The restaurant’s door opened, ringing the little chime hanging above it.

“Goddamn finally, Gran and Gramps dug out their walkers and walked the hell here.” Kat was, predictably, already seated at the table (the only table), across from Jessica, who shrugged at them in an apology for her companion.

The long, thin restaurant was in one suite of an old building that some might generously describe as “retro” or “a relic from history” but Allan would describe as “barely updated since it was built in the 70s”. The walls were wood paneled, with ancient license plates scattered haphazardly on them. There was a counter to the right of the room, serving double duty as both a place to eat and a separation from the kitchen with a staff of one. A shelf above it displayed old LPs and even some Laserdiscs, meant for the corresponding players stacked in the corner next to the door, in front of the large window leading out to the shared parking lot. In that same corner, hanging precariously above the players and loose discs piled on top, was an old 12” tube TV, switched on at a low volume. In the window itself was a real, full sized stoplight that was perpetually changing from green to yellow to red, staying on green and yellow for only a second each before holding on red for quite a bit longer. It was certainly eye-catching to passers-by, though ironically, the restaurant didn't get much traffic outside of people that lived in the area as the intersection the building sat on wasn’t anything major.

Allan and Allie made their way into the cramped space, barely squeezing past some regulars who were sitting at the counter, chatting with the owner. The table their friends were sitting at was far too big for the space, really a dining table easily sitting eight people, which didn’t help matters. Ostensibly, multiple groups could sit there and become neighborly with each other, but the place was never full enough to warrant this; you either sat at one end of it with your group, or you took a seat at the counter. Allan headed to sit at his customary spot beside Kat, but Allie reached the chair first. They both looked at each other before realizing.

“Hey sis, I’m gonna go ahead and sit with Kat, so how about you take the seat beside Jess?” Allie gave him a pointed look as she spoke.

“Riiiight… of course, sorry.” Allan made his way to the other side of the table, squeezing past the pushed-in chairs to take a just-barely-not-uncomfortably-cramped space next to Jessica. He then noticed the empty tabletop. “Uh, so where are the menus…?”

Kat waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it, y’all took so long to get here that I went ahead and took the liberty of ordering for you. I know what Al always gets, and you wanted the same, right?”

Allan shrugged. “Fair enough.” Allie seemed annoyed at this but didn’t speak up.

They sat there for a few moments, listening to the sounds of food being crafted mere feet away on the other side of the bar. There was a weird tension in the air, with Kat and Allie seemingly in agreement to try to remain as platonic as possible without looking like they weren’t being affectionate, which was a hard balance to keep. Kat opened her mouth as if to speak a few times, but in a rare moment for her, closed it without uttering a syllable.

Jessica clearly felt this too. “All right, you three, what is all this?”

“…All this?” Allie responded, trying her best to act confused by the question.

“I’m not sure about Allie, since I don’t know her very well yet, but you and Kat have been acting weird all morning. It feels to me as if there’s some inside joke you all are sharing between yourselves, and I do not like feeling left out of things. Even if I won’t understand it due to lack of context, will you please inform me of what’s been occurring here so I can stop torturing myself making far-fetched guesses?”

“Weird how?” Kat asked, as the three non-Jessicas exchanged quick looks.

Jessica’s finger shot out and swung around, pointing at all three of them. “Weird like that! Do you sincerely believe that I haven’t been noticing your snuck glances and whispered asides to each other?” Then she pulled her hand back towards herself and snapped her fingers. “Oh! This began last night, didn’t it? Right after everyone ripped the tape off their mouths, Allan and Kat had some altercation and immediately stepped outside to talk in private. When they came back indoors, they acted distant towards each other until Kat passed out on the yoga mat.”

“It's private relationship stuff, Jess, lay off it,” Allie responded, but Jess wasn’t buying it.

“See, I considered that option and I don't think it is, or I wouldn't be pressing the matter. Am I not usually the first person you come to with relationship concerns, after all? I know what that looks like, and it doesn't involve you exchanging jovial rear-end slaps with Kat and dressing nicely for once in your life.” She leaned over the table to stare the ‘couple’ straight in the eyes. “So try again, but tell me the truth this time.”

Kat sighed in an apparent attempt to act exasperated. “Jess, for the love of fuck, there's nothing going on that you need to know about. It's private, okay? Chill.”

Jessica turned to Allan. “I'm sorry, I'm not usually this paranoid-”

“LIES,” the three of them said in unison, a habit born from Jessica's repeated attempts to convince people she's not paranoid about things when she very obviously is.

