“Dude, come on, let’s go! Aren’t you hungry?”

“Just a minute…” he mumbled, rolling over.

An arm grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him from side to side. He blearily opened his eyes to see his assailant standing over him.

“Jess and I have been waiting ages for you to get up! C’mon, I want to get some fucking food already!”

“Okay, sorry, let’s go,” he replied. Then he frowned.

Something felt… off.

“Jesus Christ, Allan, are you that hungover? You look like ass!” Kat admonished him. “Toldja you should’ve chilled on the Mike’s.”

That was his name, but again, something just felt wrong about it. He couldn’t place his finger on why, though.

“Kat, I’m fine, I’m getting up,” he responded as he stood from the bed, his voice vibrating through his chest in a noticeably displeasing way.

Were things feeling weird because he was sick, maybe? He looked down at himself, as if that would somehow answer the question, and just saw his normal, boring, t-shirted chest. He glanced at Kat and winced at how he towered over her, and once again, he felt wrong.

But… that was all normal stuff, right? Why was it bugging him now?

Then he blinked.

“Where’s… wasn’t she supposed to be here?” He turned back to his bed, its blue sheets and grey comforter in noticeable disarray, but empty.

Kat looked confused. “Wasn’t who supposed to be there? It was just you and me like normal after game night, Al.”

He furrowed his brow, trying to concentrate. “No, there was… it was just me, right? But it was her? And I was her, and she was on the futon?”

“Dude, are you having a fucking stroke right now?” Kat asked, with a growing look of concern. “Do I need to call an ambulance?”

“No, there’s… this isn’t right!” he exclaimed. “There was… someone else here! And… we… uh…” He was starting to freak out now. There were gaps in his memory, but he remembered enough to know that things were very wrong.

He shouldn’t be… She should… Her name…

…Am-

He sat up with a start.

He was breathing heavily, heart pounding in his ears.

Holy… fucking… jesus… breathe… it was just a dream…

He looked around the room, a little discombobulated at first but eventually recognizing where he was. It was really early morning as far as he could tell, based on the barest amount of light being cast into the small space. He didn’t know why, but he was sleeping on Kat’s couch instead of in her bed with her. For a moment, he started worrying if this was one of the layered dream-within-a-dream-Inception-bullshit-fakeouts he would have sometimes, where his brain kept pretending to wake up but in reality he was just as asleep as ever. But then again, when did he ever realize that this was happening while he was in them?

He reached up to wipe away his morning grogginess from his eyes and yelped when his forearm grazed something he didn’t expect it to. He yelped once again when he realized what it was.

Boobs.

He had boobs.

No, wait, he’d… she’d already gone through this.

Amber winced as the memories of yesterday came flooding back in. She’d been misgendering and deadnaming herself in her dreams, and it persisted into her waking state. Honestly though, she couldn’t blame herself. After all, it had been less than 24 hours since she’d accepted who she was, and she imagined it would take time to really ingrain it.

Then the events of the previous night returned as well, and she groaned, letting herself collapse back onto the couch.

She’d saved Matt from probable brain damage and in the process ended up sucked through the portal he’d been trying to use, resulting in a mad dash to Kat’s place in search of answers, and ending in a collapse at her feet when she realized the answer was what she had been fearing all along. The rest of the evening was spent with Alt!Kat comforting her, getting her out of the sopping wet maid dress and helping her dry off, trying to get her to eat, before leaving her to a fitful night of sleep on the couch. Now it was the next day, just barely, and Amber was tired, stressed, and did not want to deal.

Still though…

She looked down at her t-shirted chest and couldn’t help but smile.

And maybe touch a bit, as a treat.

If nothing else about her current situation was particularly great, at the very least she could appreciate something going right.

She rolled over and reached above her head to her phone, which had been left charging on the arm of the couch overnight. She’d already gotten the expected sign-in failure notifications when the phone had automatically connected to Kat’s Wi-Fi network the night before. Of course, she wasn’t expecting to do anything more meaningful than mindlessly scroll Reddit as she often did when faced with difficult situations, and while this was made slightly more annoying by the lack of a login with her usual list of subreddit subscriptions, it was still enough to distract her from most of the stressful thoughts running through her brain.

