Dissociative Identity
There's no YAFF in this one, or even erotica. Just story, sorry guys. It takes place in the same universe as most of my other stories, the Helpers universe. Probably won't continue this one, since it would only end up heading in the same direction as another story series that I've already started if it went beyond what endpoint I've got. This one is pretty experimental for me, and as always suggestions, criticisms and comments are always welcome. I'm trying to figure out ways to better wrap porn scenes into story, and writing some non-erotic stuff seems like the best way to do that. Writing non-porn is hard X|. I've gotten some complaints about this one being confusing and I did a bit of a rewrite to try to make it more straightforward, but you should probably be familiar with the Helper's universe before reading it. I might type up a little universe primer to read through for just that reason.
Dissociative Identity
Alan's surroundings spun wildly as he regained consciousness. He groggily stood, steadying himself with one hand and cradling his head with the other. His hand felt soft latex, synthetic skin on his head. His face felt smooth satin, the pads on his hands. Something must have made the transfer abort, he was still in his helper's body, that of a demure ferret.
A groan from across the room caught his attention, and he opened his eyes to see a figure stand up chair across the coffee table from himself. The light of a nearby lamp made him wince for a moment, eyes having adjusted to darkness after having been closed for some time. "Kale, set up the transfer again and figure out what happened."
The feline across the coffee from Alan looked quizzically at him for a moment. "What? No, you should be Kale." Both snapped their eyes to the display pad that they were plugged into. For a moment, each froze, realizing that the other was himself. An error message read 'Secondary image restore failed. Retry?' Identical gears turned briefly in both heads before making the mutual decision to act.
Their bodies impacted over the table, the small apartment shaking from the force of their collision. Each tried to push the other away, clawing to grab the pad. "God dammit, let's just stop and think!" Alan yelled. The cat ignored this, taking the distraction as an opportunity to land a punch in his gut and shove him sprawling.
Too far away at this point to prevent his double from reactivating the process, Alan tore the line connecting the data port within his ear to the small computer. It clicked free, the sound coming an instant before the confirmation "ding" as the process restarted. Fractions of a second had saved him.
Glaring at him over the table, the orange and black tabby locked eyes with Alan. "Fuck. You unplugged." His assailant vaulted the table and Alan's prone figure, sprinting toward his bedroom. Immediately, his mind focused on what the cat was running for. The gun under his mattress. God damn it. He sprang up tore after the feline.
As Alan barreled through the bedroom door, a pistol's muzzle swung into view, arcing into alignment with the his head. A shot rang out just before the smaller figure collided with the larger, and the ferret felt a vibration through his skull as if it had been struck with a gong's mallet. There was no time to deal with the swoon that followed. Adrenaline focused him through searing pain across the side of his head, through haze and confusion of partial concussion. Even short of the blow to his head, the scenario had a nightmarish feeling of unreality to it.
The ferret caught hold of his adversary by the wrist and throat, forcing the gun away from himself. "Drop it! Let go and just fucking stop!" The gun sounded again and again, each shot clearing Alan's body by fractions of an inch. His ears were ringing by the time the clip emptied, but his mental doppelganger continued squeezing, the hammer clicking repeatedly on an empty chamber. Still, Alan fought to pull the gun away. Pulling his assailant backward, they tumbled together into a pile of discarded clothes on the floor. He had to get this situation under control or the feline would find some other way to kill him.
The cat, larger by nearly a foot than Alan had the size advantage, but the synthetic muscles and artificial strength of a helper's body was more than enough to tip the scales in his favor. He held the writhing figure with an iron grip, ignoring the rain of blows from the shooter's free hand.
"LET GO! LET GO! DROP THE GUN!" Alan screamed, reasoning as best he could in the midst of struggle. If his opponent was trying to respond verbally, it was silenced by his powerful grip, pressing into the feline's trachea. Slowly, attempts to break free weakened, and each strike from the tabby was weaker than the last, but he defiantly gripped the pistol. Alan closed his eyes, and focused only on squeezing, squeezing, squeezing, and praying that a solution would present itself. He didn't want to die. Eyes clenched shut, he shut out all other sensations, focusing everything on restraining his other self and praying.
A dull *thunk* broke his concentration and drew his attention. The pistol had fallen to the wooden floor. In a single motion, Alan shoved the cat backward and scooped the gun up, throwing himself to the opposite side of the room and training its sights on the crumpled figure opposite him. "Don't move, I've got you covered!" His hands shook violently, and he gulped breaths down erratically, barely holding back sobs. "Don't you dare fucking move. Stay where you are." The truth of the matter was too terrible to even consider, although he had realized it the instant he pushed the unresisting form backward. He had to get help. He had to call someone. "Do you hear me?! Stay there!"
An empty gun and unsteady hands couldn't hope to hit a target, but neither truly mattered. He was alone.
