Vanessa and Laura | Tuesday evening

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

Laura meets Vanessa while she's staring longingly at the punching bag and obviously ignoring doctor's orders for bed rest. It's okay, Laura offers something way better than bed rest and stitches!

It wasn't unusual to find the blue metamorph in the mansion's gym, particularly lingering around the punching bag. What was unusual about the scene was that she was just staring at it longingly. Vanessa clearly wasn't dressed for working out in her heavy boots and cargo pants either, but she figured dressing in anything vaguely appropriate would be too tempting even if it would be more comfortable. Running pants might become a staple of her wardrobe until the stitches came out, though, the waistband of her pants were irritating her stitches. She'd even considered skirts, which meant it was clearly the end of the world. Vanessa owned skirts that fit her own body and they were only for the odd occasion when she wanted one when she went out dancing, but they were all light, stretchy material so maybe they would be a good idea.

It also wasn't unusual to see Laura roaming around the gym, as she needed to burn all that energy that kept her going around the mansion, which she had decided was getting a bit boring by now. After India, everything was a little boring now, actually, and that was a little worrying. Unfortunately, she was in the same predicament as Vanessa with the need tof exercise and not being able to get it. Because she had hurt herself enough trying to do any kind of sports already. "It's a pretty punching bag", she commented as she walked in, arm hanging in it's cast. "Sometimes I think it mocks me for not being able to punch it."

Vanessa looked up at the sound of another voice and quirked a small, rueful smile. "Aye, it's very pretty. I'd make it feel a lot less pretty and a world less smug if hitting it wouldn't rip out every stitch I've got in me right now." She paused to consider her own statement and then revised it. "Well, I'd need to punch it twice for that. Guess if I just punched it with the one first I'd only rip out half of my stitches. McCoy might not kill me for being stupid, but Voight would and that woman scares me."

Laura smirked back. "It would do me a lot of good if you don't scar my mind by making me drag your bleeding corpse all the way to the infirmary; I think I would break my shoulder again, and then those two would glue me to a bed." And yet she still wanted to punch the stupid bag. Impulses were strong, silly things. "That said, I don't really know if someone with stitches should be walking around." Although Vanessa was completely proving her wrong, so Laura didn't add much more.

"I'll probably be getting stink eye from McCoy for that, too." Vanessa shrugged, obviously not caring. "It only pulls on some of the stitches a little if I walk and you're going to have to shoot me and stuff me to get me to lay prone in bed all fucking day." She gave the punching bag and then the speed bag another longing look before turning her attention more fully back to the teenager in front of her. "But I'll try not to traumatize you with my bleeding corpse. Besides, I could probably stumble my bleeding non-corpse down to the medlab before it got bad enough that I ended up in corpse classification."

"Hey, I get it pretty well; this is the first time I'm ordered not to move, but I just can't help it. Even if it's just weeks, there is no way I'm going to wait patiently." The longing looks were starting to get her, really; she wasn't going to suffer from not training for a couple of weeks, but she could get so much better...especially when Cammie was on her feet again. You know, the two feet. "Oh, but I really don't want to walk besides you trying to decide if you are already in the corpse category or not so...should we go somewhere else? The temptation is getting a little cruel already."

Snorting softly, Vanessa nodded. "Aye, relocation's key." She started for the door, reminding herself along the way to shorten her stride the way she had to for Adrienne since this girl was about the same height. "I've got this issue with restless energy but I'm not allowed to do anything with it until the stitches are out. Well, I could probably get away with the shooting range as long as I remind myself bows are out of the question unless I want to end up glared at and doped up so I behave myself." She already wasn't taking the pain killers they'd given her.

Issues with restless energy were part of Laura's every day life, and she would have given her an emphatic nod if it weren't probably going to give her more pain. "Using a bow isn't the best idea, yep. And glares and doping is one of those bad mixes you don't want to try. I know I don't anyway." Did she mean she could fire a gun? Laura really didn't like guns, but getting to shoot one was cool anyway. Following the woman, Laura took a moment to just stare at her blue skin. "How many blue people are out there, I wonder." Thinking out loud was something she needed to work on.