Like how she would get back. Or if she could get back. Or if her current body was the only one capable of traveling between worlds, and what that would mean for Matt. Or even if they both got back to their worlds, what she would do with coming out and IDs and everyth-

She groaned and locked her phone screen. Never mind, social media distractions weren’t going to work this time. Instead, she decided to stop ignoring her body’s physical needs and got up to use the restroom.

It was still a foreign experience to her, what with needing to sit down and all, but she couldn’t deny it felt more natural than standing up did. In fact, she realized she could remember sitting down to pee for a big chunk of her childhood before being forced to confront urinals in elementary school, at which point she proceeded to embarrass herself by pulling her pants down below her ass. Utterly clueless, she was.

She flushed and went to go wash her hands, at which point she was confronted by her own reflection in the mirror, wearing an oversized t-shirt with some inscrutable death metal band logo on it, borrowed from Kat’s plentiful collection. As she got clean, she made various expressions in the mirror, some serious, some flirty, and some goofy, just enjoying how it felt to see a cute girl responding in turn and trying to integrate the idea that yes, this really was her now. Not two days ago, she thought she was a guy with a weird, creepy, appropriating fetish for being a lesbian, and now here she was, having realized she simply was one, and even had a body to match.

It felt liberating.

She could almost forget she was trapped in a world not her own.

Then she sighed.

Almost, but not quite.

She opened the door to leave and encountered a half-asleep Kat, wearing her own similar band shirt. Might have even been for the same band, not that Amber would be able to tell.

“Mornin’, Allll… Amber… sorry ‘bout that…” Kat mumbled, with a yawn.

“Hey Kat, don’t worry about it,” Amber responded. “Weird situation all around.”

“You done with the, uh…” Kat pointed behind Amber and started weakly snapping. “The, uh, the… fuckin’…”

“The bathroom? Go for it,” Amber snickered and stepped away from the entrance.

“Yeah, that… Thankies…” Kat said as she plodded around her and closed the door behind her.

 Amber went to the kitchen and started preparations for brewing a fresh pot of coffee for Kat. She herself didn’t drink the stuff too often, but Kat thrived on caffeine in any form. And clearly, she needed it.

Amber flipped the ‘on’ switch on the machine and listened to it begin its usual humming and whirring. She yawned, her mouth opening wide for a good three or four seconds, making her realize that maybe, just maybe, she needed one of those rare cups of brew herself after that sleepless night. As hot water began to drip through the grind to produce that lovely coffee smell (which was frankly deceptive advertising for the bitter taste), she heard a door open and turned to see Kat come into view.

“Guess we’re fuckin’ starting Sunday at seven in the god damn morning, coolio…” she grumbled.

Amber shrugged. “We have no idea how or why I ended up here. Can you blame me for not wanting to miss a potential window of time for me to get back?” She yawned once again. “Also I couldn’t sleep.”

“Whatevs, I get it. We’re gonna help you get back there and help Al- Matt get back here.” Kat blinked a few times, then rubbed her eyes. “What the hell happened with her – him? – them, anyway? Y’all got some weird gender bendy magic over in your universe or somethin’?”

“Nope, no magic where I’m from, as far as I know. Something about us being linked did it.”

“That’s so fucking weird… and specific…” Kat leaned over to look past Amber at the coffeepot, which had now filled up to its normal level of brown juice. “Lemme yoink some of that, maybe I’ll think things better when my brain isn’t half conked out.”

“Don’t worry about it, I can get us both,” Amber replied, getting the requisite supplies from the cabinets where she knew they’d be. Pure black went into Kat’s favorite ‘Don’t Talk To Me Until I’ve Eaten This Mug’ mug, while she got herself the usual two creams and sugars in a plain blue one. Kat looked at the resulting light tan drink and grimaced.

