(A/N: I should be writing the next chapter to Absolution, but after reading the excellent Audreyii-fic story Boys With Girlfriends recently, a potentially excellent/terrible idea came to me... genderflipped Taylor. Aside from Taylor being an excellent unisex name to begin with, I started really thinking about how dude!Taylor might be different from canon. His/her trigger event is going to be markedly different, as are the reasons for it, but the sheer number of butterflies that result from Skitter being a teenage boy are so juicy that I couldn't pass this up. Thus, I present Reanimation... ...here we go.)
- Wake 1.1 -
"Taylor, time to wake up!"
It would be easy, I think, to just roll over and play sick. I'm too sore, my stomach is bothering me, Emma ate my homework...
Actually, I doubt the last one would fly. Madison probably copied my paper and then burned it or something. Ugh.
Hmm... something smells good. Salty, with a tinge of protein curling and browning, fat popping and tiny splatters all over the kitch-
-shit, I have to keep track of that.
It was too easy to rely on what I can sense now. What I can feel, what I can see... I kind of pitied Madison, given the surprisingly thick layers of makeup she uses to try and look less 'cute' and more 'sexy'. Not that it helps, of course, though smelling foundation for the first time was a weird experience. It explained why she never did much in gym class. Emma was frustratingly perfect, as usual, with good skin (though she liked to show off a bit too much of it most days) and a taste for higher end cosmetics and lotions whenever she did use them. Sophia usually went without any accoutrements save deodorant, but she was an athlete, which made sense. She could be good looking if she wanted, but her perpetual sneer and unfortunate personality killed any hint of attractiveness she may have had. I didn't see Sophia so much as I smelled her, the particular scent of chlorophyll and dirt from the outdoors clinging to her like a shadow, along with sweat and a faintly pleasing musky odor that...
...okay, I'm not going there right now. Especially not this early.
With a groan, I dragged myself out of bed and pulled on some pajama pants (and a tank top after a moment's thought, even if the cold didn't bother me so much lately). Plodding downstairs, I could hear a series of cracks followed by the sound of metal against plastic... must be a special occasion for scrambled eggs and bacon. I usually grabbed a muffin or three before dashing out to catch the bus in the mornings.
"Did you sleep well, sweetie?" Mom poked her head out from the kitchen doorway, wearing a fluffy purple bathrobe and mixing bowl in hand.
"Yeah."
I'm pretty certain Mom rolled her eyes at me as I trudged over to the fridge to pull out my latest experiment - we had an unusually warm weekend here in Brockton Bay, so I decided to clean out an old jug, grab a couple of stray tea bags, and made a gallon of sun tea.
Mmm... caffeinated convenience.
Glass of tea in hand, I took a seat and waited to start feeling a bit more alive. Mom was already setting the table, a plate of perfectly scrambled eggs, strips of streaky bacon, and toast in front of me before I could protest, "I could have served myself, Mom."
"It's a treat, Taylor," She said as she ruffled my hair, "We can't live on Olympia's all the time, even if you get to bring the day-old pastries home after work."
Well, maybe Mom couldn't live off of Olympia's for eternity, I thought. But ever since... that day, I had been almost ravenously hungry. All the time. It was a stroke of good fortune I happened to be wandering the Boardwalk a few weeks ago and saw Mr. Columbu struggling to load a pallet of bread loaves into his van. One good deed (and a question about the 'Help Wanted' sign in his window) later and I was gainfully employed prepping ovens and loading catering boxes for a few hours every night. It was something to do to keep my mind off of the bullshit that was Winslow, a place to make a little bit of extra coin, and not eat my mother and I out of house and home. Not bad for a skinny fifteen year old.
And it gave me a bit of time for my... side project.
"There's plenty more where that came from!" Mom's laughing shook me out of my reverie. At my clueless look, she just pointed to my plate.
Empty already. How about that.
-
A post-breakfast run was always good for clearing my head, even if it wasn't doing as much for me nowadays as it used to. Hmm... that might be something to think on. Even better was a post-run workout in the backyard. I had cobbled together a weight set from empty paint cans, bags of sand, and a rope draped over the thickest branches of a sturdy oak tree for pull-ups. Maybe it was cheating a bit... between my powers, taking gym class every other day at school, and my homemade gym I was able to push myself for the first time since the beginning of January. I hadn't found a hard limit to my stamina yet during my morning runs, but I could push myself harder and faster in my own backyard. The paint cans went from halfway filled with sand, to full, to filled with rocks and a bunch of ball bearings I had bought with my first paycheck in a little over a month. I had a 50 pound bag of sand I used to walk back and forth across the yard, but that had grown increasingly easy so I shelled out for a 100 pound bag to transition to soon. The ropes served a dual purpose - I had perfect balance now, so I had taken to trying pull-ups after basic rope climbing became a joke. I could do twenty of them in a row before it started getting difficult, so I would call that progress. Not to mention it was fun just trying out goofy shit now and then, especially since I could always land on my feet if I screwed up. Swinging from the rope like Tarzan had been a hoot, though I hadn't realized I had built enough momentum to accidentally smack into the house and fall off the rope. I'm just glad Mom had already taken off for work by that point.
