Chapter Text
Nicky was Nico’s favourite of all the adults he was stuck around on a daily basis. He didn’t make Nico feel like he had to force the body to act right so they wouldn’t be punished, he was silly and easy going and he never raised his voice. Sometimes, when Aaron needed to check out, Sasha would let him, and Riley share the front, and they got to sit with Nicky and watch one of his weird shows. Nicky tried to pick out stuff that was vaguely child appropriate, but Riley bluntly reminded him that they were trauma holders for the system, and he relented in the face of very obvious distain.
The other thing he liked about Nicky, was that he got to feel small. He was, in a way, happy that Aaron’s body hadn’t grown much because it was disorientating to reach the front and be bigger than normal. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like if the body was Sasha’s height.
It was a very strange film, featuring ugly goblins, and weird songs, and a man who Nicky called David Bowie, a gay icon according to him. It was funny, and Nico liked it. He liked anything Nicky wanted to show him, he considered as he burrowed deeper into Nicky’s side, warmth filling his chest and the easy way Nicky pulled him close and dropped a kiss onto his hair. Nicky had said he liked this as well because Aaron was much more prickly, which was true, but it made him think of Aaron as a porcupine and that was funny.
Riley liked all the adults, they liked anyone who showed them any kindness, a habit Nico disapproved of. They got comfortable too quickly and Nico had to rein them in, in case they made people angry, and they did it again. He didn’t even want to think about what they’d do, he knew how to avoid it but the others in the body insisted on acting out, tempting fate, it made him so nervous all the time.
The door opened and Nico stiffened, shifting so he wasn’t as tightly pressed to Nicky’s side but unable to bring himself to move away completely. He pushed Riley away from the front, he couldn’t trust them to not screw this up. He knew Riley would go running to involve Sasha and Sasha would be upset but that wasn’t important, he had to keep the body safe. Kevin entered the living room with Neil right behind him, and both stopped, glancing at the TV and at the two of them on the couch with disbelief, and Nico felt the fear creeping into his throat. Andrew sauntered in not much later, casually spinning his keys around one finger and stopping next to his annoying not-boyfriend.
“Well, isn’t this domestic? I didn’t think Labyrinth would be up your alley.”
It was obvious he was talking to Aaron seeing as the film was exactly something Nicky would enjoy. Nico straightened and curled his lip in the best imitation of Aaron’s sneer he could manage.
“Fuck off.” His voice was too soft, he could feel his face heating.
“Hey, Aaron is our pre-med warrior,” He was grateful to hear Nicky’s voice defending him. “He was tired, and we were taking a nap, and now you’ve woken us up because you’re all horrible.”
“A nap? What, are you six years old?”
Neil’s words had a feeling of icy cold dread crawling over his skin, and he shut his moth with a click, leaning out Nicky’s grip entirely. It was an unreasonable fear, one throw away comment didn’t mean they’d figured out the secret, but Nico refused to out himself to their teammates. They would hate him; he couldn’t be the reason Aaron’s family hated him.
Sasha and Riley had made a reappearance somewhere in the back of his mind and he watched, detached as his teammates made themselves comfortable on the other couch and various beanbags, turning the film off to start a game. Nicky claimed a controller, offering it to Nico but he shook his head. Aaron was the one who liked videogames, Theo did as well, and Riley liked the ones that weren’t shooting games. Nico could feign an interest sometimes but right now couldn’t be bothered. He ignored the questioning looks from the others and arranged the body into a vaguely comfortable position whilst he checked out from reality for a bit.
Sasha wanted to take over, he always did, he had been nervous about letting the twins front but they’d convinced him it would be fine. Technically Nico had it under control, but Sasha disagreed.
A hand was waving in front of his face and Nico snapped back into himself, barely resisting the urge to lash out at the person the hand was attached to, but he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t make it worse for them.
It turned out the hand belonged to Kevin; he’d dropped the controller in Nico’s lap but become weirded out when ‘Aaron’ didn’t respond to him and Nico could feel multiple pairs of eyes on him. He snatched the controller and mumbled out something that sounded vaguely like what Aaron would say. It appeased Kevin, and he disappeared from the room, but Andrew was still watching him. He glared back and turned his focus to the TV, missing the confusion that flitted across Andrew’s face.
Call of Duty, he thinks. A point and shoot game, his least favourite, they always put Riley on edge.
