Which makes it really fucking jarring when he wakes up somewhere else.

He's on a bed, in jeans and a t-shirt, with a pen in his hand which has plausibly just written 'Hello' in a strange notebook resting on his lap.  It's not very good handwriting and a line that might have started as a comma trails across the page.

Also it's a bit hard to concentrate; everything feels kind of fuzzy and warm and not real.

And there's a cat, white and stripey brown, curled up against his shin.

He looks between the Hello and the pen, squinting. He's pretty sure that he didn't write that, but that raises more questions than it answers.

He looks down at - his? - body. These aren't clothes that he owns, and his hand looks wrong, but also his head feels like it's full of egg whites so who's to say what any of this means.

There's a cat. A familiar, maybe? Definitely not his, but - whatever.

"Wha… wha's goin' on?"

He purses his lips. His voice sounds wrong too.

The cat yawns real big and turns to look at him.

Okay, that's a regular cat, so even if it does know what's going on, it certainly won't be able to tell him.

He can still try to be nice to it though. Reach out a hand, smile cautiously.

"Hey there."

Scritch the kitty?

Hmm sniff sniff sniff.

She doesn't lean into the scritches but lets them happen with only a questioning Mrr? in protest.

Hee hee. He's never had a cat before, but they're clearly the best animals ever.

"You're a sweet little kitty, yes you are! You prob'ly don't have any idea how I got here, do you?"

At that she fluffs up and tries to slink out of his reach.

Shit! He pulls his hand away.

"Oh no, did I hurt you?"

She lets out a long series of accusatory meows on her way to sit on the far corner of the bed and stare at him.

He almost meows back but catches himself at the last second.

"Well, I'm sorry for whatever I did wrong."

He's not pouting you're pouting.

This is a very vocal cat.  She has a lot to say to him.

God that's cute. He finds himself liking this cat quite a bit even if it apparently isn't reciprocated.

He looks around the room, since his head is starting to clear up. Is there anything else at all indicative of - well, he's not totally sure, that's the problem, but something akin to the Hello paper?

Well, the bed he's lying on the right half of has its head against a wall.  There's a pair of matching nightstands and lamps to either side, and a bookshelf over there, and a window with the curtains and blinds drawn.  (The cat is still talking at him.)  The notebook is a rectangle bound on its longer edge with the preprinted lines running the long way across the paper.

On further inspection the Hello isn't the first thing written in it!  If he goes up a few pages, in the same messy writing:

rec jared kestrel to jck pitons ropes + ledges
marianne roush died, ian should visit

Similarly incomprehensible notes can be found all the way back to the beginning.

He really doesn't like the signs that whoever's body he's in (and he's definitely not in his own, going off the skin color and the hair texture and the voice - and the vision, now that he thinks of it) lives with a partner! He's definitely not going to be able to fake it to them! And he has no idea how much time he has before whoever it is gets home.

That means he should probably just come clean right away. Which sounds horrifying, but less so than trying to impersonate someone's lover.

Whatever! He can deal with that when it happens. Right now he should really focus. He flips through the notes. Jared Kestrel, Marianne Roush, Ian… yeah, he has no idea who these people are, except apparently Marianne Roush is dead and Ian will be visiting her grave?

He wonders if whoever-this-is is in his body. The thought makes his stomach go ice-cold, enough that he actually sits up all the way. Maybe instead of trying to impersonate this guy he should be looking for himself?

Yeah, that idea cheers him up considerably. He's got some spells he can use to look for things; he'll just target Sylas or his mom and -

Okay new plan. Is there a fucking map in this room.

Nope!  The cat moves to the door and demands to be let out when he gets up to look for one.

Yeah, that's fair. He dismisses his first paranoid thought of oh shit it's gonna tell everyone on me and opens the door for the kitty.

Okay, there doesn't seem to be a map. Which is fair; he's pretty sure that he doesn't have anything like that in his bedroom. Is there… mail, maybe? Something with this guy's address (and, hopefully, name) on it?

No, and also the cat immediately slips out to tell someone on him.  Specifically a hoodied teenager lumping on a couch.  Meow meow mmmrow meow.

"Jordan?" said teenager calls over the back of the sofa.

God fucking damn it he should have totally trusted his instincts even though they sounded stupid at the time.

Well.

Now he has a choice to make. He isn't sure if whoever is asking after him is - the other person who sleeps in this bed, or a sibling, or god forbid a child that Jordan (?) had with their partner, or someone else entirely.

Well, he already decided that he shouldn't lie to whoever the bedfellow was, and he'd feel pretty fucking upset if something like this happened to his mom or Sylas and they tried to bullshit him. (There isn't really anyone else he feels remotely as close to - maybe the old lady, but honestly anyone who bodysnatched her would have like a 95% chance of being an upgrade, and he's well past being able to feel betrayed by anything she does.)

And he's also separately decided that he should go with what his gut says.

"… Would you believe me if I said no?"