Chapter 11

Here's Dylan

A/N: The American Stephan king is my favorite author. I loved The Shining, even though every time I look at the title I always think the Shin-ning andnot the Shine-ning. I think it's just some quirk of me. Just for a little heads up, this is a short chapter. I only had one day to actually do it, so appreciate my work with some feedback. Oh and stay through the last A/N.

Dylan had only been aware for maybe four days, and alive for less than half that, but he considered himself to be having the time of his life. These short days were the greatest he had ever experienced. He could eat potatoes and sausages and actually taste them. The bosun gave him chores to do, everything from tying knots to patrolling the spine for leaks. It was a life dejoure. But what Dylan loved the most was that he was doing it all as a boy. Not as a girl mind, but as a real, honest to goodness boy with props to prove it.

Course, most of the crew figured that he was a male, but some small minority seemed to be in the mindset that he was actually faking his manhood. Dylan had never felt anger toward some other than Deryn, but now he really understood the feeling. If he could just get his hands on one of those air guns, then… well, it was improper to harbor thoughts of malice to ones comrades. So most of the time Dylan just ignored them and they ignored him when his back was turned. Some people were just so rude. Disregarding the fact that Dylan had kidnapped someone's conscious so that he could run his own body, Dylan couldn't think of anything he had done to warrant such behavior from the crew.

'It's probably Deryn's fault.' That was Dylan's reasoning of the crews actions during one particular jot of cargo assessment that he and Newkirk had been assigned to. They were being helped by Mister Rigby and a Russian attendee. The Russian- who Dylan had assumed was named Peter from his conversations with other Russians- kept sending Dylan sidelong glances and light glares, as though he had lost a bet because of him. Dylan didn't know why, so he entertained the thought that he had been betting that Deryn had been a girl, and for kicks, had bet with Newkirk and lost when Dylan had taken off his shirt.

IGNORANCE!

Anyway, Dylan was enjoying the taking inventory with Newkirk. It let him talk with his second favorite person on the ship, with the first being Alek. But it wasn't best to reflect about that now, especially with what he had planned for Alek that night.

"So this huge walker was charging straight for us and I put my knife right on his throat and shouted for the Clankers to take their best shot. Then they stopped the walker (nearly ran me over in the process), pointed their cannon at me and Alek. I called for their leader and tada- instant prisoner. What do you think?"

"Hmm, oh, yeah, great story Dylan. I wouldn't want to meet you in a dark alley." Newkirk didn't even look up from his list. Dylan took that as a compliment.

"Because I'm such a spectacular soldier, right?"

Had Newkirk looked up, he would have seen that Dylan was grinning from ear to ear. As it was, he just said, " Exactly." This was license enough for Dylan to pompously stride around the cargo hold, content in his sheer awesomeness.

After mislabeling three stores of beef as feed and confusing the tea with food for the strafing hawks, Dylan and Newkirk were dismissed for lunch by a grumbling bosun and a slightly ticked off Peter. This was Dylan favorite time of the day. Food was so underrated for people who had eaten it all their lives. Dylan had only been alive for two days and was still trying to process how anyone could manage to regard food without collapsing on their knees with thanks. At the moment Dylan was struggling with this particular urge, but so far had managed. Any stranger behavior would alert the crew to what was amiss with Dylan.

But thoughts of self-control were abolished by the smells of food. Oh food. Sight and hearing were soooo overrated when the sensations of taste, smell and feeling were available. The smells were enough to make Dylan eyes water along with his tongue. He had only had three meals since he had arrived. Lunch was still his favorite time of the day. Deryn really didn't know what she had been missing out on. Dylan scooped as much food onto his tray as he could, mixing several small quantities of everything he could find onto his plate. The sight was one to die for in his eyes.

Dylan plonked himself down on the nearest table and started in, alternating between shoveling the food down his gullet and slowly savoring the complex tastes of the various foods he had. It was an amazing feeling to taste and smell at the same time.

Newkirk finally managed to maneuver a seat next to Dylan, a feat that Dylan would have sarcastically applauded if his hands weren't full with simply moving as much mass into Dylan mouth as possible. "Mister Sharp, you're make yourself sick if you continue to eat like that." Newkirk's friendly advice was lost on Dylan, if only for two reasons; One, Dylan didn't really care, and Two, Dylan didn't mind the pain. It wasn't that he enjoyed sadistically (this was his body after all, he needed to take care of it) it was just that he liked to feel such a base feeling. Pain was as much a feeling to him as heat, or cold, or pleasure.

Dylan paused in his slow chew of a fried potato. Pleasure was one feeling he was yet to experience fully. And he had the perfect plan to remedy that.

…

Describing Deryn Sharp's feelings at the moment would have been difficult. Angry just didn't catch the scope of her reaction to being sucked into a boy's body. Neither did enraged. No Deryn A. Sharp was mad with fury. It didn't just get her goat that Dylan had managed to do it, it was the fact that she had allowed it to happen. If it hadn't been for Alek, Deryn would have stayed in the time tunnel. She really wanted to kill Dylan right now.

