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mcliciousness · 2 months ago

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a promise softly sung (2)

warnings: severe dehumanization, miscommunication/assumptions, violence and injury, mentions of euthanasia, panic, PTSD, body horror (?)

Remus scanned the extensive fine print on the waiver in front of him with growing glee.

There were a lot of clauses in the addendum section, indicating that either the creature in question had many features that were inherently dangerous, had displayed multiple different methods of attacks, or both.

He really had found a fun new project, this time. His shipmates would be utterly horrified. He couldn’t wait!

The document was fairly straightforward, but he still made sure to check over all of it, keeping an eye out for any bureaucratic nonsense that might have been snuck in. After all, he was insane, not an idiot.

Every few moments, though, he couldn’t help the way his attention would keep turning back to the mystery creature.

Despite the length of time it had apparently been rotting away in this tiny cell, the staff were no closer to identifying the planet or even the specific quadrant it was from, let alone species. Part of it was likely due to the inability to safely interact with the specimen, or note any natural behaviors in such a sterile, contained setting.

Fortunately, that was where Remus came in!

He’d earned himself something of a reputation for both wrangling and rehabilitating creatures that most were too frightened or disgusted to touch, working with them until he could find a suitable home environment or a substitute one that would still provide all the required factors. Nearly half of the intergalactic ecological community may loathe and/or be repulsed by the mere mention of him, but they couldn’t argue with his results!

Though the creature— labeled L-064n by the intake form, though he’d surely come up with something much more creative within the hour— hadn’t seemed particularly perturbed by their presence outside the container beyond a lingering stare, that didn’t necessarily rule out aggression.

After all, they hadn’t so much as properly entered the room yet, so Remus was holding out for further interesting behaviors. He had a feeling about this one, and following his impulses into reckless endangerment had never disappointed him before!

He pressed his biosig stamp against the document with enthusiasm, noting that at his side, the Ampen employee was only growing more and more fluffed up in alarm. Apparently, they’d expected Remus to back down after seeing the extensive clauses in the paperwork.

Unfortunately for them, signing his rights to pursue legal action away was a tried and true tradition for him, no matter how vehemently Janus lectured him about it later. He’d wrestled with paruvian death houndsfor fun. A piddly little list of disclaimers that he might or might not get his head torn clean off was hardly intimidating.

“Alright,” the staff member said, gaze darting over the signature a third time. “I’ll set up the meeting space, then—?”

Remus hummed a denial, already scooting forward to enter the holding cell’s door. “This way is fine! Feel free to use the aerosolized tranqs on us both if things get too out of hand!”

Ignoring their whistle-shriek of protest, he slid easily through the door and into the territory of what he was fairly certain would be his next pet project.

The creature was larger than him, though exactly how much was difficult to tell from its current position curled into a corner. It had dull, opaque skin without any clear exoskeleton or other natural armor, which was pretty rare for fauna that he worked with, and only those four spindly limbs to maneuver with. It had wrapped itself in simple coverings that probably meant the cell temp was a little too low for it, and though there was no dental information on its file, he hadn’t seen the sort of fangs he would expect from a carnivore diet.

Frankly, if it weren’t for the creature’s size and the unsettling, constant eye contact, it wouldn’t have seemed like the sort of beast he’d be called in to work with at all. The dichotomy of threat and harmlessness was intriguing, and Remus couldn’t help the way his tail thumped against the floor as he sidled into the small cellspace.

Immediately, the creature shifted its weight, pushing onto the balls of its feet in one simple, efficient movement. Remus felt an excited hum begin to build in his chest; he’d known that there was still zest left in this guy! It may have put up a good show of monotony, but sure enough, when it came to an unfamiliar presence entering the space, there was a prompt defensive response. Those survival instincts were still present, which meant this was far from a hopeless case.

He took another step forward, slower this time, watching for the moment he’d need to dodge. L-064n’s facial features pinched in a way that was uncannily close to sapient expression, but all of the signals were just slightly… off.

There was something about the narrowed eyes that didn’t read positively, even with the marked resemblance to an Ampen smile. Remus’s mane writhed curiously as he stared with absolutely zero hesitation, trying to pinpoint the difference. It was the angle, he decided, the curve of the eyes less severe without any cheek movement to squish the expression into proper harmless-friendly squint territory.

Perhaps the mockery was intentional, meant to scare off or lure in other species on its origin planet. He made a mental note to repeat the theory aloud once he got his slimy little hands on some fresh data storage chips for his recorder.