I did manage to nail a Superhero Landing when that happened, though.
Powers are... strange. My senses were always dialed up to eleven unless I actively reined it in, though they seemed to naturally dial down when I was trying to fall asleep. I was stronger. A lot stronger than I was before, though in fairness a stiff breeze could have blown me over before Christmas. My strength didn't seem to translate directly into size, though... I was still a beanpole, though I am a lot more toned than before. My clothes fit me better, courtesy of the hint of a gut I had developed evaporating almost overnight and my shoulders broadening just enough to fill the t-shirts and hoodies I favored. The weirder stuff, though, I hadn't tested but a couple of times. After seeing myself... change... for the first time, I could never not be aware of my body now. Of the chitinous plates growing just beneath my skin when I got stressed or riled up, of the odd loss of sensation when the trio of not-quite-eyes burrowed back into my forehead when I turned back into myself. Or the exceedingly odd feeling of extra arms waiting to bud from underneath my normal set...
At least I wouldn't need a costume.
ding-ding-ding! The egg timer started ringing so hard I had to dash over to the back porch to catch it before it fell and shattered. My morning zen interrupted by the worst possible thing.
Time to get ready for school.
-
Winslow High School was a black hole of garbage and I'm not sure what was worse - that it was a shithole or the fact that everyone knew it was a shithole. An ugly cube of brick swallowing a whole city block, I suppose it could have been worse. There were rumors of gang activity in the hallways, though being both white and unimportant I never saw much of it. Teachers that either gave less than a damn about their jobs or tried way too hard - looking at you, Mr. "G" - and an administration that was just... just the fucking worst. Blackwell was gone, Mom had enough clout with the district for that, but her replacement was even worse. Mr. Herren was a weaselly looking man about my height with a greasy combover, a sizable paunch, and a shiteating grin made worse by his overt glances at the prettier girls in my class. And like Blackwell before him, he didn't do a damn thing about the perpetual thorns in my side.
"Oh, Taaaylor! I'm so glad to see you." I froze at the sound of her voice - to anyone else it might have been a friendly greeting, but I'm too used to that cloying, kiddie voice like so much poisoned honey going down my throat.
Emma Barnes stood right in front of me, her arms crossed beneath her chest and a sickeningly sweet smile on her lips, "I've missed you lately. You get here right before the bell rings, you hide somewhere during lunch, you're out the doors as soon as we get to leave... what's the matter? Don't you miss me?"
"I'm not in the mood, Emma."
Her mouth pursed into a small 'o' before twisting into a fake pout, "Not in the mood for me? Since when? I remember the days when we would talk on the phone for hours."
"Just get out of my way."
"Watch what you say, you fucking pussy." I'm yanked backwards for a moment and I'm dangerously off-balance until I remember to trust myself and stay on my feet. Unfortunately, I'm too slow to grab my backpack from Sophia, who has joined Emma's side and fixes me with a withering glare, "You don't get to talk to her like that."
"No, Sophia!" Emma's mock indignation set my blood boiling as she gives her a blatant stage wink before walking up to me, "That was a mean thing to do. You should give that back."
Sophia gives a dark chuckle as she unzips my bag and starts rifling through my things, "Well, if Hebert wasn't such a little limp-dick bitch, I might be willing to give it back."
Emma is up close to me now and without warning, I can see everything... she's wearing the same green apple lip gloss I once said made her look like an old comic book superhero and a green blouse I'm sure I had bought her for Christmas a couple of years ago, though she's since outgrown it judging by the buttons she has undone up top. She catches me looking for a second and a genuine, if completely malicious, smile blooms, "Oh, Taylor? Like what you see?"
She reaches a couple of slender fingers up to her homemade décolletage and pulls it down another couple of inches, laughing when I step back and look away, "That's what I thought."
"I told you Emma," Sophia tosses my backpack at me, forcing me to scramble to catch all the loose notebook paper and supplies that go flying out. I'm on my knees gathering the last of my assignments when I realize Sophia is in front of me, that musky scent filling my palate before her elbow smashed against the bridge of my nose. Hard. "He's just a little bitch."
I lay on the ground for a minute until I hear the laughter around me die down as the morning bell rings.
Just another morning in Brockton Bay. Maybe it's time to move my side project up a little bit.
-