“I just notice patterns in a lot of places and need to put the pieces together! Does curiosity in the obscure and unknown make me paranoid?” she insisted to the group. To Allan: “As I was saying, I'm noticing a pattern here that involves the three of you in the in-group and me left on the outside, and it's tearing me up not knowing why. So, please, why don't you give me the reason you just joined in with their slanderous little chant just then, Allie?” She put her elbow on the table, resting her head on her hand, smirking as if she finally had them cornered.

But Allan just shrugged. This one was easy. “Twinstinct?”

Jessica gave him a long, suspicious look, before sighing and slumping back in her chair. “Fine. But if this is some manner of prank you’re angling to pull on me, remember what happened the last time, Katherine.” She glared at Kat, who very uncharacteristically retreated into herself, then at the others. “And if you're complicit, Cardonas, you will not be spared. Simply a warning. Understood?”

Allan remembered this prank, and its fallout, very well.

When Kat and Jessica were dormmates, Kat thought it would be so hilarious to shuffle around the notes in Jessica's carefully organized binder, thinking it relatively harmless as it would take at most, what, an hour or two to reassemble?

Jessica had an open note test to take the next day.

Being that she thought she was prepared well in advance, she didn't check the contents of the binder before taking it to the lecture hall.

She got her first ever D.

Kat’s half of the room was subsequently completely ‘reorganized’ from head to toe, with everything stacked in one pile, in alphabetical order.

Including her clothes, her food, her hygiene products, and even her mattress.

Kat never fucked with Jess again.

Allan gulped. “Yes ma’am. Loud and clear.”

Ding-ding!

“OOOOOORDER UP!” a voice already far too loud for the small interior boomed at them from mere feet away. Allie was very nearly startled out of her chair.

“Fucking Christ, Terry! You kill me, you lose your best customers,” she complained, but he just laughed uproariously.

Terry Madsen was the kind, gregarious, rail-thin, nearly-elderly owner of Chet’s Waffle Stop, which had confused Allan when he first met the man. Why name it Chet’s, he had asked, but Terry just winked and said that he was “Chet in spirit”, and he didn't know what to make of that, quite honestly.

As Allan stood to take the trays off the counter, Terry noticed him for the first time.

“Ah hello there, miss! Name’s Terry, owner of this fine waffle eatery.” He raised an eyebrow. “Say, are my eyes seeing things? You look like the spitting image of my buddy Al over here; might you be his sister?”

Allan chuckled. “Yup, just coming up here to visit. I'm Allie, by the way.”

You know, is it getting easier to call myself Allie now? Could she be right about the brain changes? Oh shit…

“Now there's some parents with originality!” Terry belted out, with another roaring laugh and even an honest-to-goodness slap on the knee this time. “Well then, I'll leave you twins to your twin specials. Enjoy!”

“Thanks!” Allan smiled and turned his attention back to serving the trays to the party, then sat down and licked his lips in anticipation.

Delicious fluffy golden goodness, drenched in whipped cream and berries, sitting neatly next to a plate of sausage and hash browns… Yup, this was exactly what the doctor ordered. Or so he liked to think. Didn't matter, he was going to demolish it.

…Or maybe he wasn’t. Twenty minutes later, he still had three slices of French toast left and most of the hash browns were still there, getting cold. But he just couldn't make himself eat another bite. The smell of the syrupy sweetness of the toast and the oily texture of the hash browns were just overwhelming, almost nauseating.

Is it just because my stomach is still queasy? Or is it this body…?

Comparatively, Allie had taken to it like a duck to water. After seeming hesitant to try at first, but wanting to keep up appearances, she took a single bite of her French toast. And now, she had scarfed down all the French toast and hash browns and was just finishing up the sausage links. She hadn’t even touched her orange juice, while Allan had drained his, finding it surprisingly more flavorful than usual.

With the different vantage point the new seating arrangement afforded him, Allan had realized he could see the TV while eating. Back to the Future was on, having just gotten to the climactic scene near the end where Doc has to rush and reconnect the cable from the clock tower to the road where Marty would appear any moment now, lest they miss their window of opportunity to get him… well, back to the future. Not his favorite movie, but Jessica was wild about it, and he’d been made to watch it enough times he could remember it scene by scene. Indeed, as she ate, she regularly looked up at the tiny screen, entranced by a movie she'd already seen countless times before.

As she was glancing up at it once again, she blindly reached over to the napkin holder situated in the center of the table and accidentally knocked it into Allie’s full glass of orange juice, spilling it all over the table and down into both Allie’s and Allan’s laps. Immediately, Allan jumped up and shoved his chair hard against the wall, but too slow to miss the first downpour of OJ onto his skirt.