But blind rage wouldn't get her out of Dylan's head, and neither would screaming horrendous swearwords. So Deryn took some of her father's old advice. Stay back, observe and approach the problem rationally. Her father had drilled it into her and her brother from their childhood to until he had died. He had always been a rational man, if a little insufferable when it came down to morals.

So Deryn decided to wait awhile and see what she could do. The first order of business would be to get off the spikes that had impaled her. This had been easier thought then done. N`1 had given her a full blast of the Mesmer to completely force her to forget her memories. But having not put Dylan under the Mesmer, she had regained her memories through him. Even if he was an insufferable ninny, he was still useful in that regard.

It had taken some doing, but Deryn had eventually figured out how to remove the blades. She just had to focus on all her memories and recall them one after the other. It had been a pain to her, but eventually she had her entire memory recognized and acknowledged. The sword-words vanished without a trace. Next up was light. Deryn hadn't even thought of this though, when the lights went on in her head. Apparently in her head, thought really was deed.

But the last step in her plan would be the hardest. Now she needed to actually get out of Dylan's body. She had put a lot of mental resources into finding her way out, trying to recall a way to override the strange forces in his head, when she did something weird.

Deryn had been at the far side of the small room in Dylan's head that she called home, trying to think of a way to force her way through the walls, when a door appeared on the other side. Deryn stared at the door like it was some sort of newly fabricated beastie. It looked like a door. And if it was a door out, then…

"Well, might as well get on with it" Deryn sighed. Where had her airsense gone?

Beyond the door, Deryn had a little bit of Déjà vu. The inside of Dylan's head looked a lot like the inside of the time tunnel, but with strands of thought instead of clouds. "I've seen stranger" Deryn murmured. Meeting fairies tended to do this to a girl. But still, not all that strange when it came down to it. Maybe this was how all minds looked like. Deryn pondered this for a few minutes before deciding to do something drastic. She reached out a grasped a train of thought and held it to her face. A blur of light hummed at its core, weirdly beautiful.

Deryn tossed it to the side and started in on the thought lines. Most were just blurs, completely incomprehensible. Others were strangely placid and empty. And a few let her see out into the world. And see the madness at work.

Deryn could watch as Dylan walked, talked and lived in her life. He worked with Newkirk, ate in the mess, tied knots, and generally did whatever she would have done. He had completely taken over her life. Some of what he did made no sense at all, or just very weird sense if any. He had something planned for Alek, she could tell that much. He seemed to have also taken a liking to Dr. Barlow (Deryn couldn't wait to see the look on her face when someone pointed this out to the boffin) and really liked eating. But this wasn't what Deryn was looking for. She needed a way out.

As luck should have it, she chanced upon it when she began to move the strands away, to give her a clear path to the other strands. She didn't realized it at the time, but she had just made her way out.

Now all she needed was her body.

…

Alek walked slowly to Dylan's room, lost in thought. The young boy had requested his presence, and made a point as to not tell Count Volger. Alek wasn't sure that this was the best course, but had decided to go anyway. It was bound to be interesting, whatever Dylan wanted to tell him.

Dylan had been acting oddly since he had returned to the Leviathan. It was like he had been relishing life after he had gotten back. Maybe he did remember whatever the clankers had done to him, and was trying to tell Alek that something was wrong. Alek didn't know what to do to treat trauma, but he could comfort his friend.

Alek finally reached Dylan's door and rapped on it as quietly as possible. The door opened a crack, before flying open with nary a squeak. Dyaln smiled broadly and gestured for Alek to come in. As Alek did as he bade, Dylan closed the door and locked it. This should have set alarm bells off in Alek's head, but it didn't. Not yet. Dylan pushed him onto his bed and sat down next to him.

"Nice to see you, your princeliness. How are you doing this fine evening?" Dylan had this glint in his eyes that sent a little shiver down Alek's spine. He ignored it, though still looked away.

"Quite well, actually. But i've been worried about you Dylan. Is anything the matter?" Alek was making his best attempt to sound formal and tried to look Dylan straight in the face. He failed spectacularly. Dylan chuckled half-heartedly.

"Oh you know, nothing as bad as being kidnapped recently. I've had worse." Alek tried to look at Dylan again. The boy wore a mask of impassiveness over a face full of malice. This was when Alek got scared.

"But you've been though worse, haven't you Alek?" Alek tried not to flinch. Dylan looked at him funny, while he tried to back away. Dylan put his hand on his shoulder, freezing the movement. Alek began to wonder if Dylan had been turned into some sort of spy. If he was, then that meant… Alek tried to pull away from Dylan, fear gripping his heart. Dylan place his other arm on Alek's shoulder.

"Aleksandar…" Dylan let the name hang in the air. Alek tried again to pull away. This was it, Dylan was going to kill him. Somehow he knew that. He looked once more into the face of his former friend and saw…

"Mien Gott. Dylan… your, your eyes, how." For somehow, in the intervening days from when Dylan had returned and now, Dylan's eyes had become a strange chocolate hazel. The boy smirked.

"All the better to see you with." And then he surprised Alek, and slammed himself into his body, kissing him.

A/N: Sorry for the short chapter, rush order this week. So no Deryn is not dead, Alek's in the dark, and Dylan has hazel eyes. See you next week.