********************************
Before Tucker could so much as greet him, Alan dragged the bulldog into his apartment and slammed the door shut. "Kale, you mind telling me what's going on here?" The dog glanced at his head, wrapped in bandages and marked by an angry red stain where the bullet had grazed his skull. "What the hell happened here? Where's Alan?"
The ferret was silent, pulling Tucker behind him and sitting on the living room couch, rather than responding. A sense of hopelessness and urgency emanated from the form of the helper. He stared at the trembling figure for a moment, taking the situation in. The stench of emotions was stronger than anything a helper would emulate, and an air of significance hung in the room. "Jesus, is that you, Alan? Did something happen?"
Alan slowly nodded. "Tuck, I need your help. I'm not even sure there's a word for what happened. It's bad." The dog waited silently for him to continue. "Do you remember the conversations we had about this?"
"Yeah, the ones where I told you how stupid it was? The ones where I explained that there's no 'moving' from one body to another?"
Alan winced at the words. "You said that every time someone 'switched' bodies, a copy was just made and the original was erased. When I was swapping back, it failed. It copied first, then it failed. It didn't erase."
He clenched his jaw for a moment, fighting back tears, and began to shake again. Not knowing what else to do, Tucker sat and slid his arm around his friend, waiting for him to calm down and continue. It was surreal seeing his friend like this, but there was no mistaking the cadence. The familiarity. This was Alan, there was no question.
Alan relaxed his muscles and took a shaky breath before continuing. "He... the other one... the other me... he saw what had happened. He tried to wipe me, to finish the process. I stopped him, but then he got my gun," the shivering ferret gestures his the wound on his head. "We fought. I didn't..." he trailed off for a moment, "I didn't want anything to happen! I didn't know what to do! I just didn't want to die, Tuck! What the hell was I supposed to do?"
The gravity of the situation began to sink in, and Tucker pressed his friend, "Where is he?" Alan didn't answer, but the dog followed his gaze to the closed bedroom door across the room.
Tucker stood and slowly crossed the room, setting his had on the knob of the door leading into his friend's bedroom. "Alan, I'm going in, okay?" The only reply was the sound of fur on fabric as the ferret curled into a ball on the corner of the couch. Opening the door, the end of Alan's story became immediately clear. The familiar shape of an orange and black striped tabby lay crumpled in one corner of the room, a trail of blood from the superficial wound on Alan's head leading to the opposite corner. A gun lay discarded there, the trail of blood then leading into the bathroom, where he had presumably patched himself up.
"The gun's empty, but there's another clip in my bedside drawer." Tucker jumped at the sound of Alan's voice, which was not Alan's voice at all. He glanced nervously to the window, as if the soft words might conjure up the attention of police or neighbors. "I know I'm the copy, Tuck. There's a clip that's full by my bed. I killed Alan."
The bulldog nearly reeled at the implication, steadying himself with his hand against the door's frame. "Jesus, man. No."
"Then what the hell am I going to do?!" Several times, Tucker opened his mouth and shut it again, unable to find word to answer to the angry demand. He sat down opposite the ferret and was silent for a moment. He leveled his eyes with his friend's. "Alan, I came over here a few hours ago. We started drinking and partying. We got roaringly drunk." Not understanding, Alan simply listened. "It got to the point where we shot off a few rounds in the house. We realized the noise could get us in trouble, so you told Kale to drive me home."
Uncomprehending, Alan stared up at the dog. "Tuck, that story won't hold together."
Tucker stood up and headed into the kitchen, pulling a fifth of vodka from the freezer. "Open your public journal. Make the entry." He walked briskly from the kitchen into the bedroom, steeling himself. "You... choked him, right? You didn't shoot him?" Behind him, Alan nodded, and the bulldog paused for a moment before getting up the nerve to touch the body. Keeping himself as far from it as possible, he fished his hand into the breast pocket of the lifeless tabby, pulling out cigarettes and a lighter.
Standing above the body motionlessly, concentrating on the tap of Alan's fingers on the screen of the pad, Tucker tried to sort through the situation in his mind. He was helping Alan cover up his own murder. By Alan. His minor in philosophy wasn't really up to this sort of thing.
"Tuck! Tuck, I'm done. Should I really post this?" his friend's voice sounded more distant than it should have, even from a room away. The dog opened the vodka and emptied it onto the corpse. He pulled one of the cigarettes loose from the pack, sending a shower of others onto the floor. Stooping to pick them up, he stopped himself. No point. "Tucker, are you ok in here?" He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he nodded in response, unable to speak. He lit a the cigarette in his hand and drew from it, taking pulls until it was half gone. "Alan, post the journal and take anything you care about." He dropped the cigarette onto the alcohol soaked form and turned away.
END
Anyone who's been chatting with me since my last story knows that I promised to be meaner to my characters in the next story, and I don't think anyone could accuse me of coddling them in this one |:3. Next story will be back to smut as I complete my half of a trade. Again, please comment! What was off with the story? I've got no plans to quit writing boner generation stories, but I feel like I need to work on condensing plot into manageable chunks without making it feel rushed. Criticism is welcome. ^^