bramblepatch | Original Fiction: Doppelganging

(Crossposted from Tumblr; SFW; 2872 words; 2nd person; Female Fetch Reader/Female Changeling/Male Fae; light body horror, polyamory, kissing, faery drama, self-discovery, in a very literal sense, this turned out way longer and way more allegorical than I intended)

They say that college is a place to discover yourself.

You're pretty sure that when most people say that, at most colleges, it's a figure of speech. Get out into the world, try new things, break out of your high school persona. For most people.

You, on the other hand, were in the process of hauling your stuff into your freshman dorm, arms full of a box of bedding and brickabrack, when you turned and found yourself face to face with yourself.

You, both of you, yelped; the you-that-is-you nearly dropped the box and the you-that-is-she scrambled to catch it before the strand of fairy lights spilling from the top could tumble out onto the floor. After the initial surprise of finding yourself looking into eyes exactly the color and shape of your own, the details seemed to flood to your attention all at once, all of the differences - she wore her hair differently, longer and braided back; she had several piercings in each ear in comparison to the single piercing on each side that you'd long since allowed to heal over. Both of you were startled, but you were surprised and she was wary, and - excited?

"Give me your name," she said, sudden and urgent, and you gave it to her, and you felt something begin to unravel in your soul. Her - your - her eyes widened, and she added quickly, "Shit, I didn't mean to - I'm not taking it away from you. It's yours, freely. I just want to share it."

The horrible feeling of coming loose abruptly resolved, but she still looked concerned as she gently pulled the box from your hands and set it aside. You couldn't help staring at your hands and forearms - just as they'd ever been from one angle, but turn your head just so and you could see the movement of strange smooth carved bone and silk cord. Your heartbeat was too loud in your ears, except it sounded more like the beating of birdwings.

In a way, you came to be grateful for it. It made all this easier to believe, easier to accept.

-

Here is what you have to accept:
You are not human.
She is your parents' child.

Here is what she has to accept:
You are much, much better at being human than she is.

-

You didn't learn all of what each other were all at once, of course. You worked it out slowly, over days and weeks, in covering for each other in social situations and in moments of flaring tempers and in meandering, careful conversations from your respective bunks in the dark. Your memories are the same up until about the time you started first grade, and there they diverge; you spent your school years in suburbia, and she spent a dozen years in the Court of the Lady with Teeth in her Eyes. She hadn't meant to hurt you in taking back her name.

You weren't the only changelings on campus. No one seemed to be clear on whether "changeling" meant the stolen human or the thing left in its place, but none of you were quite of a kind with either true fae or untouched humans - there were both among your classmates - and it felt right to say "changeling" for all of you regardless of origin.

She wanted to think of herself as being of a kind with the humans who had never been stolen away, but you had lived among true humans for a long while at this point and you could see that her years away from the world rested heavy on her, colored her words and actions and understandings. You were patient with her, when you could manage it.

Sometimes you complained to a classmate of yours, a boy caught between faerie and mortal by ancestry rather than circumstance - his mother had tarried among humans for seven years. He had been very small when she left, though as he grew, the branching antlers on his brow made it quite clear that his absent parent had not been of this world. Sometimes she complained to him, when your impatience weighed too heavily on her.

He didn't have a great many answers for either of you, which was comforting, in a way.

You weren't sure you wanted answers to all of your questions.

-

Here are the questions you are not sure you want answered:
Are you your own person?
Is she your responsibility?

Here are the questions she is not sure she wants answered:
Why should she care what a mannikin of bone and silk thinks?
How long can she last before running back to the Lady?

Here is the question he is not sure he wants answered:
What will happen if one of you asks him to take her side?

-

Everyone could see that there were two of you, though as the weeks go on you began to diverge in appearance. Most people could not see that you are ersatz - your other self saw your elegant artificial construction nearly as easily as you could, but to most people she was the strange one, the fae one, with ribbons and plastic gems woven through her hair and a light in her eyes and a note of music in her voice that put people in mind of... somewhere else.

Your friend with the antlers couldn't see what you were. He believed you, he believed you from the start, but he couldn't get the trick of seeing it.

