Jamie and Jamie

by volta arovet

Theirs was a mission of stealth. The slightest misstep would result in interrogation, torture, and/or the worst punishment of all, probation. Already, one from their home had fallen prey to that most insidious of punishments, and none of the four wished to follow in the footsteps of their blue-fur-clad companion. Ever-so-quietly, the three teenagers and one twelve-year-old tagalong inched their way down the hallway. If one listened closely, the faint sounds of the theme from Mission Impossible could be heard.

"Bobby, knock off that humming, someone's going to hear you!" Jubilee hissed.

The theme from Mission Impossible stopped.

"You're no fun, Jubes," Bobby whined playfully.

"I hereby give you full permission to sing, as loudly as you can, any and every song you know, including the dirty ones you think I don't know you know, as soon as we're in the X-Jet. Until then, be quiet," Jubilee said very quickly and very quietly.

"Will you two keep it down?" Sam asked impatiently. "I swear, Jamie's more mature than you two. I haven't heard him make a noise this entire time."

Jamie smiled, held his head up proudly, and proceeded to trip over his untied shoelaces. "Grah!" he managed to eloquently exclaim as he crashed into one of the walls, sending a string of duplicates cascading across the hallway. The fourth duplicate bumped into Jubilee, careened off of her into the other wall, and sent three more duplicates in the other direction, the last of which bumped into Jubilee from the other side.

"Oops." "Sorry." "Ow, my head." "Watch what you're doing!" "I'm really sorry, Jubilee," several of the Jamies said.

"Shhh!" the three teenagers shushed together.

"Sorry," the eight Jamies chorused apologetically.

"Shhh!" the three teenagers shushed again.

"Jamie, pull yourself together," Bobby commanded with a smirk on his face.

"Okay." "How does this work?" "Well, I'm closest to the wall, so I must be the original Jamie, so you all should absorb into me." "What about me? I came from the other Jamie." "Me too." "Me three." "Does it even matter?" "I don't know, this has never happened before." "I think—"

"Quiet!" Jubilee ordered.

"Sorry," the eight Jamies chorused again.

"That's it! None of you are coming with us!" Sam whisper-shouted.

"But—" the eight Jamies said together.

"Only one of you at a time," Jubilee directed. When she saw that the Jamies were about to go into conference with each other, probably to choose a representative, she pointed to one of the Jamies, the one that had proclaimed himself to be the original Jamie. "You. You're the only one who can talk."

The representative Jamie took a deep breath and proceeded to whine, sincerity shining in his bright blue eyes. "Aw, come on guys, please. I'll be really quiet, I promise." Bobby walked away from the others, heading towards another bedroom.

Sam frowned. "Shhh, we told you, forget it. You make too big a crowd. Literally." He walked away, following Bobby's path. Jubilee followed behind Sam.

"Now get back to bed. All of you," Jubilee told the Jamies.

"I never get to go," the representative Jamie grumbled, scuffing his feet on the carpet as he and the other seven dejectedly turned to go back to his room. As they walked, half of the Jamies absorbed into the other half, and eight became four. "It's so unfair," one of the Jamies continued as four became two. "It's not like I did it on purpose." Two became one. "I'm not the only one who—hey, I'm back in one piece. Guess it doesn't matter what order I reabsorb them in."

He reached his room and angrily slammed the door behind him. He heard some complaining next door—he had probably disturbed Roberto's sleep—but he didn't care. He pulled off his favorite orange shirt, tossing it carelessly on the floor.

"They all treat me like I'm some little kid," he muttered to himself as he rooted through his pajama drawer. He picked out the pair on top and inspected it. It was light blue and had a picture of two duckies on the bottom corner of the shirt. "With pajamas like this, it's no wonder they think I'm a little kid. Stupid duckies."

He threw that pair back into the drawer and pulled out another one. This pair was made of plain, dark blue flannel. "Better," he admitted, tugging them on. They were slightly too big for him, sleeves covering his hands and feet stepping on the pant legs, but that didn't matter.

He went to crawl into bed, but something on the rumpled bedcovers caught his eye. A tiny, blue mouse stared back at him. The little stuffed animal's black eyes shone in the dim light. Its frayed whiskers seemed to twitch with gentle affection.

