Bodyswapping Only Looks Fun On TV 4/4: Lesson Learned? (Blood Ties) PG

[mhalachai]

Bodyswapping Only Looks Fun On TV (Lesson Learned?) (4/4)
A Blood Ties story
by mhalachaiswords

Full story at my website

Summary: Whatever fantasies Vicki had about waking up in Henry's bed, none of them including waking up as Henry...
Disclaimer: None of these characters or shows belong to me. The Blood Ties series started with Tanya Huff and slipped sideways into Lifetime. If you haven't read the books, go out and buy them for this holiday season!
Rating: R (to be on the safe side) for swearing, adult content, some sort-of-slash, nakedness. This part is PG.
Spoilers: Up to "The Devil You Know".
Words: 5,445
Note: I started this before the interesting events in "Wrapped", and so we won't be dealing with those issues in this story. Another cameo from the Blood short stories (collected in Blood Bank).

Hey look! I finished another story!

Part One ~ Part Two ~ Part Three ~ Part Four



"So, here we are."

Vicki pretended to ignore Henry's annoyed muttering as they moved deeper into the darkened display room at the antique store. Perhaps it was her own flight of fancy, but it was almost as if something was lurking in the shadows.

Waiting.

Vicki tried to calm herself down. It was probably just the faint heartbeat of the owner in his upstairs office. Even this close to midnight, Vicki's former client was at work and hadn't minded letting Vicki and her 'associate' in to look at the display in case she had missed something in transit.

Well, he had minded at first. Until Henry had flashed him a charming smile and given the man big doe eyes.

That was something that Vicki and Henry were going to have a little chat about.

"Why are we here?" Henry pressed. He moved his flashlight around the room, very nearly blinding Vicki in the process. "Do you really think that poking around at old statutes will give us any information on what we are facing?"

"It's possible," Vicki said, trying to blink away the spots of light dancing in her eyes. "Enough to give it a try, anyway."

"But I wasn't anywhere near these pieces on transit," Henry said. His light stopped on a dirty brass mirror. His lip curled. "Did you touch anything in the shipment?"

"A few things," Vicki admitted. "I went through the checklist before they loaded the truck up, then watched them load it, sealed it, rode in the front seat with Andre the driver, watched them unload, made sure everything was there, got my cheque and went home."

Henry sighed. "Our situation might not have anything to do with one of your cases. We might have to start looking at an outside influence."

"Like your little buddy Sinead?"

Henry clenched his jaw. "Or someone like her," he said. "You have to admit, you have made quite an impression on the world of the supernatural since--"

"Hey, I'm not the only one involved in this," Vicki interrupted. "You've been making as much as impression as I have."

"Before I met you, I never became involved with this side of the supernatural!"

Vicki turned around. "Oh really? For someone who's a dark magic virgin, you've dated an awful lot of witches and have a lot of books on creepy evil things! And that's just stuff I've found out about!"

Henry refused to look at Vicki. "That's different."

Hypocritical annoying blood-sucking ass! Vicki thought furiously. She forced herself to relax her shoulders. "Let's find the statue and then get out of here, okay?"

"What's the rush?" Henry asked sarcastically.

Vicki stepped closer to him, so close that her lips brushed his ear. "Because I'm getting hungry," she whispered. Pleased when Henry shivered, she kept walking. "Come on. And stop shining that damned light in my eyes."

Henry quietly followed Vicki around the cavernous show room for a minute, then he flipped off his flashlight. "What did you say to Detective Celluci to get him to leave your office?"

Vicki shrugged. "Nothing. He had to go to work."

"You said something to him," Henry pressed. "While I was getting your--my coat."

"It wasn't anything important." Vicki stepped around a rickety chair. The impression of something watching from the shadows was growing, like an itch between her shoulder blades. "I just told him that we would find a way to fix this."

"Thus reassuring him that you would not look like me for the rest of eternity."

"What can I say, Henry? He really doesn't like you."

"Do you still love him?"

