Who do you carry that torch for?

[Ryland Ren]

"...Aldon," Ryland hissed, jabbing him in the side. God, it was so weird calling Rae Aldon. Seriously. There was almost nothing about him that reminded him of Aldon except the way he spoke and acted. Even then, he kept half expecting him to strike him or make a move as if he was going to. Not to mention the cursing. Ryland barely knew him and that was pretty much how he'd boxed the guy in--violence and swearing. Alva said he was different when they were alone but...

The other two looked at them, probably perplexed by Aldon shouting about witches and potions. Well, one of them looked perplexed. The other one was hiding something. So he is a witch. I wonder if he's a friend of Susumu's. Ryland tried to remember how he'd addressed Susumu. By last name? First name? Did he call him Susu? Crap. Ryland couldn't remember. But he knew him, that much was certain and if he didn't know that Susumu was a witch, he knew now. There was no doubt in Ryland's mind that the guy knew what he was looking at. His little mind was practically whirling palpably as he stared at that cupboard.

Grasping onto Aldon's arm, he dragged him down so that he could whisper into his ear. Real subtle. How the hell did Alva manage this? "I don't think that tough guy knows about witches so let's keep it on the down low until we get the squirrely one alone."

[Aldon Huang]

"What?" Aldon scratched the side of his neck; the hairs on the back of his neck were beginning to prickle, and that never spelt good news. He let himself be yanked down to Alva-level and he swore the distance down was somehow further than usual. He wasn't the tallest of people; usually he didn't have to bend this far down to hear Alva hissing into his ear.

"...oh. OH! Uh. Right! Yeah, good point Ry--Alva..." Geez, it was weird calling Ryland Alva. But fair enough point; he didn't want to be blabbing on about witches and potions and werewolves to a regular old human. They tended to get panicky and irritable when faced with things they didn't understand. Aldon grinned stupidly at the scary-looking guy, who gave him another suspicious look, but this one like he thought Aldon had taken leave of his senses.

While the stranger contemplated his phone, Aldon grasped on to the back of Alva's chair and wheeled him away a small distance. He leaned down to whisper into Alva's ear this time, "Why don't we make a run for it while they're distracted?!"

[Ryland Ren]

That guy... He eyed the thug. Was he actually going to call anybody...? Would the other guy let him? If he gave him the phone, then yes. Maybe he... wasn't a witch? No, no. Ryland was sure that he was. His gut instinct told him so!

"Hey!"

His breath momentarily caught in the back of his throat as his chair was suddenly wheeled off. Turning to glare at Rae's face, he found himself with a whisper in his ear stopping him in his tracks. Ryland liked that feeling. He thought maybe Alva did, too. But not with Rae's voice! He tensed, feeling all kinds of weird about this new predicament. After a few seconds, he raised his hand to Rae's arm and gave it a nice chop before hissing back at Aldon: "We can't leave your friend like that!"

Otherwise, yeah, he'd be all for running away. But with Josh knocked out and bleeding and maybe cursed? For all they knew, the one who did the magic was that timid guy!

[Aldon Huang]

"Why are you always so violent?!" Aldon hissed injuriously, while rubbing his chopped arm. Ryland didn't have to do that, a simple stare like Aldon was an idiot would have done! There was no cause for physical reprimands!

"If he wakes up he'll try to KILL YOU!"

Seriously, the moment Josh came to he'd probably try to tear Ryland-in-Alva's throat out! Aldon wasn't fooling himself. He knew what Josh was capable of, both as a human and as a wolf. Nervously looking over his shoulder at the other two, he saw them having a similar heated whispering conference and giving him the same suspicious look that he was giving them.

"C'mon Ry! This is our chance to get out while we still can! Once they call the cops we'll be arrested!"

[Ryland Ren]

"I'm not always--anyway, never mind, you're getting me off track!"

Was he always violent? And here he always thought he was affectionate. But yeah, when Aldon was a dummy, he did have a habit of giving him a smack here or a tug there. Um. That wasn't supposed to sound like that--but whatever! Tension rose up in his shoulders and he sat up a little straighter, pursing his lips briefly. But Aldon was right. If Josh woke up to see Alva... Yeah. Yeah, Aldon was right, damn it.

"Fine, fine! Wheel me out of here as fast as you can! Use those longer legs!" He was almost tempted to touch one but he didn't. That was going a bit too far when Aldon was occupying Rae's body. He hoped like hell this wasn't going to be a permanent arrangement. He couldn't imagine himself being attracted to somebody else in Aldon's body. But this was also way beyond weird. Agh!