"Oh no you don't," Jamie warned the stuffed mouse. "I'm sorry, Blinky, but big kids don't sleep with stuffed animals. It's just not what we do." The little blue mouse just looked innocently back at him. "Stop looking at me like that." He picked up the stuffed animal and threw it into the trash can. "That'll show you. Stupid mouse."

Jamie fell backwards onto the bed, hands and feet hanging over either edge, stared at the ceiling, and sighed. He was wide awake and knew he had no chance of falling asleep in the near future. "It's just not fair," he told the ceiling. A puzzled look crossed his face. "Why am I talking to myself when I can…talk to myself?" he asked rhetorically, and clapped his hands together.

Another Jamie appeared next to him. Unfortunately, because of their spread- out position, one ended up falling off of one side of the bed, and the other fell off of the other edge.

"Ow," they said in sync, rubbing their heads in a nearly identical manner. They picked themselves up off the ground and seated themselves Indian-fashion on the bed, facing each other.

"Mind turning on the light?" Jamie asked the one sitting closer to the light switch.

"Sure," the other one said as they both shielded their eyes. He turned the light on. Both of them winced against the sudden brightness, identical pairs of blue eyes eventually adjusting to the light.

"Why do we always get left behind?" one asked the other.

"I don't know," the other Jamie answered. "It's not fair."

"I mean, we're twelve. We're practically teenagers. It's not like there's this big difference that eight months is going to make. We're nearly thirteen."

"Right," Jamie agreed. "And it's not like there's such a big difference between being thirteen and being fourteen."

"And being fourteen's practically like being fifteen!"

"And being sixteen's like being fifteen, 'cept you can drive."

"And nothing changes between sixteen and seventeen."

"And when you're seventeen, you're practically an adult anyway, so it doesn't matter when you turn eighteen."

"See? We're practically adults," Jamie concluded proudly, wisely deciding to end the conversation before the two had talked themselves into retirement.

"Too bad the others don't see it that way," Jamie grumbled.

"It's not fair," Jamie agreed. A sudden mischievous look entered his bright blue eyes. "You know what I was just thinking?"

"Probably the same thing I was thinking," the other one quipped.

"They probably haven't gotten to the X-Jet yet. I bet if we 'accidentally' wake Scott up, they'll get caught."

"That'll show 'em," Jamie agreed. His expression suddenly changed as he ran a hand through his chocolate-brown hair. "But, wait…"

The other Jamie mirrored his expression as the same though occurred to him. "If we get them in trouble…"

"…then we'll never get to go with them again," Jamie concluded.

"Darn," they said in sync.

The Jamie who had had the initial spark of inspiration glumly rested his head in his hand. "So close."

"You know what? Just now, when you were all evil and plotting and stuff, you looked a lot like Bobby."

His face lit up. "Really? You're not just saying that?"

The one other merely smiled at him. "Would I lie?"

"That's so cool! Bobby's, like, the coolest X-Man ever!" Jamie gushed.

"I know," he agreed. "Except, you know, when he won't let us go with him and the others," he amended.

"Wouldn't it be cool to have his powers?"

"Yeah!" he enthused. "Just imagine: the bad guys would be attacking us, and they'd be all, 'We're going to get you!' And we'd be all, 'Oh yeah?' And they'd be like, 'Yeah.' And we'd be like, zap, and they'd be frozen solid."

"Like evil-sickles," the other Jamie added, giggling.

"Yeah, evil-sickles. Cool."

"Know what else'd be cool?"

"What?"

"Having powers like Berzerker or Scott or Jubilee. Wouldn't it be awesome to shoot fire or lasers or whatever?"

"Yeah, that'd be great!" He stood up on the bed, pointing his finger at his partner-Jamie. "Evil doer, prepare to fry!"

1 "Oh no!" The still-sitting Jamie pretended to cower. "Anything but that!"

"Ha!" hero-Jamie shouted, and pretended to shoot something from his hand. "Take that, fiend!"

"Augh!" villain-Jamie screamed as he keeled over onto the floor. "You got me!" He fell still, eyes closed.

"Jamie!" a third voice yelled from the other side of the wall. "I'm trying to sleep!"

"Sorry, Roberto!" the two Jamies chorused sheepishly.

