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For the fourth night in a row, Trowa's stayed in a rented room at Milliways rather than going home. More pertinently, for the fourth night in a row, Trowa's continued to be in Havelock Vetinari's body rather than his own.

The situation is getting . . . kind of tiresome.

It's been just about four hours at home. Another day and a half here, and Cathy's going to have to start working harder to cover for his absence. But that's her concern, really. Trowa can't contribute much except by getting this fixed.

Pity he doesn't really have many more leads than he started out with. Not much that's useful, anyway.

(Wait a while for it to wear off, he's heard some people suggesting. It's even worked for some other people already, he's seen. It'd be great if that happened soon, but he can't afford to count on it.)

He's up in the rafters again. Listening, half-hidden in shadow, and thinking.

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Tutu's gentle smile brightens, as she draws her two hands - each containing the hand of a young man, now shimmering with red light - together.

As Trowa and Havelock's hands come together, Tutu steps backwards, releasing them - and not, because in her hands, she holds the glimmering red outlines.

The glowing hand that comes from Havelock is strong and calloused - a soldier's. The one that comes from Trowa is a fine and slender assassin's hand. Tutu holds her hands higher, and then pauses, looking from one to the other very seriously.

"Will you trust me with your feelings?"

She'll need to hold them to send them back where they belong.

Uh.

"If you can send us back to our own bodies," Trowa's translucently glowing form says, after a moment, deliberately, "then I trust you to do."

That's as close as he's getting. Unfortunately for Tutu, one of the core emotions of Trowa's heart is a certain degree of paranoia.

It feels, right now, as if he has no body at all. Which is a slightly more familiar sensation than having the wrong one -- Trowa knows, at least, more ordinary feelings of mental dissociation -- but disconcerting all the same. He monitors the motionless bodies behind them out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn't turn for a better look.

Well.

Naturally.

Havelock is distinctly uncomfortable, but it's only cerebral. There's no pulse to speed up, no rush of adrenaline, only conscious knowledge that this is strange and not right. And also, that this is the best bet they have found in a week.

"I've trusted you this far," he says, voice cool and even. "Please continue."

Tutu nods - and even as she does so, the figures before her condense down to glowing red orbs, resting lightly in her hands.

"Your feelings are your own," she says - it could be a ritual, but it isn't; this is mostly just the way Tutu makes conversation - and with a lift of her wrists sends them flying, like birds, back to the bodies they belong to.

Trowa inhales slightly, his eyes widening infinitesimally, and for a moment that's it -- one might be forgiven for thinking that his body is still frozen and uninhabited.

And then his gaze lifts.

(Just for the slightest instance, this body too was a disorienting change, and that was blankly and horribly unsettling -- and then everything snapped back into place, and he knows every muscle and shift of balance again.)

"Thank you," he says, quietly.

Havelock's weight shifts very slightly, balancing himself on the vines that he can now feel under his feet.

It's amazing, he thinks clinically - no real disorientation, just the difference between one body and another. He rests one hand lightly against a beam, and looks up - first to Trowa, seeing that the exchange is complete, and then at the girl in the strange ballet dress.

He regards her for a moment, and then nods.

"Thank you," he echoes.

Tutu dips a small, graceful curtsey of acknowledgment, as the vines beneath their feet spiral downwards, placing them gently on the floor.

Then, with one bound, she's gone.

(At least behind the nearest table, where Duck can quietly freak out because - what? What? People can switch bodies? That's so weird!)

Yeah, so.

Trowa heads for a more out-of-the-way corner, where he can push up his sleeve and retrieve Havelock's knife that's strapped to it.

They're just about done here.