Author's Note: Hi! Sorry this chapter's a bit later than I said it would be; a nasty cough caught me by surprise, and then the spam-box ninjas ate it on the way to my beta. All better now, and this chapter makes me happy because a) I'm trying something new in terms of the whole psychic thing, and b) Jayden and Jacob are fun to write together. I hope you like it as well! Oh, and let me know if it's confusing who is talking/thinking at any given time, because I can play around with fonts and styles a bit more if that would make it clearer.

I know this one is short and really only contains one scene; I'm working on the length thing, truly I am, I just couldn't find any better stopping point. Thank you all for reading, and if you review I will love you!

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck--

Yeah, I got that. Can we move past ‘fuck’ now and get to the part where you explain who you are and what you’re doing in my friend’s body?

Oh, right, he’s in my head. That’s…annoying. I want him out. I wonder if…

OH MY GOD! Why would you…my brain! I’m never going to get those images out of my head, ever!

Hah. Jayden’s face is thoroughly disgusted and he looks as if he can’t decide whether he wants to shield his ears or his eyes…not that either would actually help.

How…why…I didn’t think you could even do that with a spoon, much less a spork…oh, god, my innocent synapses…

Yeah, that ought to keep him busy for a while and give me space to think. So, now that my cognition is free of eavesdropping, my conclusion?

I’m screwed. Utterly and completely.

I cannot believe this is happening. Two thousand years without mistakes and now I get caught by some high school kid who just happens to be psychic? What is wrong with me?! What is wrong with this job?! Oh holy Vedas and the Buddha, when the gods find out about this they are going to go Old Testament on my ass…

Okay, okay, I need to deal with this. Freaking-out time can come later. Breathe…and scramble to find some kind of damage control.

I glance at Jayden. He’s still making extremely amusing faces of disturbance and horror to himself, and his cool-and-intimidating-leaning-against-the-wall posture has sort of collapsed into a hunch/slouch combo. Not very frightening, especially in ripped blue jeans and an overlarge t-shirt. But looks can be deceiving (for example, who would think that Jacob’s goofy body hides such a suave, sophisticated, handsome specimen like myself?) and the real question isn’t how intimidating he is; it's how smart do I think he is, and how partial an explanation will he buy?

Don’t DO that! And I’m still waiting for that explanation!

And now, I’m out of time. Jayden is straightened up and glaring at me and I can’t count on the privacy of my thoughts anymore…so I just go with my first instinct. Which in this case is honesty, rather surprisingly.

“Okay, okay, calm down. Could we not talk about this in the middle of the hallway? Maybe find an empty classroom or something?” I’m regarded with intense suspicion for a moment before Jayden nods and leads me back the way I came, into the math classroom I just recently vacated. That works, I suppose.

We sit down and I start my spiel: ‘I’m a servant of the higher powers because I’m a fuck-up, I correct people’s mistakes, Jacob wasn’t supposed to commit suicide, etc etc.’ Because I am a thoughtful, considerate person, I also pause to take questions…a favour that the little punk mercilessly exploits.

So…you posess people.

“Uh…not exactly. I mean, I possess bodies I suppose, but it isn’t like I came in and forced Jacob or Taylor or whoever to leave. He was kinda dead.” That phrasing was a bit insensitive, possibly. Oops. But this kid doesn't seem hurt or offended...just intent on quizzing me even more.

But if he’d been alive, you would have had to force him out? What happens to the soul once you take over—does it get destroyed?

“No! Elohim, why are you trying to paint me as the villain? You’re allied with the tulips, aren’t you?” I snarl, ready to defend myself against the horror of the Pink Swarm, but the kid only looks confused. Obviously an amazingly cunning agent; but for now, I will feign ignorance of his dastardly purpose. “I can only ‘possess’, as you put it, a body if the original soul isn’t in there. That happens one of two ways: in death or death-like states, or if the soul is shaken out of the body by some kind of trauma. That trauma can happen to the person as well as the soul, but more often what shakes the soul out is the person deviating too far from their Path. Then Reality starts to pull the soul back to where it belongs but the person is in a different place, so the soul is literally ripped free. So I go in, get the body and person back into the right place, and the soul can then return. Happy?”