Another step forward had him halfway across the space, well over the limit of tolerance for most fauna species that were even remotely territorial over their environments.

Even then, L-064n didn’t make a single sound. Remus’s tail went still, held taut in a gesture of caught interest. He stepped forward again, and again, watching as muscles visibly bunched up at his approach.

There were audible warning signs in most animals, a precursor to violence. Growling, hissing, screeching, rattling, buzzing. Raising one’s voice in a show of force was the first and most basic defense for many fauna, especially mammals.

It was the silent ones that were dangerous. They gave no warning, no cry of alarm. There was only the stillness of waiting and the motion of violence, one after the other.

Remus reached out with his least favorite hand, the intent vague but the gesture clearly meant to touch.

His newest project watched the limb stretch closer, and didn’t make a sound.

—

It had been a while since Logan had been honestly thrown by something that had happened to him.

The new alien’s apparent enthusiasm for approaching a strange unidentified alien that all others in the building had scarcely dared to glance at had made the cut for surprising him, even if only briefly.

There were a few moments of reprieve while the odd stranger was talked through some kind of liability paperwork, and Logan took the time to calm the unsettling spark of shock that the declaration had elicited.

He knew better than to read too deeply into things like this. When he’d first been relocated here, he’d eyed nearly every patron and new face with frantic suspicion, waiting for the day that one of them took a single look at him and knew exactly what sort of monster he was.

(Worse, they might know the significance of the small, clearly-marked incision scar on the back of his neck.)

He didn’t dare even mouth the word, for multiple reasons, but he imagined the shape of the syllables in his mind, one after the other: Deathworlder.

Even now, his caution was likely entirely unnecessary. For all that they’d earned an astonishing level of infamy in the greater universe, Humans were apparently utterly unrecognizable to the vast majority of aliens. It was the same now. If that odd stranger had somehow recognized him, their reaction certainly wouldn’t have been to try and get closer.

No, this was simply the space equivalent of an unwise young adult being dared to reach into a zoo exhibit— a reckless attempt to engage with something dangerous for ego or pride or whatever other motivations aliens had for risk-seeking behavior. He’d somehow caught their attention, but he wasn’t at risk of being found out and forced back to a facility like that very first one.

Still, there was no real reason to engage. By the time the unwise stranger had shuffled into the room on surprisingly nimble feet, Logan had already decided to endure the visit with as little reaction as he could manage. He shifted into a more maneuverable crouch, just in case, but didn’t bother moving in any other way as the alien came closer.

And closer.

And then there was a limb being extended toward him, not moving particularly fast but still close enough that it triggered some automatic, primal part of Logan’s mind. Memories of the last few times anyone had grabbed at him flared up uncontrollably, with echoes of the searing pain that always followed.

Without conscious thought, his own arm whipped out and knocked the intrusion away with full reflexive force of the adrenaline that had just spiked through him.

Splat!

Logan, who had recoiled heavily the instant after he’d struck, managed to blink away the sensation of claws dragging down his arms.

In front of him, the stranger stood, an arm still extended.

Only an arm. No fingers or elongated palm remained.

A swift glance to the side revealed the remains of that lime-green hand, now splattered against the floor in a shapeless mound that was leaking a thick, chlorophyll-like substance. He’d… He’d knocked it clean off with one strike.

At the realization, Logan only cringed back further, waiting for the unpleasant pained shrieking of someone who’d just been severely wounded, but none came.

Instead, as he watched, the dripping end of the alien’s arm sealed itself off into a starfish-like point, and the alien retreated with all the hurry of a tortoise wandering across a highway. The stranger seemed entirely unperturbed by the impromptu amputation, tail back to wagging idly as they gave him further space.

His posture, which had grown quite hunched and stiff without him realizing, began to loosen from equal parts disorientation and bewilderment. What was he supposed to think about an encounter like this? He had just signed his own death warrant, hadn’t he? So why did it feel like his reaction was entirely in-line with this new alien’s expectations?

Even after all this time, Logan hated being made a fool of. Eyes narrowed, he pushed himself up to standing, watching as the alien had to tilt their head back at a slightly grotesque angle to follow his progress. If he had to be uncomfortable at the whims of this stranger, he at least wasn’t going to make it easy for them.