“Oh no, I'm so sorry!” Jess jumped right into cleaning the table with the napkins that had caused this whole mess.

Allie simply grabbed a napkin and swiped the juice away from the edge of the table where it was cascading onto her khakis, then started dabbing at the spots forming on them. “No biggie, Jess, accidents happen.”

Allan, however, did not stay so composed. “Uh, I’m, uh, I'm going to the restroom, be right back!” he exclaimed as he practically dove over the chairs blocking his path out from behind the table. As he rounded both corners to come back up towards the group, however, he failed to notice a puddle of juice had formed on the ground beside Allie’s chair.

His flip-flopped foot slid out backward, causing him to fall directly forward.

Allie swung her chair out and rushed to catch him-

The chaos fell away to nothing.

Then… to a familiar sense of weightlessness and timelessness, and of being compressed in an ethereal trash compactor, and suddenly-

Light.

Blinding daylight.

A ringing sound in the ears, which gave way to a chorus of worry.

“Hello? Hello?? Holy shit guys, are you okay?”

Shutting his eyes tight against the sun, Allan finally remembered how to speak.

“Yeah… yeah. I'm good. My fucking head though…”

“Oh thank fuck.” Kat's voice was laden with worry. “Shit, did she hit your head on the way down?”

“Did she… who? What?”

It was at that moment that Allan felt the weight of a person in his arms.

He gingerly opened his eyes again, seeing a concerned Kat standing over him…

…and Allie’s body in his arms.

He blinked a few times, not processing what this meant.

I'm… I'm back?

Then he shook his head.

Never mind that, is she okay?

Allan hefted Allie up a bit, and she groaned. He let out a sigh of relief he hadn’t realized he was holding.

“Allie? You okay?” he asked, quietly.

She didn't respond verbally, but instead groaned and pushed herself up off Allan's lap. When she was at about face level with him, she opened her eyes to a squint.

“…Allan?” she mumbled. “…The fuck?”

“Yup, it's me,” he said, trying to convey the confusion he also felt through his facial expression. “How do you feel?”

“Like a giant drank some boba tea and I was a tapioca ball…” She stood fully upright, though still somewhat shaky.

“Allan, Allie, I am so sorry!” Jessica apologized, tearing up a bit. “I didn't intend for you to get hurt!”

They all turned to look at her.

“The hell do you mean by that, Jess…?” Kat asked in suspicion. “Did you intend something by spilling the juice?”

Jessica was white as a sheet. “I… no, I… I needed to make sure…” she stammered.

“Make sure? Of what, exactly?” Allan pressed.

Jessica’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Not… not here. At your place.”

“Fucking seriously? You very nearly give them a concussion with your weird little stunt and you won't even goddamn explain yourself?” Kat whispered.

“At. Allan’s. Apartment.” Jessica hissed back. “Trust me, you'll understand why.”

At that moment, Terry walked up behind them, towel in hand. “Thank goodness you two are okay, I was getting ready to call an ambulance, and you know how much those bastards would charge ‘ya!” He laughed a bit at his own joke, but then got serious. “If you start feeling worse though, please do call, it's no laughing matter. Your meals are on the house, now go home and rest up.”

 Allan smiled and thanked him once again. Next time he came back, Terry was getting quite a tip.

* * *

The walk back to Allan’s apartment was uneventful. They stayed in a group, so there was no good opportunity for Allan to tell Kat what had happened in the restaurant. Jessica would occasionally turn and try to apologize again, to which she was rebuffed and told it was fine. Apart from that and the slap-slap-slapping of Allie’s flip-flops (and a comment from Kat about the vomit they had to avoid), it was quiet.

And so, he got to thinking.

Okay, well… We swapped back. Clearly.

He looked down at his flat chest disappointedly.

If Allie was right, and that was really our minds being warped by the body we were in… we should start feeling normal again. And…

He looked at his arms and sighed.

This is definitely normal. But I was already disappointed in my body and was crossdressing and all before… swapping didn’t create that out of nowhere. But then…

He picked at the shirt, which felt like it was choking him and exposing his chubbiness to the world.

Then why the hell does this feel more foreign than a literal other person’s body??

They arrived back at the apartment, and with a jingle of his keys, they were all standing back in Allan’s living room. Allie kicked off the sandals and flopped on the still-extended futon, rubbing her stomach. Kat sat on one of the dining room chairs, but before Jessica could start to explain herself, Allan was already talking.

“Allie, please get off the futon with those orange-juice-soaked clothes. Your own stuff’s been washed since last night, so you could easily go change. I’m changing in the closet, so I’ll leave them in the bathroom for you-”

“No need to touch them, I’m on it.” She shot up faster than Allan would have expected, considering how she was still nursing a stomachache, and made her way into the bedroom, with him following close behind.

