Part 1: Reflection

Jackson held his head gritting his teeth as he tried to comprehend this.

"Ow.." he hopped over to the toilet sitting down and pulling out a tiny piece of glass he'd stepped on and tossing it in the trash.

His foot was blue.

HIS FOOT WAS BLUE.

"No no no…" he mumbled trying to calm down as his heart beat faster and harder. Still holding his head. Closing his eyes. If… he wasn't looking. Maybe he could think clearly.

Jackson opened his eyes regardless still looking at his blue legs.

"Oh my ghoul…" he put his hand to his mouth in horror, before closing his eyes again. Scrunching up on the toilet. Whining to himself. He wanted to freak out more but he mostly just felt.. sick.

Plus his mom was in the other room, as much as he wanted to jump around yelling, or sob loudly he had to suffice to scrunching up and feeling feverish like he was about to cry.

Woop, scratch the 'about'. His eyes were all watery from panic.

"This isn't right." he whispered "I'm."

He bit his lip at the familiar cliché

"A. Monster."

He meant it in the most literal sense. In factual classification, not a monster because he did anything wrong, and felt like an ethically wrong monster.
Then again he kind of did something wrong.
This was wrong.
This was horribly wrong.

Trying to calm his shakey breathing down he opened his eyes again, still scrunched up, and kind of stifling whimpery sobs as he wasn't sure how to fix this.

"It'll be ok" he whispered reassuringly to himself "It'll… wear off. If not. I'll… fix it. Take the potion again. Recreate it…" but he sounded so unsure and wobbly outloud he couldn't believe it. Not while he was panicking anyway.

Sweating as his chest shook in shivers.

Smoke brushing his nose as.

Smoke?

Smoke! He unclenched the sides of the toilet his hands having singed the cover. Holt couldn't light up, but he could get pretty hot. Especially while on the verge of… no in the process of a panic attack. And Jackson happened to be Holt right now.

The room was… smokey actually.

He was naked. Right. There was a sticky pile of tar and ashes and scraps of what was the bathroom rug on the tile. His transformation fire seemed to have gotten out of control. Too bad he couldn't normally recreate that.

Woah though.

It was exciting to see the ashes and know he burned his clothes off after years of hoping he was secretly a fire elemental, and puberty failing to live up to those hopes.

He was still sort of both proud and scared that he has did that. Or Holt did. Or… shapeshifting fire elemental magic.

But it didn't stop the fact that he was still blue! He took a few deep breaths. Shakily walking back to the mirror, avoiding the glass. Looking at himself, scared. But seeing the reflection. Just seeing it. Made his stomach turn. Like seeing someone you hate in a place you were never expecting them. He put his hand to his mouth again coughing from the stress.

Looking up. Forcing himself to look at his red straight hair, watery red eyes, blue face… and body. And almost feeling like he could see it from the corner of his eye, face mark.

He clenched the sink, keeping his pelvis out of view. Despite sharing the same body, looking at Holt's naked one felt wrong. Holt deserved privacy after all. Even if Jackson had gotten the occasional pranking photo text that suggested otherwise.

He couldn't look at himself too long without feeling like he was about to sit down to a final exam.

He kept looking back at the sink. Then looking up, scrunching over and repeating the process.

There was a knock that made him fall over to the toilet rug. Spaztastic Jackson in Holt's skin. Thankful he had avoided glass.

"Did you get around to the laundry?" his mom's voice nagged muffled.

Laundry? And for a brief second Jackson forgot what was going on. Back in the normal world of laundry and other chores.

"No mom."

"Which one of you is in there?" she asked.

Jackson's eyes widened. Why did she need to know that?! Crap. What did he say. He needed to pick an identity. Otherwise she'd start asking questions. What if he said Jackson then Holt popped out into the hallway? Or did laundry. Wait that didn't matter he could always say he just told Holt and- crap he was waaay over thinking this. He should have responded immediately.

Reflexively.

"Holt." he answered uncreatively, trying his best to sound a bit less unsure of himself. But… didn't.

Their mom seemed to pick up on the amount of time it took him to answer, as well as his lack of creative answer. She paused outside the door, usually he said something like "The evil twin" or "the good looking one." and so… scared sounding.
Was he ok? Did he have a bad day or something? She briefly imagined her blue child in there upset and locked in the bathroom. Boys always refusing to show their emotional side to their mothers.

"Are you ok?" she asked reassuringly leaning against the wall by the door.

"I'm fine." Quick like he wanted her to go away.

She licked her lips thinking "If you had a bad day at school you can have a second donut ok? Just don't tell Jackson." hoping that'd bring a smile and a "I was planning on it mom~" or something.

"Ok."

She frowned. Looking at the ceiling before dropping the subject, "Just get to the laundry I know you have the time. Some of us need sleep in this house. Can't just change shifts."

Another quick "Ok." before she went to settle into her own bed time routine.

Jackson pulled a towel around himself, too stressed to think of the unfairness of Holt getting an extra donut if he wasn't around. Well.. then again he was Holt so that didn't matter at the moment, but still. The principle.

He briefly defended the thought that it was all going to the same stomach and his mother's version of Holt tonight was also doing laundry and probably staying up till her version of Jackson got up, and thusly might need more food and energy but still.