"Three in the mansion and a fourth one that used to be here means probably a lot? Blue, nature's back up color." The woman's smile was a bit wry. "God ran out of peach and brown and vaguely yellow so he decided, 'blue's an awesome back up, then I can find them when I get more paint and fix them up like everyone else!' Only he never got enough paint for that and the army of the smurfs continues."

Laura shrugged, although only her right shoulder went up. She was learning. "I think it's a pretty awesome color." And she was keeping the Avatar references for herself. "Although if I wanted to nickname someone Blue in here, it would get really chaotic." Not the mention it might be taken in less than kind way for some of the blue residents. Or all of them. "Do you have a nickname? Or a name, because I can work with any of those."

"Well, I won't answer to Blue even if you want to give me that one." Vanessa smirked just a little. "Besides, I'm not always blue because I'm not always wearing me. Since it was the girl's right arm that was uninjured it was Vanessa's right hand she offered, but she had a moment of figuring out which name she was going to give the brunette. She'd never had that moment before. Vanessa had been Morgan to everyone since she'd come here, but the need for the Morgan persona was well past and she couldn't remember the last time she'd really fully slipped into that act. "Vanessa. Nessa, Ness and Vee all work if you're lazy. Or you can make up a new one and join that bandwagon. I used to teach self-defense and now I just fill in when they need a substitute. Oh and skulk, because I'm amazing at skulking." The grin was immediate. "Well, that and I've friends and a boyfriend who live here so there's that imperative."

The girl considered that Blue was an awesome nickname, but she wasn't about to push, mainly because she was enjoying the conversation, and also because real names were a lot more useful. Shaking the offered hand, Laura smiled back. "Wearing? And those all seem fine reasons to stick around, besides the eventual world crisis that might need a couple of extra hands? And this is me assuming everyone here ends up getting in the line one way or another. And I think I'm going to stick with Nessa...and you are who's boyfriend? And oh! I'm Laura, Kinney; I don't really have a nickname, so Laura is just fine."

"You'll end up with a nickname if you see me a half dozen times or so," Vanessa told her with a smile as her arm fell back down to her own side. "Just ask Peaches or Saffron." The smile broadened. "And, uh, I don't think I qualify as anyone's boyfriend. Actually, not true, if I'm wearing Daniel I probably qualify as his boyfriend. Anyway, Lex? Aye, that'd be my boyfriend. Usually I'm his girlfriend, though." She knew Laura probably meant to ask who Vanessa's boyfriend was but the slip of the tongue was too amusing to not play up. "And, aye, wearing. I'm a shapeshifter. Well, a metamorph but I'm not entirely sure what the difference is. I can copy you down to your DNA just from touching you. If I touch you long enough I can copy your mutation, too. I think of the copies sort of like outfits because that's how I explained it to a friend once and it sort of stuck, so it's like wearing people."

She lost Laura for a second, but the girl was witty enough to notice the game of words. "Oh, Lex; nice guy." She needed a couple more steps and some more smiles to process the woman's mutation. "So you copy people, and mutants...and animals? I don't know if it's like saying 'Bah, DNA is DNA' or not." An idea popped in her mind then. "But if you can copy mutations, you could possibly copy my healing factor and get rid of those stitches in no time. I mean, my painfully broken shoulder is going to take a couple of weeks to get healed, when it would usually take a lot longer for someone else." She wasn't sure if it was a good idea though, or if it represented a problem for Vanessa, so she stopped there.

"No animals. Just humans. And mutants. I mean, one day they might separate the species out for all I know." They did that with evolution. Vanessa had read just enough anthropology to know that, and to know that if the two were ever separated into different species it wouldn't be for ages. Even then, wasn't one of the rules of being a unique species that you couldn't procreate with other species? Wait, no, that was wrong. Species could procreate within a genus and maybe even within a family. Her brain didn't want to think about that.