“Just one sec, y’all, please,” he said to the girls left in the living room.

“No, no, take your time…” Jessica told him, seeming perplexed about something or other. Allan shrugged and ducked into the bedroom, and then the closet.

“Holy shit!” Allie whispered to him when he got there.

“What, are your clothes not dry yet…?” Allan asked.

She slapped him upside the head. “No, brainiac, holy shit we swapped back! What the hell happened?!”

“Oh. Right. Derr. Well, I slipped and fell onto you, then I woke up with a pounding headache and we were back in our proper bodies…”

“Did you hit my head during the fall? I can’t remember…”

Allan touched his head. “Neither can I, but I can’t feel a bruise.”

“But that has to be it, right? It’s a classic body swap trope. In the bathroom last night... I think the last thing I remember before the swap was falling and you catching me.”

“Huh, I kind of remember that too, now that you mention it… but didn’t I grab your arm? Did we hit our heads afterwards and forget?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. It’s possible we just don’t remember the moments around the swap due to something silly like our brains not being able to write new memories during the transfer.”

“No, but… but I can sorta remember the swap today. And that it felt familiar.”

“Like being sucked through a straw?”

Allan snapped his fingers. “Yeah, kind of like that.” He breathed out slowly. “I guess the only way we’ll really know if we’re missing something is by asking outside observers…” He then reached into the dryer and pulled out the pile of Allie’s clothes that had been wrinkling in there for hours. “We need to change and ask them.”

Allie took the pile of clothes and huffed at him. “I told you not to touch them!”

He just stared at her.

“Bitch. I’ve been you for the past half a day, at least. I’ve been in contact with far more private things than your clothes.”

She kicked him.

“OW! Jesus, I meant like I had felt your body from the inside! Wait, no-”

Kick.

“MOTHERF- like being in a body you just naturally feel what it feels because that’s how the sensation of touch works and such and I DIDN’T TOUCH ANYTHING UNDER CLOTHES I SWEAR TO GOD JUST PLEASE STOP KICKING ME”

Allie rolled her eyes at him. “Wimp.”

She left the closet, shutting the door behind her and leaving Allan in total darkness. He could hear her struggling to open the bathroom door with her arms full of clothes, but fuck her, she wasn’t getting his help! Didn’t matter anyway, as he heard it open within the minute.

They exited back to the living room, him in his usual graphic tee and cargo short combo, this one gray and sporting an NES controller design, and her in the clothes she was wearing last night: loose, dark jeans and a baggy black T-shirt. Kat was sitting on the left side of the futon, having folded it back up into couch formation. This was presumably (hopefully) done with Jessica's help, who was standing in front of it like she was about to give a speech to a very small auditorium.

“Fascinating…” Jessica mumbled under her breath when she saw them enter.

“What is?” Allie asked as she walked over to the futon and plonked herself down on the opposite side from Kat. “These are my own clothes, I didn't borrow Allan’s. Stop acting like you've never seen a tomboy before.” Allan just quietly sat himself in the center, crossing his legs for a second before realizing he wasn't wearing a skirt anymore.

“No, not exactly what I meant…” Jessica seemed to have noticed this and was shooting that same perplexed expression at his legs now. “Now then.” She sighed, then started to pace back and forth in front of the futon, her hands holding her face. “Now… then.”

“Now you're going to explain just what the fuck happened back there, right?” Kat shot at her.

Jessica took her hands off her face. “Yes, that was my intent, but…” She groaned. “It was such a ridiculous hypothesis, to go so far as to test it was ridiculous in and of itself!”

“What hypothesis, Jess?” Allan asked, trying to calm her down and not do whatever Kat was doing because it really wasn't helping.

Jessica made a few more noises with her mouth, seemingly fighting herself and her need to not look stupid, before finally getting something out.

“GAAAH! Fuck it! Please don’t laugh at me but I thought that maybe you two had… at some point last night or today… through some unknown means that defies all known logic… and reason… and physics… and neuroscience…” She was really struggling now, these words did not want to come out. “…ssssomehow… sssssssswitched bodies?” She slammed her eyes closed and grimaced, possibly preparing for humiliation, but when it didn't come immediately, she plowed on through in one fell swoop.

“So I had this whole plan where I had noticed that Allan suddenly didn’t seem to care so much about cleanliness so I figured if I could get them both dirty somehow that I could gauge their individual reactions because we all know Allan can’t tolerate having anything spilled on him and I thought it worked because Allie took off to the bathroom while Allan just dabbed at his shorts but then you got hurt and I was so worried I'm sorry I'm sorry I'M SORRY!”