The stranger’s whipcord tail wagged even harder. It had to be some sort of threat display, no matter how firmly Logan’s brain was pulling up reference videos of puppies. He braced himself for some sort of lunge, but instead, without breaking eye contact, the stranger trotted over to the pile of goo that had formerly been an appendage and promptly stepped on it.

Logan almost grimaced, recalling at the last moment that showing teeth was a bad idea, but even at the curl of his lips, the stranger maintained their leisurely pace as they sidled back over to the door. There was hardly a trace of the biomatter left behind, which was intriguing enough that Logan’s attention was immediately dragged astray to theorizing on the structural principles one would need to manipulate a body that could apparently be disassembled and reincorporated with more ease than children’s play-doh.

As such, he’d almost fooled himself into believing the bizarre interaction was done and over with, ignoring the faint buzz of the mechanical translator and the much louder scolding whistles from the staff member as they presumably discussed the psychological warfare they’d just waged on Logan for no reason.

Maybe it was some sort of test. If he had passed it, perhaps they’d talk about transferring him to the space equivalent of a no-kill shelter. Even with his life on the line, it was hard to work up to will to care either way.

Huffing, he sank down into a seated position, still eyeing the slight shine left on the floor from the encounter. Enough was enough. He was done uselessly guessing at the indecipherable motives of aliens. He only wanted to think about creative potential nerve structures of invertebrates for the next two weeks at least.

Of course, his life could never be that easy.

The strained silence that had fallen outside the cell caught his ear a mere moment before the staff member, sounding more winded and croaky than he’d ever heard, forced out a familiar phrase, one that had only ever been applied to him once before.

“If you're sure, then… c-congratulations on finding your… your new best friend!”

Inside the cell, Logan jolted back to his feet so quickly that he saw spots. What?!

Outside the cell, the alien that had just unwittingly adopted a Deathworlder as a pet continued to wag their tail with oblivious glee.

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mcliciousness · 4 months ago

Text

a promise softly sung (1)

BTHB: Rendered Mute

Summary:

Stripped of both his ability to speak and his willingness to communicate, Logan has resigned himself to his new position as the latest hopeless case in the intergalactic version of a wildlife rehabilitation center. None of the staff has managed to identify him as a Human or even as sapient in general. It's not the easiest on his dignity, but in the interest of avoiding more pain, he'd like to keep it that way. Now, if only the strangest alien he'd ever met would stop trying to put enrichment in his enclosure.

warnings: severe dehumanization, miscommunication/assumptions, mentions of violence and injury, mentions of euthanasia, references to torture

Logan woke to the familiar buzz of the lighting system flicking on, illuminating the cell around him and agitating the other denizens of his current prison.

He didn’t bother trying to turn back over and go back to sleep; even if the other creatures around him miraculously settled down enough to allow it, the harsh noise of the lighting system was at just the right irritating pitch to keep him awake whether he liked it or not.

It probably wasn’t intentional— from what he’d heard and observed thus far, this facility wasn’t anything close to the first one he’d been kept in. There weren’t any training sessions or punishments for bad behavior, nor was he constantly eyed by speculative buyers.

During the first few weeks he’d been here, he’d frequently observed his neighbors through the thin window that ran along the front of the cell, and most of them didn’t show any signs of discomfort or even irritation at the noise, meaning that it likely wasn’t intended as a deterrent.

He felt fairly confident in his assessment. Early on, he’d gleaned that this was the intergalactic version of an animal shelter, and one that seemed to value proper care for its unwilling residents. He didn’t expect that the aliens running it were intentionally trying to agitate the fauna they were trying to adopt out or rehabilitate.

His daily headache arrived regardless, but it soothed what little remained of his temper to know that this particular suffering wasn’t inflicted purposefully, just to be cruel. Ignorance was hardly an excuse, but he’d found it was far preferable to intentional cruelty.

The thought made him snort as he slowly, painstakingly pushed himself up to a sitting position. The Logan of five years ago would never have been placated by knowing his captors were simply ignorant. If anything, it would have only made him more furious; how could anyone pretend to be fulfilling an animal’s needs without doing sufficient research to understand the animal?

Then again, the person he’d been five years ago wouldn’t have accepted the idea of being trapped in an alien animal shelter, seen as little more than a mindless beast. He would find his present self unrecognizable, unable to reconcile with the very idea of sitting sedately in the alien equivalent of a kennel, silently waiting for the start of a day that was virtually indistinguishable from yesterday or tomorrow.

