I asked. She said they would be here at 7:30 at the latest, but probably earlier.”
A severe frown appeared on Karen’s face, clearly upset at this news. “I’ll have to discuss it with the others as this is a major disruption the schedule that we already agreed to.”
Hunter was also upset at this news. Using the compact, he transmitted another message to Mamata, “I also had plans for today! I was going to be visiting my… er… aunt-”
Oh that!
Eternity’s voice echoed throughout the satellite even without him using the compact to transmit it.
I forgot I agreed to that…
“You agreed to what…?” Hunter asked.
When I was using Mark’s body, yours asked about babysitting some kid… Honestly I wasn’t really listening and just agreed to whatever since you were kinda hanging all over me.
Hunter stopped rubbing Eternity’s back and pulled his hand back.
To be fair, I wasn’t thinking straight. All the blood was rushing away from my head and to my…
Hunter facepalmed. He couldn’t believe he had come to Eternity of all people for comfort. He must have gone temporarily insane out of desperation… he wasn’t exactly sure what he was desperate for, but he was clearly insane.
“Did you catch all that Mamata?” He asked into the compact while wondering how Eternity was managing to project his voice without using it himself.
Oh~
“Uh, I apologize… er… Karen?” Mamata stammered, briefly losing the feminine affect that she was so good at maintaining.
“Karen is correct. You were saying?”
“Sorry Karen… It turns out that it was Eternity who agreed… so, sorry about that. Would you still be willing to help~? We don’t actually have a lot of experience with kids~”
Karen sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose as she thought it over, “Just… for now let us have breakfast and coffee? I’ll discuss it with the others.”
“Thank you so much~!”
The perspective changed slightly as Mamata moved her gaze back and forth from her food as she ate, to Mark’s face as Karen used it to eat. She stifled a sigh of disappointment. As she ate, she began conversing mentally with the others in headspace.
So~ We should probably clear some things up~ First off, what pronouns are you going by H~?
“He slash him? What else would I use?” Hunter answered. Eternity stiffened a bit next to him.
Alright~ So~ Babysitting~ How do we manage your things and Robbie~?
Hunter let out another sigh of his own. “I need to talk to Mark… or Karen first. I wanted them to come as well, so we could probably bring her along. Kids like libraries so I’m sure we can find somethi-.” Before he could finish the thought, he was cut off by Mark’s voice.
“So, this is Avril right now, but Zoey also has got some stuff she’d like to tell you. She says the system is fine with watching Robbie but also wants to know if we’re watching him for the entire spring break week or just for today.” Mark’s voice came out a bit higher and nasally than it usually sounded.
Mamata was caught off guard by the sudden change in tone from Mark. “Yes! For today we can help you with watching Robbie but then Hunter has to go back to work for the rest of the week. He umm~ only asked for one day off but it was supposed to be to visit someone he knows at the~ library? There was a bit of miscommunication on our end as well…”
Avril, in Mark, nodded as she dug into her stack of pancakes with as much zeal as Eternity had. Mid-bite her movements suddenly slowed and her eyes shut for a few seconds. Just as suddenly, her mannerisms changed up once again. “This is Zoey! Alright, so we’re watching the kid together then? Things are kinda shaken up in here so I’m not really sure when exactly we agreed to it.”
“Tell Zoey to stay in the front for a minute!” Hunter called out to Mamata.
Getting up from the table, he took another quick glance at Eternity who once again had his head laying on the table, facing the other way. He felt like he should be doing something for Eternity but had no clue what that would even be. Something to worry about later, he supposed.
Hunter took the elevator back up to the bridge just in time to see Mamata pulling the ugly headset off. He considered getting back in the captain’s seat that she was climbing out of but decided against it. He walked past her and walked through the viewing screen as he had always done in the past.
As he returned to control of his body, a wave of exhaustion washed over him and a mind splitting headache attacked him. Classic sign of overuse of psychic energy… he had felt it numerous times on Saturday. The difference this time being that he had exhausted his supply of herbal tea that could help him quickly restore that energy. There was also the fact that he hadn’t used his powers since the previous day…
“Dammit, you two… Mamata, are you using my energy up?” Hunter cursed under his breath.
Can I~? Would I be able to use your psychic powers~?
She didn’t sound like she was playing dumb which meant that Eternity must have been leeching his energy instead somehow. Hunter put the subject to the back of his mind for the time being and looked at, who he presumed was still, Zoey.
“Zoey… I know you guys already have a lot on your plate with Mamata and Eternity agreeing to you guys watching the kid all week, but I have another favor to ask.”