At the end of that single breath, Jessica started tearing up and Allan jumped up to comfort her.

“Shh shh shh, it's okay, nobody got hurt, I don't even have so much as a bruise, it's seriously okay.”

She sniffled and looked up at him as he patted her back softly. “B-but it was so stupid… I almost got my friends hurt because of the most asinine, unscientific hypothesis I've ever had to date… based on works of fiction.”

Allie and Allan shared a knowing glance.

“Jess, what if I was to tell you… that maybe it's not as asinine as you think?”

Through the tears, Jess still managed to look perplexed. Today was certainly a red-letter day for confusing the usually knowledgeable Jessica. “Wha… huh? What do you mean?”

Kat was outraged. “Oh what, we’re telling her? Now?? What happened to 'we can't tell anyone else about this’?”

“I mean, that was only because nobody would believe us if we did, but she seems to have cracked the case all on her own,” Allie responded.

“A-all right, you three, knock it off.” Jessica tried to laugh, shakily. “I get it, make fun of me by humoring my bout of lunacy, ha-ha.”

“No, we’re being absolutely serious,” Allan replied. “Last night, Allie and I switched bodies.”

Kat nodded. “Mm-hm, yup.”

“And then in the diner, when Allan tripped onto me, we switched back,” Allie continued.

Kat’s jaw dropped, and she was rendered speechless.

Jess wore a thousand-yard stare. “Oh, that’s… that would explain why Allan started wearing his normal clothes again, I see-”

“WHAT THE FUCK YOU GUYS WHEN THE DICK WERE YOU THINKING OF TELLING ME?!” Kat loudly interjected.

“This is literally the first chance we’ve had to talk about it openly since it happened!” Allan exclaimed right back.

Kat opened her mouth to retort, then seemed to think about it more. “Oh. Fucking duh.” All her anger deflated, she turned back to Jessica. “Just so you know, I'm not really involved, I only knew about it because Allie’s too fucking nice and just had to let me know rather than let me unknowingly cheat on Allan with her.”

“Would you rather I have been less nice-”

“How can you three be so casual about this?!?” Jessica practically screamed, nearly blowing out Allan’s eardrums. “This violates everything we know about physics, the human brain, consciousness…”

“OW.”

“You study theoretical physics, couldn't this just be something theoretically physically possible that you haven't come up with a theory for yet?” Kat asked, trying to be helpful.

“That's not… that's not how any of that works.” Then Jessica's eyes widened, her mind churning. “You did it twice, can we replicate the results? How did it happen? What were the conditions? How can we prove this is actually happening? Get me a notebook, we need to experiment!”

“You want us to… try switching again?” Allan asked, rubbing his ear.

“Yes, but we need to be treating it like a proper experiment, with data and testing and… and…” She noticed the expressions on their faces. “What's wrong, are you not interested in figuring out how this works so you can control it?”

“It's more that… what if it depends on something totally out of our control? Like the alignment of the planets in some arrangement, or a light switch someone flipped on in Cuba?” Allie explained. “What if we got stuck that way?”

Yeah… what if we did…?

“I say let’s do it,” Kat interjected, making eye contact with him.

Does… does she want that to happen?

…

…Do I?

“And what say in the situation do you have here, Kat?” Allie demanded.

“Well… experiments need controls, don’t they? I’m offering to be a control.” She relaxed back into what little cushioning the futon provided, hands behind her head. “If y’all don’t want to re-experience some insane shit like that, I at least want to take a turn on the metaphysical roller coaster. If I can, of course.” She grinned. “What say you, Allan? You want to give it a shot and see what it’s like to be your own girlfriend for the day?”

“If we’re doing this, you two aren’t going to simply sneak off and have sex in the other room,” Jessica stated flatly. “Scientific experimentation only, not sexual.”

Kat blew a raspberry at her. “Boo, lame! We can figure out how to work the sex into the science, I bet. Like a legit first-person comparison of both genders? While banging it out?”

“Still no, but just to inform you, and possibly others, gender isn’t purely a binary. It’s more of a multi-dimensional spectrum with many different possibilities. However, examining the difference between the traditional ‘male’ and ‘female’ genders does sound fascinating…”

“Ah, right, sorry.” Kat turned to Allie. “And you’re sure you don’t want any part in this?”

“You two can go have weird kinky fun, I’m a bit more concerned about finding a way back home.”

At this, Jessica’s ears perked up. “Huh? Is something preventing you? No available seats on the return trip?”

Allie facepalmed. “Riiiight…” She sighed. “You should probably sit down for this.”