Sometimes, Logan missed being that person. He’d been overwhelmingly naive back then, but even when things had been at their most painful, there had been a sort of thrilling vindication in seeing his handlers grow furious, a heady satisfaction in his own stubborn refusal to give in.

It had been pointless, of course, just as his nostalgia for that vivacious attitude was pointless. His pride had only earned him more pain.

He began his usual morning routine of simple stretches, keeping one ear on the ruckus around him. There likely hadn’t been any notable new arrivals overnight, but trying to guess which creatures were nearby by sound alone was one of the few sources of entertainment left to him.

Most of the closest noises were dog-like, growls or barks or heavy rumbling. Further away, the cacophony took a much higher pitch, full of the whining, squeaking, and whistling of smaller, less aggressive beasts. As always, Logan was glad for the distance. There may have been more daily variety— the more harmless creatures got adopted out much more frequently— but it wouldn’t have been worth upgrading his daily headache to a daily migraine.

He paused mid-stretch, finally picking out the source of his unease. There was a sound missing, no sign of the familiar rattle of the food and water dish being pulled through the bars and refilled. It was almost always the first thing the employees here did after the lights came on, and while inherently degrading, he had found the routine reassuring.

If they weren’t yet offering the morning meal, there were two prevalent possibilities as to why. Logan didn’t think any of the animals had injured itself or passed away overnight, since there was no urgent calling or somber conversation. That meant an alien had come in to adopt as soon as the facility had opened, a rare but not outstanding occurrence.

If he strained to hear past the growing noise levels, he could make out the mechanical chatter of a translator, confirming his suspicions.

To his surprise, the voices seemed to be coming closer. He shifted out of his stretch, drawing his knees up under him and adjusting the makeshift toga he’d created for himself from one of the provided linens. After being actively dehumanized for years, Logan had long since lost any sense of humiliation or modesty, but he still found some small comfort in clothing, and most aliens didn’t think much of it. There were apparently plenty of animals out there that created simple coverings or incorporated materials around them into fur or feathers.

(At one point, Logan had mistakenly believed that one of his neighbors had been another sapient creature after watching it meticulously tie shredded fabric into little strips and tuck it between feathers in a decorative display. He’d wasted a week attempting to communicate in various ways before realizing the futility, and had accidentally unnerved the poor creature enough to get his cell moved to a different part of the holding room.)

It was unusual that he saw a client approach this section of the shelter so quickly. He was well aware that this was the area designated for undesirables, higher-risk fauna that was more aggressive or feral, similar to how humans would take care to isolate dogs that had been rescued from fighting rings or cats that hadn’t ever been socialized. They didn’t often get visitors, and adoptions were even less frequent.

On his end, Logan hadn’t lashed out too severely at the staff or scared potential clients away like most of the others, but he’d still been relegated to this section. He knew why, of course. Suffice to say, his previous “adoption” had ended poorly.

His mood soured at the memories, and by the time footsteps reached his aisle, he’d shuffled to one corner of the cell and seated himself solidly on the floor, leaning his shoulder against the wall. It would be easier to focus on translating what he could of the conversation if he didn’t have to worry about a sudden headrush or the fatigue that occasionally swept over him after standing for too long.

“—great to hear!” The voice of a staff member trailed into proper hearing range, chirping a phrase used so frequently that Logan had no trouble parsing it out in accented Common.

They launched into a well-worn recitation of what Logan was assuming was standard information about the facility and its available fauna. He still didn’t know enough Common to keep up with the more complicated terms, and could only guess at the general meaning.

Frankly, his attention was diverted by the number of overlapping steps he could make out as they approached. Entire family units came in to look around occasionally, sure, but not to this section. Some of the creatures here were vicious enough to give children nightmares.

There was the clicking sound of a button, and Logan watched dully as the front wall of his cell slowly shifted from opaque to transparent, gradually revealing the muted colors of the narrow hallway outside the cell. Most of the staff used the small viewing windows to check in on them during meals, but when a prospective client came to look, they made sure everything was fully visible.

Two figures came into view as the wall turned almost entirely see-through, with only a faint grey tinge to the material. One was a staff member he’d seen often enough before: a small, feathery alien with big eyes, fluffy antennae, and a poncho that draped over most of its dust-colored form. The other was no species that he’d ever seen before.