“Damn, Matt wouldn’t be caught dead drinking that sugar bomb,” she commented as she took a sip of her bitter black barf. “You really are a whole ‘nother person. I mean, not like I needed any more confirmation after you showed up in a fucking maid dress last night.” She snickered, and Amber just rolled her eyes and drank her mostly tolerable swill.

They stood there in silence for a couple of minutes, enjoying their respective warm drinks (or trying to, in Amber’s case) as the sun slowly crept into the apartment.

“So… what’s the plan, Stan?” Kat asked, setting down her empty cup and breaking the stillness in the air.

Amber frowned, thinking. “Well… traveling between worlds keeps happening at the same place, so we should probably go there, right? Do some investigating, see if my phone works near the puddle, that kinda stuff. Would be helpful to have Matt’s apartment as a home base, but I don’t have his key.” She blinked. “Wait, you have a spare key, don’t you?”

Kat gave her a weird look. “Matt doesn’t trust anyone that much. Did you give a spare to your me?”

“Yeah, of course, she’s my… girlfriend…” At that point, she winced, remembering what Matt had told her about his relationship with his Kat.

“No fuckin’ way, y’all are dating?” Kat’s eyes were nearly bugging out of her head at this hot goss. “That’s wild! Matt and I tried going out, way back when, but it just didn’t ‘click’ right, y’know? I don’t even know how to explain it, it was like…” She froze, looking at Amber with a peculiar expression on her face. The caffeine was definitely working through Kat’s system, Amber noted, as she saw her foot begin tapping frantically on the ground.

“Hold the fucking phone here…” Now Kat was pacing in a circle, out towards the living room then back to the kitchen. “He was always such a tomboy… But, like, in a way that screamed ‘don’t perceive me’… He never wanted to wear anything that actually fit him right… And he was so angry all the fuckin’ time… Wait, he chose a new name and pronouns!” She stopped and looked up at Amber, her face frozen in acute puzzlement. “Was he actually happy about being turned into a guy? Did he want that?”

Amber sighed. In normal circumstances, she wouldn’t want to out anyone, but considering that Matt had already been using a different name, pronouns, and body, and that Kat had basically walked herself through to the conclusion, she figured that cat was already out of the bag. Cat and Kat just hadn’t met yet.

“Yeah, I’d hazard a guess and say he’s much happier now,” she decided to reply. “Considering he’s trans and all.”

Kat blinked. “Huh. You know… that does make a lot of sense, thinking back on stuff.”

“Whoa, déjà vu,” Amber chuckled. “My Kat said nearly the same thing to me yesterday.”

Kat’s eyes widened, then fell back to a normal size as she grinned sheepishly. “Hah, for a second, I thought you meant you had an actual magic talking cat.” Then her brows furrowed. “Oh fuck, hold up, are you okay? Matt got full-ass transformed and you’re still stuck like that? Is… is there a new name I should be using for you?”

Amber froze, unable to parse what she meant.

“I mean, like, y’all are twins, sorta? So you’re trans too? That’s what you meant, right?”

Oh.

Ohhhhh.

A giggle burst forth, unbidden.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I am. But I’m fine now, trust me.”

One of Kat’s brows unfurrowed into a raise. “Fine… now?”

“Well, after we, y’know, swapped bodies and all, things just worked out for us.”

Amber could’ve sworn she’d witnessed the maximum size of Kat’s eyes before that moment, but she, in fact, had not.

“Holy fucking shit so like you weren’t identical and you had a guy body but now Matt’s in your body and you’re in his and y’all are both trans but like opposite so you’re fine with it and he didn’t just get transformed but like actual friggin’ Freaky Friday bullshit happened?!”

“Damn, you could give the Micro Machines Man a run for his money with that kinda speed,” Amber grinned. “And that’s a pretty good plot synopsis for this weekend so far. Just add in the dimension-hopping and you’ve got the skeleton of a lovely little ‘based on true events’ screenplay.”

“Dude, that’s even fucking wilder than what I thought was going on, no fucking way!” Kat had this wild-eyed look of glee on her face, reminiscent of a child just discovering magic for the first time. Which, to be fair, she sort of was.

“So body swapping ranks higher on the weirdness tier than transformation, gotcha.” Amber set down her now-finished coffee, feeling the jitters course through her veins.