Dutifully, he picked out a character and let muscle memory take over, allowing himself to rejoin the argument between Riley and Sasha. His good mood and time with Nicky had been ruined, so on the one hand he wanted to give control back to Sasha, but Riley wanted to stay and there was no way in hell Riley was controlling the body, they’d mess something up, he was sure. Riley didn’t like that response and started pushing their way back to the front, still crying and Nico started to worry.
Aaron didn’t cry; he wasn’t allowed to cry. It made people annoyed at best, or they’d come and hurt the body worse.
I’ll give you something to cry about.
The words echoed in his mind so strongly he flinched, as did Riley and as did the body, his hands missing the buttons and shooting at Neil’s character. It would be funny, and so would Neil’s look of anger, if he was Aaron. But he wasn’t Aaron and Neil was going to hurt him, and it was his fault.
Nico’s control slipped and Riley pushed their way to the front in the panic, even though they didn’t want to it anymore and Nico could only watch in abject horror as the body started crying in earnest, and Riley wasn’t moving, they weren’t wiping their face, everyone was staring, and Riley wasn’t doing anything.
Nicky’s hand landed on his shoulder, and it was enough to startle Riley back into action, allowing Sasha to take over, doing damage control he hoped, but he was tired, and he retreated back into the quiet, comfortable space in the back of the mind, dragging Riley with him.
Valerie was the only one in the system who knew how to play exy. Well, Aaron knew the basics, but he’d never played it, and Sasha was always there when anyone who wasn’t Theo was fronting so in theory, he knew what was going on.
But in practice, Valerie was the only one who could play exy.
So now they had a problem.
Practice had been going relatively well. Despite how she disliked being in a body that was both male and much smaller than she was used to, Valerie loved the court like no other. She toned down her love for it for the most part, as difficult as she found it to behave like Aaron but during gameplay, she let herself go as hard and as fast and passionate as she loved.
She’d seen that freshman’s feint coming from miles away and met him easily, stealing the ball and sending it down the court to Kevin in one smooth motion. She paused to catch her breath, trusting the strikers she’d been paired with for the scrimmage to keep hold of the ball, but that proved to be her crucial mistake.
Seconds, later, she was being slammed up against the court door, her feet barely grazing the floor as the freshman, she thought his name was Arthur, but she wasn’t sure, smashed her head into the glass repeatedly. Luckily, she was only present briefly before Sasha was pushing his way forward and she let him go easily, in no way prepared to deal with it.
Sasha was rarely angry, he always tried to keep his calm for the kids, and for Aaron but none of them were around at that second, and it was just as well because as soon as he had control of the body, Sasha was shoving one elbow into the kid’s diaphragm, kicking him down to the floor as soon as he had the upper hand. He was pulled off the freshman seconds later by Nicky’s hands around his shoulders and upper arms, but he was already done, and relaxed into the grip, calling for Valerie to take back over.
Except Valerie didn’t respond. He tried a few more times but only Aaron came back to the front. The racquet that was pressed into his hands was horribly unfamiliar, neither of them knew how they were supposed to hold it or how to catch and pass with it, but he settled into his spot, trying to keep his cool as best as possible. The ball flew past him, a terrible pass from one of the strikers to the other, Valerie would have intercepted it easily, but he raised his racquet, surprised by the weight of it, and missed horribly. His face reddened but he shook himself off and tried again.
Five missed passes later and Kevin was stalking up the court toward him, anger on his face and Sasha resigned himself to a shouting match. Aaron wanted to come to the front, always in the mood to start a fight with Kevin, and Sasha was tempted to just let him at it, especially when he noticed Neil following at a distance.
He settled for sharing the front, although neither of them were actually paying attention to Kevin’s yelling, something along the lines of ‘what the fuck is wrong with you?’ was the main gist.
More than you could ever imagine, Aaron thought, and Sasha had to stop the body from laughing at that, lest he piss Kevin off further.
Neil caught up to Kevin, pulling him away from Aaron and frowning down at him. It was one of the things Sasha hated about fronting was how short their body was, in the headspace he was easily clearing Kevin’s height, it was demeaning for people to be able to literally look down on him.
“Did you hit your head or something? You’re usually fine at this.”
Aaron bristled at Neil describing them as ‘fine’, Valerie was fucking incredible thank you very much, just because they didn’t have the time for her to be on the court as often as Neil and Kevin were, it didn’t mean she wasn’t easily better than any of them naturally.
Sasha, however, was begrudgingly grateful to Neil for throwing them a line and he nodded, rubbing the back of his head. “Yeah maybe, I’m gonna go see Abby.”
