The pajama bottoms finally decided they'd had enough, and split along the seams. The fabric shimmered, and seemed to roll up Mikey's body as if it were a liquid, reforming into a nightgown that hid Mikey's developed features...if not fully.
She hoped he would stop changing soon. He already looked older than Zoe, if he got any older...already he was at risk, a girl who looked like him with the mind of a little boy. She'd have to keep him home.
Mikey suddenly found it easier to move, as if the force holding him had weakened its grip a bit, and was able to move closer to his mother. He looked up at her. She was still taller than him, but not by as much. That was cool. As for being a girl...well, he'd thought girls were icky, but being one didn't feel icky. It felt the same as being a boy, just...well, different. It didn't even occur to him to be bothered by it.
Linda looked at her former son. Mikey moved forward a bit experimentally, approaching her. Mikey looked her squarely in the eye, only about an inch shorter than she was. The action allowed her to see how her baby had changed. "Something's off," Mikey told her, voice still sounding the same.
"What?" Linda asked. Or rather, what wasn't wrong with this?
"I'm...not sure," she said, a confused look still on her newly changed face. Mikey reached down, picking up the cup of coffee on the table, and took a sip from it. "That's better," she said. her voice shifting downward slightly into a more appropriate register for her form, indicating she was still changing
"Since when do you..." Linda's voice cracked again, and she cleared it, "drink coffee?"
Mikey took another sip. "It helps me feel calm," she said. "And it feels familiar," she said. She put down the cup, and Linda noticed something. She'd grown again...she was no longer an inch higher than Mikey...Mikey was an inch higher than her.
Linda lifted her hand up, pushing against the force keeping her in place, grasping the sleeves of her bathrobe under her palms as she did. "You've never had coffee before," she insisted.
"A lot of things are different all of the sudden," Mikey pointed out.
"Yes, I know, sweetie....just don't want you to panic...we'll figure this out."
"I'm not...you are," she said.
"I am not," she insisted. "And if I am, it's because this isn't something that should be happening."
Mikey put an arm around her. "Don't worry," she said, in a comforting manner.