Kat made a ‘duh’ face. “I mean, changing matter that’s already there is one thing, but swapping brains, or souls, or consciousnesses or whatever? That’s just fucking wacky!”

Suddenly, she loudly clapped, making Amber glad she’d put down the coffee mug, for it surely would have fallen from her startled body. “Anyways! Matt’s apartment! Yes! Let’s go set up a base of operations there and figure this bullshittery out!”

“Wait, but you don’t have a spare key, though…?” Amber frowned at her.

Kat just grinned back, eyes dancing with mischievous mirth. “Don’t worry, I know where to find one.”

* * *

“I thought you meant, like, under the doormat or in the planter or something, not fucking this!” Amber yell-whispered at Kat, who was in the middle of fiddling with the deadbolt.

“You wouldn’t put a key there, would you?” Kat responded, then cursed under her breath when one of her tools slipped.

“Still…” Amber looked around at the parking lot, praying that none of Matt’s neighbors would need to leave their apartment anytime soon.

It was still fairly early in the morning on a Sunday, but soon enough people would surely be leaving for church or whatever it was people did early on Sundays. She had no idea, as she was almost never up at this hour, excepting those occasions where she hadn’t gone to sleep yet due to hanging out with friends or working on projects, and she assumed this probably wasn’t normal behavior for 99% of society.

Kat was dressed in her usual goth-adjacent attire, though toned down from how she’d been at Friday’s social gathering, with a form-fitting scoop neck black top that bore an emo Hello Kitty lookalike on its front, a pleated dark red and black plaid skirt, black thigh-highs with cat ears, and her signature stompin’ boots. Amber, meanwhile, was borrowing some even more casual clothes, namely a black t-shirt with the words “HAVE A NICE DAY” written in red multiple times down the front like one of those generic shopping bags (though in a ‘creepy’ bleeding typeface), dark gray jean shorts, and some pink flip-flops Kat only ever wore to the beach.

Amber crossed her arms, taking a moment to enjoy how it felt with her new assets. “Think you could hurry it up a bit?”

“Dude, chill, if anyone sees us, we’re breaking into ‘your’ apartment,” Kat muttered, still focused on the two thin angled pieces of metal in her hand. “You lost ‘your’ key, and instead of calling an expensive as fuck locksmith, you called your buddy who kinda sorta knows how to pick a lock, like a fiscally responsible broke-ass bitch.”

Amber sighed. “Fine, but still though…” She bit her lip, anxiously watching as one of the metal tools bounced up and down while the other was held in a firm position perpendicular to the lock entrance. Applying tension, she surmised.

 Suddenly, the perpendicular tool rotated along with the inner core of the lock. Amber presumed that was a good thing, which was all but confirmed when Kat let out a loud whoop.

“Sssh! Shut the fuck up, dumbass!” Amber hissed at her.

Kat waved a hand in her direction. “Yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry…” With her other hand, she grasped the handle… and it was locked as well.

“Shit.”

“Fuck.”

Kat sighed and began to work on the second lock, but as she did so, a woman’s voice called out from behind them.

“Hey! What are you two doing?!”

Amber’s veins ran cold.

What the fuck? No way, it can’t be.

Amber slowly turned around to see the woman approaching rapidly from the parking lot. She was older, seemingly in her fifties, with reddish-brown hair tied in a ponytail. She had reading glasses dangling from her neck by a beaded chain. Her simple purple t-shirt and khaki short combination gave her a distinct ‘mom’ vibe, which was appropriate.

They locked eyes. The woman gasped and put her hand up to her mouth. Without another word, she quickly closed the gap and embraced Amber as tightly as a woman of her physique possibly could.

“¡Allison, no puedo creerlo! ¿Estas bien? ¡Estaba tan preocupada! ¡No has atendido ninguna de mis llamadas desde viernes! ¿Qué paso?” she rattled off in quick-fire Spanish, nearly in tears.

“Mom, Mom! I’m okay! I’m so sorry for making you worry, my phone broke Friday night,” Amber lied as best she could and gently pulled out of the hug. “What are you doing up here in Salinas?”