"Most people can't," you told him with a shrug, one afternoon in early October, when the three of you'd become comfortable enough with each other that he'd come and hang out in your dorm room with the two of you. With the door open, always; you weren't sure if your other self was worried about propriety or escape routes, but you were the only one she'd be behind closed doors with.

He sighed, flopping back across your bunk, the tips of his antlers just barely missing the back wall. "Yeah, I know."

Your other self leaned over from the top bunk, the light catching the cascade of her hair from behind. "Why's it bother you? Is it because of your mom?"

"Well, yeah." He shrugged, pushed himself up on his elbows. Sitting on the bunk next to him, you pulled your feet up beneath yourself. "I mean, technically speaking, I'm more fae than you are. No offense."

"None taken," she laughed. "But you've been here your whole life. It takes time to soak into your bones."

You offered him a hand to pull him upright, and he took it, and his eyes widened as he felt the hard smooth segments of your fingers shift against their silk tethers. Your other self looked from him, to you, to him, and giggled as you dropped each other's hands. He blushed, more violet than pink. You felt the color rise to your own cheeks, although you knew it was illusory.

-

Here is what she doesn't do:
She doesn't ask what's going on between you and him.

Here is what he doesn't do:
He doesn't ever try to get you alone.

Here is what you don't do:
You don't let anyone else touch you.

-

Halloween came. Your other self only vaguely remembered the ways it was celebrated among mortals, but she said she could feel how thin the veil was, and it made her giddy and nervous and though she wasn't sure she wanted to go out she felt she had to. You hadn't planned to dress up, but she had acquired a pair of half-masks somewhere, one smooth porcelain and the other dark satin and trimmed with shimmering feathers.

You hesitated for a long moment when she showed them to you, and you weren't sure what it meant when she pressed the feathered one into your hands and tied the plain, stark mask over her own face. She helped you with yours, and then took you by the hand and led you out into the night.

There was a bonfire over by the track - you weren't sure if it was sanctioned, but no one official had shown up to shut it down yet, and it was light and heat against the strangeness of the night. The two of you hung about at the edge of the circle of firelight for a moment, two figures in the noise and excitement of the holiday, and then you pulled her forward, past the sentinels of carved pumpkins and into the group.

She didn't let go of your hand the whole evening. More than once, you saw her peer over her shoulder, back at the school buildings clustered darkly against the skyline or the patchy copses of trees beyond the athletic fields. One would have to have known her well to spot her disorientation - but she was your self, and you could almost feel how something called to her in the dark on All Hallows Eve. Perhaps it would have been easy to let her go, let her run off back to the things that had taken her all those years ago. It would have made your own life simpler, and there wouldn't have been many questions asked, all told. But even as she yearned for Faery, she clung to you, and you squeezed her hand until the joints of your fingers pinched hers and she blinked behind her mask and turned her attention back to the fire and the company.

It was well after midnight when the party began to break up, and she was no more settled; if anything, she grew jumpier as the night wore on, and you had to call her by your shared full name to draw her back to the dorms with you. Your antlered friend was waiting in the common lounge that your floors shared when you returned, and his relief at seeing both of you come back was palpable.

"What's wrong?" your other self asked, untying her mask one-handed, still hanging onto you with the other hand.

He shook his head. "Wasn't sure if you were going to come back tonight," he admitted.

"Oh," she replied, looking down at her hand in yours as if she'd only just noticed how you'd anchored her all evening. "No, I don't think I'm leaving."

-

Here is why she stays:
The Lady with Teeth in her Eyes let her go.
You did not.

Here is why you kept her:
You have never needed someone the way your self needs you.
If she goes, it hurts more than just you.

Here is why he wants her to stay:
He does not know how to approach one of you without the other.
He needs to know that Faery does not always demand its own back.

-

November wore on. Your bone-doll hands snagged on the insides of your gloves, and you realized you didn't really need the insulation; you felt the cold less now than you did when you thought yourself human. Or, well, you felt it, but it didn't seem to hurt you and so it did not feel so unpleasant.

Your other self discovered oversized sweaters and colorful leggings and insulated boots and hot flavored coffee drinks, and you and your friend with the antlers shared amused looks as she enthusiastically threw herself into a slightly feral caricature of autumnal college girl chic.