Kaitlyn had come down to Columbia with them for the weekend after a good win. Aaron had partied hard, pulled in by Nicky and Kevin’s enthusiasm and Theo had taken over quickly. He did enjoy the feel of the club, the drink and the drugs making him hazy in a cheerful way. Nicky knew he was Theo, he knew better than to use any name other than Aaron in public, but he adhered to Theo’s slightly different boundaries and interests, which was sweet of him.
The night went quick and soon enough they were heading back to the house, although Kaitlyn took Theo in her car because there were too many of them for Andrew’s Maserati. He liked spending time with Kaitlyn, even if she wasn’t really dating him, he really liked her, he understood why Aaron had chosen to break the deal for her, even if most of the others had protested it.
They were staying in Aaron’s bedroom. They avoided the others and hid themselves away, getting changed for bed easily, Theo had managed to sober up enough to not be stumbling around like an idiot and they were curled up under his covers, wrapped around each other in no time.
This, unfortunately, was the thing he hated the most, the going to sleep. Kaitlyn fell asleep quickly and he was left lying on his back, staring at the glow in the dark stars they’d put on the ceiling when they first moved in. It wasn’t that he was uncomfortable, he more comfortable with Kaitlyn than he ever was on his own, but something had him on edge. The urge to be ready to fight something off at any moment.
He didn’t really understand where it came from, Riley was the only one who knew the full extent of what the body had gone through, but he knew that sleeping had once been unsafe and now he just.
Couldn’t.
Ever.
Nicky had thrown around the word insomnia, and recommended he talk to Betsy about it, but apparently, they’d refused to talk to her at all until they started doing joint sessions with Andrew, and even then, they said as little as possible.
Kaitlyn rolled over, releasing him and Theo took the opportunity to slide out the bed and make his way down to the kitchen. Nicky had bought some fancy tea that was supposed to make you sleepy, for both the Columbia house and the dorms and Theo was eternally grateful for their cousin’s efforts to help.
The kettle took forever to boil because it was old and rubbish, so Theo ventured into the living room to see how Kevin was doing.
Passed out face down on the sofa was the answer. Theo removed his shoes and draped a blanket over him, although it didn’t quite reach his feet because he was so tall, and there were no other blankets. That was why Theo didn’t mind the size of the body so much; he liked being able to make himself small.
There was a soft noise in the doorway and Theo turned to see Kaitlyn rubbing sleep out of her eyes.
“Did I wake you up?” His stomach clenched with guilt, but she shook her head, wrapping one arm around his shoulders and leaning down to kiss his nose and he felt his face heat up.
“No,” she yawned. “Woke up and I couldn’t find you.”
Theo gestured to the kettle, still boiling away in the kitchen and she nodded in understanding. “Do you want me to-”
“Please stay,” was out of his mouth before he’d really processed it, but Kaitlyn only smiled and settled against the counter.
The kettle started squealing and Theo flicked the gas off and pulled it off the hob to pour into his mug before it could wake everyone up, before setting it down on a cold hob.
“I didn’t know you drank tea,” she commented as he stirred the teabag around with his spoon and Theo shrugged. Aaron hated both tea and coffee, but Theo quite liked both. He only ever fronted on nights like this, so he didn’t get to try much.
“Nicky got me some that help when I can’t sleep.” A non-answer. Something Aaron couldn’t contradict later and cause problems.
For a moment he considered just coming clean to Kaitlyn, Sasha had said it was fine, really the only ones who were against it were Aaron himself, who worried she’d break up with him, and Nico who distrusted all adults apart from Nicky.
He hesitated, wondering how to bring it up. “Did you ever study systems when you did psych in high school?”
Kaitlyn started to respond but it was at that exact moment that Andrew entered the kitchen and Theo froze. He didn’t dislike Andrew per say, not in the way that Nico and to an extent Sasha did, but he found his twin- the body’s twin- terrifying in every respect and refused to talk to or around him.
Theo scoped up the mug, dumping the teabag in the bin, and made his way up the stairs back to his bedroom, Kaitlyn following him.
Riley wasn’t sure where they were.
Well they did, they were on the roof of fox tower, but they didn’t know why they were out, something must have triggered them to come out, and they didn’t know what time it was or how long they’d been there or how they got here, or where Aaron was supposed to be, and why they couldn’t reach any of the others in the headspace.