Vicki almost tripped over her feet. "What?"

Shadows cast Henry's face into darkness. "You heard what I asked."

"You're being ridiculous. And distracting."

"Why did I end the world for you?"

Ice trickled down Vicki's spine. "What are you talking about?"

Still coated in shadows, Henry crept closer. "You told me, in the elevator so many weeks ago, that I ended the world for you, because I knew you could bring it back." His small hand closed around Vicki's wrist, drew her hand up and placed her fingers over the demon marks. "Why did I end the world for you in the first place?"

Vicki pulled away from Henry. It took her two tries to speak. "The Janus statue is over there."

"What did it have to do with Mike Celluci?" Henry's voice followed Vicki across the room.

Vicki touched one of the statue's faces with trembling fingers. "Is a possessed statue supposed to feel any different than a normal piece of rock?"

"What happened to Mike Celluci, that you asked me to end the world?"

Vicki curled her hand into a ball. "We're not going to talk about that. One life-altering crisis at a time, okay?"

She couldn't think about that now. Not about seeing Mike dead on the dirty floor of that hotel hallway, not about the gritty, slippery wetness of Mike's blood on her hands.

Not about how she had destroyed the world to save Mike.

Henry was beside her, staring up at her in the dark. How much could he even see in this light? Vicki skirted around the statue until the rock was between then. "Maybe it's not this. Do you remember where Coreen said the urn was?"

A long silence. The rhythmic flutter of Henry's heart called Vicki's attention in the stillness. She clenched her hands into fists, willing herself to concentrate. They needed to solve this mystery and get back into their own bodies, before...

... before I forget why drinking blood is supposed to be so repellant.

"I didn't speak with Coreen," Henry said. Did he know his voice was in synch with his heart rate? Vicki wondered. She sincerely hoped not. Not even Henry was that much of a tease. "You did."

"Right." Vicki cast her gaze around the room. Now that Henry's flashlight was off, she could see clearly in the twilight. In the far corner, hidden behind a jumble of chairs and brick-a-brack, a white sheet covered a bulky object.

The moment Vicki spotted the sheet, the underlying feeling of being watched by the shadows intensified.

"Crap," she muttered. "I think the car is behind door number two, Monty."

Henry let out a sigh. "Is this 'a witty quip for everything' a natural gift, or do you practice at night in front of the mirror?"

"Quiet," Vicki hissed. "It's listening." The words were out of her mouth before she realized what she was saying.

Henry looked around. "What's listening?"

"Whatever it is." Knowing that getting nearer to the thing under the sheet was a potentially hazardous idea, she nevertheless edged across the room. "I guess your old buddy Janus wasn't at fault after all."

"You might not want to do that," Henry warned, but it was too late. Vicki had grasped the sheet and, before she lost her nerve, pulled back the sheet. The cloth slid to the floor with a whisper, and it was the only sound Vicki could hear. No outside traffic, no humming electricity in the wires.

No heartbeat. No breathing.

No Henry.

Vicki dropped the sheet and whirled around. Henry stood frozen in place, one hand outstretched in a futile attempt to stop Vicki.

Beside Henry stood a stranger. He was tall and dark and muscular, with shoulder-length hair caught back in a clasp, and whatever he was, wasn't quite human.

Vicki growled, feeling her teeth extend and her vision sharpen. "What did you do to him?" she demanded.

The strange man's face creased in a grin. "He will remain unharmed," the man said in a faintly accented voice. "Until I have had a chance to thank you."

"I-- What?" Vicki darted around the man until she was between him and Henry. "What the hell are you talking about?"

The man waved his hand around the room. "For freeing me from my prison."

"You're going to need to give me a bit more back-story on this one," Vicki said. She felt Henry's wrist for a pulse. It was like touching a marble statue, still and so very cold.

The man bowed. "It is the least I can do, for my savior."

"Stop calling me that! I didn't free anyone from anything!"

