riverviewlogs | [OPEN] June Catch-All

who: Wikus and YOU
what: Wikus gets his metamorphosis over with, bit by bit.
when: Month of June
where: Various (Floor 8 Community Housing, Bar, Hospital, wherever)
warnings: Transformation body-horror, possible talk about dicks (or lack thereof), gender essentialist talk?

i. My Body Is A Cage

Wikus does his best to settle into a routine - he's sleeping regularly now, he's got a job, his checkups at the hospital are scheduled - but it's hard to really feel settled when his body keeps shaking things up and making normal tasks difficult.

Eating, for one, is a pain in the ass when you have no teeth. And without being able to breathe through his nose he isn't about to try and swallow bites whole like he'd seen Prawns do. That seemed like a good way to choke to death. So now every mealtime he slurps down a not-especially-appetizing-looking, specially prescribed, nutrient slurry. It tastes a lot better than it looks.

Getting dressed was awkward as well. He's got barbs that keep catching on his clothing, and sometimes his antenna seem to be deliberately getting in his way… He's starting to see the logic behind Christopher Johnson's improvised vest.

His manual dexterity only gets worse when his four mostly-human fingers start fusing together into two, and soon he's fumbling everything. It really doesn't help that he has only one thumb (he really regrets chopping off his left one).

Next to go is his ability to walk. It's not surprising that his legs started shifting out of sync, but being lopsided definitely does a number on your mobility. He tries out crutches first, but it's not long before he can't walk more than a few meters before his legs start burning and his joints throb. The doctors try to explain it as something to do with the stresses of intermediate forms between digitigrade and plantigrade legs, but all it really means to him is that until his legs finish growing out, he'll be stuck in a wheelchair.

Physically, it's easier than he expected. There's a strength in his alien arms that he's never had as a human. As far as actually navigating the chair goes… that he needs practice with. In the meantime, door frames and unguarded toes need to watch out.

ii. Pour One Out

Losing body parts wasn't easy on the psyche. He got used to losing teeth after the first several dropped out. Peeling away his earlobes left him sick and shook both times. He wasn't able to look himself in the mirror straight after the fleshy remainder of his nose came off (the underlying structures long gone).

But it's only the loss of a particular, ahem, set of body parts that has Wikus skipping out on work to snivel pathetically in a bar, surrounded by a growing forest of empty beer bottles.

iii. Breathless

Even going uphill, Wikus rarely finds himself out of breath from rolling around in his hospital-loaned wheelchair. So why, going at a leisurely pace as he is now, is he panting like he just finished a jog.

Stopping to rest, he can't seem to catch his breath, and he feels a thread of panic. If anything, the feeling gets worse, going from panting to outright gasping. He sucks in as deep a breath as he can and then… nothing. He can't exhale. He can't inhale. He can't breathe.

Clutching at his throat and chest, his diaphragm heaves uselessly and he can't even get out a choking noise. Yes, he is definitely panicking now.

iv. Impatient Inpatient

After the harrowing incident when Wikus's breathing switched from trachea to gills, he and the hospital staff decide it’s best for him to stay at the hospital for awhile. It isn't his favorite decision - he still has flashbacks sometimes to being strapped to a dissection table - but it’s better to have doctors immediately on hand in case any of his other major organs decide to fail during the transition.

The transformation is largely complete now, most of the remaining changes being internal. His mouth parts are growing in, but for awhile he's completely mute. Even once they do grow in, it's still a struggle to figure out how to speak with them. Human phonemes are completely unpronounceable now, and understanding the Prawn language is a lot different than speaking it.

Fairly often he can be found practicing speech in a mirror, trying to figure out how to make the various sounds he remembers learning. Other times he's wandering the hospital grounds, either in his chair or wobbling unsteadily on nearly-transformed legs. Sometimes he's up in his assigned room, either lounging in bed watching TV or doing his job remotely from the small desk.

All in all, the last days of his transformation are pretty damn boring. He could use some company.

v. Beautiful Butterfly

It's a relief when he's finally discharged from the hospital. All the tests show that his body has reached its new equilibrium. It's not the body he wants, but being all one thing feels better than being a jumble of mismatched pieces.

He's taken Christopher's example to heart, and taken to wearing vests with comfortably wide arm holes. He likes them baggy, hanging down to bunch over the pronounced crests of his hips. Tops meant to be tight on humans just look odd on his Prawn body, snug around the chest then drooping listlessly, unable to sit close to his incredibly thin abdomen.

Bottoms are a bigger problem. Pants are right out. He does his best with baggy shorts with elastic waists or draw strings, but he has to admit they look odd, stretched over his hips but with waistbands too wide to sit snug on his belly. It's better than being naked, though. He can work on it.

The first place he goes on being set free is the nearest park. He stands in the grass for a long time, eyes closed, enjoying the feeling of it under his bare - though tough-shelled - toes. His antennae waves in the soft breeze, tasting the air. His gills ripple gently, breathing softly. He feels… strangely peaceful. Light. Not nearly as out of place in his own skin (shell?) as he should. His stomach still churns sometimes at the stranger in the mirror, and glimpses of his hands sometimes startle him, but… just being here, just feeling his body, living in it… that's pretty okay.

Opening his eyes - both alien now, but one gold and one strangely still blue - he jogs a few tentative steps, a little unsteady. His new legs are strong. Maybe he's weak for a Prawn, he doesn't know, but compared to his normal legs, they're downright powerful. Gradually, he breaks into an all-out run.

Threaded | Flat

Ivar is blowing off steam after a mid-shift with the Perimeter Guard. He rolls into the bar and orders a beer, chugging back about a third of it before he looks around the room for who else is here tonight. His eyes spot Wikus sitting over in the corner almost immediately. It's kind of hard to miss when he looks more and more like a giant bug and less like a human being these days. His eyes take in the wheelchair too and he wonders what happened to the bug-man's legs.

And boy, does he look different. Ivar wheels over and openly stares for a moment, every inch the rude Viking Wikus thinks he is. "Looks like those other three antennae came in." Ivar plunks his beer down on the table next to him. Yep, Wikus now has a drinking companion, whether he wants him or not.

The most alarming part of Wikus' transformation is over, it appears, yet this does little to alleviate Beverly's concerns. Even with all her long years serving in Starfleet, she has never had a case quite like this. And of course, without knowing much about Prawn physiology, it's harder to gauge his health. Still, she is one of the few doctors with any knowledge of insectoids so he'll be seeing a lot of her - and her tricorder. Not hospital issue or standard Riverview technology, clearly.

This particular morning when she's making her rounds, she finds him at the mirror struggling to speak. Unsure of whether or not this should be a private moment, she clears her throat, so as not to startle him. "Mr. Van Der Merwe? May I come in?"

[ This particular park is not too far from Cisco's workshop. It's also fairly quiet, outside big holidays and festivals, and he's taken to coming here sometimes, when he needs a change of scenery and some fresh air. On this particular afternoon, though, he is not alone. There is a rather crustacean looking alien nearby, who it looks like is meditating, or maybe just enjoying the sunshine and the light breeze.

Cisco doesn't watch him in a creepy way, but he definitely looks over when the guy starts to run - slowly at first, and then faster. There's something something childlike or experimental about it.

When the alien comes to a halt not too far off, Cisco calls: ]

Nice day, isn't it?

[ Perhaps he ought to recognize a similarity, at least in the hands, to the nice guy from Johannesburg that he'd met during that lantern festival. But the truth is that, although Cisco remembers most of the details of the conversation very well, he doesn't recognize any part of Wikus in this person. ]

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