They wanted Sasha. Or Andrew, but they couldn’t have Andrew cause they wouldn’t be able to act like Aaron and they’d out the system, and Nico said people wouldn’t want them if they knew, so they had to pretend.
Riley was so absorbed in themselves, they didn’t notice the sound of the door opening, but they did hear what was distinctly Neil’s voice calling out for Andrew. They tried to quiet their sniffling, but Neil had already heard them and was rounding the corner, stood in front of the little gap they’d crammed the body into. It would have been easier if the body was the same size as Riley, but they were stuck with an extra foot and a half that didn’t fit right.
Neil’s expression looked like he was going to say something mean or demeaning but he must have seen the face Riley was making and taken pity, instead crouching down so he was at roughly the same height.
“Aaron, what happened?”
They hated talking to people so much. Sometimes they could talk in the headspace but very rarely when fronting could they figure out how to get the body to form words. In the end Riley just shrugged, avoiding eye contact.
“Do you want me to get Nicky?”
Nicky was calling Eric, he’d been telling Aaron earlier how excited he was for the call, Riley didn’t want to interrupt that and shook their head desperately. Neil seemed to understand.
“Do you- want to sit somewhere more comfortable?”
Riley shrugged, considered it and then nodded.
Neil held out a hand to them and after a few moments of hesitation, Riley took it and allowed Neil to haul them to their feet in one ungraceful motion. They staggered, as they always did in this body, but Neil waited them out with patience they hadn’t known him to have, before letting him guide them to the edge of the roof.
There was a cool breeze blowing over their face, gently cooling the stickiness from crying and they could see across most of the campus from this vantage point. Being so high up was strangely comforting and Riley started to calm down properly, allowing them to think things through more clearly.
Someone had touched Aaron. He was out with some of the team and the cheerleaders, they’d won a home game, but they weren’t going up to Colombia. Aaron wouldn’t understand why it had scared him so much, if Riley and Nico had anything to say about it, he never would, but Sasha had other ideas.
They still didn’t know why they couldn’t access any of the ithers, or where they’d gone. Maybe if they went to bed, it’d be fine when they woke up and everyone would be back. They stood up, deciding the body just needed a reset, and out the corner of their eye, saw Neil make a move toward them, panic clear on his face for no apparent reason.
Riley looked around themselves, confused, before spotting the very high drop they were currently stood over and drawing the obvious conclusion.
They stepped away, heading for the door, and gave Neil a mocking two fingered salute, remnant of how they’d seen Andrew do it, before disappearing down the stairs toward their dorm room.
They were in Colombia once again. Aaron had an awful headache, made infinitely worse by the club noise, and a horrific bruise on his abdomen that he didn’t remember receiving but Val had apologised profusely for. Apparently whatever Abby had given them for the pain couldn’t be mixed with alcohol, which sucked because it didn’t appear to be doing anything, and Andrew had refused to let him stay in Palmetto, so he was stuck at the table watching Neil and his brother eye-fuck each other.
Stone cold sober.
Nicky had suggested going back to the house early but had been shot down by the rest of the team, who’d come with them for some stupid reason, and Aaron had just told him to do his own thing, he was beyond caring. He’d brought his flashcards with him, which would have been a viable distraction if he could read them without his glasses. Which he didn’t have, of course. Typical really.
The cards disappeared from his hands and Aaron looked up, irritated, to find Andrew flipping through them.
“Hey, do you fucking mind?”
“What are the three parts of the sternum?”
“What?”
Andrew just tapped the card, not repeating himself. Weirdly, Neil was gone and it was now just the two of them, and empty glasses.
Aaron sighed. “Manubrium, mesosternum, xiphoid process.”
It was flipped to the back. “Which ribs are false ribs?”
“Eight, nine, and ten.”
“Why?”
Aaron closed his eyes to think, “articulate with the costal margin.”
They continued like this until they’d gone through the set, he’d brought with him and Andrew flipped back to the first question. Instead of asking it, however, he dropped the stack onto the table and levelled Aaron with a stare he didn’t quite understand.
“Neil said he found you on the roof two weeks ago.”
Oh yes, when he’d had a panic attack for no reason and forced Riley to take over for him. But there was no way in hell he was telling Andrew that.
“Crying.”
“We weren’t crying,” he snapped.
It took him a few moments too long to realise his mistake, but the look he was getting from Andrew told him everything he needed to know.
“I won’t go on the roof again, happy?” He grabbed his flashcards before Andrew could respond and blended into the crowd in practiced motion, trying to track down Roland to talk to him about literally anything else.