"It's all your fault," one of them whispered to the other.

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"You know what else'd be cool? Havin' powers like Tabby's!"

"Yeah, that way we could blow stuff up, and nobody'd know it was us." They both snickered.

"It'd be fun in Social Studies class. Mr. Anderson would be being really boring, babbling about the American Revolution or something like that, then all of a sudden boom!" They snickered again, then sighed.

"I miss Tabby," one of them said.

"Me too. She was fun. Even if she did keep stealing our soda. She'd always let us in on whatever she was doing. She never really treated us like a little kid."

A strange look entered one of the Jamies' eyes. "Do you think, if Lance goes back to the Brotherhood, we could go with him?"

The other Jamie chewed pensively on his lip. "I dunno. Aren't they, kind of, evil?"

Jamie furrowed his brow. "Well…I'm pretty sure Tabby's not evil. And Lance, um, he doesn't seem evil. Evan says that Quicksilver's evil, but then again, Evan says that Pokemon is evil. Plus, some of what Quicksilver's done to Evan sounded pretty funny, so it might be fun to live with them. Hm. Do you think we'd fit in?"

"Can we do an evil laugh? We never really tried," Jamie mused.

"Let me see….Ha ha ha ha haaaaa…" he attempted.

"Try making it sound a little deeper," Jamie advised his double.

"Mua ha ha ha haaaa…" he chortled.

"Better."

"Think we could pull off the whole Brotherhood thing? We'd probably need a better code name than 'Multiple.' It makes us sound like a math class. Let me see…what do you think about Doubler? The Doubler? Double Trouble? Xerox?"

"I think my duplicate's a little demented, that's what I think," Jamie laughed.

"The other Jamie sniffed indignantly. "Your duplicate? Oh, no no no. You are my duplicate."

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"I was lying on the bed, I clapped my hands together, you appeared to my right, and then we fell off the bed. Remember?"

"You mean that you appeared to my left, right?"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"You want to make something of it?" one Jamie challenged.

"Yeah!" the other one shouted, and dove off the bed onto the other Jamie, who was still seated on the floor.

"Of course, you know, this means war!" the attacked Jamie shouted, grappling with his attacker.

The door to their room burst open. A very angry Roberto stood in the doorway. "Jamie! I am trying to sleep! Will you please stop making noise?" He blinked twice as the sight in front of him registered in his mind. Jamie had…himself…in a headlock. "Both of you," he amended weakly.

"Sorry," the Jamies said together, untangling themselves. Roberto left, slamming the door behind him.

"It's all your fault, you know," one of them informed the other.

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Uh-huh!"

"Wait, wait, wait. I think I've figured out a way to solve this. The duplicate goes back into the original's body, right?"

"Right."

"So, if I hold this," he picked up a red pencil off of the desk, "and you hold this," he gave the other Jamie a blue pencil, "then whoever the original one of us is will still be holding their pencil once we merge together. All right?"

The other Jamie couldn't see any apparent flaw in that logic. "All right," he agreed reluctantly.

Taking a deep breath, the two held hands and became one.

Jamie looked at his hands. In one, he held a red pencil. In the other, he held a blue pencil. "Now I'll never know," he grumbled, tossing the pencils back onto the desk and climbing into bed. He pulled the covers tightly around himself and firmly closed his eyes. A moment later, he reopened them. Hanging half out of the trash can was the blue mouse, its shiny black eyes still staring at him.

"Fine," he whispered reluctantly, climbing back out of bed. He rescued the mouse from the trash can and placed it on the desk. "I won't throw you away, Blinky. But I'm not sleeping with you anymore, okay?" He patted the mouse on its worn, pink nose and climbed back into bed.

As soon as he was secured in bed, his arm reached out, instinctively searching for something to cuddle with. Nothing was there. He scooted over on the bed, snapped his fingers, and another Jamie appeared under the covers. They each placed an arm around the other, content and warm in the other's presence.

"I think it's best if we stay here at the mansion, okay? Mom and Dad wouldn't have wanted us to join the Brotherhood, right? They'd have wanted us to stay with the X-Men, right?" one of them asked the other in a strangely somber voice.

"Right," the other one agreed, and pulled his companion a little closer. The two drifted off to sleep.