Matt’s mother, Maria, sniffled. “¿Por qué en ingles-?” she began, before realizing that Kat was still there with them. “Oh, I’m sorry, you are… Katherine, yes?”

“Just call me Kat, Mrs. C,” Kat responded, fidgeting with her tools in her hand. “I was just helping Am- Allie here get into her apartment. She lost her keys somewhere between here and my place.”

“Oh my, what a disaster this weekend sounds like! I’m just so relieved that you are safe, mi querida,” Maria said as she kissed Amber on the cheek. “I drive here this morning because I can’t sleep! I was so worried about you!”

As Maria leaned back away, Amber noticed something she hadn’t yet processed in the shock of seeing her.

“Jesus, Mom, what happened? You smell like an ashtray!” she said, wrinkling her nose.

Maria sighed and pinched her temples. “I know I’ve been trying to stop, but I was needing it for the stress. I went to the alley this time, so don’t worry.”

Trying to stop? Needing it? This time? Does she fucking smoke?

As far as Amber knew, her mom had never so much as tried a cigarette in her life. She’d always been firm about the dangers of smoking, particularly driving the point home when Amber had let slip that she had tried weed once. Hell, she wouldn’t let up about it, reminding her every time she mentioned that she was going to be hanging out with anyone. And she was smoking?!

“Mom, it’s not… I’m not worried about the smell or the neighbors, I’m worried about you and-”

“Let’s not have another talk about this now,” Maria interrupted her. “I’m so glad you’re okay, and I want to spend time with you, mi amor. Did you have breakfast already?”

Amber wanted to decline her to work on the potentially-time-sensitive portal puzzle, but she could tell how worried sick Matt’s mom had been over his disappearance and how hurt she’d be if she turned her down. She needed to know her ‘daughter’ was there, safe and sound, not kidnapped or swallowed up by the earth… even though technically, her actual child had been.

So Amber plastered on the best smile she could and responded, “Mom, I’d love to have breakfast with you.” She thumbed over at Kat. “Just give Kat some time to unlock the door so I can get properly cleaned up and grab my spare key.”

“No prob, Bob, should only take a minute,” Kat responded, already back to jiggling her implements in the keyway.

Only then, as they were waiting for her to wrest the lock open, did Maria take in what Amber was wearing.

“No wonder I didn’t recognize you, mijita!” she exclaimed, looking Amber up and down. “Are those your clothes? You never wore anything so short!”

Amber’s face turned red, but she couldn’t help slightly smiling. “No, I’m borrowing some stuff from Kat. I fell in a mud puddle and everything got ruined.” Not inaccurate, honestly.

“I think it’s too short, but that’s the fashion, isn’t it?” Maria’s eyes crinkled mischievously. “Is this how you’re going to dress from now on, or are you going to go inside and change into your boy clothes again?”

There was nothing she’d rather do less right now, aside from going back to pretending to be a boy. This was Matt’s mom, though, and Matt was a guy. Should she pretend to be her still-closeted son trapped in a girl’s body or embrace who she actually was and confuse Matt’s relationship with his mom, should he manage to find his way back and come out?

Before she could come to a decision, she heard the door creak open behind her.

“Have fun at breakfast, ladies,” Kat said as she waltzed past them and towards the alley. “I gotta go home and do some research for the project we were working on.”

“Ooh, project?” Maria looked to Amber and gave her an excited smile. “You’ll have to tell me all about it!”

“I dunno, it’s pretty complicated stuff, Mom.” Amber sighed and walked into Matt’s apartment, trying not to feel out of place as she looked around his slightly-different everything. “I’m in the middle of it, and even I’m at a loss for what I’m supposed to do.”

Sierraffinity

Finally, another chapter! Sorry for the slow release schedule, I've been super-mega-ultra busy with a bunch of stuff in my life and just haven't had the time to sit down and write! I'm so excited though, we've finally made it to the third and final day of the weekend! How many words will it take for me to get to the end of my first ever completed story? Who knows!