It was built vaguely like a centaur, with four stubby legs, two upper limbs, and a long, prehensile tail. Nearly every inch of it was encased in a shining, thick layer of what Logan could only describe as goo. It was as though the alien was covered in an outer shell of vibrant radioactive green gelatin, with only indistinct shadowy shapes visible to indicate that there was any sort of underlying structure at all.

It had no mouth or nose, only two flat black eyes that didn’t blink, and a discolored gray spot below them that was uncannily reminiscent of a handlebar mustache. There were two large, shell-like protrusions on either side of its head, extending past the gelatin layer. From the crown of its head to the base of its spine, there was a stretch of brown plantlike tendrils that writhed subtly in place, looking like a horse’s mane if a horse’s mane was also made of rotting seaweed.

Logan’s interest sharpened despite himself. Most of the shine of being in space had worn off somewhere in the first two years of methodical torture, but occasionally he still felt a glint of that familiar curiosity.

The unknown alien watched him right back, taking in every detail of the small room. A thin pad with blankets piled on it in one corner, and Logan sitting slumped in the other. A few simple toys scattered on the floor, largely untouched.

It asked a question, and Logan noted the way it seemed to hum in different tones before the translator echoed its words. Vibrations produced by an internal organ? Unlike humans, it had no mouth to shape the noise with, so the language must have been composed of variations in the tonal humming itself.

The employee chirped back an affirmative, keeping their gaze averted from meeting Logan’s dull stare directly in the automatic way that he’d noticed in most aliens. The staff especially were careful about eye contact, presumably they received some sort of training to reduce agitation in the fauna they were looking after.

It was somehow refreshing, the way the new alien unabashedly locked eyes with him. He hadn’t realized how much one could miss simple things like eye contact until he was suddenly entirely deprived of it.

It couldn’t last, of course. Logan hadn’t followed most of the conversation thus far, mostly out of general disinterest, but he knew more than enough to recognize the phrase that always came up when he was spoken about.

“There are recorded violent incidents with multiple previous fosters,” the employee recited, the cadence of the phrase so familiar that Logan could have imitated it perfectly, if he was feeling masochistic.

Instead, he kept his mouth firmly closed and idly waited for the duo to move on to the next cage.

The new alien shifted slightly, the reflections of the overhead lights warping along its glossy body.

“What are its—,” it asked, the translator adding a questioning tone indicator. Logan didn’t recognize the last word, but the employee’s response cleared things up within a few sentences.

“Not good,” they answered, antennae angling back in a display of upset. “It’s already been here for a while. If we can’t find the source planet and nobody takes it in, we’ll have to put it down.”

Those weren’t the words exactly, of course. The employee was using a strange euphemism, but unlike most of the creatures here, Logan had more than enough memory retention and cognitive processing to notice just what inevitably happened to the creatures that were referred to as such.

He waited for the spike of panic, the natural response of his body to the threat of death, but it didn’t come. His heart rate may have jumped by a beat or three, but he mostly felt a strange sense of distance from it all.

What difference did it make? Could what he was doing now really be called ‘living’ by any stretch of the imagination?

Logan met the alien’s eyes plainly, still oddly numb to it all.

The alien hummed a long, toneless note, one that didn’t translate into any specific words, and then stepped forward and tapped on the clear material with one of its thick fingers. As though everything up to this point hadn’t been dehumanizing enough.

If things were different, maybe Logan would have tried to snap out a demand or insult to cover for his wounded pride. As it was, he only turned his head further into the wall and closed his eyes.

This didn’t remotely deter the alien. The resulting thunking noises continued to be loud and repetitive, and Logan gained a sudden and unhappy empathy for every fish he’d ever witnessed being pestered by a child in a pet store. Even the employee looked uncomfortable, feathers fluffing out slightly, though surprisingly enough they didn’t try to stop the stranger’s irritating behavior.

Finally, Logan turned back to it with a glare, letting his lips curl back to bare his teeth in an odd configuration, half-sneer and half-snarl. There, he’d confirmed it. He was scary and aggressive, nothing more than a beast waiting to be executed. Now, move along already.

The tail behind the stranger began to wag slightly, a rapid back-and-forth movement that was so reminiscent of a happy dog, it genuinely startled Logan for a moment. Not many species would react to a threat display with playful excitement. Surely, the matching body language was just a coincidence?

Without hesitation, the stranger turned and asked something that Logan heard almost daily, though never before about his own person.

“Can I go in and meet it?”

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