[Aldon Huang]

"What?" LongER legs? What did Ryland mean by that? Aldon took a second to look down at his legs, noting that those weren't the pants that he remembered putting on before he entered the barricade, but now wasn't the time to work out the subtleties of wardrobe malfunctions. Shrugging—maybe in Alva's body, sitting in that chair, his legs looked longer or something—he eyed the door and mentally calculated an exit route, then steeled himself for the big push.

Except.

The door flung itself open and Roe stood in the doorway, looking like a thundercloud. Aldon gaped. He had never seen that particular shade of livid on his twin's face before! And why was Roe wearing his clothes??

"ROE?" He shouted incredulously. "What're YOU doing here?!"

[Reagan Ryang]

"ROE?" Rae repeated in irritation. Wait, was that Roe in front of him? In his body? No... Stupid. That didn't make sense. He was calling him that because... because it was true. He and Aldon switched bodies! Aldon was used to seeing himself in his twin. So... So it was the fault of that asshole!

"That fucking witch!" He shoved his own body away--though it gave him serious heebie-jeebies. Unless you WERE a twin, it wasn't natural to see yourself walking around. And fuck that dumb look on his face! Did he ever look like that? If so, Josh was in his right mind, wanting to smack his bitch ass. He barely even registered Alva at the moment, knowing Alva was really elsewhere, probably still defending that witch to the walls. But before he could ask where the damned witch had gone, he saw past himself and there was Josh, lying in a heap, bloody and... burned?

"What the fuck?" If anybody could take hits and beat the shit out of anybody, it was Josh. Rae moved past the idiotic version of himself and dropped down next to Josh. Honestly, he didn't think leaving Josh alone with the witch would end this way. Not that he'd had any choice in leaving him alone with him. But... shit. Nobody knocked out Josh. Viciously, Rae hoped a good amount of the blood he saw wasn't Josh's.

"Josh! Josh, wake the fuck up!" He shook him, harder with each beat of his heart. If he was dead... That witch wasn't making it out alive either.

[Aldon Huang]

"Roe?" Aldon repeated in confusion as his twin shoved him aside to go and check on Josh. He never knew how much Roe cared about Josh--or that he cared for him at all! Staring, he tried to think of any reason--any reason at all--for Roe's strange behavior but he came up totally blank in the end. What the heck was going on around here?! Was everybody going crazy?

Not surprisingly, Josh didn't wake up despite Roe's rough treatment of him. Aldon exchanged a Look with Ryland, then with the two strangers. Nervously he fingered the side of his jeans. "Uh. Roe? Can Ry--Alva and I have a word with you... over there?" He pointed to the hallway outside, hoping to heck that Roe got the message and followed them outside, where they could make a quick escape.

"There's uh... some things we need to discuss."

Aldon didn't know who told Roe about the situation or what he was doing here or why he was so upset about Josh getting knocked out, but this wasn't the time to be hanging around!

[Reagan Ryang]

"Stop calling me Roe!" He finally snapped. "First Aldon and now Roe. I'm not either of you, I'm Rae."

He looked his own body over, as if it should have been triply obvious to the one occupying his body currently. Then again, there was no telling whose soul was in whose body at this point. The only thing he knew for sure was that he wasn't Roe and he wasn't Aldon but he looked like them at the moment. He turned away from the dopey pair. How cute of the witch to put the couple into his body and Alva's body. What the fuck was he trying to say with that maneuver? And where the hell even was he? When Josh didn't wake up, his heartbeat kicked up a notch.

Actual panic started to flood his body with adrenaline. The witch did something to him. To Josh. After he did shit to Alva and Rae himself. And who knew who else? Aldon, from the looks of it. His little boyfriend. Rae turned his gaze sharply around the room and it landed on a couple of strangers standing nearby. Who the fuck were they? Rae got up and moved toward them.

"One of you is the witch."

[Aldon Huang]

Roe thought he was Rae??

Aldon gaped at him. No. That was definitely not Rae. He knew Rae and that wasn't Rae. That was Roe. So what... and why... and how...? Maybe somebody knocked him over the head with a plank, altering his memories so that he thought he was Rae. But in reality, he was Aldon's twin, Roe. Once he looked in a mirror, Aldon was sure that Roe would come back to his senses.

"What are you talking about?" The scary-looking stranger responded, as he curled a hand around his friend's wrist. It didn't seem protective; it seemed wary and unsure, which was strange in a man who looked the way he did. Sure he was skinny, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't be good in a fight. Aldon knew plenty of skinny people who packed a punch. "Witches? Are you feeling all right?"

Slowly, Aldon edged back towards Ryland and when he reached him, he grasped onto the handles of the wheelchair again, in preparation to bolt. He could come back for Roe once Ryland was safely out of the apartment.

