Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Can you show me how to draw a car?"

Cole's voice interrupted Danny's wandering mind. Danny, sitting at Jakob's desk, turned and saw Cole standing behind him, the younger boy looking to him eager for guidance. Cole handed him his drawing tablet. Danny glanced at it and observed the boy's preliminary sketches. It was elementary level work, but probably still better than what Danny could do -- he had never been especially talented at art.

Danny took a pencil and drew a crude rectangle. He felt his stomach turn. There was no getting out of this one. Here he was, in Jakob's house, at his desk, wearing his pajamas. Inhabiting his body. But he couldn't be Jakob. The boy behind him was now supposed to be his little brother, and Danny was already failing him.

"Cars are tough," Danny replied, attempting nonchalance, as he returned the tablet. Would that really satisfy Cole? In the short time that Danny had lived with him, he had picked up on the boy's sharp observation skills.

Cole sat on his bed. Even with his back turned to him, Danny could feel his new brother's gaze.

"Are you mad at me?" Cole asked. His tone was determined, but still slightly shaky, as if he had suddenly found the courage to raise the question that had been weighing on him for some time.

"What? No, I'm just--" Danny began.

"You don't talk to me anymore."

Danny knew that Cole was right. He thought back to the days the two walked in silence to school. Dinners were quiet, too. He knew that Jakob and Cole were close. How strange it must have been for Cole to wake up one day and have his loving brother replaced with someone who was little more than a stranger. There was so much to adjust to after switching bodies with Jakob that Danny had been entirely self-absorbed. He had no time or mental energy to tend to the relationships that he had inherited.

Feeling something rise inside him, a surge of sibling instinct maybe, Danny sat next to Cole. "Cole, I'm not mad at you. It's just that, I, well, I," he searched for the right words to placate the boy, but was coming up short. He was thinking about his sister -- how could Jakob communicate with her, not knowing sign language? Was she also feeling abandoned?

Then words poured out of him faster than his mind could stop them. "I'm -- I'm not Jakob."

"Huh?" Cole's hurt affect turned to one of confusion.

There was no going back now. Danny revealed everything. Finding the sphere, swapping bodies, him refusing to switch back. Well, perhaps not everything -- he left out the part about kissing May.

Cole was silent as he processed the information he had just been given. Was this some kind of elaborate prank? Jakob had never been one to pull a cruel joke like this, and the story did explain his uncharacteristic behavior. Cole's flicker of doubt was extinguished when Danny began sobbing. 

"I messed up," Danny said through tears, "I'm messed up."

Cole was feeling all sorts of emotions, but Danny managed to elicit in him pity above all else. He wrapped his arm around Danny's -- or Danny-as-Jakob's -- back.

"We'll fix it," Cole said.

The boy's touch brought unexpected reassurance to Danny. He lingered in the feeling of connection.

Then, with newfound determination, Danny announced, "I'm going to find Jakob. And get it over with. Right now."

Cole looked out the window. "It's late," he said.

Danny began to put on Jakob's shoes, ignoring Cole's warning.

"Mom and dad are downstairs," Cole added. Indeed, the sound of the TV could be heard faintly from near the door.

"I'll go out the window," Danny said, zipping up a jacket. His bedroom was on the first floor and he was used to sneaking out. But Jakob and Cole's room was on the second floor, and it was a long way to try and climb.

"No!" Cole insisted. He knew it was too dangerous. A fall could injure Danny. Or at least make a loud enough commotion to alert Loretta and George.

"I'll create a distraction," the younger boy said, devising a plan in real time. "You go in the bathroom. I'll have mom and dad come in here and then you can sneak out."

Danny had to admire Cole's quick thinking. "You sure?" he asked. He didn't want to get Cole into trouble. Cole nodded.

"Alright," Danny said, heading towards the door. "Goodbye, Cole." He stepped into the bathroom and turned the light on, then locked the door.

Cole took a deep breath as he mentally prepared himself for the next part of the scheme. He trudged down the stairs and into the living room.

"Mom! Dad!"

George was on the couch fixated on the television program. Loretta was in a chair reading through paperwork. They both turned to look at their son.

"What's wrong?" Loretta asked.

"You have to come look. There's a --" he hadn't thought through exactly what he would say to bring his parents back to his room. He was too old for monsters under the bed.

"What?" George asked.

"The ceiling is leaking. It's dripping on me."

The parents glanced at each other with a look of confusion. George stood up.

"I'll go check it out, kiddo." Uh oh. This was an unanticipated complication. If only dad came upstairs, Danny could still get caught by mom. Fortunately, Loretta put down her work and also lifted herself out of the chair.

"I'll come, too. I can probably tell if it's a plumbing problem or something with the roof," she said. Relieved, Cole led the trio upstairs to the boys' room.

Once Danny heard the others enter the bedroom, he carefully exited the bathroom, slipping out without making a noise.

George flipped on the bedroom's overhead light. He examined the ceiling, not seeing any signs of a leak. "Where is it, Cole?'

Danny crept down the stairs. If he went too quickly, he would be heard. But if he went too slowly, he risked running out of time before Cole's distraction ended.

Cole stood on his bed. "Right here," he said pointing at a spot towards the middle of the bed. He looked up to the entirely normal looking ceiling. "It was right there..." he trailed off.

"It was a dream, Cole," Loretta said, annoyed that she had been interrupted for this. "Maybe you had... an accident."

"No I didn't!" Cole replied, indignant that his mom would launch such an accusation at someone only a couple of years away from middle school.

"Then you were sweating and your unconscious mind was trying to make it make sense."