Refocusing on Laura and what she had said, Vanessa processed the healing factor. She perked just a little bit. "You've got a healing factor? Yeah, I could heal myself if I picked up your mimic and wore you around for a bit. It'd mean being physically attached to me for about an hour and a half to two hours so I could copy your mutation and then having to live with another you wandering about for a bit. I knew someone with a healing factor once. I used to copy him all the time to heal injuries." When she'd first been brought into Mág Ealga she'd gotten injured a lot. Borrowing a healing factor would mean no scars if she didn't want them, too.

Somehow it was tranquilizing to know Vanessa wasn't going to turn into a goat anytime soon. That was something she didn't want to think about."Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell..." The idea of having other her walking around was...interesting, to say the least. "But if you copy me, you wouldn't have a broken arm, I guess?" Seeing herself in real time without the broken arm would be certainly confusing. "Unless you are thinking on using my, errr, body for mischief, I guess I can live with it? But I want to win something out of this." What she wanted, Laura wasn't even sure.

"Nope, no broken arm. The break isn't genetic so I don't get it. I don't get scars or tattoos you might have either. But how long would it take you to heal it? 'Cause, I mean, people get weirded out by seeing themselves walking around and talking with their voice and all." Vanessa's own mildly Irish South Boston accent should be more than enough to distinguish her from the real Laura for the people who would undoubtedly be confused, though.

"I like mischief, but I won't get you in trouble. No arrests, no sleeping around, no whatevering you don't want me to do." Normally Vanessa was very big on the mischief. Manuel hadn't been happy when she'd apologized on his behalf to Zanne for being a dick and then arranged a date with Amara. Jake had much less of an issue with her flirting with, and then sleeping with, her own best friend while wearing his body. Given she was romantically attached she wouldn't be sleeping with anyone. "I'll try not to commit any bank robberies." And that left only one real question. "So, what do you want for your...services rendered?"

"That all sounds good then. And the stitches...I think four days would have them healed; you will feel ridiculously better the moment you copy my mutation though, since I can't get sick, and pain turns to minimal." Yes, being her was kind of awesome. "And really, no sleeping with anyone while wearing me. I'm not against you being, well, however you usually are, as long as I don't have someone coming back at my door with flowers, fines, broken bones...or the police. Especially the police. No! Especially guys with flowers. Or girls with flowers. Gosh, I hate the girls with flowers."

And what she wanted in return. "Let's see...call me if you ever do something fun?"

Vanessa started laughing at the list of things that were off limits. "I try not to do guys that show up with flowers and I'll stick to only the girls who are used to being the ones getting the flowers, not giving them." She gave Laura a wink. "That whole having a boyfriend situation I mentioned will keep me from sleeping around in your body, no worries there. Are you interested in my version of fun that could get us arrested, the one that involves weapons but not being arrested or the sort that involves going out dancing all night?" Laura was young, but she was alright. If nothing else Vanessa could definitely hang with her for a night or so. "Besides, you're going to be my new favorite person for this."

What a way to twist her words, but Laura trusted Vanessa would behave, if only for her boyfriend. Still, those were going to be some pretty interesting days. "I'm kind of interested in any version of fun that doesn't end in jail, big guns included." Unless they were shooting someone with them, then she might have an issue. "Dancing is a given, once I get rid of this bothersome cast. And I'm all for being someone's favorite." She was well aware she had just signed herself into something that might or might not end well, but she was bored, sometimes in pain, and in serious need to get things happening around her. Laura figured the benefits might be greater. "So how do you want to do this? I'm guessing you'll be needing clothes and stuff?" She wasn't going to have herself walk naked around.

"I've got stuff in the city that'll fit your body." She looked Laura over and was sure some of the stuff she had for Aoife would fit Laura's body just fine, especially with Aoife's penchant for skirts. "But I'd need to borrow some clothes for now, yeah. Y'know, or wander around in stuff that's draping off me. It's a look. Not a good one, but one. And once you're cast is off we will have a date for fun of the dancing and/or big gun variety." The big ones were more illegal than the little ones but once you were on the wrong side of legal precedent did splitting hairs really matter? "The challenge is going to be entertaining us both for two hours in a way that keeps us in physical contact. I fall asleep during movies." Though maybe that made it easier.