"Not true," the man admonished with a click of his tongue. "It was your touch that melted the protection seals on my glass prison, that allowed the series of circumstances to be set in motion for the glass enclosure to be shattered and my physical form to be set free."

Vicki looked past the man to the object that had been under the sheet, a shimmering glass urn, that looked almost like a...

"You're a genie?" Vicki blurted out. "You were trapped in an actual lamp?"

The man crossed his arms over his chest, every movement screaming annoyance. "I am not a genie," he stressed. "I am Djinn."

"I say potato, you say 'pahtahato'," Vicki snapped. "And I may have touched the lamp a grand total of once in transit, but that was it! No rubbing and certainly no wishing!"

"But what good would I be as a bestower of wishes if I only listened to the words that crossed the lips of mankind?" The djinn smiled, and now it wasn't at all benevolent or kind. Vicki swallowed the growing fear in her chest. She couldn't let it see her afraid.

"So you somehow imagined that I wanted to spend the rest of my days in someone else's body?"

The djinn shook his head. "That is not what I gave you." In the blink of an eye, he was on the other side of the urn. "In the deepest hours of the night, the hidden desire of your heart is to be able to see as you once did." He ran a finger of the delicate gold lettering on the urn. "To not be less than you once were; but to be more. To be faster, stronger..." Then he was back beside Vicki and Henry. "To be better."

"And your grand solution was to shove me into someone else's body?"

The djinn shrugged. "He was only a vampire. He has lived long enough."

"That is not the point!" Vicki maneuvered back between the djinn and Henry. "I would never have asked for this! Put us back the way we were!"

Vicki really, really didn't like the way the djinn was looking at her. "Even knowing what the future holds?" he asked.

She knew exactly what he was talking about. Hasn't she spent month staring into the mirror, wondering about what the RP had done to her life? Still, she had to take a deep breath before responding. "No one knows what's going to happen in the future."

The djinn smiled. "True, but we can guess." He took a step back. "You will continue to lose your eyesight, then your hearing, and even risk mental retardation as the disease in your blood attacks you. You will not be able to work or care for yourself, and you have driven everyone away to the point where you will die, alone and forgotten, locked away in a hospital."

Vicki tried to speak, but she felt as though she were rooted to the spot in the same way as Henry.

"Or the other path you have chosen," the djinn continued. "Dancing so close to the edge of danger, trying to prove to yourself and those around you that you are not yet blind, not yet useless. One day you will step into danger and there will be no vampire savior to pull your life from the hands of the gods, no policeman with his gun to stop the dangers you seek out."

The djinn's voice was soft but penetrating as it ripped apart all the carefully constructed truths Vicki had built around herself.

"And you wonder, late at night, if you choose to walk into danger in the faint hopes that death will steal away your life before the blindness does."

Hands clenched so tight she wondered if she might break a bone, Vicki said, "Doesn't matter. Put me and Henry back!"

The djinn moved languidly over to where Henry stood frozen. "He would never know. You could keep his body, his powers--"

Vick had heard more than enough. "I'd know. Change us back!"

For the first time, the djinn seemed surprised. "You won't even consider my offer?"

"What part of 'put us back' don't you understand?" Vicki demanded. "Undo this!"

"And do what in its place?"

Now Vicki was surprised. "Do? You aren't going to do anything else!"

"Nothing else in your world you wish you could change?"

Vicki forced herself to open her hands. She could smell the blood her nails had drawn. "There's a tonne of shit that I wish was different, but wishing isn't supposed to make things different!"

"I could make it so."

"Like you made me 'better' by swapping me into a vampire's body?"

The djinn persisted. "It is our code, all debts must be repaid. You freed me from my prison, and I must provide compensation."

Could it be that the djinn actually thought he had done Vicki a favour? "Hell, consider it a gift," Vicki said. "You can accept gifts, right? No strings attached, nothing outstanding, we're clear and even."

The djinn considered. "We are not supposed to accept gifts."

"Who's going to know?"