"No, it was real," Cole insisted, "I was awake!"

"Go back to bed, honey." Loretta said. "I'm going back downstairs."

Danny had his hand on the front door handle when he heard footsteps in the upstairs hallway.

"Cole," Loretta said, stopping in her tracks and turning back towards the bedroom, "where's Jakob?" She had noticed the empty bed where her older son would have been.

"In the bathroom," Cole answered. Loretta sighed, reminded of the fact that Jakob was now at that age where he spent an awful lot of time in the bathroom.

The question had given Danny enough time to make it outside without detection. He turned around and took one last look at the house. He would miss the family. They weren't perfect, but there was a love and warmth there that was lacking at his own home. And Jakob was set up for a bright future working at the Loop. He considered abandoning the mission. But he had made a promise to Cole. He headed towards his house, planning to find Jakob and swap back to their true bodies.

"Sometimes a dream can look and feel just like reality," George explained to Cole. "I don't see anything on the ceiling now, but I'll take a look tomorrow morning just to be sure. Okay, buddy?" Cole agreed and his dad tucked him back into bed. All he could think about, though, was seeing his real brother again.

Chapter Text

Danny stood in front of his house. He tried the door, but it was locked. He checked under the doormat for the spare key, but it was gone. He would have to use the window.

He knocked on the glass, trying to stay quiet enough to avoid anyone besides Jakob from hearing. "Jakob," he whispered, "it's me." The light was on in the bedroom. Danny peered inside. He couldn't see everything, but noticed his pet tarantula on his desk. For the first time, he felt homesick. Maybe it wasn't so bad to be his true self. With no response, he knocked again. Silence. Jakob must have been ignoring him.

Danny knew how to open the window from the outside. He lifted the lower pane and crawled into his old room. "Jakob," he repeated, "I'll switch back."

He looked at the bed -- it was neatly made, not something Danny would do. There was no sign of Jakob. Then he turned to the desk.

Sitting near the tarantula's terrarium was a drawing. Danny had no drawing paper, so it appeared as if Jakob had been using the back of old classwork. It was unfinished, a portrait of someone. He looked closer. Even as a rough sketch, the subject was unmistakable -- Cole. His button nose and thin eyebrows had been carefully rendered. The boy was smiling. In the bottom right corner was a single letter, J. Danny marveled at Jakob's ability to capture his brother's essence without even a photo to go by.

But where was Jakob? Somewhere else in the house? It was late enough now that everyone else in the family would be sleeping. He could look around. After making his way through the common areas of the house, Danny had a troubling thought: Jakob had returned to the sphere. He grabbed a flashlight from his room and then exited through the front door.

Mercer was especially eerie late at night. Danny passed the half-painted barn. Jakob must have been working on it, as it was much closer to completion than when he had last been there.

Finally, Danny was nearing the spot where the pair had found the sphere. He stopped in his tracks, taken aback by what he saw. There, sitting on a log near the object, was himself -- or rather, Jakob, in his body. The teen's body was shaking as he was staring into the dark interior of the body swapper. He must have been deciding whether or not to take a chance and leap inside, even without Danny nearby.

"Jakob!" Danny shouted. The voice startled the other boy, who started scanning the woods for the source. Once he saw Danny, he stood up and began walking towards him, still not saying anything.

"I want to... I just have to say..." Danny began. Jakob shoved him towards the sphere. Then shoved him again. Danny put his hands up. "I'm going in, Jakob. I'm going in." Jakob stopped the assault just long enough to allow Danny to crawl inside. Danny was suddenly surrounded by infinite darkness.

When Jakob regained consciousness, streaks of dawn had already broken across the sky. He sat up, then looked down at his body. He was actually happy to have lost Danny's strength and height. He felt the overgrown hair covering his ears. It was all really him. He was wearing one of his old jackets; Danny must have put it on.

There was a stirring in the sphere. Danny groggily looked outside the opening.

"Hey," he said.

Seeing the person who had once been his best friend sent a wave of revulsion through Jakob. He immediately got on his feet and began to run as fast as he could out of the woods. He didn't get too far before feeling winded and having to stop. Fortunately, though, Danny was not following him.

He walked the rest of the way to the modern house where he was meant to be. He had never been so happy to see it before. He assumed the door would be locked, but tried anyways. To his surprise, it opened with ease.

George was in the living room sipping on a mug of coffee. It was nearly 5:30am. He liked to start his days early, even on the weekends.

"Morning, Jakob. Where were you?" He asked. The last time Jakob had seen his dad, George thought he was Danny and had kicked him out of the house. To be recognized as his son led Jakob to show a rare smile.

"I just needed some air," Jakob replied, and headed towards his room.

"Okay," George said, skeptically. He thought something was strange, but kept it to himself.

Jakob removed his shoes and jacket and nearly collapsed onto his bed. He was content, but exhausted from the ordeal.

After a few hours of sleep, Jakob slowly opened his eyes. It was surreal to wake up in his room again, after being stuck at Danny's for so long. He noticed his arm was wrapped around something warm and soft. Cole. He could feel the rise and fall of the boy's stomach as he breathed. They hadn't shared the bed since Cole was little and would cuddle up with Jakob when he had bad dreams.

"Cole," he whispered, "Cole, wake up."

The younger boy stirred out of his slumber. He rolled over to face Jakob.

"Is it really you?" he said.

"Yes, it's me," Jakob answered.

Cole dug his head into Jakob's chest.

"I missed you," he said.

"Did you -- you knew?"

"Yes," Jakob replied, "Danny... couldn't draw."