Laura chuckled slightly, taking care of her shoulder. "It's a look, but no Laura that calls herself like that will sport such looks! Oh my God, I must dress you up once you look like me." She was taking it all in a very positive light. "That sounds like an awesome date to look forward to, then." Then there was the issue of the whole copying powers. The idea of a movie seemed to have sense; truth to be told, Laura was pretty capable of falling asleep if the movie was boring enough. However... "The movie sounds alright, but I don't know if you would mind my roommate probably entering out of the blue and find us two...me watching a movie. Cammie is all kinds of interesting on the way she reacts."

"It's not two yous until I sorta flip the switch, so to speak. I could probably do the slow bleed over approach but I like the band aid approach. So it'll be you and me until I know I've had enough contact to copy over your mutation, too." Vanessa had done well to keep the reaction to Cammie's name from manifesting physically at all. "But you can dress me up all you like when I'm you." It seemed Laura had the same perspective as Monet on the whole body double issue, which was nice. It was worlds above the creeped out and poking her with a stick approach that one girl had that one time in Russia. "Your roommate and

There was a grin for that last statement. "Now that doesn't surprise me, really. I think we can get the room, and if she shows up I'll just lock the door and send her away? I don't think she sticks around much unless she needs to...sulk anyway; I need to find her something to do." That said, she directed Vanessa to her room, which was fortunately devoid of Cammie; Laura preferred not to ask Vanessa what she didn't like about her in particular; whatever it was, it probably wasn't nice. "So here we are. I have a horrible amount of DVDs, so bad movies are easy to get, and I think that watching it from a laptop might even help with the falling asleep part. I mean, I could fall asleep after staring at a small screen without doing much."

"I fall asleep in movie theatres unless stuff's blowing up," Vanessa told her while she floated over toward the DVDs to find one. Laura had brushed off Vanessa not getting on with Cammie so the metamorph didn't bring the topic up again. Instead, she pulled a DVD off the shelf and gave Laura an almost sarcastic look. "You have the original Buffy movie?" She had said bad movies weren't hard to come by, didn't she?

Laura waved her good arm, a half smile crossing her face. "It's a classic! It teaches you how much better a TV series can be than the movie. So, that's your pick? Then we are in for some deep sleeping." Because she could appreciate a movie, but that didn't mean it wasn't as boring as they got.

"Let's go for it. I might even stay awake for it." Actually, she probably wouldn't. Vanessa had been about ten years old when the movie had come out. She remembered liking it and that her mother didn't want her to watch it. Something about stabbing vampires with stakes was too phallic for her mother's tastes. "Alright, chicklet, you, me, Buffy and some serious hand holding are in store. It's the most exciting afternoon you'll ever have."

* * * * *

Later, after some therapeutic sleep bonding, Laura and Laura play dress up. Sort of.

Two hours or so later, Laura had woken up to find Vanessa almost sleeping over her, the movie long forgotten. She wasn't sure when she had finally fallen asleep, but by that time her blue partner was already in Dreamland. She woke her up, and marveled with her mutant power kicking in; she had never had the chance to examine herself with such detail. It was a weird experience, that was obvious, but she kind of liked the idea. Once Laura got tired of messing with her doubles's hair, it was time for the dressing up.

Once she'd been woken up Vanessa had let the shift take place. It wasn't so much about starting it as much as it was about not having to stop it from happening anymore. This was, however, the strangest experience Vanessa had ever had with a mimic. It wasn't the height, Aoife was shorter than Laura. Vanessa had been a tomboy as a kid. Playing with hair and being excited about being a girl weren't really on her list of things to do as a child. She'd owned toy trains and trucks and a couple dolls she'd get bored with quickly and then leave on the side of the road when she rain off to play stickball or hockey. Laura, though, was all about making Vanessa into her very own My Size Barbie. Creepy.