"I will know," the djinn said, huffing slightly. "You truly do not wish to stay in the vampire's body?"

Vicki snarled involuntarily.

"All right. I will return you to your proper body and my debt will have been repaid as you will have received your wish to learn humility."

"Hey, I have never wanted to learn humility, you son of a--" Then the djinn dissolved in a cloud of black smoke and Vicki couldn't breathe as the world was encompassed by the darkness.

~~~

Everything was blurry.

Vicki rubbed at her eyes, but the blurriness did not receded. It was familiar, so familiar, but since the last few days...

Something was pressed into her hand, something wire and cool and Vicki was unfolding her glasses and setting them on her face before her mind could catch up with her hands.

Her hands, she saw as she blinked through her glasses. Her hands and her demon marks and her own hair swinging in front of her face as she sat up on the couch. Oh, thank god!

"Easy, Vicki," Henry's voice drifted over the air. Someone at her side helped her to sit up all the way. "You had a bad fall."

"What?" She turned her head. Henry Fitzroy sat beside her, looking and sounding just the way he was supposed to.

It had worked.

Movement across the room stilled the torrent of words on Vicki's tongue. The gallery owner, a smallish man, carried a glass of water towards the couch. "Are you better, Miss Nelson?" the man asked worriedly. "I had come down to tell you I planned on leaving, when I saw you fall. Your associate said you took faint?"

"Oh, did he?" Vicki asked, giving Henry a look. He smiled at her, but the expression didn't reach his eyes. "I'm fine, just a touch of the flu."

"Indeed." The man didn't look convinced. "Perhaps you should see a doctor."

"Good idea," Henry said. He laid his hand on the small of Vicki's back. "There's a 24-hour clinic near your office we could try."

There was no such thing anywhere near her office, but Vicki let Henry take her arm and help her to her feet. Truth be told, she was feeling a little light-headed. "That would be good."

"Thank you for your help," Henry said to the owner as he guided Vicki to the door.

"Wait," the man said, stopping them in their tracks. "Miss Nelson, the urn..."

Vicki waved a hand about vaguely. She wasn't sure if the man knew he'd had, then lost himself a djinn, but she didn't really care. "Someone could hurt themselves on that thing, you might want to get rid of it. Doesn't seem to have much value, anyway."

"I see," the man said quietly. "Yes, I see. Well, thank you for all your help and I am sorry about your fall."

Vicki let Henry pull her out of the office and out of the building, but when Henry attempted to slow down once they had cleared the door, Vicki kept on moving. "What is it?" Henry asked.

"I want to get out of here," Vicki said as she tried to remember where she had parked the car. "Far, far away from genies in lamps."

"I beg your pardon?" Henry asked. He tucked Vicki's arm closer to him.

"The thing that did this," Vicki indicated the two of them, "Was a djinn. He did it to thank me for rubbing off the protective seals on his glass lamp so he could get out."

"How did you convince him to reverse the situation?"

"I asked him to."

Henry stopped so quickly that Vicki almost fell. "You asked him?"

Vicki pried her arm out of Henry's grasp. "What the hell did you think I'd done?"

"I'm not sure, but I was betting that a copious amount of violence factored in."

Hands on her hips, Vicki glared up at Henry. He was fuzzy and the only thing that her damaged vision could pick up in the dim light, but that was the way it was supposed to be. "Why don't you have any faith in my skills of diplomacy? Look, I told him that I didn't actually want to be you, and he put us back to teach me humility or some such bullshit."

Henry's eyebrows arched. "Humility? You?"

Vicki stepped closer to Henry and jabbed a finger against his chest. "Shut up. I got us back to the way it's all supposed to be and didn't hurt a single hair on your head! The least you can say is thank you!"