“What is it?” ‘Mark’ responded in the same tone of voice that they had used yesterday when Zoey had also been fronting.
“You’re able to use telepathy which means that you probably all have psychic powers of some kind. I’m hoping that you’d be willing to meet with my mentor today.” Hunter explained, “I don’t think she can do much to help with your multiple personalities, but the stuff with Eternity and the psychic nexus… I know you don’t believe it exists… that stuff has me a bit worried, and I’m hoping she could figure out what is going on with those. She might also be able to arrange a tutor for you to teach you how to use your powers.”
“I guess I wouldn’t mind, but who will watch the kid while we talk to her?” Zoey asked.
“We can probably take turns. We’ll be meeting her at the library so while one of us is talking to her the other can read Robbie some books from the children's section.”
After that, the conversation began petering out quickly. Or at least that was what Hunter assumed. Zoey might have been trying to continue talking to him but the headache he had was getting worse and worse by the second and a ringing in Hunter’s ear drowned out all other noise.
“I’ll… be back… in a minute…” Hunter muttered as he staggered away from the table and into the kitchen. He hoped that no one had cleaned out his teapot since the last time used it…
Doing his best to avoid thinking about the migraine that felt like his head was close to ripping itself in half, Hunter began rummaging through the sink and cabinets looking for his teapot, without luck. It took him a few moments to remember that he had left it in his bedroom on Saturday.
After grabbing the teapot from his room he brought it back to the kitchen and opened it up with a grimace. He was not looking forward to doing this and for a moment considered forcing Mamata or Eternity to do it instead. Doing that though would be just asking for some petty revenge from them in the near future.
“Hunter? What’re you doing? Oh gods, what is that rank smell?” Zoey asked as she approached just in time to see him scoop a handful of soggy tea leaves out of the teapot and stick them in his mouth.
Hunter stood in front of the sink just in case he threw up. Slowly, he chewed the leftover leaves from when he had brewed the herbal tea that could restore psychic energy. He was all out of fresh leaves and they were terribly expensive but even then, he usually would have preferred to just pay out for more rather than resort to this.
To Hunter, the leaves were tar-like and acerbic, tasting almost like chewing tobacco that had been eaten, thrown up, and then soaked in vinegar. Supposedly, these things tasted different to each psychic but were universally considered to be extremely unpleasant. At least when brewed into fresh tea they were actually palatable.
Despite how unpleasant chewing on the used leaves was, it only took a few moments for his migraine to cease and the sense of dizziness to fade away… he forced himself to continue chewing for another 20 seconds before finally spitting them out.
I swear to god you two, if you use up any more of my psychic energy today I will find some way to eject you from my mind! Don’t care where you end up, I’ll do it!
After taking a moment to calm down, Hunter turned to Zoey and said, “I need a bit of alone time in my room. I’ll be out before Francene drops the girl off.”
As Hunter left, Zoey wondered aloud, “Didn’t you guys say that the Robbie in our class was a boy?”
chai tea
What did you just say? Chai tea? Chai means "tea", bro! You are saying "tea tea"! Would I ask you for a "coffee coffee" with room for "cream cream"? -Spider-Man India (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse)
I should have caught that, im normally very good about that lmao. I'll go fix that
@whatthe4355 There are so many of those "accidentally combining things that describe a specific type of thing, but also that thing in general, with the word for that thing" things. Such as ATM machine, or PIN number. There are also similar things, such as using the Roman name Hercules to refer to the Greek version of the Heracles story.
Also, missed one
“Perfect! Two chai teas and mystery breakfasts!” Eternity chirped with fake energy.
@NinjaDragonReader we like leaving in stuff like that when it comes to dialog. The character doesn't know any better so it'd be a natural mistake for them to make
Mamata stop focusing so much on Emmie and focus on your own gdamn sister who is having a mental breakdown and has been barely functioning for heck's sake...
Also... Goddess Damn it H, you need so many f*cking hugs you damn hypocrite bleeeeehh...
Whoof.... this has swiftly become a big mess
BEGGING these headmates to actually communicate, except for eternity who just needs to learn to chill for like five minutes
Hm. Perhaps Eternity isn't really "running" on Hunter&'s brain but "remoting" from somewhere else, and that's what's been using their energy, or something?
I think Eternity used up all the juice making the illusion
Yeah... Eternity and Mamata were up all night wasting the juice without even realizing it
Thanks for the chapter!
Remember kids. Projecting can take up a lot of energy. Energy you should be reserving for actually talking to your usual fronter headmate.