Stupid logical brain. He wanted to be angry.

First things first.

Clothes… then he had to fix this mess.

He almost tripped again when his iCoffin buzzed at him. He swiped away the alert that his video memory was full and looked at a text from InvisiBilly.

hey u never responded so making sure u ok.

Jackson shivered.
No he was not ok. But he was alive.

Alive, thanks for checking on me.

Sneaking across the hall in a towel he had only 10 steps but he was still scared of his mother popping out and finding a naked blue boy sans-headphones. Popping in his room and dropping his phone on his bed he quickly changed into PJs, his white and baby blue striped pajamas matching his skin in a sort of too perfect way that made him want to buy a different color to compliment Holt's hair.

Wait…

Holt didn't hang out in Jackson's PJs. And he was currently pretending to be him.

Jackson chewed his lip nervously sitting on his bed and holding his throbbing foot. Maybe he should just tell his mom.

She could try to fix things.

But what if it was temporary. What if this was just a minor set back that'd be gone by morning? If he told her, not only would she probably stay up all night and probably miss work, which she was always on thin ice for, regardless of job or town. Buuut he'd probably also get in trouble for experimenting on himself.

He could always blame it on Holt.

It seemed like a good idea till the guilt set in. Dangit. Blaming being out late or forgetting things, on his mysterious blackouts was easier before he knew that someone else was actually taking the hit.

Ok ok ok. He might tell Mom. If things got any worse, or it lasted longer than a week. For the moment it was something he could keep to himself.

Like Holt's tattoo. Except. More secret.

Since he couldn't tell InvisiBilly about what the potion actually did. Not that he couldn't be trusted exactly but he didn't know who InvisiBilly knew. He hung out with a lot of people that weren't in his immediate friend group but he still knew. So if word got to someone important, or someone like Spectra, it was all over. He didn't want the attention he could fix this himself. Sides if the whole school knew then, the teachers would find out he had been messing around in Mad Science Lab after hours, without permission, or supervision and was technically stealing chemicals. And offense often associated with making illegal substances, that as such carried a large consequence. Even if he was using it for science.

Plus he wasn't sure what would happen if he told his mother. She might try to take him to a doctor, or keep him home. And at home he couldn't make an antidote, and doctors knew less about him than he did.

He was smart, he could do this… and he could change pajamas because Holt didn't wear this.

He had to be Holt now. For however long this lasted. Hopefully it'd reverse by sunrise but if not… well first thing's first.

Opening Holt's drawer with haphazardly thrown bundles in his dresser he plucked out fleece black bottoms, too warm for the season but it was unusually chilly tonight, and a white night tshirt from some concert he'd never heard of… or remembered happening…

So far so good. He was doing this, as he folded his PJs and put them back away neatly in his own drawer. He was functioning, and he was not panicking.. outwardly. Maybe still a little inwardly but managing. Still a bit shakey. Still dying to tell someone. Wishing he had someone to talk to. If only he had someone he could tell anything and everything to that was available 24/7.

Oh right.

Holt needed to know.

Grabbing headphones for cosmetics he wrapped them around his head plugged in to his iCoffin that currently wasn't playing anything. If his mom came out into the hall she could assume that's how he was wandering silently about the house, but he had a feeling she might be asleep already.

Better paranoid than caught however.

It was weird that he was still Holt without music though, what exactly did the potion mess up?

Carefully clearing his bathroom of glass he had to grab extra bags and a broom to sweep up the ashen rug and clothing. Sticky tar still clinging to the tile he just moved the toilet rug on top of it to obscure evidence.

His skin still crawled whenever he caught sight of his baby blue arms though.

He was a monster and he couldn't even enjoy it. Peeking up again at himself as he got onto his feet, sad wary red eyes on the mirror, red eyebrows scrunched up as the rest of his face and body rose up to look defeatedly at his reflection. He ran a finger over Holt's face mark before going downstairs to claim his donuts.

Picking out his favorites he was disappointed they didn't seem to taste the same. Forcing a cream filled down he was sure he had different taste buds. Confirmed when he picked a donut that was always missing from his mom's frequent variety pack. Much better and suited to Holt's palate. Weird.

Grabbing a piece of paper, a sharpie from the kitchen drawer he went into the downstairs bathroom for the real reason he was down here. Sort of shivering nervously as he wrote an all caps note for Holt.

I AM SO SORRY.

SOMETHING WENT WRONG.

I SWEAR I WILL FIX IT.

The rest was self explanatory.

Jackson assumed Holt would be having the reverse problem after all, it only made sense.

The silent was also unnerving. Not only was his mom inactive but he was briefly scared of the possibility that when he turned on the music, Holt wouldn't be there.

He disliked Holt, he got into arguments with Holt, he didn't want Holt to be interfering in his life, but if he accidentally killed him. Well Jackson wasn't sure if he could take that.

Hoping the trigger was the same Jackson turned on the downstairs bathroom radio, it blasting a CD Holt had left in it.

"Ah!" he huffed the transformation happening. As he watched the quick spurt of flames, he was relieved that he was actually blacking out. That meant Holt was ok atleast. He hadn't broken them completely.