Picking through the girl's closet was a very practical experience. Vanessa needed something that fit her borrowed body and that was formed fitted so she could move in it. The gashes were now on their way to healing but she couldn't really get very active for days still. Despite that, old habits died hard. It was, oddly enough, a rather impractical and microscopic skirt she pulled out of the closet. Vanessa raised an eyebrow at Laura. "Your mother lets you out of the house like that?"

Laura's eyes widened at the sight of the skirt. "I had forgotten about that one, and yeah; with out without claws I was always stronger than the boys, and she knew I wasn't going to end up drunk or anything...that's what you are wearing?" Well, she hadn't seen the little piece of cloth in a good while. "Come on, you love it; it's not something I would dare to use in the mansion though."

Head tilting to the side, Vanessa narrowed her eyes at what probably should have been a tube top instead of a skirt. "I'm not sure I'd wear that to a club, never mind the mansion." The skirt was hung back up and Vanessa kept hunting for something more appropriate. Eventually she found a pair of short, rather low rise denim shorts. They sat low enough on her hips that the denim didn't touch the stitches and they were both short and loose enough that they didn't inhibit motion. Just in case Vanessa needed to make a quick getaway over a fence she'd be fine. All she needed beyond that was a tee shirt. Vanessa was hardly the queen of fashion, she just liked stuff to be simple. And fit.

That sounded like a very sensible thing to say, so Laura just nodded. "Those are pretty comfortable shorts, and they look great on, well, me." She also started to look for the t-shirt, picking some of base colors, and others with more detail to them. She had from really tight ones to pretty lose ones, and even several shirts hanging on the closet. "Anything in mind? I think I shouldn't keep on buying clothes sometimes. Only sometimes."

"I think you could clothe a third world country." Listening to her voice, Vanessa made a mental note to play up her accent just to differentiate the two of them more. Unlike most of the times she walked around wearing someone else Vanessa wasn't out to confuse people. She just wanted to heal the stupid injuries. Short cuts, who didn't love those? The metamorph chose an olive tee shirt that was plain and fitted, but loose enough to not press down on the stitches tracing lines down the sides of her stomach. Vanessa was pretty sure anything tighter would hurt and anything more loose would brush against them and be irritating.

"That's a pretty one!" And it wasn't going to make Vanessa explode from the tightness. "So you are all set? I have a bunch of sandals, for the claws, but you can get shoes if you want...right? Do you have my claws too? I have two in every forearm and one in each feet, so be careful; those things are sharp."

Eyes widening a little, Vanessa muttered, "They never tell you about the claws until you're already wearing them." She poked at her borrowed arm, almost trying to feel the claw buried in there somewhere. "If you've got them then so do I. Are they going to just randomly pop out and stab my bed to death? And how do I get them to go back in when they pop out?" Oh, this was going to be fun. It would take longer to heal her current injuries if she added new ones from claws popping out a la Logan, right? "Uh...I might want to borrow some sandals."

Laura raised her right arm, hand in a fist. "It's pretty simple; there is supposed to be some muscle that pulls the claws from there and they cut through the knuckles; the wounds heal instantly though, so no worries." She then unsheathed her claws particularly slow so she could see how it was done. "And to get them in, you use that muscle to pull; it's a pretty unconscious act, really; if you are really like me, danger or fear might get you to pop them." And then she sheathed them, the wounds on her fist closing right after.

"Ok, for the sandals, just pick any, really; I have too many to care."

Muscle control, she could remember that. Whether or not she could master that as well was a different story. Vanessa had Laura's psi patterns, her ways of thinking and rationalizing, her ways of digesting information. The switch from one to the other was easy and it meant that explanation made a lot more sense to Vanessa than it would have if it was only her own ways of reasoning present in her mind. Still, Vanessa had her doubts that things wouldn't end up torn to bits if those things popped out. Searching for a pair of sandals was a much easier way to occupy her time and the pair of brown, strappy flats she eventually picked were comfortable enough that Vanessa was sure she'd survive being an actual girl for a few days.

Now that she was fully dressed Vanessa did a little spin for Laura. "Do you approve or am I shaming your name?"

There was only a thumb up pointing at Laura Number 2. "Go get them girl."