[Reagan Ryang]

The more he soaked in the situation, the more enraged he became. How did this witch sneak into their lives like sinew and seduce his boyfriend out of his hands? How did he get away with telling Alva all the things he wanted to hear in order to lure him away, away from the one who cared more about him than anyone? Then when he was good and snatched, the witch had the fucking audacity to come after Josh, too. The anger boiled just under the surface, a hair trigger from firing. He hurt and Rae hated hurting, he hated emotional turmoil. He liked things fucking black and white, simple, a straight line from A to B. This shit happening now, this was... it was... He curled his hands into fists and then uncurled them, taking another threatening step towards the strange pair.

"I said... one of you... is the witch."

He knew it, all he had to do was look in their eyes. But one stared back at him with uncertainty and the other with wide, round eyes. If they weren't Susumu the fucking witch... No, they were fucking actors. One of them was, at least. He went for the one who looked like he had more fight in him. Sure, he could rough up his little friend in front of him but this way, he went for the tough one first. And if Susumu was hiding in the other one, he would show it if he gave two shits about this guy. And if he was this guy... Rae would have a good time roughing him up.

Rae went straight for the throat--a wolf tactic.

"Are you the witch?" he asked, giving him a long, hard stare. "Or is it your goofy little friend? Huh? Which one of you put me into this fucking midget body and fucked up my friend over there?"

From behind, he heard a familiar voice that made his heart leap into his throat. Alva's voice.

"He's not here. Look at the cupboard. He took off after whatever he did to Josh."

Rae's arm shook slightly. "Kch." He let out a tight breath. That's not Alva. That's not Alva. And even if it was... His eyes widened and he shoved the guy he'd been about to fight against the wall before he turned to the others.

"Alva's meeting him. He knows where he is. Fuck!"

[Aldon Huang]

When Roe went for one of the strangers, Aldon knew that something was wrong. Roe was never violent like this. Even when they were kids, he didn't play that rough; there was plenty of playful snapping and shoving and all that, but Roe never did anything to hurt anybody. Aldon stopped part-way in his tracks, the breath catching in the back of his throat as the stranger babbled something about not knowing what Roe was talking about. By the look on his face, it was obvious that he was genuinely confused.

"Roe, stop it!" Aldon ran forward and managed to lay a hand on Roe's shoulder, shortly before Roe shoved the stranger into the wall. The stranger made a low noise and bounced off the wall while Aldon swiftly withdrew the hand as Roe turned to them.

"Wha? The witch guy?" Alva knew where he was? Well, it made sense. They were dating and all. But where WAS Alva--and more importantly, whose body did he live in at the moment? Was it Ryland? The thought made Aldon feel uncomfortable. He didn't want Alva in Ryland's body. He wanted Ryland in Ryland's body! Turning to Ryland, Aldon made a panicked motion with his hands. "We gotta find them! Alva and the witch guy!"

[Ryland Ren]

"Yeah..." Ryland whole-heartedly agreed that they needed to find Susumu and Alva. (The real Alva.) It seemed like the person in Aldon's body (because Ryland knew Aldon apparently better than Aldon did) knew at least partially what was going on. His conviction that Alva and Susumu were meeting did seem rather practical, now that Ryland had time to think it over.

"Yeah, I think we should look for them. But I don't even know where to start. Alva didn't tell me much about him. Could it be far? Did he take his car? Did he use magic?"

By this point, Ryland wasn't even bothering to hide the magic and supernatural element of their lives in front of Susumu's neighbors. He was pretty damn certain that the one was a witch. The other one seemed genuinely clueless, though. Poor fella. He was going to have a long talk ahead of him. Ryland's heart ached a little for them. He hoped they were good friends and that they could talk it out and stay friends. The inked up one seemed protective of his friend, even if the friend might need it as much as he looked at first glance.

Ryland slid his hand into the compartment in his chair where Alva usually left his cell phone. "Do you think there might be answers in this?" Doubtful. Alva was probably using... Crap. Ryland's phone.

[Aldon Huang]

"Alva's phone!" Aldon made a dive for it. "We should look through his messages!"

Even if they didn't know where Alva or the witch could be, there could be valuable clues inside of Alva's phone! Unless he had a difficult lock code or something. Then they were pretty much screwed.

And sure, reading someone's private communications was a little bit of a scummy move but at this point, Aldon was beyond caring. He wanted Ryland back! HIS Ryland, in RYLAND'S body--NOT in ALVA'S! There was nothing and no one who could force Aldon to be attracted to Alva. Even knowing that Ryland was inside of Alva's body, he couldn't do it. It didn't work like that. The only feelings he ever had towards Alva were ones of friendship and nothing more.

(Switch to Susu/Alva? And assume they spend an hour trying to unlock Alva's phone? LMAO)

[Trash Bat]

Sorry! Yes! Do you want me to start something? Or continue in this thread? I'M OUTTA THE LOOP!