Henry caught her hand and pulled her towards him so she ended up in his embrace. "Thank you, Vicki," he said, all traces of humour gone from his voice. His expression was almost too intense. "You are right, I owe you my gratitude."

Her half-hearted attempts to wiggle free weren't working, so Vicki gave up and leaned against Henry's chest. It felt so good to be herself again, just the right height and every part of her feeling right again. Especially pressed up against Henry. "You're welcome," she said a little breathlessly.

"In fact, I owe you more than words can convey," Henry continued. He dipped his head until his lips were next to Vicki's, words caressing her skin. "Please allow me to show you my regard."

"Henry--" Vicki's protest was silenced as Henry's lips met hers. His mouth was cool and tasted like sin and it was only with a great deal of willpower that Vicki managed to pull herself back before she fell completely into the moment. "Henry, hold on."

The vampire drew a deep breath, eyes still closed. "Why?"

Vicki planted her hands against Henry's chest and pushed, finally getting free of his embrace. "Don't you want to talk about what happened?"

Henry blinked. For some reason, Vicki had expected to see his eyes as pure black, but he stared at her with normal eyes. "You fixed this, and from the lack of urgency in your voice, you don't think that this djinn will come after us again. If you did, you wouldn't have allowed yourself to be... distracted."

Vicki clenched her jaw. If he had kissed her just now to gauge how distracted she could be, she was going to hit him. Or at least glare menacingly in his direction. "Fine, then," she said. "Are djinns evil?"

Henry shook his head. "They can be mischievous creatures, but they live by a very honorable code and seldom attack without provocation. They are very..." He smiled widely. "Very human in that regard."

"So we're done? This thing, it's all fixed?"

"You tell me. You seem to be the one with all the answers tonight."

Was that a hint of petulance in his voice? "Only because the djinn thought that I freed him from his prison and so he owed me one."

Without missing a beat, Henry said, "And you wished to be me?"

"Of course not!" Vicki stepped back, putting a little more distance between them. "He thought I wanted..." All the djinn's words came back to her, taunting her about the future, how she was losing herself. She cleared her throat. "That I wanted my eyesight back, and this was his solution."

Henry stared at her for just a little too long before he spoke. "And you did not succumb to the temptation." It was a statement, not a question.

"Of course not!" Vicki was ready to work herself into a fine rant, but Henry suddenly moved right in front of her. He took her hand and bent over it in an old-fashioned bow.

"I know what it is like to see through your eyes, Victoria." He kissed the back of her hand, lips cool against her skin. "The growing blindness, the headaches, the loss of independence--"

"Don't go making this into more than it is," Vicki interrupted, uncomfortable. "There's nothing I can do to change all that shit. Just got to keep on being me, you know?"

As usual, her lack of eloquence in the face of Henry's verbal prose made her feel like a country cousin, but she really didn't like the way he was looking at her. As if she was more than she was, for resisting the djinn's temptation. She would never have been able to accept, Henry knew her well enough to know that.

"So we should get going," Vicki continued. "I've probably got enough time to catch Mike at the station."

Henry straightened up, formality settling over him like a shroud. "Indeed. And I should feed before the sun comes."

"Henry--"

"Shall I fetch you a taxi?"

Vicki counted to five in her head. "Yes, Henry, that would be simply marvelous, thank you."

If he heard the sarcasm, which was truthfully rather hard to miss, he made no sign.