Jayden nods slightly, looking contemplative. I think I went with the right course in telling him the truth—from what he’s said so far he’s fairly smart, and wouldn’t buy too much bullshit. Although I am a master of the art of lying, if I do say so myself. Hmm. No wonder Satan bothers me so often. When you think about it, I’m practically one of his worshippers.

Okay, that makes sense. But I have a few questions. One, who chooses who you possess or help or whatever, and who sends you there? Two, whoever that is, why would they send you somewhere they knew had a psychic? Three, how did you get this job in the first place? And four, what the hell did the tulips have to do with anything?

“They were important,” I argue, slightly sulkily I’ll admit. “And I don’t know who sends me. Fate is usually the one who tells me stuff so maybe it’s her…and then Satan likes to bug me and act all knowing because he’s a supercilious bastard—yeah, you hear that? I call upon you, Ruler of the Nether Realms, Master of the Damned, Lord of Sin and Creator of Will, to tell you that you are a bastard!” In case you couldn’t tell, I’m still just the tiniest bit sore about our encounter in my dreamspace. And if he and Gabe fucked in my bed, ‘bastard’ is going to be the least of what I’ll call him…

I think I scared the kid by yelling at the air (or possibly by the fact that I’m antagonizing the Devil?). He’s definitely staring at me, at least, dark eyes very wide…and then he doubles over, shaking with silent mirth. The sound of his mental laughter echoes in my head.

That’s…new. But hey, if it gets his mind off of his third question, I’m not going to complain.

I heard that.

“FUCK!”

You know, somehow you even manage to swear differently than Taylor does. It’s interesting. His head cocks to the side contemplatively; now that I think about it, even though he doesn’t speak verbally, his body language is actually fairly demonstrative. It’s not hard at all to tell what he’s thinking, at least in a general sense. So, my third question.

“No fair! I haven’t even been able to get a word in edgewise; don’t I get to ask questions too?” It’s a blindingly transparent (slightly oxymoronic word choice? Ah well) stalling and distraction tactic, but for some reason the kid lets it go. I hope some of my gratitude for his not prying is leaking through into his telepathy.

Fair enough.

“M’kay. So, psychic: what exactly can you do, and how?”

I’m not telling you everything I can do. All you need to know is that I can read other people’s surface thoughts and project my own. You don’t get to know how either.

Well that’s amazingly closed-mouthed, thanks. Wait, for him would it be closed-minded? But that means something else…closed-thoughted? That sounds atrocious…

Whatever. The point remains that he really isn’t telling me anything. A quick scan of his body language, however, and a suspicion hits me: “Bet you don’t even know, do you?”

There’s uncomfortable silence from Jayden and I smirk triumphantly. Who called it?

“Can you talk?”

Nope. Interestingly enough (especially given his appearance, which seems to beg for some nice angst to go with his dark hair and eyes), the kid sounds not at all perturbed about it. There’s nothing wrong with the physical structures of my throat and vocal chords and everything, and as far as we can tell there’s no damage to the language centers of my brain either…but for some reason I’m just not able to figure out how to use the biological stuff to actually get verbal words.

“Sign language?”

ASL. How else do you think I communicate? He raises an eyebrow in that “Duh, you totally should have been able to figure that out” sort of way that teenagers have so charmingly developed.

“So your family doesn’t know about the psychic thing.” I raise an eyebrow as well, letting the unspoken implication of that remain so—if he thinks he’s got blackmail material on me, well, now I’ve got some on him too. Just in case. He glares, letting me know that my almost-threat didn’t go unnoticed.

How exactly would you go about telling them, huh? He snaps, and I have to resist the urge to laugh.

“You’re kinda bitchy, you know that?”

Look who’s talking.

“Not you, obviously.”

I rest my case.

There’s a moment of mutual weighing-up…and then we both grin simultaneously. The tension in the room drains away almost completely. Only I can form a friendship out of mutual bitchiness; I am so good.