He knew that you did not really feel the cold, but he worried over you anyway. You were fairly sure that he still couldn't see your true nature, but you knew he could still feel it, could feel the smooth ball-jointed segments of your fingers as he made a show of holding your hands between his own until the heat leeched into your magically-animated bones. You let him. It made you laugh, and the list of people you were comfortable touching you was short enough that you were too touch-starved to reject the affectionate gestures.

You had not yet confided in your family that you were not real. Your other self wasn't sure she was ready to meet them, and you did not want to answer questions until she was. This did, of course, make the question of Thanksgiving a complicated one.

"Do you want to come to my place for the weekend?" your friend offered, and she blinked in surprise.

"Would that be ok?" she asked, a little uncertainly. "I mean, would your dad be ok with that?"

Some part of you thought you should push her to go home, that the pair of you should just rip the bandaid off and see how your family reacts to the situation. More of you felt it would be convenient to put it off a bit longer, if she was willing, and she certainly seemed willing.

"I, uh, might have already cleared it with him," he admitted sheepishly. "He said we'd have plenty of room. If you want to come, of course."

"It sounds like a good plan to me," you put in. "But... maybe we should aim for Christmas? For you actually coming home?"

She hesitates for a long moment, and your birdwing heartbeat echoes in your ears until she says, "I'll think about it, ok? Over Thanksgiving?"

-

Here is what she fears:
They could reject her.
They could reject you.

Here is what you fear:
You don't know how to keep this secret indefinitely.
When she hides with your friend, it is the two of them and you, not the three of you.

Here is what he fears:
If this tears you apart, he may lose both of you.

-

Thanksgiving was awkward and your parents were worried about you, but you managed to avoid being so blatantly conflicted that they had to actually ask. You were uncertain whether you ought to risk physical contact, but in the end you could not resist, and they clearly felt nothing amiss when they hugged you. It was still something of a relief to come back to school.

It was a much stranger relief to come back to your other self and your friend and know that they could feel what you were when they hugged you. Your other self saw this relief in you, and took it for encouragement - and she wasn't wrong. She showered you in affection, walking with her arm around your waist, snuggling into your side as the two of you studied, bossily teaching you how to braid the intricate patterns she wore in her hair. On nights when the aging dorm walls failed to keep out the chill, sometimes she'd haul the blankets from her bunk down to yours and sleep curled between you and the wall, though you knew that you didn't give off much heat, yourself.

The boy with the antlers' affection was quieter, less certain; where your other self was confident that her attentions were proper because you were part of her, his were cautious and hopeful, as if he was afraid that he might yet scare you off. A hand that lingered on your hand, a hand that lingered on your shoulder, the occasional ruffle of your hair. Where her gestures were a comforting constant presence, his were bright tender spots in your days.

And they were affectionate with each other as well. A little wary at first, as they watched to see how you would respond, but growing more at ease. She was not as desperately gregarious with him as she was with you; he was not as cautious with her as he was with you. They hadn't been this way in the fall, and seeing them didn't upset you but not knowing what had brought about the change kind of did.

You weren't sure how to bring it up, and in the end you just asked them. "Did something happen over Thanksgiving?"

He looked vaguely caught out. "Kinda, yeah."

"It wasn't because you weren't there, you know," she added. "You've always been part of, you know, us."

"That's not exactly reassuring," you pointed out.

The pair of them exchanged a look, and then your other self turned back to you, and leaned in to press an almost impossibly light kiss to your lips. As she drew back, she looked expectant and faintly worried; he looked worried, and faintly expectant.

You blinked, birdwings thundering in your ears. "Ah. That kind of us?"

"That kind of us," he confirmed, and paused, and added, "if you're ok with that."

You kissed him next.

-

Here is what he knows:
She is a wild creature who will never fully remember what she was.
You are a precision instrument who will never fully forget who she thought she was.

Here is what she knows:
He will make a place for her in his world.
You will hold her in place in your world.

Here is what you know:
She defines you.
He does not try to.

-

Term ended on the solstice, and you were surprised to find how steady your nerves were as both of you kissed your boyfriend with the antlers and then hurried, hand in carved-bone hand, to catch the train home.