~~~~

The squad room would never change, Vicki decided. It would always smell the same, always sound the same, no matter how badly her eyesight deteriorated. She made her way to the back of the room out of force of habit. The blonde blur sitting at the back desk solidified into Mike Celluci as Vicki got closer. She slid into the chair beside his desk without asking permission and waited.

After a few more determined scratches on his notepad, Mike looked up. His jaw clenched. "To what do I owe this visit?" he snapped.

"Chill, Mike. It's me." Vicki slumped lower in the chair. "One hundred percent back to normal."

The relief that crossed Mike's face was almost comical. "You're sure?"

"Yup." Vicki flashed him a smile. "Go ahead, test me. Anything."

Mike smiled back. "What did you get my mother for Christmas five years ago?"

Vicki rolled her eyes. "How the hell am I going to remember that? Ask me something work-related."

Mike just chuckled. "It's you all right." He reached across the desk for a file. "Everything's really back to normal? Do you know what caused..."

"The invasion of the body-snatchers?" Vicki supplied. "Yes, and it's not--" She was going to say, it's not a big deal, but that really wasn't the case and they both knew it. "It's over."

"Did Henry's fanboy knowledge come in handy?"

"No, different bad guy all together." Vicki forced herself to stand. "I just wanted to let you know that things were, you know. Back to normal."

"Good." Mike got to his feet. "That's good."

"I think so." Vicki hesitated. "Look, Mike, about that lunch thing." The humour faded from Mike's expression, and belatedly it occurred to Vicki that mentioning his kiss with Henry, however obliquely, might be a bad idea. "No, not that, I mean asking 'me' out for lunch in the first place."

"What about it?"

Vicki thought back to all the confusion and chaos of being 'Henry', and of all the things she thought she had lost. She took a deep breath. "If, you know, you'd like to go for lunch later this week?"

Mike didn't say anything.

Cheeks flaming, Vicki wondered if she had totally misread the situation. "I mean, in case you wanted to, to talk business or old cases or something--"

"Sure," Mike said quietly. "How about I call you?"

"Calling is good," Vicki stammered. "So, um..." She gestured over her shoulder. "I should go and let you get back to your important police work." In the glass behind Mike, she spotted Crowley approaching. "Like right now."

Mike had also spotted Crowley. "Good idea," he said with alacrity.

"Bye." Vicki turned and swerved around the head of Violent Crimes before the woman could do more than glare at her. Vicki made it as far as the entrance way and her waiting taxi before the whole importance of the conversation had sunk in.

Mike wants to go for lunch, Vicki thought, settling back into the cab as it sped across Toronto towards Chinatown and her apartment. Lunch, with me. She wasn't sure what exactly that meant, or how that was going to affect her relationship with Henry, but she found that she didn't really care.

She wasn't willing to let Mike Celluci go quite yet, regardless of Henry Fitzroy.

~~~

Vicki knocked on the door again, resisting the urge to start shouting. "Come on, Fitzroy," she muttered under her breath. "I know you're in there, it's only ten minutes after sunset."

The door finally opened to reveal Henry in a t-shirt and jeans. "Vicki?"

"Can you please explain to me how I managed to gain three pounds in two days?" Vicki asked, pushing past Henry into the apartment. "Were you eating ice cream the entire time?" She dropped her shopping bags on the couch. "What's with the duds?"

Henry sighed and closed the door. "Please, come in. Make yourself comfortable," he said sarcastically.

Vicki dropped onto the couch and put her feet on the coffee table, smiling at Henry's scowl. "Don't mind if I do." She waited.

After a minute, Henry made his way back over to his light table. "I have a deadline for my editor and after having lost two nights to the most recent crisis, I find myself behind."

"And you draw better when you dress like a slob?"

"These clothes are comfortable and I was not expecting company!"

"Come on, Henry." Vicki pushed herself to her feet. "You had to know I was coming over."

"I thought you would have other plans." Henry bent his head over his drawings.

Vicki bit back a few choice comments. "All my plans tonight involve you. Come on, put the pencil down and come over to the couch."

"I. Am. Busy."

"So I'll help." Before Henry could protest, Vicki pulled over a blank piece of paper and set to work. In a few moments, she held up her masterpiece. "Even Mr. Stickman," she pointed at the paper, where a highly stylized version of Henry was sprawled out on a couch beside another stick figure with glasses, "Wants you to take a break."

Henry sighed again. "You are a vexing woman."

"You say that like it's news to you." She grabbed Henry's hand and hauled him across the living room. "Sit and relax."

While Henry collapsed onto the couch, Vicki picked up the shopping bags and dropped them next to Henry. "What's this?" he asked.

"Just a token of my appreciation for being so level-headed while you were me and I was you." Vicki grinned. "Open it."

The look Henry gave her was loaded with suspicion, but he did reach into the bag and pull out the small boxes. He frowned. "What is this?"

"Joss Whedon's greatest hits," Vicki said. "You didn't have any of the DVDs in your collection so I went out and got them all for you. The complete Buffy and Angel and Firefly, which the clerk told me didn't have any vampires but there are apparently space cannibals, which sounds either really cool or very, very bad."

Henry looked at her. "You got these for me."

Vicki shrugged. "You liked them and I figured that if I'm going to be spending time with you, it'd be a good idea to see what the fuss is all about."

"This must have cost a small fortune."

"The Milano cheque cleared the bank. Now stop looking a gift horse in the mouth." Vicki picked the first season of Buffy from the collection. "Do we start with this one?"

Henry blinked at her. "Are we just to go back to the way things were before?"

Something clenched in Vicki's stomach. "If you want." She slipped the plastic wrap off the box. "Nothing's really changed. We're both still--" She mentally sorted through a series of words to describe their unorthodox relationship. "We're still friends, that hasn't changed. I may now know what it's like to suck someone's blood and die as the sun comes up, but isn't it a part of any relationship to gain a greater understanding of one's friends?"

"Perhaps."

Vicki headed to the DVD player. "So I understand you and you understand me, and we can both get back to being us." She slipped the disc into the tray and was on her way back to the couch when Henry was suddenly on his feet and in front of her.

"Before we can go back to being friends, Vicki, I need to test a theory." Henry's hands settled on her waist, pulling her close. "If you permit?"

"What am I going to be permitting?" Vicki asked, not moving. She was so used to Henry in fancy clothes that seeing him in ragged clothes, which just coincidentally fit every well-defined part of his body, sent her head whirling.

Henry's mouth curved up into a smile. "A kiss."

"Oh." Vicki tried to think of a reason to say no, but nothing came to her. "I guess that would be okay."

So Henry kissed her. At first, Vicki tried to remain detached, to keep in mind that a kiss was just a kiss, but then Henry's hand came up to cup the back of her head and his other hand ran over her hip and she forgot what she was trying to guard against. For the first time, she let herself fall into the kiss, into just being with Henry.

The trumpets blare from the TV's speakers brought her back to herself. Breathing heavily, Vicki blinked up at Henry, feeling just a little shy. "Hey."

"Hey," Henry whispered. He ran his thumb down her cheek, almost as if he couldn't bear to let her go.

Vicki tried to breathe evenly. "So what exactly was that theory of yours, anyway?"

Henry swallowed. "That first night when you fed from me..."

Vicki raised her eyebrows, remembering. "You wanted to see if I was addicted to your sexy vamp powers?"

"Something like that."

While Vicki certainly wouldn't have minded if Henry sank fangs into her right then, she didn't feel any overwhelming urge to have him ravish her. "I think I'm okay," she said with a smile.

Henry was still looking at her. "Good," he said in a faint voice. "That's good."

Still smiling, Vicki drew Henry over to the couch. "Now we have some vampire TV to watch." She handed him the remote. "How does this whole thing start, anyway?"

Henry sat next to Vicki, so close their bodies touched. "Like any good story," he said. "A blonde beauty and a boy who really should know better."

"Good way to start any story." Vicki waved at the screen. "Let's get to it."

Obediently, Henry pressed the play button, and the show started. Things went well until after the first commercial break, when Henry whispered in Vicki's ear, "Do I need to pretend to stretch so I can put my arm around your shoulder?"

Vicki shushed him. "You're ruining the dialogue."

Henry shrugged, stretched, and when his hand settled around her shoulders, Vicki let it happen.

She'd be a fool if she expected things to go to back to the way they used to be. She'd be a fool to want things they way they had been.

Maybe having a djinn swap her into Henry's body hadn't been the worst thing to happen to her, after all.

the end

Comments

[kira-snugz.livejournal.com]

aww i love how you ended this. great story!